(or was it fakies?)
Hey my fellow woodsmen and puck heads. Greetings for a wonderful USA holiday: Memorial Day 2007.
Hope that all of you guys have your weekends planned cuz there sure as shit ain’t any hockey on the tube in my neck of the woods until Monday night. Yours neither, I expect.
I didn’t get so lucky as to find the Stanley Cup Finals going to Detroit and Buffalo like I wanted. Instead we’ll have to settle for the Ducks versus the Senators. It might be inspiring play - don’t know. We’ll see, ehh?
So, because I spent some years in Southern California as a Kings fan (and still am) and because of the close proximity I’ll toss my hat for the Ducks in this round. But I’m tellin ya, I ain’t no Ducks fan!
Moving on here and before getting to the subject at hand I gotta ask "You guys walking with wood this past week?" Ehh? Couldn’t hear ya here - just deathly silent here in the back woods. Whasup my friends?
Those of you in the know understand that I write mainly factual shit; spiced up a bit to get your attention and maybe give ya a chuckle or two while ya read. Today ain’t no diff. I spent quite some time doing the research on this blog and then married the story to some of my past experiences. Hope ya like it. Let me know.
If you’ve read all of my stories you know that I’ve got a thing for cheerleaders, right? Ehh, which of you boys don’t? Take off, you ain’t no hoser in my book then. Short skirts, stimulating cheers, pom poms, the whole damn works. I like it all - no doubt about it.
Well, I like hockey like crazy and I like to read a lot too. Reading about hockey though is going to get kinda slow in a couple of weeks. Shiiite! It’s already down to about nothin. So any article in my newspaper has been devoured and savored like the last bit of browning and ice cream that you slobber up as ya wipe the bowl with your index finger. Oh, another tasty little morsel. What’s this say?
I subscribe to two newspapers. One is local and so small its a wonder that they can publish it on a daily basis. There usually isn’t any hockey articles published in it. Just the local gab that I try to keep up on in case I’ve gotta chat with some one down at the bar or liquor store or something. The other paper is considerably larger and is published in one of the larger gay-ass cities on the west coast. This second paper covers hockey; so I read it like any dumb ass puck head would.
Today’s edition had two small blurbs - neither more than a couple of column inches on an inside page of their sports section. The first was some more follow up on the gambling issues with Rick Tocchet and the other was about Courtney Prince, the former head cheerleader of the New York Ranger’s "Ranger City Skaters."
Jasper Wheats here is going to discuss the cheerleader of course. Ya bet your damn ass I am!
It seems as though Ms. Prince has filed a sexual discrimination law suit against Madison Square Garden. Actually I believe that she filed the lawsuit back in 2004 so this business has been going on for some time. Some of you guys out there may know a lot more about this thing then I do, but I’m going to summarize the relevant issues that I understand.
Courtney, as it was, had been the head cheerleader and led practice sessions and led the cheer team at home Ranger events. She of course was instructed to teach the other girls moves that were sexually alluring, etc. Sex sells I’ve heard; so if there’s nothing going on on the ice then ya might as well watch these honey’s, ehh? She made about $150 per game which doesn’t sound like bad money, but ya gotta figure they weren’t paying these girls for their practice time.
The Garden has a policy that these cheerleaders and Rangers aren’t supposed to fraternize with each other. Apparently there was no such restriction between the Gardens’ staff and the cheerleaders. After a game in late 2003 Courtney was at a bar on New York’s Westside called Daddy-O’s. I don’t think Daddy-O’s has anything to do with my good bud Robbie-O, but who knows it could be his hep brother’s place that he never talked to me about.
So anyway, Courtney’s at Daddy-O’s waitin on a quesadilla and maybe or maybe not hangin with James Vogel, PR for the Rangers, and Jason Diamos, reporter for the New York Times. The claim here is that Vogel played some tongue hockey on Courtney and suggested a threesome. She shot him down and later warned her girls on the squad that there was someone on the Ranger staff that was a sexual predator. Mix and mingle folks - it ain’t what it used to be, ehh?
Shortly thereafter she was let go from the Ranger City Skaters. Allegations are bouncing back and forth.
Some say she’s bipolar. Others that she’s suffering from hypersexuality (whatever the heck that is I want some of it). Some of the girls say that she told them to make the fans feel like they want to get in your pants. Some of them say that she told them to stuff their bras if they felt the need. She says that the Garden’s executive staff instructed her to say that.
I don’t really care. Its just this little bit here towards the end that I’m concerned with. Do these girls have fakies or not? Nah, that’s not it. I like how the whole package looks. Entice me ladies. Real or not the requirement from me is for anything fake to be functional or toss it. I mean, you guys, look at me, I’ve got a fake hip. It works. I love it. Ain’t no bullshit! Fake this - fake that. From my perspective if it looks right or it acts right, then its A-OK.
So when’s it not OK. Let me tell ya a true story.
A couple of years after I quit playing full check hockey and joined the ranks of old farts playing non-check I came across a faky. This jerks name was Hurt. You know like painful. Hurt was a genuine faky from the get go. He played on one of the teams in our league - I can’t remember the name of it for the life of me. He really sucked. If it had been me running the league at that time I’d have put him down with the Squirt A’s or lower. The dude just couldn’t skate. I mean give him a chair to push around. It didn’t bother me so much when we played his team cuz he was just another pylon to skate around. The problem that I had is that someone allowed him to officiate games also.
Holy shit if that wasn’t a mistake!
He couldn’t keep up with the play and I’m not sure if he really knew how to interpret the rules. At least that’s my contention and I’m stickin by it.
As was typical for most of us that transitioned from checking to non-check; I had a hard time staying out of the box. As a defenseman I worked the slot a little too hard on occasion or took ‘em into the boards or dumped someone into our bench every once in a while shooting for a free beer later, or what have ya. And on this particular night I don’t remember what got me in a fix. But I figure that some a da Irish came outta me - arguing or maybe even some physicality with Hurt after the call. Well the shiite little faky tossed me!
Pissed me off like ya can’t believe, ehh? The dudes so far from walking with wood that he’s just a flamin mush pie.
Jingles skates over to me and in his vicious nice way gets my ass off the ice. Someone serves my penalty as the game continues on. Ding dang fakies don’t belong on the ice. I’ve got no respect for somebody faking to be something that they can’t be - not in a million years. Ya hear?
I’m sitting in the dressing room taking off my gear so I can get back out and watch the end of the game when Jingles’ oldest kid runs into the dressing room. We call him Ry-Guy. He’s about ten years old at the time and sometimes sits on the bench with us wearing a helmet and helping out running water bottles and such. Good kid, always an entrepreneur, taping sticks and other shit for us in the locker room for tips. He’s finished his undergrad now and is going to go to law school soon. Like I said - good kid.
Well Ry-Guy yells "Uncle Jasper, Uncle Jasper! Hurt just broke his leg!"
I said, "You kidding me, ehh?"
"No." he says. "Come on out and see."
So I walk out a the dressing room, turning my sock liners black walking on the rubber mats in the rink, and look through the glass at the near corner. Way down to the other end I could see that faky Hurt sprawled on the ice screamin his fool lungs out.
Deserved it, I’m thinking.
Ry-Guy goes, "I was on the bench and everybody starting saying that you must have a Voodoo doll in your bag!"
"That’s not bad Ry-Guy", I say chuckling, "But I wish he’d quit screamin. It’s makin me kinda sick."
I don’t know how the game ended up - seems like the final score is never as important as the adrenaline of playing. Hurt had broke both bones in his leg right above the top of his skate boot. Probably did hurt like hell. Did he deserve it? I don’t know. Was it Voodoo Hockey? Nah, I wouldn’t tell ya if it was. I sure for shit though to this day think that he was one of the biggest fakies of all time that ever laced on the skates.
I admire him for loving our sport and trying to be a part of it - but the dude was just way outta his league.
If your going to do it then do it right! Ehh? No fakies allowed.
Walk with wood my friends!
Friday, May 25, 2007
Sunday, May 20, 2007
TV OVERTIME
Isn’t so ding-dang funny
Hey there my hockey buddies. Jasper Wheats here dishin some more hockey shiite. I’m feeling pretty good right now; watchin some good hockey on my TV and the Redwings are up right now one to nothin just startin the third period of game five. Yep, some good shiite when the team ya want to win is up. Walking with wood here my puckster crew.
But what the f…. happened yesterday???????
Thought it was also going to be a good day. I wake up and look over the end of the bed and see the nice framed poster artwork that the wife got me. Its a watercolor sort of a tranquil forest scene titled Morning Wood. Ehh? It’s always great to know that that Morning Wood is there when I start each and every day.
So I roll on out of bed do my morning toilet, take some ibuprofen for all my aches and pains, get the coffee going and fire up some ham and eggs for the morning meal. Ah that smells so good! So I chow and chug it all down and burp a little bit like a good boy.
Its still earlier then most of you puckheads are willing to get up on a Saturday morning. Ehh, had a little drinkiepoo last night, did ya? Yeah, in my day ya couldn’t keep up with me. No way, no how!
Anyway like I said it was still early, so I went for my twenty mile bike ride. Good shit ya know, gets me some of that extra exercise that I need now that I’ve started getting pudgy about the middle. Love handles they say. Beautiful day! Usually see some deer and sometimes wild turkeys. Today, the only wildlife I got see were a couple of jackrabbits. Wonder what they were up to, ehh?
I got back from the ride after about two hours and was a smidgen thirsty so I pounded a quick one before I turned on the TV for the Senators versus Sabres fifth game. Got myself settled into the recliner and to control of the clicker.
Good game to watch. I was rooting for Buffalo so was pleased to see that they held their own through regulation. I mean, you guys, they came into this game down three to one in the series. Ehh? And I wanted them to get to the finals.
Well shit the third period ended all tied up and what the f… do you think NBC does?????
Instead of continuing to follow the game they switch over to some damn horse race! The Preakness I guess it what they called this horse shit thing. I mean give me a break, buckeroo. This isn’t even a sporting event. Its a race where the only athletes are the horses. Dang gone was I pissed! The worst of it was that race didn’t even start until about an hour after the switch from hockey.
NBC thinks this must be some kind of special event considering they didn’t continue covering the Stanley Cup semi-final series game going into overtime. For what’s only as far as I can tell is a spectator sport only, if ya can call it a sport. I’m serious you guys. How many of ya have ever been in a horse race? OK, now how many of ya have ever played hockey? See? Not even close.
So, don’t rag on me you guys but I watched this shit. They interviewed the owners. What’s your strategy? "Oh I’m going to leave that up to the jockey." So they interview the jockeys. "Oh I’m going to let the horse do its thing, let him out and see what he does." So, this crap is all up to the horse. What a crap shoot, ehh?
Shit these little guys that are jockeys aren’t even athletes. Are they? Seems as though when you say "jockey" I just see these little guys out on rich peoples’ lawns. Well that’s where Frank Zappa
said that they were. I mean the soul purpose of a jockey is to knock them off the lawn; something that you do when your playing mailbox baseball. Swing away, ya know!
NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs in overtime or some stinking horse race???????? NBC, what were you thinking?????
So today I find out the remainder of the game was televised over on Versus. That would have been fine to know yesterday. Oh my goodness do I feel like a fool. I get Versus you know you guys? Oh my brain is smolderin now just thinkin about it. GRRRR!
Ya know though. I talked to my bro Jingles one day last week during a Ducks vs Redwings game and he said that he had to listen to it on the radio ‘cuz he doesn’t get Versus. Well, I haven’t talked to him today but I know him pretty damn well and he gets ticked off easily. We had our share of fights. So I’m sure that he was just steaming yesterday too.
How about you guys? How do ya feel about this horse shit? Let me know, ehh.
Maybe today they’ll do better as today’s game is just now going to start OT. Can NBC redeem itself and walk with wood again? We’ll see.
Hey there my hockey buddies. Jasper Wheats here dishin some more hockey shiite. I’m feeling pretty good right now; watchin some good hockey on my TV and the Redwings are up right now one to nothin just startin the third period of game five. Yep, some good shiite when the team ya want to win is up. Walking with wood here my puckster crew.
But what the f…. happened yesterday???????
Thought it was also going to be a good day. I wake up and look over the end of the bed and see the nice framed poster artwork that the wife got me. Its a watercolor sort of a tranquil forest scene titled Morning Wood. Ehh? It’s always great to know that that Morning Wood is there when I start each and every day.
So I roll on out of bed do my morning toilet, take some ibuprofen for all my aches and pains, get the coffee going and fire up some ham and eggs for the morning meal. Ah that smells so good! So I chow and chug it all down and burp a little bit like a good boy.
Its still earlier then most of you puckheads are willing to get up on a Saturday morning. Ehh, had a little drinkiepoo last night, did ya? Yeah, in my day ya couldn’t keep up with me. No way, no how!
Anyway like I said it was still early, so I went for my twenty mile bike ride. Good shit ya know, gets me some of that extra exercise that I need now that I’ve started getting pudgy about the middle. Love handles they say. Beautiful day! Usually see some deer and sometimes wild turkeys. Today, the only wildlife I got see were a couple of jackrabbits. Wonder what they were up to, ehh?
I got back from the ride after about two hours and was a smidgen thirsty so I pounded a quick one before I turned on the TV for the Senators versus Sabres fifth game. Got myself settled into the recliner and to control of the clicker.
Good game to watch. I was rooting for Buffalo so was pleased to see that they held their own through regulation. I mean, you guys, they came into this game down three to one in the series. Ehh? And I wanted them to get to the finals.
