Uncle Frank's birthday celebration at the Phoenix bar

On Saturday everyone's favourite Uncle, Frank Galienne, my old rally buddy turned 77 years young and bikers gathered to help him celebrate. Although he doesn't ride anymore he is still a big part of our club and still regularly attends local "dayjols" and breakfast runs.

I've known Frank for over 17 years now and we've ridden many, many miles together. We attended many local rallies together where we traditionally partied through the Friday night, often still standing at sunrise the next day. It got to the stage where, if one went to a rally without the other we had to face the oft repeated question; ~ "Where's your buddy? You two are always together."~

Club members catered for the occasion with Kathy doing very popular pancakes, Malcolm and Elize did a local favourite; boerewors rolls and Janet fried chips. The funds raised from the sales went into our benevolent fund for one of our brothers who was injured in an accident. 

That same evening we raffled a picture, done with wood-burning and painting by our own Murray Harris, which he donated to the fund.

On the left is Filip a member of the Gypsy Jokers, who won the picture - he promptly sold it and donated the money back to our benevolent fund! Bikers are amazing people!

In the meantime Uncle Frank was enjoying the attention of all of the well-wishers, especially the ladies! He got lots of kisses that evening.

Throughout the evening there was a good crowd of revelers, with many more coming in for a drink, a quick chat with Frank and going again and the party raged on as biker parties always do.

I didn't stay until the end, I'm not sure what time it was when we left, but Frank did stay until the end, "Last man standing", he normally has to be politely told to leave - as in "Frank, you must fuck off now!"

I'm confident that Uncle Frank is going to be around for many years to come, not sure what we could do without him, he has become such a feature of local biking and a counselor to many a young biker.

We play pool at the Phoenix bar every Friday afternoon and he comes to our house for dinner once a week, the bikers will continue to take care of Uncle Frank.