Letting your hair flap in the breeze while riding your bike is legal here in Florida, thanks to organizations such as American Brotherhood Aimed Toward Education. ABATE has made it a solemn mission to keep freedom of choice among bikers, as they like to put it. Indeed, having your head split open like a melon is, admittedly, one's own choice. But along with such political missions as anti-helmet-law legislation, ABATE also happens to throw the most kick-ass Memorial Day party around.
The annual Motorcycle Rights Memorial Weekend Party starts Friday and, like any good biker soiree, essentially continues nonstop for the next three days. Although put on by ABATE of Florida's Southeast Chapter, the event is expected to draw bikers from all over the southern part of the state, not just the tricounty area. After all, the whole point of having a bike is so you can cruise to far-flung places where a bunch of other people with bikes are going to be. That's why we have biker conventions in Daytona and Sturgis.
And bikers who arrive at the Ives Dairy Optimist Festival Grounds for the weekend will be assured of having lots of good if not clean fun. Along with more or less nonstop musical entertainment (noon through 2 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday), musically inclined participants are invited to bring their own instruments for impromptu jam sessions and drum circles. Those drum circles will likely continue deep into the night as bonfires are built and people begin to bed down for the night or just plop down on the ground and pass out for a few hours.
Food and beverages are available all day and night from vendors, and ice-cold drinks are supplemented in cooling people down by a misting tent. On the off chance that some of the attendees will sport some modest body art, a tattoo contest will decide who has the best ink. No word yet on whether the quality of one's tats will factor into the beauty contest as well.