Well shit the third period ended all tied up and what the f… do you think NBC does?????
Instead of continuing to follow the game they switch over to some damn horse race! The Preakness I guess it what they called this horse shit thing. I mean give me a break, buckeroo. This isn’t even a sporting event. Its a race where the only athletes are the horses. Dang gone was I pissed! The worst of it was that race didn’t even start until about an hour after the switch from hockey.
NBC thinks this must be some kind of special event considering they didn’t continue covering the Stanley Cup semi-final series game going into overtime. For what’s only as far as I can tell is a spectator sport only, if ya can call it a sport. I’m serious you guys. How many of ya have ever been in a horse race? OK, now how many of ya have ever played hockey? See? Not even close.
So, don’t rag on me you guys but I watched this shit. They interviewed the owners. What’s your strategy? "Oh I’m going to leave that up to the jockey." So they interview the jockeys. "Oh I’m going to let the horse do its thing, let him out and see what he does." So, this crap is all up to the horse. What a crap shoot, ehh?
Shit these little guys that are jockeys aren’t even athletes. Are they? Seems as though when you say "jockey" I just see these little guys out on rich peoples’ lawns. Well that’s where Frank Zappa
said that they were. I mean the soul purpose of a jockey is to knock them off the lawn; something that you do when your playing mailbox baseball. Swing away, ya know!
NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs in overtime or some stinking horse race???????? NBC, what were you thinking?????
So today I find out the remainder of the game was televised over on Versus. That would have been fine to know yesterday. Oh my goodness do I feel like a fool. I get Versus you know you guys? Oh my brain is smolderin now just thinkin about it. GRRRR!
Ya know though. I talked to my bro Jingles one day last week during a Ducks vs Redwings game and he said that he had to listen to it on the radio ‘cuz he doesn’t get Versus. Well, I haven’t talked to him today but I know him pretty damn well and he gets ticked off easily. We had our share of fights. So I’m sure that he was just steaming yesterday too.
How about you guys? How do ya feel about this horse shit? Let me know, ehh.
Maybe today they’ll do better as today’s game is just now going to start OT. Can NBC redeem itself and walk with wood again? We’ll see.
Monday, May 14, 2007
SANDWICHES
I’ve gotta be really hungry right now or something. Actually I’m bored shitless watching another Sabres versus Senators game. The second period just started in game three of the 2007 eastern conference finals. Since the first couple minutes of the game I haven’t been able to get too excited over these two teams, even though I want Buffalo to win this series (right now there’s a fat chance of that happening). I truthfully can’t imagine either of these teams winning a game against the Ducks or Wings in the Stanley Cup finals.
Sorry guys - I’m just really disappointed that neither of these teams seem to be walking with wood right now. We’ll see, ehh?
Another thing, I’m feeling that this is going to be one of my weaker blog postings. It just doesn’t have the bite that I want it to have; so sometimes I really suck too.
Eat shit and die! Read em and weep, puck buddies!
Eat sandwiches and laugh, well maybe laugh. I’ve been reading bulletins on MySpace for too long and this just looks like one of those piece a shit lists that everybody seems to repost cuz their so f’n bored (Ya for sure - sorry Tom).
But who gives a rat’s ass - I don’t get paid to do this. Its just so damn fun.
I made a list of as many names of sandwiches as I could think of and then made up some bogus hockey action that the sandwich name is supposed to mean. Hey if ya don’t like it then make up your own. Ehh? What’s that shit ya say?
Bologna Sandwich - The shit that sportscasters talk about before the game and in between periods.
BLT - Butt, Leg, Toe - just a bit of slew footing.
Cheeseburger - Almost scoring on a slap shot but ya catch some pipe.
Chicken Salad Sandwich - More commonly seen in youth hockey where the player with the puck shies away from a check but gets blind sided by another opponent.
Dagwood Sandwich - the pile up of players on the winning team after winning a highly significant game such as the Olympics, NCAA, Stanley Cup, or your league.
Fish Sandwich - Making a move that puts you close to your opposing defender causing him to make a stick infraction.
French Dip - A full body deke where you’re going three or four directions at once, basically removing your opposing defender’s jock strap. Originally developed by Gilbert Perault of
Buffalo’s famous French Connection line.
Fried Egg Sandwich - A knockout, concussion, any hit that leaves ya dazed and confused. (Led Zeppelin played hockey, ehh?)
Grilled Cheese - The losing team’s coach catching shit in the post game news conference.
Grilled Ham and Cheese - A photo op where your toothless grin is oh so visible. (see Ham and Cheese Sandwich)
Ham Sandwich - A dive where you get two minutes because it was so ridiculously obvious.
Hamburger - Standard fare shot on goal that’s been blocked or was an easy save.
Ham and Cheese Sandwich - Gloating after a great goal making for a decent photo op.
Hot dog - A player that’s playing in a league below his f’n real level. Someone that you just love to take out.
Kraut dog - A player that uses a lotta wood work; cross checking, hooking and high sticking.
Mashed Potato Sandwich - An unfortunate injury that occurs during the pre-game warm up. (Yeah, my son-in-law loves these - hot or cold - don’t even matter a stinkin little bit.)
Meatloaf Sandwich - Post game video analysis of your last losing game. Your coach provides everybody with their fair share of ass chewing - ahh sorry there I meant constructive criticism.
Montecristo Sandwich - The element of setting up for a face-off with all the positioning; physically, verbally, and psychologically.
Pancake Sandwich - Double teamed slam usually resulting in a fried egg sandwich.
Patty Melt - Poor refrigeration management resulting in really shitty ice. Most common problem on Ranger home ice.
PB & J - Puck Blocking and Joisting - Tough defensive play in front of the net - highly reminiscent of the play of former LA King Gilles Marotte.
Philly Cheese Steak - Bench clearing brawl. Not to common anymore except in beer leagues. Made famous by the Broad Street Bullies.
Poor Boy Sandwich - A cheapskate looking for free hockey. (See my previous blog about Robbie-O.)
Ruben Sandwich - The unfortunate inability to recognize a professional player when he’s out of uniform or with his helmet off. They all look like Peewee Herman.
Sloppy Joe - Dropping the puck to your lagging skate, then kicking it ahead to your stick side past your defender; again dropping his jock.
Steak Sandwich - Scoring on a slap shot.
Submarine Sandwich - Boarding that elicits plenty of fan excitement.
Tuna Salad Sandwich - A good looking goal until after video review its determined to be no good. Tastes great but burps up really fowl.
Turkey Sandwich - A defensive pairing that really sucks.
Veggie Delight - While watching a televised game the cameraman pans a stunning honey that’s not really watching the game - but you figure that she might still have been a good date.
OK, so that’s it. I ain’t walking with wood so good this week. But I wrote it and you read it.
Done and done - the woods are dark ………………
Jasper
Sorry guys - I’m just really disappointed that neither of these teams seem to be walking with wood right now. We’ll see, ehh?
Another thing, I’m feeling that this is going to be one of my weaker blog postings. It just doesn’t have the bite that I want it to have; so sometimes I really suck too.
Eat shit and die! Read em and weep, puck buddies!
Eat sandwiches and laugh, well maybe laugh. I’ve been reading bulletins on MySpace for too long and this just looks like one of those piece a shit lists that everybody seems to repost cuz their so f’n bored (Ya for sure - sorry Tom).
But who gives a rat’s ass - I don’t get paid to do this. Its just so damn fun.
I made a list of as many names of sandwiches as I could think of and then made up some bogus hockey action that the sandwich name is supposed to mean. Hey if ya don’t like it then make up your own. Ehh? What’s that shit ya say?
Bologna Sandwich - The shit that sportscasters talk about before the game and in between periods.
BLT - Butt, Leg, Toe - just a bit of slew footing.
Cheeseburger - Almost scoring on a slap shot but ya catch some pipe.
Chicken Salad Sandwich - More commonly seen in youth hockey where the player with the puck shies away from a check but gets blind sided by another opponent.
Dagwood Sandwich - the pile up of players on the winning team after winning a highly significant game such as the Olympics, NCAA, Stanley Cup, or your league.
Fish Sandwich - Making a move that puts you close to your opposing defender causing him to make a stick infraction.
French Dip - A full body deke where you’re going three or four directions at once, basically removing your opposing defender’s jock strap. Originally developed by Gilbert Perault of
Buffalo’s famous French Connection line.
Fried Egg Sandwich - A knockout, concussion, any hit that leaves ya dazed and confused. (Led Zeppelin played hockey, ehh?)
Grilled Cheese - The losing team’s coach catching shit in the post game news conference.
Grilled Ham and Cheese - A photo op where your toothless grin is oh so visible. (see Ham and Cheese Sandwich)
Ham Sandwich - A dive where you get two minutes because it was so ridiculously obvious.
Hamburger - Standard fare shot on goal that’s been blocked or was an easy save.
Ham and Cheese Sandwich - Gloating after a great goal making for a decent photo op.
Hot dog - A player that’s playing in a league below his f’n real level. Someone that you just love to take out.
Kraut dog - A player that uses a lotta wood work; cross checking, hooking and high sticking.
Mashed Potato Sandwich - An unfortunate injury that occurs during the pre-game warm up. (Yeah, my son-in-law loves these - hot or cold - don’t even matter a stinkin little bit.)
Meatloaf Sandwich - Post game video analysis of your last losing game. Your coach provides everybody with their fair share of ass chewing - ahh sorry there I meant constructive criticism.
Montecristo Sandwich - The element of setting up for a face-off with all the positioning; physically, verbally, and psychologically.
Pancake Sandwich - Double teamed slam usually resulting in a fried egg sandwich.
Patty Melt - Poor refrigeration management resulting in really shitty ice. Most common problem on Ranger home ice.
PB & J - Puck Blocking and Joisting - Tough defensive play in front of the net - highly reminiscent of the play of former LA King Gilles Marotte.
Philly Cheese Steak - Bench clearing brawl. Not to common anymore except in beer leagues. Made famous by the Broad Street Bullies.
Poor Boy Sandwich - A cheapskate looking for free hockey. (See my previous blog about Robbie-O.)
Ruben Sandwich - The unfortunate inability to recognize a professional player when he’s out of uniform or with his helmet off. They all look like Peewee Herman.
Sloppy Joe - Dropping the puck to your lagging skate, then kicking it ahead to your stick side past your defender; again dropping his jock.
Steak Sandwich - Scoring on a slap shot.
Submarine Sandwich - Boarding that elicits plenty of fan excitement.
Tuna Salad Sandwich - A good looking goal until after video review its determined to be no good. Tastes great but burps up really fowl.
Turkey Sandwich - A defensive pairing that really sucks.
Veggie Delight - While watching a televised game the cameraman pans a stunning honey that’s not really watching the game - but you figure that she might still have been a good date.
OK, so that’s it. I ain’t walking with wood so good this week. But I wrote it and you read it.
Done and done - the woods are dark ………………
Jasper
Sunday, May 6, 2007
ZAMBOOMBA
I’ve written some previous BS about a valuable early hockey stick that was worth an immense value in US dollars (ya not too much Canadian though). At the time of that writing I figured that some of my old sticks were probably worth a good bit of moola too.
Here’s an update on that story: I haven’t had single ding dang offer for my old wood. What’s the deal with that, ehh? I mean shit howdy if I didn’t get some good play out of these ancient puppies. And they’ve got my signature on them besides. What more d’ya want? That “Wheats” script is worth a couple a thousand bucks right there and several of em have a few notches indicating goals and noting that they’re some good wood. Ehh? You guys are just really pissing me off with this lack of interest.
Shite!
So today I’m reading Tim Wendel’s Sports Collectable article from today’s paper in the USA WEEKEND magazine insert and there are a couple of high priced hockey items listed.
The most valuable item is worth $400,000. Its one of the original Montreal AAA club’s sweaters from 1893. If your sweetheart can find one of these in her hope chest handed down from her great-great granny or if you’ve been using it as a car rag - big mistake. Ehh? Cash it in now before the moths get it. The Hockey Hall of Fame, where Cheever’s gear resides, is looking for one or two of these jerseys. Rumor has it that there were only nine players on the team that won the first Stanley Cup. Chances are that you don’t have one of these, but check your gear bag and if ya got a sweater that smells real, real bad ya better give it a good look-see.
The item of lesser value that was mentioned in Wendel’s article was a three wheeled Zamboni that was used to clean the ice at the 1960’s Olympics. They don’t know where this contraption ended up. The article says that it would be worth about $175,000 but I don’t know who’d cough up that kinda cash for a dilapidated piece of shite. Crap it was missing a wheel back then. Bet they had to add some ballast to the opposite side so it could take a fairly even cut. What were those guys thinking at Zamboni? Here they are having a chance to use their machine for the first time during the Winter Olympics and they send a defective unit. Shit for brains - I hope they fired the marketing guy behind that plan.
I’ve skated a few times at the rink down in Paramount, California that the Zamboni’s owned. It’s been ages since I was there so I can’t remember if they just had pictures or the real things, but I recall how much the early units looked like farm equipment. Maybe they converted this one into a combine, blew it up, or salvaged it for fixing other units. Who knows, ehh?
So that’s a hint to you ‘mers out there. Take a look out behind the barn or one of the corn silos, heck check your neighbor’s property (more then likely they don’t live on it anyway) and see if ya see some really strange piece of equipment that’s missing a wheel. If ya see something that’s got some hen scratches on it that look like names then ya might have something. A really stupid rumor is that the entire USA Gold Medal Team etched their names on this Zam. Stupid, ehh? Story goes that they used their skate blades. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Well if that’s the case then I can see that it might be worth the bucks that I mentioned earlier.
