HomeLife Harley’s welcomes you home Posted: Sunday, December 16, 2007 12:00 am | Updated: 11:20 am, Fri Feb 8, 2013. By Laura Tillman/The Brownsville Herald Driving through Bayview on 510 you might notice an arrow on the side of the road, painted alongside a big Texas flag, beckoning you toward “Harley’s.” Take that turn and then follow another arrow, and you’ll come across the honky-tonk John “Harley” Nolan and his friends call home. On Sundays in the late afternoon you’re welcome to partake, free of charge, in the post-Church potluck of the hillbilly childhood you never had. Every Sunday at about 4 p.m., Nolan lights up the barbecue and throws together a weekend meal of turkey, brisket, potatoes, deviled eggs and beans, with locals adding other dishes to the smorgasbord. “For five years I didn’t do anything but hang around in my cabinetry shop and make artsy-fartsy things,” said Nolan. With his perpetual uniform of leather boots, a fierce silver buckle, worn out jeans, a cowboy hat, and long beard, he hardly seems one for “artsy-fartsy” artistry - at first glance. But then, as he shakes the hand of every stranger that walks into his bar and invites them to join his family, the first glance is never the last. Nolan, who serves as the owner of the bar and frontman of the houseband, Harley and the Bayview Bushriders, is a lover of people. He transformed the nightly get-togethers of friends in his shop, drinking beer, eating food they brought in, and playing songs on guitars and mandolins, and created the music venue and bar that now sits on what he calls the “backside of Bayview.” Officially speaking, Nolan doesn’t have a large family. He and his wife Silvia have been together since the day they met, 35 years ago. Their daughter Calida helps to staff the bar. Otherwise, their family is the collection of regulars and not-so-regulars that come in to share some grub, a Shiner, and pick out a few songs on the guitar. “Everybody knows everybody, everybody is family to each other,” said Steven Parker, a regular from Los Fresnos. “It’s not just for bikers or for this or that. It’s for everybody.” According to Parker, the crowds stay for Nolan. “If you take John out of the picture and Miss Sylvia out of the picture, there’s gonna be a big chunk missing,” Parker said. “He makes everybody laugh and feel at home.” Regulars frequent the Sunday meals as religiously as they might a church, and Nolan cares for them with a reverend’s sincerity – though he’s no saint. Nolan was born and raised in Georgia. He first fell in love with singing as a young boy when he learned the songs other field workers would use to pass the time as they worked in the tobacco fields. In the Valley, he formed a group called The Valley Express, which played together for about 15 years. Nolan had throat surgery to remove some lymph nodes and, while recuperating, started doing woodwork. His new band, Harley and the Bayview Bushriders – takes the stage every Sunday for their faithful crowd. Although it is only four years old, the bar is already decorated with mementos of memories and customers past and present. Photos of Willie Nelson in concert are memorialized on the wall, and skulls and alligator hide from the surrounding resacas tell their stories in Sharpie, offerings to Nolan and his family. The bar serves beer, wine, and setups. Food is free on Sundays, with a jar put out for donations. Loving couples take the floor for the slow songs Nolan coos into the mic. “Love songs are a way to express my feelings,” Nolan said. “If it’s in a song, it’s just a song. It’s okay when I sing it. When I say it, it sounds kind of mushy.” Nolan writes most of his love songs about his wife. They met when she was 20 and he was 17, though at first he fooled her into thinking he was older. For “Sylvia,” the anthem that bears her name, Nolan says all the men race toward his ladylove for a spin around the dance floor. “I call them getting back in the door songs,” Nolan jokes. But Sylvia and the rest of the gang don’t plan on going anywhere soon. “I’ll sell the bar when someone offers me a million dollars cash,” Nolan said. “And then I’ll take the money and open up a place right next door.” To get to Harley’s, turn off of 510 on Ted Hunt Road, go for one mile, and make a left on Centerline Road. Harley’s is about a half a mile down on the left.