Hey puckheads! How’s your week been? Enjoy the NHL All Star game last Sunday? Yup, me too. It was a lot of fun to watch from my living-room at the cabin on my small-screen non-HD TV. Didn’t miss it this year like I did last year, nope.
Sheeeet! I’d like to #@#*%#% former President Clinton for passing that piece of legislation. Do you know how many stinking non-HD TVs there are at my place between the cabin and the barn? I’ve got five of them puppies. It’s gonna cost me a bunch to replace them with High-Definition versions and then they’re gonna kick my ass as I go out the door – oh forgot to tell ya that you’ll get charged for disposing you’re old sets too dumpkoff. Well kiss my ass. The TV’s I’ve got work just fine. WTF do I need HD? Shit my vision ain’t that great anymore so why would I want some new fangled piece a shit, ehh. The economy is on the skids and this bull crap is just gonna make it worse.
The weather has kinda sucked through the week. Pretty much has been snowing constantly which has made my drive to and from work one hell of a mess. It’s a shame how many dipshits don’t know how to drive in this winter wonderland. Damn, I learned how to drive in the snow. Did my driver’s training way back when in it. Slid into a plowed over ditch taking my practice examine with my high school driver’s-ed instructor. Kids in the back seat laughed their fool asses off, but I’ve never done it since. Passed my first driving test to get my license while driving on top of snow-packed and iced over roads in mid March back before most a your parents even knew how to do the nasty. Yup. Why can’t you guys learn how to drive in winter weather?
But this fowl weather has kept Stinky busy shoveling out driveways and parking lots. He hasn’t been by since last weekend when we went out and did some fool-ass stink-agagoning and crashed myself all up. It was a blast but I’m still sore.
Without Stinky’s help, the honey has been doing the drive way. She’s pretty hardy for the teensie little thing that she is. She takes good care of me and feeds me well. Keeps the cabin damn near spotless which pretty near amazes me cuz I’m such a turdball messy old fart. But she pretty much does it all and is cute as a button besides. So I can’t complain too much. She’ll sit in some times when we need a goalie for pickup. But her one weakness is that she ducks on high shots, and being as short as she is, especially in her goalie crouch, those damn high shots go in over her head. Craziest damn thing. She’s pretty good in the nets otherwise.
Thursday she had to clear out a deadfall in the driveway so that she could go into town for groceries. Didn’t even complain about it much. Said she was glad the chain saw worked fine in the cold temp but didn’t enjoy trying to find a long enough chain in my mess in the barn so that she could pull the cut up outta the way. Oh well … she did just fine and I love the little honey just a whole mess.
Tonight, she and I are sitting in front of the fire just enjoying a sittin around the fire drink. Nope I ain’t havin a beer and I ain’t tellin ya what it is I’m drinkin cuz you’d laugh your fool heads off. She fixed up some special dinner earlier tonight that she had seen while watching Rachel Ray on the tube. It was a potato-leek soup with a pound of bacon in it. Damn it was yummy! More like spiced up thin green mashed potatoes then a soup – but hit the spot on a cold winter night.
The craziest thing though happened during dinner. The phone rang and the caller ID said “OUT OF AREA”. The honey had picked it up and normally would not answer unless the ID said it was someone that she knew. She took a chance and answered this time thinking it might the daughter calling from a friend’s that she was visiting over in Washington or Oregon somewhere like that. Well it wasn’t.
Damned if it wasn’t John McCain. Nope, it wasn’t some canned message that John McCain had recorded, but was the presidential candidate himself. I started laughing thinking it was canned (she had the phone on speaker) because I had answered one from Hillary earlier in the week (Oh, don’t I wish that that call had been her live – she’d have caught an earful from me on Bill and the HD shit, ehh.).
I’m telling you it was really John McCain and the honey starts chatting him up. She tells him that, yup, she’s going to vote for him in the primary and in the fall too. She told me she was last week so I wasn’t too surprised. She gets him going about Vietnam and flying fighter jets. She’s working him pretty good I’m tellin ya and after getting him into talking about the jets and all she just pops out “Well ya must have some pretty big balls, ehh?”
I’m hearing this right? He picks up on here accent and not missing a beat says to her, “Honey, where are you from?”
She says, “Well Mr. McCain I live up here in the north woods with my husband Jasper. And if you’ve got such big ass balls why don’t you come on up here some time and play some puck, I mean hockey, with me, Jasper, and the rest of the guys. Oh heck, maybe you don’t skate being from that snowbird destination, Arizona, and all. But we’d sure like to have you at least come watch sometime. (She’s getting all embarrassed a bit now.) You know I’d like to meet you sometime. You could pass for Garth Brooks’ younger good looking brother. Oh my goodness. Shit! I didn’t say that did I? (Really embarrassed now.)”
Well old John McCain said that he’d love too. Seems he has some puckster blood in him. Said he wasn’t worth a shit – was more of a windmill then a winger.
The honey about shit. I didn’t interfere one bit, no sirree. They exchanged cell phone numbers and he’s got our address now. So will see. So wouldn’t that be great if sometime we have a president that likes to lace em up skate a little puck.
So, regardless of the weather it’s been a damn fine and an interesting week.
Guys, just remember to skate hard and gals to skate your little asses off cuz sweat is sweet.
Yup, I’ll be walking with wood until next time.
I’m Jasper Wheats and I approve this.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
TIP-TOE’N THRU THE TULIPS
Yup, a couple of weeks have gone by since I managed to write any crazy shit here. Sure hope that none of ya minded my vacant brain space that I’ve had for a while.
Actually, that hasn’t been the case, you guys. I’ve really been awfully damn busy and I’ve been writing my ass off for a U – NI – VER – SI – TY class that I’m gonna be teachin in a couple of months. It’s just flippin amazing how much work ya have to do to prepare to teach 48 hours worth of lessons to a bunch of nincompoops. That’s what they are now but by the time I get done with em they’re going to be some real ass smart heads, ehh.
