I wasn’t there, but I got an email from one of my fellow “aging, hell-bound ruffians”.

It follows:

Hey Don,

I got back from the Nurmberg funeral a while ago, I’ve been sitting in the living room staring at the wall for quite a while. This was rough from beginning to end, I needed to tell someone so I picked you, you’ll understand anyway.

Seebee (John) and I met up at Lake Forest oasis after we left Franklin Park and had lunch. Then we rode up to Waukegan and it was pleasant, nice day not much traffic. There were quite a few bikes for the escort, but before this we lined up in an aircraft hanger along with the hearse and waited for the flight to come in. They backed the plane in and the escort transferred the coffin to the hearse, then stepped back leaving the doors open. Then the family came in, his highly pregnant wife leading them, they stood around the back of the hearse and many of the women began wailing and crying. As we stood there in the echo chamber that was the hanger all I could hear was the constant echoing crying, it went on and on. I was thinking “please stop this…stop it!! But on it went. There were many times in my past I just wanted to run away but didn’t because you can’t, you have to stay and do your duty. So there I stood.

Finally it stopped, (thank you Lord) the doors closed and we mounted up. It was a rough escort, the low late afternoon sun was right in my one working eye that was still tearing up. I had Big Joe next to me and Oscar right in front of me so I concentrated on not hitting them and we finally arrived.

On Friday I went to the visitation after I got out of work, northwest side of Milwaukee to Spring Grove in just on an hour in my car (Ro would have been proud) . At the end of the visitation his mother came out and asked us in, we filed by the coffin one at a time. The coffin was open and I stopped and saluted him, I remember thinking “He’s a child, they sent a child to fight! I must be getting older, everyone is starting to look young. As I looked at him a fly landed on his nose, for some reason I found this so distressing I almost lost it right there. But I held it together (the famous British stiff upper lip in action) and made it out. Luckily it was dark by then so I slipped away behind some cars to cry.

Originally there were only to be 6 or 8 bikes in the escort from the funeral home to the church, DJ told us that the wife was so “blown away” by the escort on Thursday that she had requested we all come to the funeral home and do the Saturday morning escort.

There were lots of bikes this morning, more than I’ve seen at a mission in quite a while, and lots of cars. I was up near the front with the other big flag bikes, though after seeing yours I think mine is more a medium flag. Anyway I looked back as we went down a straight section of 173 and the procession went on out of sight behind me. The church portion went well except for a news helicopter hovering about, I looked up and was thinking that you never seem to have a heavy machine gun handy when you really need one.

At the cemetery all I could think about was the wailing women and the fly. Some people were going to get lunch and usually I would have gone but I was done for the day. So I rode home, our dog seemed pleased to see me. My wife will be home soon, that’s good as I don’t have a band gig tonight and I need some company.

Did you hear that the Westbrook idiots took out a permit to be at the Bowman funeral? I hope everyone kept their emotions in check, I’m sure the provocation was at a high level. No news in the thread about it yet, I’ll be checking again later.

Well I feel better now I’ve told someone about the Nurnberg mission. I’m going on vacation next week, I have a good friend in Whitefish, Montana so I’m visiting him.

I can use the break,

David