God is so good, and I am being so blessed that I have to pinch myself to be sure that it’s real. What an exciting time this is for me. As if publishing my book and getting our Hollister motorcycle rally back wasn’t enough, now Johnny’s is going to be on the National Geographic Channel. Mark Cresswell of Worldwide Dynamics is doing an awesome job. He’s managed to hook us up with Zach Ness, the grandson of the legendary motorcycle builder Arlen Ness. The reality TV producing giant, Pilgrim Studios, is producing a new show for the National Geographic Channel. On the show, Zach Ness will build a custom motorcycle for the lucky bidder and buyer funds will be matched by the show for a really sweet deal. I’m not sure about all of the details yet but I’m pretty sure Zach is sharing the funds with his favorite charities.

If my ears weren’t deceiving me the bike will be unveiled in front of our Johnny’s mural on Fourth of July weekend. The entire event will be filmed for the show including a visit with some of our legendary Boozefighters in the bar. Holy smokes, this is going to be huge! I’ll keep you posted as I get more details. The only place to be during the Fourth of July weekend in 2013 will be Hollister. Because of the efforts of Mark Cresswell our rally is back on the map. I don’t know how to thank you Mark. I guess burgers for life is a start.

I have a customer and friend that is a DJ in San Jose and he is hooking me up with a two hour radio show to talk about my book and the return of our motorcycle rally. I’m working on a couple of book signings to announce on the show before we set a date and I know that God’s perfect timing will be in effect there too.

I want to thank all of you who made my day a blessed one. Many amazing friends fixed food for the banquet and we had more than enough for everyone. Once again, thank you. I hope all of you enjoy our story and are blessed by it. As I said in my dedication, I am mindful of my husband, Tommy’s, sacrifice in allowing me to share it. There are some very intimate details of our lives between the pages. We both feel that others will be helped by our life experiences. We are still a work in progress but life is so good with God at the helm.

What a whirlwind week. I visited my beautiful new granddaughter in the hospital on Tuesday and on Wednesday my long awaited memoir proof showed up on my doorstep. Charlotte is gorgeous, with a head full of dark hair she looked like a female version of Allen when he was born. When Allen, Tommy, and I arrived at the hospital our new little beauty was in the middle of her first photo shoot. The smart people at Santa Teresa Hospital apparently have a long time tradition of sending a photographer to mother and babies room the day they are scheduled to leave to take wonderful photos which can be ordered individually or put into an album. Charlotte’s other grandma brought the sweetest little pink dress and the talented photographer went to work taking heart wrenching photos that you just had to have. She then showed them to us on her computer arranged in a beautiful album which she maneuvered to the liking of Liz, Charlotte’s mama. We all got to check it out and offer our opinions and order the photos that we wanted. I opted for the CD so that I can make many albums to share on my own. We grandmas went in on a package saving us both money but it was not inexpensive. It was a wonderful thing but I was glad that kind of thing wasn’t available when Allen was born. As a seventeen year old single mother I wouldn’t have been able to afford the pictures and it would have killed me. I only have my Polaroid’s but looking at them today still makes me smile.

There is so much on the horizon that it almost makes me dizzy. My book launch is scheduled for next Saturday and it will be by the grace of god if all the books I ordered get here on time. He’s been taking great care of me so I know He’s got this one handled too. I’m still filling holes in my Fourth of July weekend schedule and the buzz for our first rally in five years is tremendous. God is so good.

At last! My paperback is available. If you can’t make it to the book launch at Johnny’s on April 20th @ 4:00  for your autographed copy you can order it at http://bit.ly/miracles_grace

It’s been a crazy week and I haven’t had time to give a shout out to my Clampers. The ECV held their monthly meeting at Johnny’s last Thursday and they were fantastic. My son Allen; a Clamper since his step-daddy brought him in about thirteen years ago, was diligent in insisting that a meeting be held at Johnny’s. We are San Benito County’s only official watering hole and have a Wino Willie, ECV-erected monument on our patio.