But I did get some nice tournament viewing last weekend. Wasn’t the big kids playing, just the youngins – Mites, Squirts and Peewees. Good stuff though. I’ve seen a lot a hockey over the years and I’ve probably played as much as I’ve watched. There’s nothing like the enthusiasm of parents at a tournament though. You know it’s road games all the way around except for the home teams, and if a kid shows up to play then you damn well know that there is an enthusiastic parent or two that brought him or her there. That’s dedication!
It was a double rink facility that had a public session going on over at the other sheet of ice so there was a whole slew of folks running around in the snack bar and lobby areas. Kids lining up at the snack bar getting their dose of gourmet rink grub and walking around in ill-fitting plastic skates that probably smelled worse then my gear ever has. Oh well, you got get an interest in the ice and sport some how, ehh. The local club was running a raffle for a mess of gift packs and shit. Mostly stuff for the ladies – I think – wines, cheese and cookies – that kind a stuff. I might a bought some tickets if I’d a seen some prizes that were like a couple of cases of brew, pro tickets or a nice Sherwood or something – but nah – didn’t see anything of the likes.
Looked like all the kids were just having a blast while each individual game was being played but just a little down after the game if they were on the losing side. Its good to lose once in a while – builds character and protects ya from others maybe thinkin that you’re all aliens (kinda tough to check the urinals after these little guys cuz most of ain’t tall enough yet to reach the rim – uh huh, maybe you ought to read a previous tale if that went over your head).
During one game there were so damn many red heads in the stands that I started looking for Anne of Green Gables out on the ice. Must have been a team from PEI I figured. Chatted up a local dad, Chris Gregg, that was counting shots for the stats. He had two boys that play and the younger of the two would be the goalie for the Jets in the next game. I stuck around to watch the start of it.
Before the first period was over the Jets were down four to nothin. Didn’t say anything bad about young Gregg in the nets, he was getting a good workout for a beginner. Showed signs of having some future good skills. Maybe he’ll want to skate for Norris’ Nightmares in a few years or maybe when he reaches legal drinking age he’ll come on board with the Outlaws. Who knows. Just damn glad to see passion in all of these kids and the support that there parents give. Yep, walking with wood all around. In recognition of the Jets, I thought I’d just list the roster here: Cunningham, Gauldin, Graves, Gregg, Larson, Merrick, Morton, Nadasdy, Schamoni, Sprague, Whitney and no-name #97 – HOOYAHHH!!!!!
Stinky showed up around the start of the Jets game. He had brought his nephew along, Tyler – but everybody calls him Grits. Good kid, his folks are poor as dirt like Stinky but he wants to play some hockey some day on a real team. Plays some street puck now but hasn’t ever had a new pair a skates even, Paul confided.
Grits was in awe of the game and since we were talking with the goalie’s dad he got to hear an earful of netminding bragging. All good for shit for sure.
I had to get back to the cabin to work on my teaching stuff but stood in the snack line with Stinky and Grits before I left. Picked up a couple of coffees and a hot chocolate for Grits. We chatted a bit more as we all headed out. Paul said that he was gonna spend most of the rest of the day with the kid. That’s a good deal.
The next day Stinky comes over to my place and tells me that Grits thinks he wants to be a goalie now and not to dampen his interest he took him over to Dick’s Sporting Goods to look at and try on some gear.
Paul tells me, “I’ll be damned Jasper, if that goalie gear isn’t really, really expensive. Even for a little guy like Grits. Shit and those sales guys over at Dick’s are just all a bunch of dicks tahoot. I’m bending over to try to see the price on some pads, you know they got them damn bar code tags and ya can’t tell how much things are until they scan them. Right? Well I have a little gas leak about then; the same time I say out loud to myself “I wonder how much these are?” Grits starts giggling a bit and says to me, “Uh, Uncle Paulie…” Shit Jasper, there was this smart ass dipshit sales kid standing behind me that heard me pass gas, you know I’m always doing that unintentionally. Right? Well he says to me “I’m afraid of what might happen if I tell you how much they are if you did that just looking at em.” Errrrr! I was pissed and I grabbed Grits by the shoulder and walked on out of there”
“We got out to the truck and I could tell that I had maybe saddened the little guy a bit. So I turned up the radio real loud once we got on the road and damned if Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap didn’t come on about four or five minutes into our drive back to the yard. We just screamed along to that tune at the top of our lungs and when it was over some Barry Manilow shit came on so I turned if off and we kept on screaming like we were earlier. It was nuts but he loved it. Crazy kid!”
I agreed with him on that and told him that he was little wacko too - “Must run in the family, ehh?”
“Yeah, right Wheats. Like you and yours ever got your shit together all the time. Damn, you gotta come see what I brought over. It was bitch of a find.”
We walk on over to his truck and I’m beginning to smell something pretty ripe. “Paul, you cutting the cheese or what? Damn that’s foul!”
“Nah, nah, it ain’t me and it ain’t that bad,” he says. “I scrubbed this stuff with some soda water and shampoo. You’ll dig it.”
He opens the tailgate and there’s a couple of big old black plastic tray shaped things in the bed. I examine them a little closer and realize that they’re the two halves of shit tank from a motor-home or something.
“Paul, what the fuck is this???”
Damn if he isn’t getting all excited. “Jasper, when me and Grits were heading down the road I saw this in a snow bank off the road there at Willow Creek. You know how the road dips and then bumps when you come off the bridge? Somebody must have bottom out and lost it. I pulled it out and slid it in the truck. Took it back to the yard and me and Grits cleaned it out and cut it in half. They don’t smell half as bad as they did yesterday.”
“Well, if you say so,” I tell him. “But I still want to know whacha got here.”
