Sunday, July 29, 2007

DURTY DEEDS DUN DURT CHEAP

Gosh, guys its been a really fun week. As much as I love hockey season, I can’t really disagree too much with the advantages of the summer season.

I’ve been thinking for a while that I might try to buy a little place in northeastern Minnesota that I could use later after I retire to spend my springs, summers, and falls. I figure that it could be a pretty damn nice place to invite my hockey buds where we could spend some time fishin, huntin, feedin the skeeters and all the usual bullshit that goes along with those activities. Sorry guys but I’m tellin ya my arthritis in my right shoulder is gettin so bad that I figure I’m gonna be turnin into one a them snowbirds by then and will probably have to winter somewhere down in Mexico.

I did some real estate investigatin and made some appointments for last Saturday and Monday.

I flew into the Twin Cities and then got a little shuttle fight up to Duluth and rented a car there.

In my younger days I had done a six day canoe trip in Boundary Waters out of Ely and this part of the world, I’m telling you guys, is civilized enough to get brews when ya need them but wild enough to avoid your neighbors if ya have too. You guys know what I’m talking about, ehh?

I made my base camp for the trip at the Cascade Lodge and Restaurant in Grand Marais. Stayed in room 5A of their motel up the hill into the trees a bit where the parking was close. Unfortunately the walls were thin and I could hear the shabanging during the nights from the room next door. Aw hell, the price was right and I got a forty dollar discount for the four night stay that I had arranged. That was enough for beer money I figured for a couple a the nights.

The place is right on Highway 61 (Hey you guys, Bob Dylan made this highway famous before most a ya were born.) with Lake Superior on the other side of the road. It’s got a decent enough little restaurant that’s open from 8:00 am ‘til about 8:30 pm where you can get beer and wine with your dinner.

I went out Saturday and covered a couple a hundred miles looking at some places; hoping that they had access to a stream or other body of water. Not bad. They call this area round about here the Iron Range, so its hills and low mountains and such are home to some of the taconite (iron ore) workings. I never was much into skiing but I know that, nearby, Lutsen that I had driven through on the way up and again while heading back to the lodge had been a destination for many from my high school days. They’ve got a place there that had been a little out of my price range, the Lutsen Resort and Sea Villas, that I stopped at on my way back to checkout because they also advertise real estate. It was mainly “resort” properties. Not what I wanted. But they’ve got a place to wet your whistle, the Poplar River Pub, where I grabbed a cold one (damn that was good), another one and a case for Sunday. While the bartender went in back to get the case I grabbed one of the resort brochures from the counter by the cash register and stuck it in my back pocket. A little quiet in there right then, but I thought I might come back down after dinner.

I jumped back in my rental and made the seven or eight mile drive north back to the Cascade Lodge, cleaned up and went to dinner at their restaurant. Had a good pork chop plate with three cold ones and pulled the brochure from Lutsen out of my pocket and read through it as I was finishing the last beer. In the brochure they described some of the fun activities available back at their place. You could fish, kayak, ski (in season), throw rocks, hike and watch wildlife. Ya the typical stuff.

I left the wholesome waitress of Scandinavian descent a fair tip and went back to my room to get ready to go back to the Poplar River Pub and to give the honey back home a call to describe the progress I’d made for the first day of looking. We chatted for a bit and closed with “I miss you” stuff. Damn if I hadn’t pounded another three beers while I was talking to her and I had to piss like a horse now. Got that taken care with my tool in one hand and another brew in the other.

Shit, I think I’ve got a buzz on now. I go over to the mirror above the bureau take my glasses off and try to focus on myself. No dice - can’t do it. Maybe I better not drive anywhere I’m thinkin. Damn, I feel good but my overwhelming, almost senior citizen, common sense says “uh uhh, nope, no-way, nada.” Now what, the night’s still young?

I decide to go down and across the road to the lake and sit like an old fart on one of the bigger boulders. So I stick four brews in my pockets and continue on with the one in my hand down to the lake. At this rate I’ll only have half a case left for tomorrow and you can’t buy here on Sundays. Aw shit, what the heck!

Down at the lake I’m just watchin the sky, lookin back at the resort, watchin the cars pass by, checkin out the water and all that crap. Just enjoying it all and enjoying the brew that’s now not so dang cold. Ah, just chug em and move on I think. There’s just tons of rocks here, its not a sandy shore that’s for sure. What did that brochure say? Throwing rocks? Yeah, I haven’t skipped stones in ages. So I start tossin pebbles out across the water and pretty soon that old right shoulder of mine gives me a rowdy stinkin ouch.

Ok - lets try this with my left hand.

Booger if I don’t feel like some sorta spasmo-taz. I’m so f’n uncoordinated doing this I gotta look like some kind a fool. Sure hope that nobody’s watching me, ehh.

Oh, yikes! Someone’s coming down from the road. Shit, it’s a cop too. He says to me “What ya doing there buddy?” as I notice my empties tossed about in the beam of his flashlight. I tell him that I’m just tossing some rocks. Then he says that that ain’t allowed here. (What the fuck???) He says the only place it’s allowed is back down to Lutsen. I tell him, with a hell of a slur in my voice, “Ya gotta be kidding”

Then he says “Ya been drinking buddy?”

