By Poncho Wilson

Mike Norman of Marietta mixed a stiff drink, and he didn't mince words. As owner of on Roswell Street, Norman's gruff, imposing exterior coupled with an affinity for motorcycles, biker culture and his longtime ties to Marietta's American Legion Horace Orr Post 29 made him a natural fit for the scene. "Mike spoke what other people whispered," said longtime friend Jeff "Cowboy" Garland of Marietta, whose nickname derived from Norman's observations that when Garland wasn't riding into Mulligan's on his 2001 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide, he was instead wearing his trademark cowboy hat.

Mike Norman, 66, of Marietta, formerly of Sutallee and a Clinton, TN, native, died Friday of complications from lung cancer. A funeral service will be held Monday at on Canton Highway in Northeast Cobb at 2 p.m. Behind Norman's shaved pate and gray goatee that hung no less than 6 inches below his chin was an unwavering impetus to help others in need.

Norman's bar is one of a very few in greater Marietta that regularly hosts charity motorcycle rides to raise money for the sick and needy and underprivileged children. On any given Sunday a phalanx of motorcycles and riders can be seen filling Mulligan's parking lot and spilling out onto the adjacent U-Haul property before they thunder down Roswell Road eastbound in tandem toward Cobb Parkway.

Norman's eldest daughter, Kelleye Norman Greene of Hickory Flat, recalled her father as deeply loyal and endlessly attentive to both her and her younger sister, Brandi Nabors of Acworth. Norman and his wife, Dee, raised them in the expansive countryside of Sutallee in northwest Georgia.

Norman's passion for helping others was equaled only in fervor to the sociopolitical opinions he unapologetically and often blatantly espoused in black plastic channel letters on the bar's street side marquee that stands vigil over tidy rows of cornstalks.

Norman routinely bucked the system in true biker fashion with colorful and often controversial sign posts about illegal immigration and political demagoguery in an area that's seen a large influx of Hispanic-owned businesses and residents. Ironically, the bar itself was at one time a Taco Bell restaurant.