I’ve got an idea for a new ice cleaning machine that I’d call the Zamboomba. “Zam” of course because I’d get Zamboni to manufacture it and to market it with their current fabulous network. The first one could end up being pretty valuable so after it gets used a few times I’d snag it back and store in my garage to sell later and use to pay for my grandkids’ college.
Got your interest in this, ehh? Want to invest? Need some more information to convince you? Are you questioning Jasper Wheats’ ingenuity?
The wifey got a chance to hear this when I was proofing it and she says to me at this point, “Jasper, these guys that read this probably don’t think you got it in ya for grandkids.” Well, EAT SHIT AND DIE – JASPER WHEATS IS WALKING WITH WOOD!!!!!
First of all the Zamboomba would be computerized. It would be set up to operate like them damn sneaky little vacuum cleaners that cleanup by themselves. The commercial version would contain a big old rechargeable battery that would run the motor for the scrapper blade and a heater to melt the snow for rewetting the ice.
Yup, your thinking, “How’s this little piece a shit going to clean the ice between periods?” Ehh?
Well, you’d use about a hundred of them at one time. All scurrying around on the ice, just tidying up the place. They’d all be preprogrammed to hit every spot but they’d also be programmed to add some damn good entertainment.
When they first come out on the ice they’d be programmed to act like they didn’t know what the heck they were doing. They’d be scurrying around and running into each other, smacking the boards, flipping over, etc. Kinda like robo wars on late night cable. Then they’d get their act together and get the job done. Of course a couple of times in the middle of this ice resurfacing they’d take off into wee bit a synchronized shit and makes patterns and spell things out like some hot for shit marching band with each unit programmed for sound to be a specific musical instrument. Lights and all, too, for a damn fancy lightshow.
Yup, the commercial version of the Zamboomba will be walking with wood.
So now you’re wondering what the standard retail unit is like.
Well, it would be a bit bigger and wouldn’t have all the bells and whistles. It would have a solar cell array on its back to keep the battery charged up. You could use it for your backyard rink or the cleared area out on the pond. Just set that baby loose when ya leave for school or work in the morning and when ya come home later ya got a damn nice patch of ice. No more gettin the shovels and hoses out to get yourself and your buddies some good ice.
Jasper here with his Zamboomba - just trying to make your ice time just a little bit better.
Skate hard! Keep walking with wood!
Here’s an update on that story: I haven’t had single ding dang offer for my old wood. What’s the deal with that, ehh? I mean shit howdy if I didn’t get some good play out of these ancient puppies. And they’ve got my signature on them besides. What more d’ya want? That “Wheats” script is worth a couple a thousand bucks right there and several of em have a few notches indicating goals and noting that they’re some good wood. Ehh? You guys are just really pissing me off with this lack of interest.
Shite!
So today I’m reading Tim Wendel’s Sports Collectable article from today’s paper in the USA WEEKEND magazine insert and there are a couple of high priced hockey items listed.
The most valuable item is worth $400,000. Its one of the original Montreal AAA club’s sweaters from 1893. If your sweetheart can find one of these in her hope chest handed down from her great-great granny or if you’ve been using it as a car rag - big mistake. Ehh? Cash it in now before the moths get it. The Hockey Hall of Fame, where Cheever’s gear resides, is looking for one or two of these jerseys. Rumor has it that there were only nine players on the team that won the first Stanley Cup. Chances are that you don’t have one of these, but check your gear bag and if ya got a sweater that smells real, real bad ya better give it a good look-see.
The item of lesser value that was mentioned in Wendel’s article was a three wheeled Zamboni that was used to clean the ice at the 1960’s Olympics. They don’t know where this contraption ended up. The article says that it would be worth about $175,000 but I don’t know who’d cough up that kinda cash for a dilapidated piece of shite. Crap it was missing a wheel back then. Bet they had to add some ballast to the opposite side so it could take a fairly even cut. What were those guys thinking at Zamboni? Here they are having a chance to use their machine for the first time during the Winter Olympics and they send a defective unit. Shit for brains - I hope they fired the marketing guy behind that plan.
I’ve skated a few times at the rink down in Paramount, California that the Zamboni’s owned. It’s been ages since I was there so I can’t remember if they just had pictures or the real things, but I recall how much the early units looked like farm equipment. Maybe they converted this one into a combine, blew it up, or salvaged it for fixing other units. Who knows, ehh?
So that’s a hint to you ‘mers out there. Take a look out behind the barn or one of the corn silos, heck check your neighbor’s property (more then likely they don’t live on it anyway) and see if ya see some really strange piece of equipment that’s missing a wheel. If ya see something that’s got some hen scratches on it that look like names then ya might have something. A really stupid rumor is that the entire USA Gold Medal Team etched their names on this Zam. Stupid, ehh? Story goes that they used their skate blades. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Well if that’s the case then I can see that it might be worth the bucks that I mentioned earlier.
I’ve got an idea for a new ice cleaning machine that I’d call the Zamboomba. “Zam” of course because I’d get Zamboni to manufacture it and to market it with their current fabulous network. The first one could end up being pretty valuable so after it gets used a few times I’d snag it back and store in my garage to sell later and use to pay for my grandkids’ college.
Got your interest in this, ehh? Want to invest? Need some more information to convince you? Are you questioning Jasper Wheats’ ingenuity?
The wifey got a chance to hear this when I was proofing it and she says to me at this point, “Jasper, these guys that read this probably don’t think you got it in ya for grandkids.” Well, EAT SHIT AND DIE – JASPER WHEATS IS WALKING WITH WOOD!!!!!
First of all the Zamboomba would be computerized. It would be set up to operate like them damn sneaky little vacuum cleaners that cleanup by themselves. The commercial version would contain a big old rechargeable battery that would run the motor for the scrapper blade and a heater to melt the snow for rewetting the ice.
Yup, your thinking, “How’s this little piece a shit going to clean the ice between periods?” Ehh?
Well, you’d use about a hundred of them at one time. All scurrying around on the ice, just tidying up the place. They’d all be preprogrammed to hit every spot but they’d also be programmed to add some damn good entertainment.
When they first come out on the ice they’d be programmed to act like they didn’t know what the heck they were doing. They’d be scurrying around and running into each other, smacking the boards, flipping over, etc. Kinda like robo wars on late night cable. Then they’d get their act together and get the job done. Of course a couple of times in the middle of this ice resurfacing they’d take off into wee bit a synchronized shit and makes patterns and spell things out like some hot for shit marching band with each unit programmed for sound to be a specific musical instrument. Lights and all, too, for a damn fancy lightshow.
Yup, the commercial version of the Zamboomba will be walking with wood.
So now you’re wondering what the standard retail unit is like.
Well, it would be a bit bigger and wouldn’t have all the bells and whistles. It would have a solar cell array on its back to keep the battery charged up. You could use it for your backyard rink or the cleared area out on the pond. Just set that baby loose when ya leave for school or work in the morning and when ya come home later ya got a damn nice patch of ice. No more gettin the shovels and hoses out to get yourself and your buddies some good ice.
Jasper here with his Zamboomba - just trying to make your ice time just a little bit better.
Skate hard! Keep walking with wood!
Monday, April 30, 2007
Cheap Skate
Jasper here again with a weekly entry to the world of hockey humor blogs.
Shit, you guys, I hope that this stuff is funny. Nobody ever leaves a comment so I don’t know if any of ya are even reading this happy horse shit that I write.
Dudes and dudettes – I’ve got an ego off the ice too. Let me know how I’m doing. Ehh? If ya are afraid to comment here then send an email to me through my alter-ego at hoduhn@sbcglobal.net.
This week’s story is about a fairly good buddy that I’ve had for more years then I can remember. Actually I can remember but it doesn’t add a damn bit of interest to the story. He’s a hard working sob but is temporarily unemployed, so he’s been on my mind a bit these days while I’ve been trying to find something for him to do.
I’ve always called him Robbie-O, of Irish blood, his nickname fits him well. He hasn’t always lived up here in the back woods. Trying the city every now and then as he’d hear about some fantastic job and move away for a while pursuing his dreams only to come up short in the end. Living in the camper of his old Ford pickup he’d get rousted regularly for parking overnight in front of someone’s home or in the parking lot of some business in town. Yup, he’s been sort of a gypsy I guess since we’ve been friends. But he’s good folks, guys. I mean, in my opinion, Robbie-O walks with wood.
Never having a lot of money for the finer thinks in life, he’s had to improvise quite a bit to get by. The camper has been his home more often then not and that suits everybody ok here in the backwoods. I’ve been successful myself most of the time and my property and my cabin are what I have to show for that. Robbie-O is welcome over here just about all the time. He won’t take advantage of me though, cuz that’s just not his nature. I’ve never known him to burden himself for too long on anybody else either.
Dabnabit if he isn’t a cheap skate though. He keeps that old truck running by not even hitting up Jakes Salvage Yard. He must know where every damn similarly modeled Ford has been dispatched to the north forty and hits on those derelicts, with the owner’s permission of course, to get replacement parts. Shit what else? His hockey gear is always used stuff, or least it always looks like someone else musta discarded it. Its all held together with duct tape, shoe-goo, or some other fandangled method of restoration. Since we played Batams together I don’t think I can recall him wearing a jersey that had his own name on the back.
Heck, I even remember several different times, when I knew that he had a decent job and health insurance, that after taking a high stick or a puck in the face that he wouldn’t go down to the clinic for stitches. Damned if he wouldn’t sew himself back up. Guys, I’m telling ya I could never do that. Ehh?
He’d snag tape balls out of the trash can for reuse and always snagged up broken sticks for repair. I guess he’s got fiberglassin down to a fine art. He loves his hockey just as much as you and I do.
His ma and pa are still kickin up dirt and surviving on a railroad pension. Seems as if I hadn’t heard that his pa coulda gone pro right from Juniors ‘cept that he fell in love with the trains that used to run the team to distant destinations and joined the SOO line the summer before his last year of playing. They let him continue playing that following winter but when the draft came up he turned down offers that would have sent him down to Greensboro or some such place to play his first year. The rails were where he wanted to be. So be it, ehh?
His ma, ya’d think she was mainly Italian instead of Irish the way she liked to cook. She wasn’t always fixin meat and potatoes like the rest of was eatin. She be fixin skeaty and meat balls or ravioli or some such other spiced up shit. I can always tell when Robbie-O’s been home for dinner, cuz once he’d start sweatin out there on the ice, he’d just reek as that garlic would start squeezing outta his pores. Kinda embedded itself in his gear too. Though I really like the guy, ya don’t want to sit next to him in the dressin room. He’ll open up that gear bag and that odor will about make ya pass out or puke. Mercy that smell was some kind a bad.
Robbie-O was cheap. There’s no doubt about that. Anymore when he gets out on the ice, it’s usually when we’re using him as a substitute for somebody that didn’t show up but had already paid for the season. It’s completely illegal according to league rules but none of the other teams knew who he was. Shit the nearest team that we play against has their home ice about thirty-seven miles off to the northeast. And, well, the local ref’s if they saw him suited up they’d mention it to us real casual like and we’d buy them a beer or two later. Like I said earlier – lately he’s never wearin a jersey with his name on the back.
One of the things sad about Robbie-O is that quite often he runs a length of bad luck with him. I member a time back a few years ago when he had a fairly decent job running a grain truck from western North Dakota down to General Mills in the Cities. Seems as though he had the job for about six months or so. He was able to pay off some bills at the grocery, etc, and was seeming to get back on his feet somewhat. He had been needing some new rubber for the Ford so he got himself a new set of highway/camper rated treads all around. For a guy like Robbie-O this was a big deal. Ehh?
It wasn’t but about a week later when he was playin some $5 dollar Friday night pickup that some punk kid or vandalous shit head decided to ice pick the tires of about seven or eight cars in the parking lot. Yup, Robbie-O’s new ones got stabbed each and every one. Right in the damn side wall! Ya couldn’t patch’em or plug em, which Robbie-O knew how to do, but ya had to put tubes in em. Being that they were new tires, this time he wasn’t going to use some salvage tubes so he spent another hundred and fifty or so on putting in the tubes and re-balancing, the whole kit and caboodle. Cheap pickup game – but damned expensive night for my bud!
Oh the tales I could tell. I’m telling ya it was good thing he had that camper cuz ya wouldn’t believe how many times he ran out of gas coming back from road trips just trying to get back to get cheap-ass gas at the Circle-K over in Whompton.
And just a couple of weeks ago before he entered his most recent period of unemployment, he went to an early afternoon free clinic at the rink. Cheap ass bastard can’t get enough ice time these days at $20 a session or $400 for a twenty game season plus playoffs if your team can get there. Whad’ya want ehh?
Anyway, it’s a free skate and he’s digin it. It was only supposed to last about an hour and about half way through it the shit came down. According to him, he’s skatin in from the left point, stick handling a bit, gets just about past the face off dot entering the slot when he leans into his left leg to take a wrister when he goes down. It’s a clinic, right? So nobody hit him, ehh? He just went down. Something in his left leg snapped. He figured that he had broken it, cuz every time he tried to get up, he fell right back down. Said he couldn’t feel his left leg at all.