“I turned each half into a steerable, well somewhat steerable, sled or toboggan thingy. See how I added the rudders that I made from some broken sticks. Drilled a hole through the shaft about eight inches up from the blade and screwed them on to each side of both of the halves. They just kinda float until you pull back on one and it digs into the snow on that side, slowing ya down over there and that causes ya to turn in that damn direction. It’s a blast! Ya gotta try it. Me and Grits road em over at Turner’s hill all afternoon until I had to take him home. Maybe you and me could make some more and sell them. We could call them sloboggans.”
“Somebody probably already uses that name. Cuz a how they smell I think a more appropriate name might be shit-house-slammers, ehh.”
“Come on, we’ll go back to Turner’s hill and you give it a shot. Go tell your wife that you’ll be gone for about an hour.”
Done and gone were over towards Turner’s property and Paul says, “You know this is pretty mild over here. Kind of a kiddy slope if you know what I mean. No trees or nothing. Let’s try the deer woods over where the tracks cross Willow Creek. Will have to hike a bit but we can follow the tracks in. It won’t be so bad. The hill is steeper and we’ll have some trees to dodge. What do ya say?”
“Sounds like the spot. But ain’t so sure that this old stocking cap is gonna give my noggin enough protection in case I hit tree. Probably got to be a bit careful.”
“Nuts to that Jasper. I planned to get us over here and packed a couple of old Cooper helmets to wear. And I think that you’ll want to pay a little demolition derby against me out there. Dodging the trees will be like tip-toe’n thru the tulips, you’ll see. We’re gonna need to liven this up a bit – give it the old hockey pazzazzz. Ya know. You’ll be walking with wood after the first run!”
So off we went and I gotta tell you it was a blast. I felt like a dadgum kid again. Except for the next few days when I was sorer then shit. On one run, Paul had angled off to the left and I figured that he’d sweep back to the right and cut me off so I swerved hard to the left too, almost going back up hill and I clipped a damn tree knocking off one of my hockey stick rudders. It spun me all around and I ended up heading pretty much straight down hill with just a little directional control from the opposite side. I caught air and had no control at all and was heading right-on into some old big ass tree. Right when I hit the tree Stinky came right over the top of me too. Fuckin double ass wammy. Better air-lift me out of this one boys. I survived, sure enough. But tip-toe’n thru the tulips – my ass. Felt like Dave Schultz had just clocked me.
I think Stinky, just might have something here. He just needs to refine the design a little bit and beef up the attachment of those rudders. Its some good shit.
The worst of this whole fun fuckin time was getting back home and have the honey cuss me out over the stink and making me strip down out in the barn and bathing up out there before she’d let me back in the cabin. She wouldn’t even give me any fresh clothes cuz she was afraid the stink would get on them too. Damn that was a cold walk back to the cabin bare-ass naked. Sure got to get that tunnel built before next winter.
Later, puck-heads. Until next time, Jasper Wheats here; telling ya to skate hard.
Actually, that hasn’t been the case, you guys. I’ve really been awfully damn busy and I’ve been writing my ass off for a U – NI – VER – SI – TY class that I’m gonna be teachin in a couple of months. It’s just flippin amazing how much work ya have to do to prepare to teach 48 hours worth of lessons to a bunch of nincompoops. That’s what they are now but by the time I get done with em they’re going to be some real ass smart heads, ehh.
But I did get some nice tournament viewing last weekend. Wasn’t the big kids playing, just the youngins – Mites, Squirts and Peewees. Good stuff though. I’ve seen a lot a hockey over the years and I’ve probably played as much as I’ve watched. There’s nothing like the enthusiasm of parents at a tournament though. You know it’s road games all the way around except for the home teams, and if a kid shows up to play then you damn well know that there is an enthusiastic parent or two that brought him or her there. That’s dedication!
It was a double rink facility that had a public session going on over at the other sheet of ice so there was a whole slew of folks running around in the snack bar and lobby areas. Kids lining up at the snack bar getting their dose of gourmet rink grub and walking around in ill-fitting plastic skates that probably smelled worse then my gear ever has. Oh well, you got get an interest in the ice and sport some how, ehh. The local club was running a raffle for a mess of gift packs and shit. Mostly stuff for the ladies – I think – wines, cheese and cookies – that kind a stuff. I might a bought some tickets if I’d a seen some prizes that were like a couple of cases of brew, pro tickets or a nice Sherwood or something – but nah – didn’t see anything of the likes.
Looked like all the kids were just having a blast while each individual game was being played but just a little down after the game if they were on the losing side. Its good to lose once in a while – builds character and protects ya from others maybe thinkin that you’re all aliens (kinda tough to check the urinals after these little guys cuz most of ain’t tall enough yet to reach the rim – uh huh, maybe you ought to read a previous tale if that went over your head).
During one game there were so damn many red heads in the stands that I started looking for Anne of Green Gables out on the ice. Must have been a team from PEI I figured. Chatted up a local dad, Chris Gregg, that was counting shots for the stats. He had two boys that play and the younger of the two would be the goalie for the Jets in the next game. I stuck around to watch the start of it.
Before the first period was over the Jets were down four to nothin. Didn’t say anything bad about young Gregg in the nets, he was getting a good workout for a beginner. Showed signs of having some future good skills. Maybe he’ll want to skate for Norris’ Nightmares in a few years or maybe when he reaches legal drinking age he’ll come on board with the Outlaws. Who knows. Just damn glad to see passion in all of these kids and the support that there parents give. Yep, walking with wood all around. In recognition of the Jets, I thought I’d just list the roster here: Cunningham, Gauldin, Graves, Gregg, Larson, Merrick, Morton, Nadasdy, Schamoni, Sprague, Whitney and no-name #97 – HOOYAHHH!!!!!