The meeting was scheduled for six o’clock but by five the bar was full of red and black wearing brothers. The E Clampus Vitus organization, which dates back to the early 1800’s, once maintained a prominent place in society. They made it their duty to take care of dead gold miner’s widows and orphans and they continue to erect historical monuments all over California to this day. The only requirement for joining this raucous drinking club is that you be brought in by another Clamper and that you survive the initiation, which has been toned down considerably according to the old timers. If the rumors I hear about the initiations are of a more moderate nature I can only imagine what they used to entail. My husband Tommy will not entirely divulge the buffoonery he suffered to this day.

At Johnny’s we are blessed with a wonderful clientele of regular customers, all kinds of bikers, from weekend riders to our famous Boozefighters, and the ECV brothers and Widders, as the ladies are called. I can no longer include myself in the last category because part of my husband’s journey to sobriety included altering his social circle to consist of likeminded people. Don’t get me wrong. I know there are sober Clampers out there that still enjoy a doin’s but they are a huge minority.

The brothers wanted a corned beef and cabbage meal which was great because it is one of the meals we are famous for. What we are not famous for, and I am totally embarrassed about, is running out of food. My cook Rey, a Clamper himself, cooked nine briskets with all of the fixings and we should have had plenty. The mistake had to be on the part of the server, which was me, for doling out a little too much on the plates. Allen to the rescue, he ran next door to the wonderful Mexican restaurant and bought some burritos. The guys were wonderful about it and as I repeatedly apologized they told me not to worry because they were fine. “Satisfactory” would be better word.

They were a wonderful bunch and they all had a great time. When I recounted the evening to my husband the next morning I found myself saying, “When it comes to drinking those Clampers hit it hard and hit it fast.” The look on his face suggested he thought I’d lost my mind and he said, “Seriously, like I didn’t know that?” I chuckled as I realized the absurdity of what I had just said to my husband. He’s been sober for seven and a half years but he will never forget the time he spent with his Clamper brothers. At least not the ones he was upright for. Passed out under a van or propped up against a tree do not count.

So a huge thank you goes out to all of my Clamper pals that made it a great night at Johnny’s. We all want to know, when are you coming back?

July 4th and Rally 2008Charlie

Charlie #1

charlie & pup# 2

Charlie & pup#3

Charlies pup & me#4

Charlies pup on bar keep#5

The Boozefighters lost a very good friend recently. Charlie Bailey was a patch holder from way back. He told me that he was only eighteen in 1947 and wasn’t in Hollister for the so called riots, but his life as a biker spans decades. As a writer I love hearing my treasured Boozefighters stories and Charlie held a special place in my heart. He always came to Johnny’s with Big Jim, aka Frogman, whose alias divulges another story for another time. He and Jim, along with Dozer, Charlie’s Chihuahua mix, always made a beeline to greet me when they got to Johnny’s. I refer to Dozer as a mix because he had the longest scruffiest fur I’ve ever seen on a Chihuahua. He was Charlie’s constant companion and never left his side. There was the occasional dash down the bar to have a sip of someone’s beer or kiss a pretty girl. I’m talking about Dozer, not Charlie.

As I point out in my memoir, Miracles and Grace in an Unlikely Place, the lack of a rally gave me time to visit with my Boozefighter friends and I came to cherish them dearly. Charlie and I sat down on my patio one Fourth of July weekend and had a wonderful visit. Not only was he a biker, he was also a champion bull rider. He took his last ride two months before we sat down together in 2008, which means he would have been 80 at the time. He was skinny as a rail and looked like a good wind could knock him over, much less a 1,800 pound bull. It’s not surprising that he got hurt on that ride and it was his last. He told me that he hoped he’d ride again but he figured it was about time to give it up. “You think,” was my response.

I was wondering how a man of such small stature came to be so tough. He informed me that he was an Air Fighter in the Marine Corps. He had so much to share with me and I planned on visiting him to get some of his tales down on paper as soon as time would allow. Sadly, I’ve missed that window so I’ll share a colorful story he proudly told me on that July 2008 afternoon.