He kept trying to get up but couldn’t manage it and ended up yelling at some kid’s dad. The dad and his son (said he might have been an older Midget) helped him off the ice and he used his stick as a crutch/cane to get to the dressin room. He said by then the pain had started to set in and it was real bitch to get his gear off. He said to me “Jasper, I’m telling ya, I got pretty light headed in that dressing room. And there wasn’t anybody in there with me. Kinda scared me that I might just pass my ass out.”
He broke out in a sweat and sat there for a bit and then hobbled out of the dressin room using his stick as a crutch again. Told me that he felt purty embarrassed but he had to ask some kid to carry his gear bag out to the truck. Got it all in the truck and himself too. Damn good thing that old Ford is an automatic. He managed to drive himself over to the clinic in pain for sure and worrying that they’d have to operate or put him in a half-body cast cuz he figured that it was his hip that was busted. Shit for howdy if the medical folks ended up telling him that he hadn’t broke anything but probably had a deep muscle or soft tissue tear. Maybe pinched his sciatic nerve real good which was why he couldn’t feel his left leg.
Anyway when I saw him yesterday he told me that his left leg had been bruised from his hind cheek down to his ankle. And that that dabgone ”free skate” had cost him over $250 for the clinic and the pain pill prescriptions.
That’s his luck, Robbie-O, the cheap skate.
He’s still my bud. He’s still walking with wood – though a little painfully right now.
Shit, you guys, I hope that this stuff is funny. Nobody ever leaves a comment so I don’t know if any of ya are even reading this happy horse shit that I write.
Dudes and dudettes – I’ve got an ego off the ice too. Let me know how I’m doing. Ehh? If ya are afraid to comment here then send an email to me through my alter-ego at hoduhn@sbcglobal.net.
This week’s story is about a fairly good buddy that I’ve had for more years then I can remember. Actually I can remember but it doesn’t add a damn bit of interest to the story. He’s a hard working sob but is temporarily unemployed, so he’s been on my mind a bit these days while I’ve been trying to find something for him to do.
I’ve always called him Robbie-O, of Irish blood, his nickname fits him well. He hasn’t always lived up here in the back woods. Trying the city every now and then as he’d hear about some fantastic job and move away for a while pursuing his dreams only to come up short in the end. Living in the camper of his old Ford pickup he’d get rousted regularly for parking overnight in front of someone’s home or in the parking lot of some business in town. Yup, he’s been sort of a gypsy I guess since we’ve been friends. But he’s good folks, guys. I mean, in my opinion, Robbie-O walks with wood.
Never having a lot of money for the finer thinks in life, he’s had to improvise quite a bit to get by. The camper has been his home more often then not and that suits everybody ok here in the backwoods. I’ve been successful myself most of the time and my property and my cabin are what I have to show for that. Robbie-O is welcome over here just about all the time. He won’t take advantage of me though, cuz that’s just not his nature. I’ve never known him to burden himself for too long on anybody else either.
Dabnabit if he isn’t a cheap skate though. He keeps that old truck running by not even hitting up Jakes Salvage Yard. He must know where every damn similarly modeled Ford has been dispatched to the north forty and hits on those derelicts, with the owner’s permission of course, to get replacement parts. Shit what else? His hockey gear is always used stuff, or least it always looks like someone else musta discarded it. Its all held together with duct tape, shoe-goo, or some other fandangled method of restoration. Since we played Batams together I don’t think I can recall him wearing a jersey that had his own name on the back.
Heck, I even remember several different times, when I knew that he had a decent job and health insurance, that after taking a high stick or a puck in the face that he wouldn’t go down to the clinic for stitches. Damned if he wouldn’t sew himself back up. Guys, I’m telling ya I could never do that. Ehh?
He’d snag tape balls out of the trash can for reuse and always snagged up broken sticks for repair. I guess he’s got fiberglassin down to a fine art. He loves his hockey just as much as you and I do.
His ma and pa are still kickin up dirt and surviving on a railroad pension. Seems as if I hadn’t heard that his pa coulda gone pro right from Juniors ‘cept that he fell in love with the trains that used to run the team to distant destinations and joined the SOO line the summer before his last year of playing. They let him continue playing that following winter but when the draft came up he turned down offers that would have sent him down to Greensboro or some such place to play his first year. The rails were where he wanted to be. So be it, ehh?
His ma, ya’d think she was mainly Italian instead of Irish the way she liked to cook. She wasn’t always fixin meat and potatoes like the rest of was eatin. She be fixin skeaty and meat balls or ravioli or some such other spiced up shit. I can always tell when Robbie-O’s been home for dinner, cuz once he’d start sweatin out there on the ice, he’d just reek as that garlic would start squeezing outta his pores. Kinda embedded itself in his gear too. Though I really like the guy, ya don’t want to sit next to him in the dressin room. He’ll open up that gear bag and that odor will about make ya pass out or puke. Mercy that smell was some kind a bad.
Robbie-O was cheap. There’s no doubt about that. Anymore when he gets out on the ice, it’s usually when we’re using him as a substitute for somebody that didn’t show up but had already paid for the season. It’s completely illegal according to league rules but none of the other teams knew who he was. Shit the nearest team that we play against has their home ice about thirty-seven miles off to the northeast. And, well, the local ref’s if they saw him suited up they’d mention it to us real casual like and we’d buy them a beer or two later. Like I said earlier – lately he’s never wearin a jersey with his name on the back.
One of the things sad about Robbie-O is that quite often he runs a length of bad luck with him. I member a time back a few years ago when he had a fairly decent job running a grain truck from western North Dakota down to General Mills in the Cities. Seems as though he had the job for about six months or so. He was able to pay off some bills at the grocery, etc, and was seeming to get back on his feet somewhat. He had been needing some new rubber for the Ford so he got himself a new set of highway/camper rated treads all around. For a guy like Robbie-O this was a big deal. Ehh?
It wasn’t but about a week later when he was playin some $5 dollar Friday night pickup that some punk kid or vandalous shit head decided to ice pick the tires of about seven or eight cars in the parking lot. Yup, Robbie-O’s new ones got stabbed each and every one. Right in the damn side wall! Ya couldn’t patch’em or plug em, which Robbie-O knew how to do, but ya had to put tubes in em. Being that they were new tires, this time he wasn’t going to use some salvage tubes so he spent another hundred and fifty or so on putting in the tubes and re-balancing, the whole kit and caboodle. Cheap pickup game – but damned expensive night for my bud!
Oh the tales I could tell. I’m telling ya it was good thing he had that camper cuz ya wouldn’t believe how many times he ran out of gas coming back from road trips just trying to get back to get cheap-ass gas at the Circle-K over in Whompton.
And just a couple of weeks ago before he entered his most recent period of unemployment, he went to an early afternoon free clinic at the rink. Cheap ass bastard can’t get enough ice time these days at $20 a session or $400 for a twenty game season plus playoffs if your team can get there. Whad’ya want ehh?
Anyway, it’s a free skate and he’s digin it. It was only supposed to last about an hour and about half way through it the shit came down. According to him, he’s skatin in from the left point, stick handling a bit, gets just about past the face off dot entering the slot when he leans into his left leg to take a wrister when he goes down. It’s a clinic, right? So nobody hit him, ehh? He just went down. Something in his left leg snapped. He figured that he had broken it, cuz every time he tried to get up, he fell right back down. Said he couldn’t feel his left leg at all.
He kept trying to get up but couldn’t manage it and ended up yelling at some kid’s dad. The dad and his son (said he might have been an older Midget) helped him off the ice and he used his stick as a crutch/cane to get to the dressin room. He said by then the pain had started to set in and it was real bitch to get his gear off. He said to me “Jasper, I’m telling ya, I got pretty light headed in that dressing room. And there wasn’t anybody in there with me. Kinda scared me that I might just pass my ass out.”
He broke out in a sweat and sat there for a bit and then hobbled out of the dressin room using his stick as a crutch again. Told me that he felt purty embarrassed but he had to ask some kid to carry his gear bag out to the truck. Got it all in the truck and himself too. Damn good thing that old Ford is an automatic. He managed to drive himself over to the clinic in pain for sure and worrying that they’d have to operate or put him in a half-body cast cuz he figured that it was his hip that was busted. Shit for howdy if the medical folks ended up telling him that he hadn’t broke anything but probably had a deep muscle or soft tissue tear. Maybe pinched his sciatic nerve real good which was why he couldn’t feel his left leg.
Anyway when I saw him yesterday he told me that his left leg had been bruised from his hind cheek down to his ankle. And that that dabgone ”free skate” had cost him over $250 for the clinic and the pain pill prescriptions.
That’s his luck, Robbie-O, the cheap skate.
He’s still my bud. He’s still walking with wood – though a little painfully right now.
Cheap Skate
Jasper here again with a weekly entry to the world of hockey humor blogs.
Shit, you guys, I hope that this stuff is funny. Nobody ever leaves a comment so I don’t know if any of ya are even reading this happy horse shit that I write.
Dudes and dudettes – I’ve got an ego off the ice too. Let me know how I’m doing. Ehh? If ya are afraid to comment here then send an email to me through my alter-ego at hoduhn@sbcglobal.net.
This week’s story is about a fairly good buddy that I’ve had for more years then I can remember. Actually I can remember but it doesn’t add a damn bit of interest to the story. He’s a hard working sob but is temporarily unemployed, so he’s been on my mind a bit these days while I’ve been trying to find something for him to do.
I’ve always called him Robbie-O, of Irish blood, his nickname fits him well. He hasn’t always lived up here in the back woods. Trying the city every now and then as he’d hear about some fantastic job and move away for a while pursuing his dreams only to come up short in the end. Living in the camper of his old Ford pickup he’d get rousted regularly for parking overnight in front of someone’s home or in the parking lot of some business in town. Yup, he’s been sort of a gypsy I guess since we’ve been friends. But he’s good folks, guys. I mean, in my opinion, Robbie-O walks with wood.
Never having a lot of money for the finer thinks in life, he’s had to improvise quite a bit to get by. The camper has been his home more often then not and that suits everybody ok here in the backwoods. I’ve been successful myself most of the time and my property and my cabin are what I have to show for that. Robbie-O is welcome over here just about all the time. He won’t take advantage of me though, cuz that’s just not his nature. I’ve never known him to burden himself for too long on anybody else either.
Dabnabit if he isn’t a cheap skate though. He keeps that old truck running by not even hitting up Jakes Salvage Yard. He must know where every damn similarly modeled Ford has been dispatched to the north forty and hits on those derelicts, with the owner’s permission of course, to get replacement parts. Shit what else? His hockey gear is always used stuff, or least it always looks like someone else musta discarded it. Its all held together with duct tape, shoe-goo, or some other fandangled method of restoration. Since we played Batams together I don’t think I can recall him wearing a jersey that had his own name on the back.
Heck, I even remember several different times, when I knew that he had a decent job and health insurance, that after taking a high stick or a puck in the face that he wouldn’t go down to the clinic for stitches. Damned if he wouldn’t sew himself back up. Guys, I’m telling ya I could never do that. Ehh?
He’d snag tape balls out of the trash can for reuse and always snagged up broken sticks for repair. I guess he’s got fiberglassin down to a fine art. He loves his hockey just as much as you and I do.
His ma and pa are still kickin up dirt and surviving on a railroad pension. Seems as if I hadn’t heard that his pa coulda gone pro right from Juniors ‘cept that he fell in love with the trains that used to run the team to distant destinations and joined the SOO line the summer before his last year of playing. They let him continue playing that following winter but when the draft came up he turned down offers that would have sent him down to Greensboro or some such place to play his first year. The rails were where he wanted to be. So be it, ehh?
His ma, ya’d think she was mainly Italian instead of Irish the way she liked to cook. She wasn’t always fixin meat and potatoes like the rest of was eatin. She be fixin skeaty and meat balls or ravioli or some such other spiced up shit. I can always tell when Robbie-O’s been home for dinner, cuz once he’d start sweatin out there on the ice, he’d just reek as that garlic would start squeezing outta his pores. Kinda embedded itself in his gear too. Though I really like the guy, ya don’t want to sit next to him in the dressin room. He’ll open up that gear bag and that odor will about make ya pass out or puke. Mercy that smell was some kind a bad.
Robbie-O was cheap. There’s no doubt about that. Anymore when he gets out on the ice, it’s usually when we’re using him as a substitute for somebody that didn’t show up but had already paid for the season. It’s completely illegal according to league rules but none of the other teams knew who he was. Shit the nearest team that we play against has their home ice about thirty-seven miles off to the northeast. And, well, the local ref’s if they saw him suited up they’d mention it to us real casual like and we’d buy them a beer or two later. Like I said earlier – lately he’s never wearin a jersey with his name on the back.
One of the things sad about Robbie-O is that quite often he runs a length of bad luck with him. I member a time back a few years ago when he had a fairly decent job running a grain truck from western North Dakota down to General Mills in the Cities. Seems as though he had the job for about six months or so. He was able to pay off some bills at the grocery, etc, and was seeming to get back on his feet somewhat. He had been needing some new rubber for the Ford so he got himself a new set of highway/camper rated treads all around. For a guy like Robbie-O this was a big deal. Ehh?
It wasn’t but about a week later when he was playin some $5 dollar Friday night pickup that some punk kid or vandalous shit head decided to ice pick the tires of about seven or eight cars in the parking lot. Yup, Robbie-O’s new ones got stabbed each and every one. Right in the damn side wall! Ya couldn’t patch’em or plug em, which Robbie-O knew how to do, but ya had to put tubes in em. Being that they were new tires, this time he wasn’t going to use some salvage tubes so he spent another hundred and fifty or so on putting in the tubes and re-balancing, the whole kit and caboodle. Cheap pickup game – but damned expensive night for my bud!
