Editor’s Letter: Having a gay ‘ol time

Parade cover-10-18-12

By RAY QUIROGA
South Padre Parade
rayq@portisabelsouthpadre.com

Ray Quiroga

Ray Quiroga

So there we were, sitting at a table, waiting for our meals to be served at one of the area’s finer dining establishments. Not including myself and my wife, everyone at the table was an established biker, biker babe or a bike builder.

To borrow a line from the Flintstones, we were having a gay ‘ol time laughing, crying, sharing stories, when it happened. My beautiful wife leaned over to me, tilted her head up, put her lips to my ear and in her quite, soft voice whispered those magic words every man longs to hear… “I think it would be alright if you bought yourself a motorcycle.”

I immediately sat up and while I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows, I tried to contain my excitement. “Be cool,” I thought. “Be cool. It’s yours.”

I thought it was clear sailing from there. Then it started to happen. As quickly as we started laughing, the mood turned sullen as talk turned from all the positive aspects of motorcycling to all these horrible accidents about their buddies literally losing life and limb.

“Remember ‘so and so’ who hit the pavement so hard that his face literally peeled away upon impact with the road,” one person said. “It was a closed casket at his funeral.”

They wouldn’t stop.

“’So and so’ got his leg pinned between his bike and that concrete traffic barrier along Hwy. 100 and lost his leg,” another person said. It was like a competition between them about who could tell the “worst” motorcycle accident story. All I could do was look on in horror as my dreams of owning a motorcycle slipped through my fingers, once again.

Long before the ride home, I knew my permission slip to at least visit the motorcycle dealership had been revoked. The ride home was basically a shouting match between my wife and I (okay, more like me shouting my points across trying to reestablish the upper hand on how I’d be a safe bike rider).

Well, the goal is to ride myself to Bikefest 2013, so there’s still plenty of time. If anyone has any words of wisdom on how I can achieve this goal, don’t hesitate to email them to me.

There’s still a lot going on in the area this weekend including an event near and dear to my heart: Conjunto Fest 2012 in San Benito hosted by the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center. I say near and dear to my heart because the NMCAC and I go way back to my college days when I interned at the center.

If polkas and huapangos Norteños aren’t your thing….Splash probably won’t be your thing either. For the uninitiated, Slash involves a lot of bumping and grinding on the dance floor, a lot of techno, a lot of prancing around and maybe some cross dressing…Oh, wait those are my personal plans for the weekend. Never mind.

Either way, check out all that’s happening in the RGV in here and on line at portisabelsouthpadre.com!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.portisabelsouthpadre.com/2012/10/18/editors-letter-having-a-gay-ol-time/

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