Stinky showed up around the start of the Jets game. He had brought his nephew along, Tyler – but everybody calls him Grits. Good kid, his folks are poor as dirt like Stinky but he wants to play some hockey some day on a real team. Plays some street puck now but hasn’t ever had a new pair a skates even, Paul confided.
Grits was in awe of the game and since we were talking with the goalie’s dad he got to hear an earful of netminding bragging. All good for shit for sure.
I had to get back to the cabin to work on my teaching stuff but stood in the snack line with Stinky and Grits before I left. Picked up a couple of coffees and a hot chocolate for Grits. We chatted a bit more as we all headed out. Paul said that he was gonna spend most of the rest of the day with the kid. That’s a good deal.
The next day Stinky comes over to my place and tells me that Grits thinks he wants to be a goalie now and not to dampen his interest he took him over to Dick’s Sporting Goods to look at and try on some gear.
Paul tells me, “I’ll be damned Jasper, if that goalie gear isn’t really, really expensive. Even for a little guy like Grits. Shit and those sales guys over at Dick’s are just all a bunch of dicks tahoot. I’m bending over to try to see the price on some pads, you know they got them damn bar code tags and ya can’t tell how much things are until they scan them. Right? Well I have a little gas leak about then; the same time I say out loud to myself “I wonder how much these are?” Grits starts giggling a bit and says to me, “Uh, Uncle Paulie…” Shit Jasper, there was this smart ass dipshit sales kid standing behind me that heard me pass gas, you know I’m always doing that unintentionally. Right? Well he says to me “I’m afraid of what might happen if I tell you how much they are if you did that just looking at em.” Errrrr! I was pissed and I grabbed Grits by the shoulder and walked on out of there”
“We got out to the truck and I could tell that I had maybe saddened the little guy a bit. So I turned up the radio real loud once we got on the road and damned if Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap didn’t come on about four or five minutes into our drive back to the yard. We just screamed along to that tune at the top of our lungs and when it was over some Barry Manilow shit came on so I turned if off and we kept on screaming like we were earlier. It was nuts but he loved it. Crazy kid!”
I agreed with him on that and told him that he was little wacko too - “Must run in the family, ehh?”
“Yeah, right Wheats. Like you and yours ever got your shit together all the time. Damn, you gotta come see what I brought over. It was bitch of a find.”
We walk on over to his truck and I’m beginning to smell something pretty ripe. “Paul, you cutting the cheese or what? Damn that’s foul!”
“Nah, nah, it ain’t me and it ain’t that bad,” he says. “I scrubbed this stuff with some soda water and shampoo. You’ll dig it.”
He opens the tailgate and there’s a couple of big old black plastic tray shaped things in the bed. I examine them a little closer and realize that they’re the two halves of shit tank from a motor-home or something.
“Paul, what the fuck is this???”
Damn if he isn’t getting all excited. “Jasper, when me and Grits were heading down the road I saw this in a snow bank off the road there at Willow Creek. You know how the road dips and then bumps when you come off the bridge? Somebody must have bottom out and lost it. I pulled it out and slid it in the truck. Took it back to the yard and me and Grits cleaned it out and cut it in half. They don’t smell half as bad as they did yesterday.”
“Well, if you say so,” I tell him. “But I still want to know whacha got here.”
“I turned each half into a steerable, well somewhat steerable, sled or toboggan thingy. See how I added the rudders that I made from some broken sticks. Drilled a hole through the shaft about eight inches up from the blade and screwed them on to each side of both of the halves. They just kinda float until you pull back on one and it digs into the snow on that side, slowing ya down over there and that causes ya to turn in that damn direction. It’s a blast! Ya gotta try it. Me and Grits road em over at Turner’s hill all afternoon until I had to take him home. Maybe you and me could make some more and sell them. We could call them sloboggans.”
“Somebody probably already uses that name. Cuz a how they smell I think a more appropriate name might be shit-house-slammers, ehh.”
“Come on, we’ll go back to Turner’s hill and you give it a shot. Go tell your wife that you’ll be gone for about an hour.”
Done and gone were over towards Turner’s property and Paul says, “You know this is pretty mild over here. Kind of a kiddy slope if you know what I mean. No trees or nothing. Let’s try the deer woods over where the tracks cross Willow Creek. Will have to hike a bit but we can follow the tracks in. It won’t be so bad. The hill is steeper and we’ll have some trees to dodge. What do ya say?”
“Sounds like the spot. But ain’t so sure that this old stocking cap is gonna give my noggin enough protection in case I hit tree. Probably got to be a bit careful.”
“Nuts to that Jasper. I planned to get us over here and packed a couple of old Cooper helmets to wear. And I think that you’ll want to pay a little demolition derby against me out there. Dodging the trees will be like tip-toe’n thru the tulips, you’ll see. We’re gonna need to liven this up a bit – give it the old hockey pazzazzz. Ya know. You’ll be walking with wood after the first run!”
So off we went and I gotta tell you it was a blast. I felt like a dadgum kid again. Except for the next few days when I was sorer then shit. On one run, Paul had angled off to the left and I figured that he’d sweep back to the right and cut me off so I swerved hard to the left too, almost going back up hill and I clipped a damn tree knocking off one of my hockey stick rudders. It spun me all around and I ended up heading pretty much straight down hill with just a little directional control from the opposite side. I caught air and had no control at all and was heading right-on into some old big ass tree. Right when I hit the tree Stinky came right over the top of me too. Fuckin double ass wammy. Better air-lift me out of this one boys. I survived, sure enough. But tip-toe’n thru the tulips – my ass. Felt like Dave Schultz had just clocked me.
I think Stinky, just might have something here. He just needs to refine the design a little bit and beef up the attachment of those rudders. Its some good shit.