Oh the tales I could tell. I’m telling ya it was good thing he had that camper cuz ya wouldn’t believe how many times he ran out of gas coming back from road trips just trying to get back to get cheap-ass gas at the Circle-K over in Whompton.
And just a couple of weeks ago before he entered his most recent period of unemployment, he went to an early afternoon free clinic at the rink. Cheap ass bastard can’t get enough ice time these days at $20 a session or $400 for a twenty game season plus playoffs if your team can get there. Whad’ya want ehh?
Anyway, it’s a free skate and he’s digin it. It was only supposed to last about an hour and about half way through it the shit came down. According to him, he’s skatin in from the left point, stick handling a bit, gets just about past the face off dot entering the slot when he leans into his left leg to take a wrister when he goes down. It’s a clinic, right? So nobody hit him, ehh? He just went down. Something in his left leg snapped. He figured that he had broken it, cuz every time he tried to get up, he fell right back down. Said he couldn’t feel his left leg at all.
He kept trying to get up but couldn’t manage it and ended up yelling at some kid’s dad. The dad and his son (said he might have been an older Midget) helped him off the ice and he used his stick as a crutch/cane to get to the dressin room. He said by then the pain had started to set in and it was real bitch to get his gear off. He said to me “Jasper, I’m telling ya, I got pretty light headed in that dressing room. And there wasn’t anybody in there with me. Kinda scared me that I might just pass my ass out.”
He broke out in a sweat and sat there for a bit and then hobbled out of the dressin room using his stick as a crutch again. Told me that he felt purty embarrassed but he had to ask some kid to carry his gear bag out to the truck. Got it all in the truck and himself too. Damn good thing that old Ford is an automatic. He managed to drive himself over to the clinic in pain for sure and worrying that they’d have to operate or put him in a half-body cast cuz he figured that it was his hip that was busted. Shit for howdy if the medical folks ended up telling him that he hadn’t broke anything but probably had a deep muscle or soft tissue tear. Maybe pinched his sciatic nerve real good which was why he couldn’t feel his left leg.
Anyway when I saw him yesterday he told me that his left leg had been bruised from his hind cheek down to his ankle. And that that dabgone ”free skate” had cost him over $250 for the clinic and the pain pill prescriptions.
That’s his luck, Robbie-O, the cheap skate.
He’s still my bud. He’s still walking with wood – though a little painfully right now.
Shit, you guys, I hope that this stuff is funny. Nobody ever leaves a comment so I don’t know if any of ya are even reading this happy horse shit that I write.
Dudes and dudettes – I’ve got an ego off the ice too. Let me know how I’m doing. Ehh? If ya are afraid to comment here then send an email to me through my alter-ego at hoduhn@sbcglobal.net.
This week’s story is about a fairly good buddy that I’ve had for more years then I can remember. Actually I can remember but it doesn’t add a damn bit of interest to the story. He’s a hard working sob but is temporarily unemployed, so he’s been on my mind a bit these days while I’ve been trying to find something for him to do.
I’ve always called him Robbie-O, of Irish blood, his nickname fits him well. He hasn’t always lived up here in the back woods. Trying the city every now and then as he’d hear about some fantastic job and move away for a while pursuing his dreams only to come up short in the end. Living in the camper of his old Ford pickup he’d get rousted regularly for parking overnight in front of someone’s home or in the parking lot of some business in town. Yup, he’s been sort of a gypsy I guess since we’ve been friends. But he’s good folks, guys. I mean, in my opinion, Robbie-O walks with wood.
Never having a lot of money for the finer thinks in life, he’s had to improvise quite a bit to get by. The camper has been his home more often then not and that suits everybody ok here in the backwoods. I’ve been successful myself most of the time and my property and my cabin are what I have to show for that. Robbie-O is welcome over here just about all the time. He won’t take advantage of me though, cuz that’s just not his nature. I’ve never known him to burden himself for too long on anybody else either.
Dabnabit if he isn’t a cheap skate though. He keeps that old truck running by not even hitting up Jakes Salvage Yard. He must know where every damn similarly modeled Ford has been dispatched to the north forty and hits on those derelicts, with the owner’s permission of course, to get replacement parts. Shit what else? His hockey gear is always used stuff, or least it always looks like someone else musta discarded it. Its all held together with duct tape, shoe-goo, or some other fandangled method of restoration. Since we played Batams together I don’t think I can recall him wearing a jersey that had his own name on the back.
Heck, I even remember several different times, when I knew that he had a decent job and health insurance, that after taking a high stick or a puck in the face that he wouldn’t go down to the clinic for stitches. Damned if he wouldn’t sew himself back up. Guys, I’m telling ya I could never do that. Ehh?
He’d snag tape balls out of the trash can for reuse and always snagged up broken sticks for repair. I guess he’s got fiberglassin down to a fine art. He loves his hockey just as much as you and I do.
His ma and pa are still kickin up dirt and surviving on a railroad pension. Seems as if I hadn’t heard that his pa coulda gone pro right from Juniors ‘cept that he fell in love with the trains that used to run the team to distant destinations and joined the SOO line the summer before his last year of playing. They let him continue playing that following winter but when the draft came up he turned down offers that would have sent him down to Greensboro or some such place to play his first year. The rails were where he wanted to be. So be it, ehh?
His ma, ya’d think she was mainly Italian instead of Irish the way she liked to cook. She wasn’t always fixin meat and potatoes like the rest of was eatin. She be fixin skeaty and meat balls or ravioli or some such other spiced up shit. I can always tell when Robbie-O’s been home for dinner, cuz once he’d start sweatin out there on the ice, he’d just reek as that garlic would start squeezing outta his pores. Kinda embedded itself in his gear too. Though I really like the guy, ya don’t want to sit next to him in the dressin room. He’ll open up that gear bag and that odor will about make ya pass out or puke. Mercy that smell was some kind a bad.
Robbie-O was cheap. There’s no doubt about that. Anymore when he gets out on the ice, it’s usually when we’re using him as a substitute for somebody that didn’t show up but had already paid for the season. It’s completely illegal according to league rules but none of the other teams knew who he was. Shit the nearest team that we play against has their home ice about thirty-seven miles off to the northeast. And, well, the local ref’s if they saw him suited up they’d mention it to us real casual like and we’d buy them a beer or two later. Like I said earlier – lately he’s never wearin a jersey with his name on the back.
One of the things sad about Robbie-O is that quite often he runs a length of bad luck with him. I member a time back a few years ago when he had a fairly decent job running a grain truck from western North Dakota down to General Mills in the Cities. Seems as though he had the job for about six months or so. He was able to pay off some bills at the grocery, etc, and was seeming to get back on his feet somewhat. He had been needing some new rubber for the Ford so he got himself a new set of highway/camper rated treads all around. For a guy like Robbie-O this was a big deal. Ehh?
It wasn’t but about a week later when he was playin some $5 dollar Friday night pickup that some punk kid or vandalous shit head decided to ice pick the tires of about seven or eight cars in the parking lot. Yup, Robbie-O’s new ones got stabbed each and every one. Right in the damn side wall! Ya couldn’t patch’em or plug em, which Robbie-O knew how to do, but ya had to put tubes in em. Being that they were new tires, this time he wasn’t going to use some salvage tubes so he spent another hundred and fifty or so on putting in the tubes and re-balancing, the whole kit and caboodle. Cheap pickup game – but damned expensive night for my bud!
Oh the tales I could tell. I’m telling ya it was good thing he had that camper cuz ya wouldn’t believe how many times he ran out of gas coming back from road trips just trying to get back to get cheap-ass gas at the Circle-K over in Whompton.
And just a couple of weeks ago before he entered his most recent period of unemployment, he went to an early afternoon free clinic at the rink. Cheap ass bastard can’t get enough ice time these days at $20 a session or $400 for a twenty game season plus playoffs if your team can get there. Whad’ya want ehh?
Anyway, it’s a free skate and he’s digin it. It was only supposed to last about an hour and about half way through it the shit came down. According to him, he’s skatin in from the left point, stick handling a bit, gets just about past the face off dot entering the slot when he leans into his left leg to take a wrister when he goes down. It’s a clinic, right? So nobody hit him, ehh? He just went down. Something in his left leg snapped. He figured that he had broken it, cuz every time he tried to get up, he fell right back down. Said he couldn’t feel his left leg at all.
He kept trying to get up but couldn’t manage it and ended up yelling at some kid’s dad. The dad and his son (said he might have been an older Midget) helped him off the ice and he used his stick as a crutch/cane to get to the dressin room. He said by then the pain had started to set in and it was real bitch to get his gear off. He said to me “Jasper, I’m telling ya, I got pretty light headed in that dressing room. And there wasn’t anybody in there with me. Kinda scared me that I might just pass my ass out.”
He broke out in a sweat and sat there for a bit and then hobbled out of the dressin room using his stick as a crutch again. Told me that he felt purty embarrassed but he had to ask some kid to carry his gear bag out to the truck. Got it all in the truck and himself too. Damn good thing that old Ford is an automatic. He managed to drive himself over to the clinic in pain for sure and worrying that they’d have to operate or put him in a half-body cast cuz he figured that it was his hip that was busted. Shit for howdy if the medical folks ended up telling him that he hadn’t broke anything but probably had a deep muscle or soft tissue tear. Maybe pinched his sciatic nerve real good which was why he couldn’t feel his left leg.
Anyway when I saw him yesterday he told me that his left leg had been bruised from his hind cheek down to his ankle. And that that dabgone ”free skate” had cost him over $250 for the clinic and the pain pill prescriptions.
That’s his luck, Robbie-O, the cheap skate.
He’s still my bud. He’s still walking with wood – though a little painfully right now.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Flows-A-Lot
Yup, I’ve been watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs now for a week or so and we’ve got most of the first round wound up. Detroit and Calgary are yet to play this evening and I’m going to cheer for the Wings. Why? Well, mainly for Chelios – he’s one of my heroes! The dude is forty-five, I think. That’s really saying something for an athlete to be performing at this level at his age. Dab-nab-it! He even got a goal yesterday. He’s been walking with wood for a heck of a long time!
So have you guys been watching the games too? Whad’ya think of the commercials? I still want the Dodge Caliber commercial back with the red headed fairy. Some hotty, ehh?
I’m thinking of one of the more recent commercials that shows some older guys riding bikes and canoeing together. In one of the scenes you see one of the guys coming out of a public restroom. Do you know which ad I’m thinking of?
They’re advertising a medication for men and their little walnut sized pumping gland – the prostate. They’re talking about the Big C and inflammation and slow flow, etc etc………. They don’t bother to mention the old latex gloved finger and KY’d up the old poop shoot to check on things. But brothers, when ya get older its something you can look forward to. Yeah laugh out loud on that one kids.
I’ve got a medication that I take that I’ll call Flows-A-Lot. Ladies – you know which one I mean – it keeps ya from getting bloated. These little pills make ya piss like a race horse. I take it, cuz I’m an old fart, to keep my blood pressure down. The theory of it is that if you don’t have a lot a fluid in your system then you won’t have as high of blood pressure if you did.
But Flows-A-Lot is a hockey player’s calamity and I only take it in the morning.
Here’s my pre-game ritual:
1) Come home from work and eat a light dinner
2) Take a pre-game nap
3) Get up from nap and take a piss and maybe a dump
4) Take two aspirins preparing for the later pain I know I’m going to have
5) Pack my gear bag and grab my sticks
6) Drive to the rink
7) Throw gear in the dressing room
8) Get a coffee, double sugar, from the vending machine to pump me up
9) Drink coffee along the boards while watching some of the game that proceeds mine
10) Back to the dressing room
11) Take a piss
12) Start taking off street clothes and suiting up
a. Socks
b. Jock strap
c. Long johns
d. Elastic stretch shorts
e. T-shirt
f. Cup
g. Shin pads
h. Garter belt and uniform socks
i. Breezers
j. Skates
k. Tape-up shin pads
l. Shoulder pads
m. Elbow Pads
n. Jersey
o. Helmet
13) Get out to the bench and wait for the Zamboni to get done
14) Stretch
15) Get on the ice and warm up
16) Go take a piss again before the game starts – damn that coffee and the Flows-A-Lot
So what/s wrong with this picture, ehh?
Well, if ya haven’t been there then let me explain it to you. Flows-A-Lot makes ya damn uncomfortable if ya don’t relieve yourself when its time to go. And if ya didn’t catch on from the list above, there are a total of seven different things in the way of whipping your wang-dang-doodle out to get the job done.
Here’s what ya gotta do to get there:
1) Lift your jersey outta the way
2) Push your breezers down
3) Undo the Velcro on your garter belt
4) Push the cup down
5) Push the elastic shorts outta the way
6) The same with the long johns
7) And the same with the jock strap
8) Grab your wang-dang-doodle and stretch if for all its worth or ya gonna piss all over everything
It’s a real mess. I’m telling you guys it ain’t no fun getting old and having to take Flows-A-Lot. Sure hope Chelios hasn’t had to start taking this shit yet.
Skate hard!
Keep walking with wood ………….
So have you guys been watching the games too? Whad’ya think of the commercials? I still want the Dodge Caliber commercial back with the red headed fairy. Some hotty, ehh?
I’m thinking of one of the more recent commercials that shows some older guys riding bikes and canoeing together. In one of the scenes you see one of the guys coming out of a public restroom. Do you know which ad I’m thinking of?
