MONONA, WI — Thanks to the intervention of the local police force, the Monona Old Bastards group has cleaned up its act. Although its members may still be old and may indeed be bastards, the group’s quarterly meeting entertainment will no longer be “dirty.”The Monday, November 13th meeting of the Monona, WI chapter of the International Order of Old Bastards — which has met in the same place for at least 40 years — included a visit from the Monona police, eager to clean up the town by warning members that their habit of hiring strippers ran counter to city law forbidding adult entertainment without a proper permit — and ushering the three young women ready to entertain the collective out of the building.
The quarterly meetings feature food, drink, card games, and female strippers, and generally attract between 200 and 300 of the club’s members. Although, as newly installed 60-year-old Arch Old Bastard Richard Story explained it to the Wisconsin State Journal, the collection of men, aged 35-years and above, have no social agenda and collect monies for no charities, they do like to get together periodically “to do nothing.”
Among those “nothings” is paying attractive exotic dancers to walk among them untouched, dance beguilingly, and then be escorted to their cars, having effectively reminded them of what it was like to be young. “This is for elderly people who just want to have a good time with their peers,” Story, a retired engineer and tavern co-owner, continued when pointing out that none of the Old Bastards — whose average age is the mid-60s — had realized that they needed a permit for their quarterly night of fun.
Nonetheless, they know about the hurdle now and promptly applied for a permit for their next gathering, although its status is unknown.
The fact that the Old Bastards were hiring strippers without the proper paperwork was brought to the local police agency’s attention in June, when a State Journal reported contacted them with questions.
Sue Richmond, the DeForest woman who has danced or supplied dancers for the Old Bastards club since 1972 and owns Exotic-Dancers.com, described the men as well-behaved and “one of the biggest cash cows” for the East Side Club which hosts their get-togethers. According to Richmond, dancers made $150 each, plus tips, for two hours of dancing between 9:00 pm and 11:00 pm. Richmond told the press that during her own dancing days, she performed at a city garage and in a police chief’s office in the suburbs. She did not indicate whether or not those performances were accompanied by the proper legal paperwork.
The membership, ranging from firefighters to civic workers, maintained their cool during the bad news, although several are said to have muttered a sarcastic “thanks” to officers as they left.
The International Order of Old Bastards was founded in 1945 by American soldier Fred Kibbe, while stationed in Brisbane, Australia. The name of the group, which now boasts about 1 million members and 4,600 chapters worldwide, came from the then-popular greeting, “Hi, you old bastard,” which inspired Kibbe to form the “Bastards We Have Met Club.”