The worst of this whole fun fuckin time was getting back home and have the honey cuss me out over the stink and making me strip down out in the barn and bathing up out there before she’d let me back in the cabin. She wouldn’t even give me any fresh clothes cuz she was afraid the stink would get on them too. Damn that was a cold walk back to the cabin bare-ass naked. Sure got to get that tunnel built before next winter.
Later, puck-heads. Until next time, Jasper Wheats here; telling ya to skate hard.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
EXCHANGING FLUIDS
Good morning all. Heck maybe its evening as you’re reading this but you understand the gist of my greeting, ehh.
Been damn near snowed in for a while here. Damn storm came up from the southwest all full of moisture and it hit a cold front coming down from Siberia, or somewhere, right over the cabin for shits sake. Never seen anything like it around here before – snowing like crazy with wind – blizzard conditions I’m telling you, you guys. And the strangest ass thing about it was the thunder and lightning. You usually don’t see that kind of bizarre meteorological behavior around here in the dead of winter. Must a dumped a couple of feet of a heavy wet mess. Great for snowballs but really sucked otherwise.
It definitely just destroyed the ice down at the pond. Once we get some sub zero weather again, and after we shovel it off, that top surface layer is going to look like that porous lava rock that I’ve seen in museums. Ain’t worth a horse turd for skating on.
But its Sunday and I’ve been looking at the local paper. Sort of a ritual, sipping coffee and waiting for the honey to get up and laugh at me about making some breakfast. But it’s what I do, in the winter, sit around the fire with my rag to read and a cup of joe to clear out the cobwebs. How about you guys? What’s your weekend morning routine like? I always put up a thankful blessing request to the Good Lord for the cabin we have. Makes for some sweet coziness.
The fire’s popping cuz I put in some nasty old knots – makes it kinda exciting you know and the honey has now joined me. She asks me why I’m all dressed up. It’s a joke. Cuz I’m still lounging around in my light grey union suit. Winter time that’s my sleeping gear. Don’t usually use em for hockey. There it’s a t-shirt and long johns under my gear. But sleeping and hangin around the cabin on weekend mornings I gotta have my union suit on. Buttons up in front and’s got a flap in back. Now days it seems everbody’s in sweats and hoodies but mercy if Sears & Roebucks, Woolworths, Monkey Wards, and JC Pennys weren’t selling these look before the sweat sets ever got invented.
The honey says, “Jasper, you weren’t wearing those when you went out to the road to pick up the paper again were you. You don’t know what might been flapping out.”
I said, “Well, yes, I sure for shit was and you know as well as I do that there ain’t much left to flap about anyway. I just slipped on my boots and that old red stocking cap and high stepped it out there to get it. Plus as I usually do, I faced back towards the cabin when I bent over to pick it up giving old Agnes McGhee a nice peek of my hiney if she’s so inclined to look.”
“She can’t see you from there, you old fool of a fart.”
“Oh yes she can, and she does. I’ve seen that pair of binoculars sitting on the window sill over her kitchen sink when we’ve been to visit. That old bitty spies on me all the time from her little perch of a stool in the kitchen. Stinky even said that she’s hired him to clean brush that was blocking her view of the end of our drive.”
“She’s a nice old lady, now shut your trap!”
“Yup, she’s a nice old frustrated lady, uh yup.”
The conversation dies on that note and I’m back to my paper.
But I’m thinking what do you guys think? Should a grown man run around in his underwear? I mean, the alternative is to run around naked, right? I sure for shit am not a bathrobe type guy. What a waste of fabric, ehh.
I hear some noise outside, sounds like Stinky’s truck and then some. He said that he was going to come over later to move some snow from between the cabin and the barn for me. Damn, it’ll be nice when I can finish my basement and dig that tunnel between it and the barn.
I get up to see about Stinky Duvall and pour him a fresh cup of joe. He seems to be a happy camper today. He made some good money clearing snow cuz of the storm and he tells me that he made himself one haulin-ass snow blower. So figurin that I’ll be outside for a while I throw on my parka for this excursion.
We get out to his truck and back on the trailer is some hacked up piece a machinery like ya might a seen in one of Mel Gibson’s early Aussy movies.
“What the fuck is that, Paul?” I query and spit.
He gets a bit excited explaining it to me. “Well, it’s the front end of Craftsman forty inch snow blower that some one brought out to the yard last spring that I married to the back end of that old Honda Blackhawk that Alan Oveson used to have. I had to re-gear that pup so that it runs in reverse direction, and only first gear.”
“Well that’s one hell of a contraption.” I respond as I walk around the trailer looking it over kind a careful like. “What’s all this other shit?”
“I had to cut the turning stops off of the front end so that I could turn the handle bars backwards, pulled the front wheel off and attached a broken snow board that I fixed with epoxy to the forks that I extended. I can stand right on it while I’m blowing snow, self-propelled.”
I said, “Yup, all ya need now is a fairing from a Gold-Wing and you’re all set!”
“Jasp, ya musta been reading my mind!” He gets even more worked up over this touch of genius. “See how I extended the rear axle so that I’ve got the sprocket there to drive the blower in between the two wheels. Yup. Added a second wheel back there, I mean on the front of it. I mean, you know what I mean. And I shot over a hundred Hilti pins through the rims to provide good traction. No tires, you can see.”
“Yup, Paul, I think you’ve got the ultimate death machine here if anybody gets in front of you. You ought to apply for a job with Toro or maybe them folks at Zamboni. Get a job in their design department, ehh.”
“Shit Jasper, I just pieced it together. Oh, and look up here at the front of the blower. I added a couple of busted up goalie sticks on each side to help funnel more snow into it. Ain’t it something?”
“Yup, but does it blow snow?” The snorkel was laying down but it looked like it was about six or seven feet long and about a foot in diameter.
“Or shit yes, Wheats. I added a Dayton DC motor-blower combo into the pipe that your brother Bronzy gave me. Had to add a truck battery to run it, but I had a ton of them at the yard. Let me fire it up and clean that section back to the barn for you.”