They’re advertising a medication for men and their little walnut sized pumping gland – the prostate. They’re talking about the Big C and inflammation and slow flow, etc etc………. They don’t bother to mention the old latex gloved finger and KY’d up the old poop shoot to check on things. But brothers, when ya get older its something you can look forward to. Yeah laugh out loud on that one kids.
I’ve got a medication that I take that I’ll call Flows-A-Lot. Ladies – you know which one I mean – it keeps ya from getting bloated. These little pills make ya piss like a race horse. I take it, cuz I’m an old fart, to keep my blood pressure down. The theory of it is that if you don’t have a lot a fluid in your system then you won’t have as high of blood pressure if you did.
But Flows-A-Lot is a hockey player’s calamity and I only take it in the morning.
Here’s my pre-game ritual:
1) Come home from work and eat a light dinner
2) Take a pre-game nap
3) Get up from nap and take a piss and maybe a dump
4) Take two aspirins preparing for the later pain I know I’m going to have
5) Pack my gear bag and grab my sticks
6) Drive to the rink
7) Throw gear in the dressing room
8) Get a coffee, double sugar, from the vending machine to pump me up
9) Drink coffee along the boards while watching some of the game that proceeds mine
10) Back to the dressing room
11) Take a piss
12) Start taking off street clothes and suiting up
a. Socks
b. Jock strap
c. Long johns
d. Elastic stretch shorts
e. T-shirt
f. Cup
g. Shin pads
h. Garter belt and uniform socks
i. Breezers
j. Skates
k. Tape-up shin pads
l. Shoulder pads
m. Elbow Pads
n. Jersey
o. Helmet
13) Get out to the bench and wait for the Zamboni to get done
14) Stretch
15) Get on the ice and warm up
16) Go take a piss again before the game starts – damn that coffee and the Flows-A-Lot
So what/s wrong with this picture, ehh?
Well, if ya haven’t been there then let me explain it to you. Flows-A-Lot makes ya damn uncomfortable if ya don’t relieve yourself when its time to go. And if ya didn’t catch on from the list above, there are a total of seven different things in the way of whipping your wang-dang-doodle out to get the job done.
Here’s what ya gotta do to get there:
1) Lift your jersey outta the way
2) Push your breezers down
3) Undo the Velcro on your garter belt
4) Push the cup down
5) Push the elastic shorts outta the way
6) The same with the long johns
7) And the same with the jock strap
8) Grab your wang-dang-doodle and stretch if for all its worth or ya gonna piss all over everything
It’s a real mess. I’m telling you guys it ain’t no fun getting old and having to take Flows-A-Lot. Sure hope Chelios hasn’t had to start taking this shit yet.
Skate hard!
Keep walking with wood ………….
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Wood to Smitty
We had some days of Indian summer and then winter came back with a vengeance. We had an ice storm first that took down the phone and power lines. I didn’t get any of that restored until just last night. So those of you who live and breath by my blog’s news and humor, I do wish to apologize and hope that this one’s a real good dinger for you.
I was snow bound for a couple of days but after that the roads got opened up and I was heading into town and catching some good hockey at my favorite watering hole. I did get to see the NCAA Division I final of the marketable Frozen Four series. Some really good hockey there. And I got to see some of the last games of the season that the NHL kicked out for us. Now were into Stanley Cup Playoffs which can only mean that I’ve got only about two more months to watch the sport that pumps my blood. Hang in with me folks – I can’t say that I have any favorites this year and as typical of my behavior I’ll be rooting for the underdogs in any game that I get to watch. I believe that a games going to be on in about an hour so I’ll see how much of this I can knock off before then.
If you read my blog on a regular basis you’ll notice this time that my north woods jargon is not being used. It may slip through if I don’t catch myself today but because this is such a somber work that I figured that I owed Smitty that much.
Being snow bound these past couple of weeks brought back the joyous memories of a time many years back where the snow and the cold and the woods had also held my vital spirit at bay.
Back in the ‘80’s I had a job that had me traveling a bit between here and there down in the lower forty-eight. Texas seemed to be one the predominate states that provided me with a survivable income. If it wasn’t San Antonio then it was Arlington or Houston where I set my bags down. The job was good but days out left me a bit drawn and in need of sober activities or I couldn’t face the next morning.
I had spent many a day in small communities doing my business and had discovered that the local Walmart was always a good place to meet and talk with the local folks. You guys know that I’m no uppity sort of guy so this level of socialization fit me just fine. Most of my heavy beer drinking and carrying-on happened when I was home and after a good skate. The metropolitan areas of Texas had their Walmarts too and my type of folks hanging around at them.
During one trip to the Houston area I hit up a short but good conversation with a sweet young thing working the cash register. Her name was Vickie and she was getting off work in about a half hour. I asked her if she’d join me for dinner at a barbeque joint up the street. She was a bit nervous I could tell and I just let it go when she said that she wasn’t sure if she’d be able too.
I took my purchase of a horror paperback back to my hotel and headed over to the BBQ joint figuring that she wouldn’t show but hanging on to the hope of her use of the word “able”.
I was about half done with my first fill-up of sweet tea when she showed up to my anxious surprise. She didn’t want to eat anything but would have some sweet tea too. We chatted for about an hour and I found out that she was only seventeen and dating a guy named Billy, a goalie for one of the New York teams. It seemed as though she was pretty much hung up on Billy but was seeking some fatherly advice from me because he was about my age. She had met him in the same sort of way that we met each other, but it had been in the off season when Billy was in town doing some fishing. Being the benevolent character that I am I was glad to counsel her. I don’t know why but the young ladies have always opened up this way with me. It must be my bear-huggish physique or something of that nature.
We chatted a few more times together during my stay and exchanged addresses and phone numbers. She knew that I played hockey too and said that someday she wanted to see me play. I’d looked her up every time that my travels brought me back to the Houston area. She was gorgeous but so young and wanted my great hug at the end of every visit together.
Vickie ended up marrying Billy and he gave her a son, Daniel Wayner Smith. Their marriage didn’t last too long though and she got pretty messed up over the crumbled matrimony. Our letters and phone calls were now more frequent and were much longer in length then earlier.
Billy was gone (the jerk) and she needed to support herself and little Daniel. The pregnancy had changed her body and she’d begun partying heavy. Her breasts had remained huge from the pregnancy and she decided that the only way she could make ends meet was to use what she’d got and started working at Little Ricky’s Cabaret. She tried using stage names of Robin the Hood and Nikita Kay but finally settled on Anna “Nickel”. My own thoughts now reminiscing: “Silver Dollar” would have been more appropriate.
It wasn’t until much later that I would realize the road that this divergence would be taking her and to her eventual demise and my pain. But still being quite young at heart at the time I too also enjoyed and partook of the lifestyle she had now taken on. But she still has such down times and I had the opportunity to lift her back up on occasion. One such time was that that is the one of this story.
She had finally decided that she had to see me play so I booked her a round trip ticket for a two game weekend. She got her mom to watch little Daniel and I picked her up at our local airport on Friday afternoon with hugs and kisses. We drove back to my cabin in the woods and I got her settled in. We were playing the Skukumchuck Selects at 7:30 so we didn’t stay long before heading off to the arena.
The Selects were a pretty fair team and gave us a good game. I checked for her in the stands at each time my defensive pairing went out on the ice and was pleased to see that she was both watching the game and seemed also to be fitting in good with the other gals. We won when Jingle’s tipped in a cross ice pass from Bronzy with a little over a minute left to play. Those brothers of mine have always played so well. I can’t believe how much I’ve enjoyed the fact that they decided to play hockey instead of becoming professional wrestlers or tennis players as part of their athletic skills.
Terry’s Tavern was cooking after the game and I can’t believe how stinking drunk Vickie and I each got. It was a wonder that we got back to the cabin without crashing somewhere along the way. She rode all the way back in my pickup snuggled up against me. Good wood was on my mind and she wasn’t acting in any way negative to the notion.
Yup, though strong desires and too much alcohol don’t allow fruition sometimes we crashed that night without any action only to wake up to the start of a hell of a snow storm. A real doozie of a storm had swooped in down from the Bering Sea and by the afternoon was just pounding us. By 6:00 pm when I like to leave for my games we had taken over three feet of fresh snow. With the wind blowing the way it was I knew that some of the low areas from the cabin to the main road would be completely drifted in maybe seven or eight feet or more. I figured that the game would be called because no one would be able to get out even in town and I wasn’t too worried because I kept the cabin well stocked and had plenty of fire wood.
Vickie was a bit worried though not being from the North Woods. So I did my best to alleviate her fears not realizing that in doing so I was also rousing her libido. Need I say more then for the next few days being snowed into my cabin we shared some of the greatest love making and pure sex of my life. She revealed to me her stage presence “Anna Nickel Smith” and just drove me nuts. We enjoyed each other for those few days and we joked with each other so much. She kept whispering in my ear “Come on Jaspy give some wood to Smitty,” taking on her own secret hockey player nickname with me.
Oh those days were wonderful! After one really tender moment she grabbed an empty Labatt bottle and spit some backwash into it, sort of recapped it and quickly set the bottle outside where it was about sixty below. She said that she wanted to preserve it for maybe future use. I laughed and said “Vicki, you are so nuts!”
She said, “Jasper, you have so many great qualities but I’m not ready for another baby. You’re getting old and when I’m ready again you might not have it. I’m going to keep that on ice until then and when I’m ready again for another child I want it to be yours.”
I just laughed it off but when she was finally able to head back to Texas she repacked that bottle in dry ice and had UPS send it to her gynecologist after a lengthy phone call. He said that he’d store it in a sperm bank for her.
We stayed in touch over the years but her lifestyle continued to change as she got famous. She ended up marrying some really rich guy that was way older then me. He died several years back and Vickie’s been fighting with his family over the inheritance. She called me once and said that it was time. My seed in cold storage was still viable and she was going to give it a try. I was pretty worried because she had now gotten way overweight and was doing some awful drugs due to the stress in her current life. She got way strung out and then wasn’t talking with me anymore. But she did have a baby girl; Danielynn she named her. I thought well maybe she is mine. Maybe it worked. I figured that I could be a good dad this late in my life; as opposed to earlier when I too was a party animal. She wouldn’t talk to me, she wouldn’t substantiate that I was Danielynn’s daddy. I kind of let it go, a little hurt but our flame I realized had burned out a long time ago. Never having a lot of money myself, I never considered trying to prove paternity.
Daniel Wayner Smith, her son died at twenty while in the Bahamas. Vickie completely fell apart after that and died of an overdose within the same year. She had become so famous and so rich that her death filled many a news report. Danielynn’s paternity became big news too because of this. I guess the courts finally ordered identification of her father and I became awfully anxious folks, let me tell you. Ends up it wasn’t me. I guess my little soldiers lost their oompf over the years.
Yeah life’s a bitch and then you die.
Sad for Vickie … sad for Anna Nickel Smith … sad for Smitty.
Sad for Daniel Wayner and Danielynn her kids.
Sad for Jasper Wheats for a short little bit.
But I’m still walking with wood. No doubt about that folks – no sirree! Ehh?
I was snow bound for a couple of days but after that the roads got opened up and I was heading into town and catching some good hockey at my favorite watering hole. I did get to see the NCAA Division I final of the marketable Frozen Four series. Some really good hockey there. And I got to see some of the last games of the season that the NHL kicked out for us. Now were into Stanley Cup Playoffs which can only mean that I’ve got only about two more months to watch the sport that pumps my blood. Hang in with me folks – I can’t say that I have any favorites this year and as typical of my behavior I’ll be rooting for the underdogs in any game that I get to watch. I believe that a games going to be on in about an hour so I’ll see how much of this I can knock off before then.
If you read my blog on a regular basis you’ll notice this time that my north woods jargon is not being used. It may slip through if I don’t catch myself today but because this is such a somber work that I figured that I owed Smitty that much.
Being snow bound these past couple of weeks brought back the joyous memories of a time many years back where the snow and the cold and the woods had also held my vital spirit at bay.
Back in the ‘80’s I had a job that had me traveling a bit between here and there down in the lower forty-eight. Texas seemed to be one the predominate states that provided me with a survivable income. If it wasn’t San Antonio then it was Arlington or Houston where I set my bags down. The job was good but days out left me a bit drawn and in need of sober activities or I couldn’t face the next morning.
I had spent many a day in small communities doing my business and had discovered that the local Walmart was always a good place to meet and talk with the local folks. You guys know that I’m no uppity sort of guy so this level of socialization fit me just fine. Most of my heavy beer drinking and carrying-on happened when I was home and after a good skate. The metropolitan areas of Texas had their Walmarts too and my type of folks hanging around at them.
During one trip to the Houston area I hit up a short but good conversation with a sweet young thing working the cash register. Her name was Vickie and she was getting off work in about a half hour. I asked her if she’d join me for dinner at a barbeque joint up the street. She was a bit nervous I could tell and I just let it go when she said that she wasn’t sure if she’d be able too.
I took my purchase of a horror paperback back to my hotel and headed over to the BBQ joint figuring that she wouldn’t show but hanging on to the hope of her use of the word “able”.
I was about half done with my first fill-up of sweet tea when she showed up to my anxious surprise. She didn’t want to eat anything but would have some sweet tea too. We chatted for about an hour and I found out that she was only seventeen and dating a guy named Billy, a goalie for one of the New York teams. It seemed as though she was pretty much hung up on Billy but was seeking some fatherly advice from me because he was about my age. She had met him in the same sort of way that we met each other, but it had been in the off season when Billy was in town doing some fishing. Being the benevolent character that I am I was glad to counsel her. I don’t know why but the young ladies have always opened up this way with me. It must be my bear-huggish physique or something of that nature.