Charlie asked if I’d ever heard of Betty Rowland. I hadn’t but according to him, and my internet search, she was known as “Burlesque’s Ball of Fire.” She was a redhead of course. Charlie patted me on the leg when he told me that he was always partial to redheads. I can’t recall where he said he hooked up with her, but he told me that she went for a ride with him on his motorcycle and her beautiful long red hair got stuck in the spokes at one of their stops. He said it practically yanked her off of the motorcycle. It’s a darn good thing they weren’t flying down the highway or he would have had the distinction of killing off one of burlesque’s finest ladies. One of the pub’s patrons came out with a pair of scissors and Betty went wild. “You can’t cut my hair,” she yelled at him. Apparently that long red hair made her a ton of money and cutting it would have been like breaking one of Ginger Rogers’s legs. It took a couple of understanding and patient gals three hours to untangle her mane but they managed to get it out of the spokes, sacrificing only a few strands. It’s quite possible that the fear of what could have happened put an end to the relationship. Charlie said she was a wonderful and beautiful lady and he was obviously proud to have known her.

Charlie might have been small in stature, but as a person he was larger than life. I’m glad that I got to spend time with him and his lovely daughter in Fort Worth, Texas last year when I went to the Boozefighters National Convention. Bridgett moved her father into her home in San Antonio to take care of him a year and a half ago when his health was in serious decline. She gladly drove him to the convention, wheelchair and oxygen tank in tow, where his brother Boozefighters attended to all of his needs. We enjoyed a meal together which included a lot more story telling, but I’d left my tape recorder in my hotel room. If I’m going to succeed as a writer I’d better break that nasty habit.

Charlie will be sorely missed and my heart will ache a little when I see the Frogman come in without him. Remind me to tell you how Big Jim got that name.

You can call it a coincidence; I call it another one of God’s little miracles.

I pray about everything. I pray for a good hair day and a decent parking spot. I also thank God for the little things as well as the big things. I thank him for a sunny day and a great parking place as well as for loving me so much despite all of my iniquities. When I tell people that I’ve witnessed more small miracles than I can count as owner of Johnny’s Bar & Grill many shake their heads and say, “Miracles, in a bar? Seriously?” You bet.

I received a note from a woman who lost her iPad in the bar the previous evening and I immediately said a prayer. I told God that I hoped she had misplaced it instead of it being pilfered by a creep who had infiltrated my establishment. I take it very personally when bad things happen to people while they are enjoying themselves in my place of business, even when it is completely out of my control.

The next day the young lady sent me a message on the Johnny’s Facebook and was obviously distraught. I told her that I would check my surveillance videos to see if I could catch someone in the act of stealing her iPad. Since I already had a lot on my plate, I wasn’t looking forward to the job. I was waiting for information as to where she was sitting and what time she thought it had gone missing when I made a shopping trip to our local Staples store. Between the bar and my writing business I spend a lot of time there and many of the clerks know that I own Johnny’s.

While my items were being rung up one of the salesman who frequents the bar asked me if anyone had reported a missing iPad. I told him that yes; a woman’s iPad disappeared when she was there last week. Imagine my shock when he told me that he found it in the parking lot behind the bar. “She will be thrilled to know that it’s been found,” I told him. He gave me his phone number and I went to my computer as soon as I got home and sent her message on Facebook. She was delighted and wrote a post about how happy she was. Her mother even sent me a note of thanks.

I, however, don’t deserve the thanks. God put me in the right place at the right time and a wonderfully honest man, Andrew, returned the young lady’s property. They get all the credit. The only thing I can take credit for is keeping Johnny’s in prayer. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. When we do He always takes care of us.

Complimentary corned beef and cabbage, beer specials, prizes and more.  A 17 year tradition Johnny’s is the only place to be on Saint Patrick’s Day.  We’re hoping to talk Carlos Siverado into a return visit.  He knows how to spin those party dance songs.

Liz and Hollister Taxi have graciously offered their $12.00 round trip fare within Hollister city limits.  Call: 831-637-3778
Don’t drink and drive. Let’s all have a safe and great time.