So he fires this thing-a-ma-jig up. And ohhh, did I mention he was running it with open pipes I think. Louder then a friggin jet engine. Guess he had hydraulics for the snorkel cuz that pup went up smooth as can be with out even a bit of a snag. And off he went. He cleared what must a been close to an acre of open space in a little less then a half hour. At first it looked like a blizzard again but he started in the middle and worked the north side first blowing to the north then did the other half blowing to the south. Slick-titty-boom. But I think I lost my hearing.
“What ya think, Jasper?”
“Huh? I can hardly hear you. Pretty sweet! But awfully damn noisy. You wearing ear plugs?”
He pulls some stuff outta his coat pocket and shows me his shooting muffs and foam plugs both. “Double protection.” He’s walking with wood. Purty damn proud of this snow beast.
“How about your customer’s ears?”
He just shrugs his shoulders.
I invite him in for something more to drink.
We go inside and I microwave a couple of half mugs of eggnog and top em off half and half with some no-name peach brandy and Cap’n Morgan’s. Good shit for this time of year if ya ain’t playin hockey but just fartin around.
Each of us taking sips I grab the paper again. Damn if there ain’t some fool ad for 20% off for exchanging fluids. Sounds like a pick up line if ya ask me. I show it to Paul and he about does a reverse-through-the-nose chuckle.
He asks, “What the heck, is that an ad for a hooker or something?”
I yell to the honey, she’s in the bedroom I guess, “Sugar, me and Stinky are going down to Meg’s. Seems as that skank whore Annie-Poo that hangs out there is running a 20% off special on exchanging body fluids. We can’t pass this up.”
Wise-ass that she is she yells back, “Paul I can’t speak for you but that old fart Jasper better not have a spare drop of fluid left in him after that romp I gave him last night. You keep your tail-end right here, you hear me, Jasper Wheats.”
“Shit honey, it was just an ad that we were looking at for Ole’s Garage over in Patterson. He’s sure going to catch some crap for the way he had it worded.”
“Well you’re going to catch some crap if ya don’t bring in some more firewood. Give Paul something for clearing the snow and send him on his way. Ok?”
I walk Paul back out to his truck and suggest that he head down to the pond if he gets a chance and clear it off. If we have to then will bore a hole like we did a couple of years ago and use that gasoline powered pump to flood it over again on the next sub zero night.
Good stuff here in the North Woods. Wish ya could be here to enjoy it!
Until next time, Jasper here - walking with wood.
Been damn near snowed in for a while here. Damn storm came up from the southwest all full of moisture and it hit a cold front coming down from Siberia, or somewhere, right over the cabin for shits sake. Never seen anything like it around here before – snowing like crazy with wind – blizzard conditions I’m telling you, you guys. And the strangest ass thing about it was the thunder and lightning. You usually don’t see that kind of bizarre meteorological behavior around here in the dead of winter. Must a dumped a couple of feet of a heavy wet mess. Great for snowballs but really sucked otherwise.
It definitely just destroyed the ice down at the pond. Once we get some sub zero weather again, and after we shovel it off, that top surface layer is going to look like that porous lava rock that I’ve seen in museums. Ain’t worth a horse turd for skating on.
But its Sunday and I’ve been looking at the local paper. Sort of a ritual, sipping coffee and waiting for the honey to get up and laugh at me about making some breakfast. But it’s what I do, in the winter, sit around the fire with my rag to read and a cup of joe to clear out the cobwebs. How about you guys? What’s your weekend morning routine like? I always put up a thankful blessing request to the Good Lord for the cabin we have. Makes for some sweet coziness.
The fire’s popping cuz I put in some nasty old knots – makes it kinda exciting you know and the honey has now joined me. She asks me why I’m all dressed up. It’s a joke. Cuz I’m still lounging around in my light grey union suit. Winter time that’s my sleeping gear. Don’t usually use em for hockey. There it’s a t-shirt and long johns under my gear. But sleeping and hangin around the cabin on weekend mornings I gotta have my union suit on. Buttons up in front and’s got a flap in back. Now days it seems everbody’s in sweats and hoodies but mercy if Sears & Roebucks, Woolworths, Monkey Wards, and JC Pennys weren’t selling these look before the sweat sets ever got invented.
The honey says, “Jasper, you weren’t wearing those when you went out to the road to pick up the paper again were you. You don’t know what might been flapping out.”
I said, “Well, yes, I sure for shit was and you know as well as I do that there ain’t much left to flap about anyway. I just slipped on my boots and that old red stocking cap and high stepped it out there to get it. Plus as I usually do, I faced back towards the cabin when I bent over to pick it up giving old Agnes McGhee a nice peek of my hiney if she’s so inclined to look.”
“She can’t see you from there, you old fool of a fart.”
“Oh yes she can, and she does. I’ve seen that pair of binoculars sitting on the window sill over her kitchen sink when we’ve been to visit. That old bitty spies on me all the time from her little perch of a stool in the kitchen. Stinky even said that she’s hired him to clean brush that was blocking her view of the end of our drive.”
“She’s a nice old lady, now shut your trap!”
“Yup, she’s a nice old frustrated lady, uh yup.”
The conversation dies on that note and I’m back to my paper.
But I’m thinking what do you guys think? Should a grown man run around in his underwear? I mean, the alternative is to run around naked, right? I sure for shit am not a bathrobe type guy. What a waste of fabric, ehh.
I hear some noise outside, sounds like Stinky’s truck and then some. He said that he was going to come over later to move some snow from between the cabin and the barn for me. Damn, it’ll be nice when I can finish my basement and dig that tunnel between it and the barn.
I get up to see about Stinky Duvall and pour him a fresh cup of joe. He seems to be a happy camper today. He made some good money clearing snow cuz of the storm and he tells me that he made himself one haulin-ass snow blower. So figurin that I’ll be outside for a while I throw on my parka for this excursion.