We chatted a few more times together during my stay and exchanged addresses and phone numbers. She knew that I played hockey too and said that someday she wanted to see me play. I’d looked her up every time that my travels brought me back to the Houston area. She was gorgeous but so young and wanted my great hug at the end of every visit together.
Vickie ended up marrying Billy and he gave her a son, Daniel Wayner Smith. Their marriage didn’t last too long though and she got pretty messed up over the crumbled matrimony. Our letters and phone calls were now more frequent and were much longer in length then earlier.
Billy was gone (the jerk) and she needed to support herself and little Daniel. The pregnancy had changed her body and she’d begun partying heavy. Her breasts had remained huge from the pregnancy and she decided that the only way she could make ends meet was to use what she’d got and started working at Little Ricky’s Cabaret. She tried using stage names of Robin the Hood and Nikita Kay but finally settled on Anna “Nickel”. My own thoughts now reminiscing: “Silver Dollar” would have been more appropriate.
It wasn’t until much later that I would realize the road that this divergence would be taking her and to her eventual demise and my pain. But still being quite young at heart at the time I too also enjoyed and partook of the lifestyle she had now taken on. But she still has such down times and I had the opportunity to lift her back up on occasion. One such time was that that is the one of this story.
She had finally decided that she had to see me play so I booked her a round trip ticket for a two game weekend. She got her mom to watch little Daniel and I picked her up at our local airport on Friday afternoon with hugs and kisses. We drove back to my cabin in the woods and I got her settled in. We were playing the Skukumchuck Selects at 7:30 so we didn’t stay long before heading off to the arena.
The Selects were a pretty fair team and gave us a good game. I checked for her in the stands at each time my defensive pairing went out on the ice and was pleased to see that she was both watching the game and seemed also to be fitting in good with the other gals. We won when Jingle’s tipped in a cross ice pass from Bronzy with a little over a minute left to play. Those brothers of mine have always played so well. I can’t believe how much I’ve enjoyed the fact that they decided to play hockey instead of becoming professional wrestlers or tennis players as part of their athletic skills.
Terry’s Tavern was cooking after the game and I can’t believe how stinking drunk Vickie and I each got. It was a wonder that we got back to the cabin without crashing somewhere along the way. She rode all the way back in my pickup snuggled up against me. Good wood was on my mind and she wasn’t acting in any way negative to the notion.
Yup, though strong desires and too much alcohol don’t allow fruition sometimes we crashed that night without any action only to wake up to the start of a hell of a snow storm. A real doozie of a storm had swooped in down from the Bering Sea and by the afternoon was just pounding us. By 6:00 pm when I like to leave for my games we had taken over three feet of fresh snow. With the wind blowing the way it was I knew that some of the low areas from the cabin to the main road would be completely drifted in maybe seven or eight feet or more. I figured that the game would be called because no one would be able to get out even in town and I wasn’t too worried because I kept the cabin well stocked and had plenty of fire wood.
Vickie was a bit worried though not being from the North Woods. So I did my best to alleviate her fears not realizing that in doing so I was also rousing her libido. Need I say more then for the next few days being snowed into my cabin we shared some of the greatest love making and pure sex of my life. She revealed to me her stage presence “Anna Nickel Smith” and just drove me nuts. We enjoyed each other for those few days and we joked with each other so much. She kept whispering in my ear “Come on Jaspy give some wood to Smitty,” taking on her own secret hockey player nickname with me.
Oh those days were wonderful! After one really tender moment she grabbed an empty Labatt bottle and spit some backwash into it, sort of recapped it and quickly set the bottle outside where it was about sixty below. She said that she wanted to preserve it for maybe future use. I laughed and said “Vicki, you are so nuts!”
She said, “Jasper, you have so many great qualities but I’m not ready for another baby. You’re getting old and when I’m ready again you might not have it. I’m going to keep that on ice until then and when I’m ready again for another child I want it to be yours.”
I just laughed it off but when she was finally able to head back to Texas she repacked that bottle in dry ice and had UPS send it to her gynecologist after a lengthy phone call. He said that he’d store it in a sperm bank for her.
We stayed in touch over the years but her lifestyle continued to change as she got famous. She ended up marrying some really rich guy that was way older then me. He died several years back and Vickie’s been fighting with his family over the inheritance. She called me once and said that it was time. My seed in cold storage was still viable and she was going to give it a try. I was pretty worried because she had now gotten way overweight and was doing some awful drugs due to the stress in her current life. She got way strung out and then wasn’t talking with me anymore. But she did have a baby girl; Danielynn she named her. I thought well maybe she is mine. Maybe it worked. I figured that I could be a good dad this late in my life; as opposed to earlier when I too was a party animal. She wouldn’t talk to me, she wouldn’t substantiate that I was Danielynn’s daddy. I kind of let it go, a little hurt but our flame I realized had burned out a long time ago. Never having a lot of money myself, I never considered trying to prove paternity.
Daniel Wayner Smith, her son died at twenty while in the Bahamas. Vickie completely fell apart after that and died of an overdose within the same year. She had become so famous and so rich that her death filled many a news report. Danielynn’s paternity became big news too because of this. I guess the courts finally ordered identification of her father and I became awfully anxious folks, let me tell you. Ends up it wasn’t me. I guess my little soldiers lost their oompf over the years.
Yeah life’s a bitch and then you die.
Sad for Vickie … sad for Anna Nickel Smith … sad for Smitty.
Sad for Daniel Wayner and Danielynn her kids.
Sad for Jasper Wheats for a short little bit.
But I’m still walking with wood. No doubt about that folks – no sirree! Ehh?
Saturday, March 24, 2007
NCAA 2007
Yah, so ya been watching the NCAA tournaments on TV, eh? Yah, me too. I gotta thank them guys over at Comcast Sportnet for putting some hockey playoffs on my TV. I’m just so sick of all this NCAA basketball shit. I don’t think that none of them boys is from the back woods if ya know what I mean. That B-ball crap is just hoggin up all my TV time in the evenins after I come home from a hard days work and can’t even watch none of my more favorite shows. It just really pisses me off. So here it is Saturday again and damn if there ain’t some good stuff on.
If ya get right down to it I guess I’m just some sorta cheap bastard too tight to buy the NHL and college sports channels from my local cable provider. So I suffer and I complain like some sorta sorry ass. Well big deal, I gotta right to vent a bit once in a while. I mean I’m not some sort prissy candy-ass. I get the elbows and stick up going into the corners and will sneak a hook when I can.
I slept in a bit this morning; but only cuz I woke up around 3:30 with this f’n neck ache and took some non-prescrip pain killers and read some Dean Koontz for a bit ‘fore it kicked in and went back to sleep. Only to wake up finally from a stinkin dream where I’m getting eighty-sixed from my job. Now that would really suck right now. There ain’t much other work here in the back woods and I’d probably have ta just hang out through the summer being a bum like a player on a team that didn’t make the Stanley Cup playoffs. Rich, ehh?
Had my bacon and eggs and went for my twenty mile bike ride. You sissies that ride in the gym. Checked out some wild turkeys and mule deer along the way. Good stuff! Walking with wood. Came back home showered and put some fresh duds on. Shorts and my Bragg Crane t-shirt. Used to use Bragg to do some a my work. They turned me on to some Ducks tickets once in a while. Four seats to the right of the net. They were positioned just above the glass and you really couldn’t look down at your nachos if play was coming your way cuz ya could loose your teeth or take home some souvenir stitches if ya weren’t careful. Now they got them fool nets up and no chance of free souvies. So this t-shirt – its maroon/burgundy with gold lettering on the front and a silk-screened crane thingy on the back. Ya know kinda like the Golden Gopher’s colors.
The first game of the day is Minnesota versus Air Force. Though I got ties to both St. Paul and Colorado Springs, I guess cuz a the t-shirt I’m going to root for Minnesota.
When I was a kid I used to climb around the capital building in St. Paul with a school buddy, Aron Yngve. His dad was a state senator or something like that and we used to sneak into closets, go out on the roof, and do other fool things that would get ya put away now days. Ehh, and I’ve been over to the Como Zoo in St. Paul a few times too. Any of ya ever been there? I’ll tell ya don’t go in that blasted glass plant place there on a hot summer day – it’ll cook ya. What, else? Oh yeah --- back in the day spent shit load of evenings chuggin sixty cent pitchers and eating pickled eggs at Culla’s that was over off of Riverside Drive by the University.
Later on after I had to earn a living I did some work on building Falcon Air Force Base just outside of Colorado Springs. I guess they named the base after the Academy’s teams’ name. While I was in town I visited the old Broadmoor Ice Skating Rink. Shit that place probably isn’t even around anymore. I drove out to the entrance to the academy once also. Nice town, Colorado Springs.
I don’t know why I’m thinkin about this right now, but did I ever tell you guys that my right leg is about an inch and half shorter then my left one? Yup. I think it was polio or something when I came outa the womb or shortly there after. It was going around back in the day. The doc’s tried to talk my folks into making me wear a brace and lifts when I was a kid. Shit it was far enough away to see a doc anyway and my old man says to em “He can live with it. Life ain’t easy from the get, ehh? Dis just might gib em some advantage later on.” Later when I started skatin he tells me “Jasper, ya gotta skate sorta squatty wit yore damn legs spread apart. Can’t be lookin all unstable out there. Ehh?” Yeah that was the old man – always riding my ass. Having this shorter leg gave me a hell of an advantage with my backhand being that I shoot righty, I could really lean in from my short side.
Ehh, back to the playoffs. Now I ain’t no sports writer that tells ya a tale that so twisted up ya can’t tell who scored first or what the final was. I like to tell it straight – there ain’t no bullshit comin from my piehole. I gotta tell ya for most a the game I felt like the Falcons were out-playin the Golden Gophers (I ain’t never seen no gopher that was golden – what the heck were they thinking, ehh?). It started with the Falcons first goal about ten minutes into the first period. Hanjer, freshman from Las Vegas, put a snappy little wrister in from the left slot. It was sweet goal for a kid that got his start playin roller hockey.
Minnesota looked good on a power play a short time later but couldn’t put it in the net. Then there was some real good bit of end to end action where the Falcons almost score again.
Jay Barriball, a freshman for the Gophers from Prior Lake, Minnesota scores in close from the left side on a slapshot with eleven minutes left in the second period. That was his nineteenth of the year. Pretty damn good for a freshman, ehh? With a little over a minute left in the period, the Air Force goes on a five on three power play. The crowd in Denver, being probably mostly locals, comes alive cheering on the Falcons. With less then thirty-seven seconds left, Andrew Ramsey, a senior from Noblesville, Indiana, scores from the right corner of the crease with Briggs, Minnesota’s goalie, giving him almost an open net. Funny thing guys, Briggs’ hometown is Colorado Springs. Ehh? Bet he had some family and fans there for the game.
The game goes into the third period with the Falcons still on the power play and nothing additional comes of it. But at about five minutes into the third. Bret Nylander, number 29, of Baudette, Minnesota, puts a wrap around in for the Falcons. They’re up three to one now for those a ya keepin score. Nylander’s goal reminded me of Alexander Frolov of my LA Kings – tits ehh, but not with Frolov’s reach!
About eight minutes left in the game Minnesota scores their second goal on a power play as number 29, Stoa from Bloomington, Minnesota, puts one in the five hole from just to the right side of the crease. A short time later Barriball almost ties it with his wrap around. This is some good stuff folks.
Minnesota finally ties it up when Johnson takes a monster slapper from the left point. Jim O’Brian of Maplewood, Minnesota tips it in with less then six minutes left.
Damn if my left foot ain’t itchin like shit right now. There’s a medical term for it but crap if I can think of it. It’ll come ta me, maybe. Ehh? It itches where my little toe is supposed to be. Yup, I lost that sucker back when I was in my twenties. I had gotten lucky and pulled a tag for a moose hunt. The unfortunate thing was I was a little short on cash. I’d been savin for some new boots when I got the draw so I had to pinch for the tag instead a the boots. My old boots didn’t look really, really bad so It was what the f—k. The only problem was that the last time I had worn these RedWings was giving an acid cleaning to old man Steenwyk’s cement driveway. The acid had dried into the stitching and I sure the shit didn’t realize it. By the time I was half into my hunt the stitching got wet and started falling apart. I came upon some fresh moose poop about then and wasn’t about to give up the hunt. The left boot fell apart the quickest and I didn’t have no duct tape to fix em. Awfully damn soon my toes started going numb, must a been only about ten below. I didn’t think it was too bad, I could handle the numbness – just like having your skates a bit too tight for too long. Anyhow I never got the moose, but the frost bite got my little toe. Sorta changed the way I skated after that, but all for the good.
Oh yeah, we was talking about the game. About a minute after tying the game, Mike Carman of Apple Valley, Minnesota finally put the Golden Gophers in the lead. The goal was contested but stood.
The Falcons were down and pulled their goalie with more then two minutes to play. Again I’m reminded of my Kings – back in the day when Andy Murray was coaching them and would pull the same stunt to try to come back at any cost. Unfortunately it didn’t help this time and the Falcons had to put him back in with thirty-nine seconds left cuz of a faceoff in their end.
So Minnesota with three straight unanswered goals beat the Air Force Academy four to three in Denver and will advance to the Frozen Four in St. Louis. The next game had the University Of Massachusetts Minute Men losing to the Maine Black Bears at Rochester, New York’s Blue Cross Arena. And Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish are losing right now to the Michigan State University Spartans while playing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I sure the shit don’t have the energy ta give ya the details on these games. Hope ya watched em. Ehh?