No denying that I guess so I said “Yeah a little.”

“Let’s go up to the side a the road there. Ya got ID on ya? Let’s get it out.”

So we scramble back up to the road by his squad car. “Cook County Sheriff”, I can sort of read.

Shit, shit, shit I’m thinkin.

He scrapes out a straight line with his boot, about twenty feet long, along his car in the pea gravel shoulder of Highway 61 and says “I want you to walk that line.”

Crap! I’d have a hard time doing that even if I was sober I’m thinking because a havin that one leg so much shorter then the other. I give it a shot though and just about spin a complete circle, almost falling down.

He now tells me that he’s gonna have to take me in for throwing stones and public intoxication. Knowing that I’m from outta state as shown on my license he asks me where I’m staying. I let him know that its just right across the highway.

He thinks about that a bit and says to me “I’d let ya go back to the motel if you were only drunk but because you were throwing stones you’re gonna have to come down to Cook County Law Enforcement Center with me and fill out some paperwork and post a bond for fifty bucks.”

I’m thinking “fifty bucks Esther, maybe this’ll be easy except for the fine“.

So he has me get in the back of his cruiser, no hand cuffs - thank you, and takes me in. We get to station and I post the bond money and start filling out the paperwork and I’ll be damned if I didn’t fall asleep or pass out drunk, ehh.

I wake up inside a cell on a bunk to all kinds of commotion outside the holding area that I’m in. I look around and get myself kinda cognizant of where I am, seeing that I’m the only one in here.

Damn what is going on out there and what was that crazy dream that I’d just had?

I’d been dreaming that I was walking up to an arena with my gear bag and sticks over my shoulder. It was a big place, I mean something big enough for an NHL game. I’m feeling a little nervous - kinda like when ya get the shits before the first couple a game of the season, ya know. And outside the arena were all these vendors pushing carts and hawking their goods like the guys ya see downtown selling ice cream and cold treats with bells ringing and shit. ‘Cept these guys were selling stuff called Durdy Deeds.

I walk by one vendor and he yells at me “Wut ya want kid? I got sum Hi-Stix, But-Ends and Cros-Chex left. Ya gonna neeeed em! Anything ya buy comes with get outta jail free cards.”

What the fuck is this ???

Another’s yelling “Get ya hooks right here! I got elbows, come on guys, I got elbows! Get ya hooks! Right here, right here, now!”

A vendor over to the left is hawking “Stitches, get your stitches, sutures here, you’re gonna need em! Get’m here! Going fast! Stitches!” Catches his breath and he starts again “I got knuckle bumps and black eyes, it’s all good shit guys, gettttemmm here!”

The dream continues and I’m feeling really queasy as I head through the doors of the arena.

Inside the music is screaming over the loud speakers of the public address system. So loud and so strong are the bass notes that it takes my breath away … “DURDY DEEDS DUN DURT CHEAP … DURDY DEEDS DUN DURT CHEAP …” I walk through the mezzanine with the adrenaline now coursing through my veins and look down upon the ice surface below.

No glass, no fish nets for the crowd’s protection - just from the top of boards to a structure of steel framework that runs all the way across the rink - nothing but chain link fence! This is old time hockey at its rawest - inside the cage. You go in and ya can’t come out. It’s the lions den, in the style of Roman gladiators. A fight to the finish; where only one man remains skating and his team will hoard the glory as being victors of it all.

That’s it. That’s when I woke up to all this damn commotion. I was sweating like crazy and really needed to take a wiz.

I got that taken care of and the sheriff that had popped me comes in through the far door and sees me standing in the cell. He says “Good, Mr. Wheats, glad to see your up. You passed out up front when we had you filling out the paperwork, so we put ya back here to sleep it off. We gotta get ya out of here though, need the room, cuz we got several carloads of rowdy asses that we gotta put away!”

Still feeling a little toasted, I ask him what time it was and what’s all the noise.

He lets me know that its past 4:30 going on 5:00 am. Says they had to bust up a bachelors party down at the Lutsen Resort. Says it was Eric Staals’ party and that he’s getting married in couple weeks or something. He and his brother Jordan and bunch of cousins and such had come down from Thunder Bay and they’d all gotten out of hand and they’d have to spend a little time in the poky.

I’m thinking to myself, why’d these boys (A couple a them were NHL stars, ehh?) come down here into the States to party. Eric’s maybe legal age here, but Jordan sure the hell isn’t yet. And how about those cousins? For my own dollar I’d rather party in Canada. The clubs up there are often times pretty good too.

Crazy man, just absolutely crazy!

So the Staals are walking with wood, doing a little time in this here sin-bin. Me too, done my time. Crazy dreams! And great Minnesota surroundings. The beer had been cold, the skeeters weren’t biting too bad and I had all of the rest of Sunday to get my shit together before I went looking at properties again.

Jasper here until next time.

Hey, skate hard you guys!

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