We get out to his truck and back on the trailer is some hacked up piece a machinery like ya might a seen in one of Mel Gibson’s early Aussy movies.
“What the fuck is that, Paul?” I query and spit.
He gets a bit excited explaining it to me. “Well, it’s the front end of Craftsman forty inch snow blower that some one brought out to the yard last spring that I married to the back end of that old Honda Blackhawk that Alan Oveson used to have. I had to re-gear that pup so that it runs in reverse direction, and only first gear.”
“Well that’s one hell of a contraption.” I respond as I walk around the trailer looking it over kind a careful like. “What’s all this other shit?”
“I had to cut the turning stops off of the front end so that I could turn the handle bars backwards, pulled the front wheel off and attached a broken snow board that I fixed with epoxy to the forks that I extended. I can stand right on it while I’m blowing snow, self-propelled.”
I said, “Yup, all ya need now is a fairing from a Gold-Wing and you’re all set!”
“Jasp, ya musta been reading my mind!” He gets even more worked up over this touch of genius. “See how I extended the rear axle so that I’ve got the sprocket there to drive the blower in between the two wheels. Yup. Added a second wheel back there, I mean on the front of it. I mean, you know what I mean. And I shot over a hundred Hilti pins through the rims to provide good traction. No tires, you can see.”
“Yup, Paul, I think you’ve got the ultimate death machine here if anybody gets in front of you. You ought to apply for a job with Toro or maybe them folks at Zamboni. Get a job in their design department, ehh.”
“Shit Jasper, I just pieced it together. Oh, and look up here at the front of the blower. I added a couple of busted up goalie sticks on each side to help funnel more snow into it. Ain’t it something?”
“Yup, but does it blow snow?” The snorkel was laying down but it looked like it was about six or seven feet long and about a foot in diameter.
“Or shit yes, Wheats. I added a Dayton DC motor-blower combo into the pipe that your brother Bronzy gave me. Had to add a truck battery to run it, but I had a ton of them at the yard. Let me fire it up and clean that section back to the barn for you.”
So he fires this thing-a-ma-jig up. And ohhh, did I mention he was running it with open pipes I think. Louder then a friggin jet engine. Guess he had hydraulics for the snorkel cuz that pup went up smooth as can be with out even a bit of a snag. And off he went. He cleared what must a been close to an acre of open space in a little less then a half hour. At first it looked like a blizzard again but he started in the middle and worked the north side first blowing to the north then did the other half blowing to the south. Slick-titty-boom. But I think I lost my hearing.
“What ya think, Jasper?”
“Huh? I can hardly hear you. Pretty sweet! But awfully damn noisy. You wearing ear plugs?”
He pulls some stuff outta his coat pocket and shows me his shooting muffs and foam plugs both. “Double protection.” He’s walking with wood. Purty damn proud of this snow beast.
“How about your customer’s ears?”
He just shrugs his shoulders.
I invite him in for something more to drink.
We go inside and I microwave a couple of half mugs of eggnog and top em off half and half with some no-name peach brandy and Cap’n Morgan’s. Good shit for this time of year if ya ain’t playin hockey but just fartin around.
Each of us taking sips I grab the paper again. Damn if there ain’t some fool ad for 20% off for exchanging fluids. Sounds like a pick up line if ya ask me. I show it to Paul and he about does a reverse-through-the-nose chuckle.
He asks, “What the heck, is that an ad for a hooker or something?”
I yell to the honey, she’s in the bedroom I guess, “Sugar, me and Stinky are going down to Meg’s. Seems as that skank whore Annie-Poo that hangs out there is running a 20% off special on exchanging body fluids. We can’t pass this up.”
Wise-ass that she is she yells back, “Paul I can’t speak for you but that old fart Jasper better not have a spare drop of fluid left in him after that romp I gave him last night. You keep your tail-end right here, you hear me, Jasper Wheats.”
“Shit honey, it was just an ad that we were looking at for Ole’s Garage over in Patterson. He’s sure going to catch some crap for the way he had it worded.”
“Well you’re going to catch some crap if ya don’t bring in some more firewood. Give Paul something for clearing the snow and send him on his way. Ok?”
I walk Paul back out to his truck and suggest that he head down to the pond if he gets a chance and clear it off. If we have to then will bore a hole like we did a couple of years ago and use that gasoline powered pump to flood it over again on the next sub zero night.
Good stuff here in the North Woods. Wish ya could be here to enjoy it!
Until next time, Jasper here - walking with wood.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
REDZONIANS
Everybody get off to a good start so far this year? Shit, you can count on it here that I’ve done damned good-ok so far. Yupper and the year is only six days old, uh huh.
I pretty much figure that there were a few holiday tournaments that some of ya played in. You guys know how I feel about them. They’re right up there with pond hockey and road trips in my book (crap, over half of ‘em are road trips, ehh). Love every minute of them. Ya meet some cool folks and if ya get in a winning bracket you definitely get your share of games played. Hooie, maybe ya even play more then one game a day. Your gear doesn’t get a chance to dry and ends up smelling pretty ripe and all. You juggle your eating and sleeping habits a bit – all for some great days of playing.
I guess it doesn’t really matter throughout the year if it’s a holiday tournament, summer tournament or an invitational – they’re all good times. Ehh?
You win some but mainly you end up losing. It’s a select few that manage to hang together for the final victory and get to take home the trophy.
Hell, I’ve played in tournaments where we played in that final game only to lose. The teams that I’ve played on of course haven’t take losing lightly. On occasion, we’ve taken offense to that final handshake with just a smattering of fisticuffs instead.
Don’t shake your head at that. You know as well as I do that a good donnybrook is as memorable as a win. I’m thinkin that if ya disagree still, it just means that ya ain’t been there and ya ain’t done that.