Really, really good stuff – this college hockey playoffs. Sure beats the shit out a basketball cuz winner’s or losers these boys are walking with wood.
If ya get right down to it I guess I’m just some sorta cheap bastard too tight to buy the NHL and college sports channels from my local cable provider. So I suffer and I complain like some sorta sorry ass. Well big deal, I gotta right to vent a bit once in a while. I mean I’m not some sort prissy candy-ass. I get the elbows and stick up going into the corners and will sneak a hook when I can.
I slept in a bit this morning; but only cuz I woke up around 3:30 with this f’n neck ache and took some non-prescrip pain killers and read some Dean Koontz for a bit ‘fore it kicked in and went back to sleep. Only to wake up finally from a stinkin dream where I’m getting eighty-sixed from my job. Now that would really suck right now. There ain’t much other work here in the back woods and I’d probably have ta just hang out through the summer being a bum like a player on a team that didn’t make the Stanley Cup playoffs. Rich, ehh?
Had my bacon and eggs and went for my twenty mile bike ride. You sissies that ride in the gym. Checked out some wild turkeys and mule deer along the way. Good stuff! Walking with wood. Came back home showered and put some fresh duds on. Shorts and my Bragg Crane t-shirt. Used to use Bragg to do some a my work. They turned me on to some Ducks tickets once in a while. Four seats to the right of the net. They were positioned just above the glass and you really couldn’t look down at your nachos if play was coming your way cuz ya could loose your teeth or take home some souvenir stitches if ya weren’t careful. Now they got them fool nets up and no chance of free souvies. So this t-shirt – its maroon/burgundy with gold lettering on the front and a silk-screened crane thingy on the back. Ya know kinda like the Golden Gopher’s colors.
The first game of the day is Minnesota versus Air Force. Though I got ties to both St. Paul and Colorado Springs, I guess cuz a the t-shirt I’m going to root for Minnesota.
When I was a kid I used to climb around the capital building in St. Paul with a school buddy, Aron Yngve. His dad was a state senator or something like that and we used to sneak into closets, go out on the roof, and do other fool things that would get ya put away now days. Ehh, and I’ve been over to the Como Zoo in St. Paul a few times too. Any of ya ever been there? I’ll tell ya don’t go in that blasted glass plant place there on a hot summer day – it’ll cook ya. What, else? Oh yeah --- back in the day spent shit load of evenings chuggin sixty cent pitchers and eating pickled eggs at Culla’s that was over off of Riverside Drive by the University.
Later on after I had to earn a living I did some work on building Falcon Air Force Base just outside of Colorado Springs. I guess they named the base after the Academy’s teams’ name. While I was in town I visited the old Broadmoor Ice Skating Rink. Shit that place probably isn’t even around anymore. I drove out to the entrance to the academy once also. Nice town, Colorado Springs.
I don’t know why I’m thinkin about this right now, but did I ever tell you guys that my right leg is about an inch and half shorter then my left one? Yup. I think it was polio or something when I came outa the womb or shortly there after. It was going around back in the day. The doc’s tried to talk my folks into making me wear a brace and lifts when I was a kid. Shit it was far enough away to see a doc anyway and my old man says to em “He can live with it. Life ain’t easy from the get, ehh? Dis just might gib em some advantage later on.” Later when I started skatin he tells me “Jasper, ya gotta skate sorta squatty wit yore damn legs spread apart. Can’t be lookin all unstable out there. Ehh?” Yeah that was the old man – always riding my ass. Having this shorter leg gave me a hell of an advantage with my backhand being that I shoot righty, I could really lean in from my short side.
Ehh, back to the playoffs. Now I ain’t no sports writer that tells ya a tale that so twisted up ya can’t tell who scored first or what the final was. I like to tell it straight – there ain’t no bullshit comin from my piehole. I gotta tell ya for most a the game I felt like the Falcons were out-playin the Golden Gophers (I ain’t never seen no gopher that was golden – what the heck were they thinking, ehh?). It started with the Falcons first goal about ten minutes into the first period. Hanjer, freshman from Las Vegas, put a snappy little wrister in from the left slot. It was sweet goal for a kid that got his start playin roller hockey.
Minnesota looked good on a power play a short time later but couldn’t put it in the net. Then there was some real good bit of end to end action where the Falcons almost score again.
Jay Barriball, a freshman for the Gophers from Prior Lake, Minnesota scores in close from the left side on a slapshot with eleven minutes left in the second period. That was his nineteenth of the year. Pretty damn good for a freshman, ehh? With a little over a minute left in the period, the Air Force goes on a five on three power play. The crowd in Denver, being probably mostly locals, comes alive cheering on the Falcons. With less then thirty-seven seconds left, Andrew Ramsey, a senior from Noblesville, Indiana, scores from the right corner of the crease with Briggs, Minnesota’s goalie, giving him almost an open net. Funny thing guys, Briggs’ hometown is Colorado Springs. Ehh? Bet he had some family and fans there for the game.
The game goes into the third period with the Falcons still on the power play and nothing additional comes of it. But at about five minutes into the third. Bret Nylander, number 29, of Baudette, Minnesota, puts a wrap around in for the Falcons. They’re up three to one now for those a ya keepin score. Nylander’s goal reminded me of Alexander Frolov of my LA Kings – tits ehh, but not with Frolov’s reach!
About eight minutes left in the game Minnesota scores their second goal on a power play as number 29, Stoa from Bloomington, Minnesota, puts one in the five hole from just to the right side of the crease. A short time later Barriball almost ties it with his wrap around. This is some good stuff folks.
Minnesota finally ties it up when Johnson takes a monster slapper from the left point. Jim O’Brian of Maplewood, Minnesota tips it in with less then six minutes left.
Damn if my left foot ain’t itchin like shit right now. There’s a medical term for it but crap if I can think of it. It’ll come ta me, maybe. Ehh? It itches where my little toe is supposed to be. Yup, I lost that sucker back when I was in my twenties. I had gotten lucky and pulled a tag for a moose hunt. The unfortunate thing was I was a little short on cash. I’d been savin for some new boots when I got the draw so I had to pinch for the tag instead a the boots. My old boots didn’t look really, really bad so It was what the f—k. The only problem was that the last time I had worn these RedWings was giving an acid cleaning to old man Steenwyk’s cement driveway. The acid had dried into the stitching and I sure the shit didn’t realize it. By the time I was half into my hunt the stitching got wet and started falling apart. I came upon some fresh moose poop about then and wasn’t about to give up the hunt. The left boot fell apart the quickest and I didn’t have no duct tape to fix em. Awfully damn soon my toes started going numb, must a been only about ten below. I didn’t think it was too bad, I could handle the numbness – just like having your skates a bit too tight for too long. Anyhow I never got the moose, but the frost bite got my little toe. Sorta changed the way I skated after that, but all for the good.
Oh yeah, we was talking about the game. About a minute after tying the game, Mike Carman of Apple Valley, Minnesota finally put the Golden Gophers in the lead. The goal was contested but stood.
The Falcons were down and pulled their goalie with more then two minutes to play. Again I’m reminded of my Kings – back in the day when Andy Murray was coaching them and would pull the same stunt to try to come back at any cost. Unfortunately it didn’t help this time and the Falcons had to put him back in with thirty-nine seconds left cuz of a faceoff in their end.
So Minnesota with three straight unanswered goals beat the Air Force Academy four to three in Denver and will advance to the Frozen Four in St. Louis. The next game had the University Of Massachusetts Minute Men losing to the Maine Black Bears at Rochester, New York’s Blue Cross Arena. And Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish are losing right now to the Michigan State University Spartans while playing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I sure the shit don’t have the energy ta give ya the details on these games. Hope ya watched em. Ehh?
Really, really good stuff – this college hockey playoffs. Sure beats the shit out a basketball cuz winner’s or losers these boys are walking with wood.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Being Gavin
Ya the days are gone now from my short life when I could lace em up and skate with the best of em. Ehh? You guys are thinking that I’m over the hill though. Well that ain’t quite right. I'm still walking with wood and kick some shit when I can. The north woods have been good to me and the years have been equally good as they’ve been equally rough.
I had some two goal games, hell I’ve even got a rookie of the year trophy from my first year in the men’s league. Most a ya that read my shit probably weren’t even a twinkle in your folks’ eyes yet back then. We won some league titles and we lost some too. It was all some good shit – no matter what. I mean I can even write ya a good story or two about injuries. Its all good stuff when ya been on the ice.
After my third year in the league and having completed my second season with Terry’s Tavern’s Sharks I got traded to the scum bags of the league – Happy Jacks Good Time Saloon Seals. We wore those damn yellow and green colors of the Golden Seals. Our sewn on emblems were these damn huge fifteen inch diameter, thick, son-of-bitches that didn’t breath to well and left ya hotter then hell. Crap I didn’t want to play for them. They always got their butts whipped and I figured I didn’t think that I’d be enjoying that.
Well the game a hockey bounces ya like a good board check and you come back from the impact with more vigor and vitality then you can imagine sometimes. Happy Jacks Good Time Saloon’s Seals is one fine example of this sorta bounce. We went from being the hacks to being regular winners if ya know what I mean. We went through a gradual transition to get there but we did. Some of the boys hung in for a heck of a time. Others passed through for a season or two. Kenny kept us together for many years. He went through some hell himself which is a story that I’ll tell you guys someday. We had Shep or “Suitcase” that’s gone on to become the mayor of some town in the Sierra foothills. Shit, I saw him about a year ago and he looked like he was as old as the hills himself. We had another infamous character Pete “Knuckles” Viger. For those a ya in the know – he was foiling up before foiling up became respectable (thank you “Slap Shot”).
One a best dang things we did as a team was to change our name to the Outlaws. Yeah the Outlaws are walking with wood boys and that ain’t no shit. Sure we spent a good deal a time pounding em at Happy Jacks but even they changed ownership and names. Sure we found other places to drink after that time but the Outlaws just kept on staying bound together pretty tight. And I’ll tell ya this every one a those boys that put on the yellow and green or the later black or white and gold are Outlaws. Ehh? Yep, Outlaws! And every Outlaw’s got a story.
Gavin was one those Outlaws that had been there for the long haul. He was on the team before I came on board and carried a bit of reputation with him. Solid and able to bring up an easy scowl he was always intimidating. Playing center with brute determination overwhelmed any weaknesses that he brought with him to the game.
He came from
If my memory has it right he drove a V-dub van back then and owned a small catamaran. He kept the sailboat in the driveway at the house over on
Mikey and Gavin got an apartment together down about a block from the ocean but it was never the same. We really never had a team house after that. Damn shame it was I’m tellin ya. I guess Kenny sold a bunch of the properties that he owned around that same time and banked the proceeds. Bragged a couple of years later that just from the interest alone he was able to buy a Mercedes for his gentle wife, Mary Rose. Now ain’t that a nice name – aw sorry guys, didn’t mean to be getting soft with ya here.
Well Gavin was a boisterous son of bitch. Don’t hold that against him though. Serves a purpose on a team to have a few like that. I told ya about T-Ball in some earlier story and these two guys carry the same weight in this department. Gavin would come into the locker room just all pumped and ready to roll. If his spirits were up then he was gonna pump up yours too. He was always shuvin and joking around with us before the games gettin us lit. I told ya folks a time or two how I needed one of my bro’s to blindside me in warm up to get my juices flowin, but Gavin didn’t seem to need any outside influences. Guys like that are good stuff for a team, ehh?
Shoot, one time he comes into the locker room and says that one team or other finishing up their game ahead of ours is just getting slaughtered. If that don’t get him all riled. He’s got his t-shirt pulled over his head now and starts tellin us about how way back when his great or great-great grandpa had instigated some horrific slaughter back in
One of Gavin’s other little tricks took place during team pictures. He always lined up in the back row behind the guys that were kneeling. Then he put on his nastiest and grimmest facial expressions which I’ve already told ya was a damn ugly scowl. Ehh? And all the time while waitin for the camera dude to take a couple of shots, he’d be standin up on the tips of his blades adding about three or so inches to his appearance. Always the actor that way, sneakin in a punch on a guy in a melee and actin like he’d done nothin when the ref starts dishing out the time. Just totally full of it but we loved it just the same.
Some of the craziest damn stories he told us was from a time when he was still back in
Another time he said that his crew had noticed an abandoned car in the neighborhood. Nobody had messed with it for a while so they got inside and painted the windows black. Used it for drinkin beer and other stuff that underaged punks ain’t sposed to be involved with. Gavin said that they pushed that car to a different spot every couple a days to keep it from getting towed away. Kind a reminded me of some guys I knew in my hood that went together and rented a small little run down store front place for their party shack. Gavin’s place was jus a might cheaper to maintain.
One a the best little stories about Gavin was again his rushin into the locker room all pumped and gettin ready to skate. We knew he’d been out huggin the boards watchin the game ahead a ours. We’d heard the final buzzer before he came in so we knew the game was over. Somebody says “Hey Gavin what was the score?” Without any hesitation he yells back “Three two tie boys, three two tie”, not even realizing the mistake he’d just made.
Years later he got all of his gear stolen and didn’t really skate too much after that. He had awfully wide feet and getting new custom skates that didn’t give him a lot a pain was a costly proposition to his part time job at the local paper. He’s stayed athletic over these years surfing and running marathons. It’s a good life and he’s still walking with wood.
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