Over the past few years I’ve done some researchin about why we have had so damn many losses along the way. More often then not there has been one team that just plain ass kicks tail on everyone else. Why? I mean, really, why? You know the usual responses that ya hear are “They’re a stacked team” or “They’re all former pros.” I’m sure you guys have heard the same questionable comments.
Yah, occasionally that may be the case.
But I’ve determined through some highly scientific analysis that that just ain’t true most a the time. If ya got just one particular team that just whoops on everybody, then ya got yourself a team of aliens playing in that tournament! No shit! No shineola! Aliens, dab-nab-it! And I ain’t talking about them illegal aliens that have jumped the fence to enter our borders. Nope. These dude’s are outer-space type aliens.
You’re thinking: that dude Jasper, has got a gear loose.
But I don’t. I’m tellin ya. I got the inside scoop on some classified government files that a friend of my brother’s friend’s friend, etc. managed to illegally extract off the internet. Its some valid honest to goodness shit.
These winning teams always show up and are registered from some far distant land that ya can’t even pronounce and have even less of a chance verifying. Like Skukumchuck, or Khatanga, or Olekminsk or maybe Thibaudeau. Where the hell are these places? How’d these guys get here to this hockey tournament, ehh?
I’m tellin ya that they aren’t from those places. They’re from someplace beyond our solar system. Guaranteed, that if you played in a tournament where one team overwhelmingly kicked everybody else’s ass then you’re also going to have some local reports of UFOs. Check it out. Do your own research, ehh. You’ll see.
According to the classified files, these weenies have been showing up for some years to compete in our sporting events. They like the competition I guess and as of late with all the identity theft issues and the modern security controls in place the tournaments are the only places that they can play. They’ve had a few guys that have played in the NHL over the years but they don’t really excel individually. This wasn’t discovered until Gretzky was in the league. The NSA thought that he might have been an alien that had been implanted in his family as an infant. Their reasoning for the study was that he was such a superstar yet was really a physical weakling (everybody knows that his upper body strength was always the weakest of any player on the teams that he played on). They couldn’t figure it out, but used him for some of the initial testing experiments.
The government has spent many years now developing an accurate test to determine whether someone is an alien or not. It used to be a blood test but most of the time you couldn’t get a decent blood sample unless there was a high stick injury or the results of an errant puck and a player’s face. I mean ya just can’t arbitrarily ask some one for a blood sample, can you? So they developed something else. Something that could be a little more indiscernible in its administration. They came up with a urine analysis.
All government employees and contractors that have security clearances now have to daily take this test to ensure that aliens haven’t infiltrated our secure ranks. The modern device is fairly similar to an EPT (early pregnancy test) and all ya have to do is piss on it. The chemical activation system on test strips, kind a like litmus paper, unfortunately, also indicates if you’re on steroids. If your piss turns the strip a shade of blue then, honey, you’ve been doing the juice. But if a red hue appears then you’re an f’n alien.
Like I said though, this handy little testing device is used within government ranks. When they want to check on the common public then they use a version that looks like a toilet bowl deorderizer. It comes in a couple of different forms: one with a wire hanger that can be hung over the edge of the bowl and one that looks like a hockey puck that is generally just dropped in urinals. Both version, prior to testing, are just a milky white color. But once they’ve been activated they either turn pinkish if an alien pissed on it or bluish if someone doing steroids whizzed on it. If I drizzled all over one of these detectors not a damn thing would happen.
So the next tournament that ya play in you might just be able to tell if you’ve got aliens or guys on steroids playing against ya by just checking in the can. If the NSA guys are on to some alien leads, and one team in the tourney is just creaming everybody else, then chances are you’ll notice the detection devices in use.
Word is, from that friend of a friend dude, that the government guys refer to the filthy rich pro athletes on steroids as “Bluebloods” because of the revealing color on the indicators.
“Redzonians”, apparently is the nickname that they’ve given to the aliens. The only time that I actually heard the term “Redzonian”, I thought he guy talking was referring to a guy on the ice that was playing just balls out with no fear. Guess I was wrong, ehh.
I pretty much believe all this shit and I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you do or not. But I’ve got one thing that I can’t figure out about these “Redzonians”. I mean they’re sure walking with wood, ehh? Kicking our asses from one end of the rink to the other. So here it is: How’d they learn how to play so damn good?
Jasper here walking with wood, but just bloody bewildered.
I pretty much figure that there were a few holiday tournaments that some of ya played in. You guys know how I feel about them. They’re right up there with pond hockey and road trips in my book (crap, over half of ‘em are road trips, ehh). Love every minute of them. Ya meet some cool folks and if ya get in a winning bracket you definitely get your share of games played. Hooie, maybe ya even play more then one game a day. Your gear doesn’t get a chance to dry and ends up smelling pretty ripe and all. You juggle your eating and sleeping habits a bit – all for some great days of playing.
I guess it doesn’t really matter throughout the year if it’s a holiday tournament, summer tournament or an invitational – they’re all good times. Ehh?
You win some but mainly you end up losing. It’s a select few that manage to hang together for the final victory and get to take home the trophy.
Hell, I’ve played in tournaments where we played in that final game only to lose. The teams that I’ve played on of course haven’t take losing lightly. On occasion, we’ve taken offense to that final handshake with just a smattering of fisticuffs instead.
Don’t shake your head at that. You know as well as I do that a good donnybrook is as memorable as a win. I’m thinkin that if ya disagree still, it just means that ya ain’t been there and ya ain’t done that.
Over the past few years I’ve done some researchin about why we have had so damn many losses along the way. More often then not there has been one team that just plain ass kicks tail on everyone else. Why? I mean, really, why? You know the usual responses that ya hear are “They’re a stacked team” or “They’re all former pros.” I’m sure you guys have heard the same questionable comments.
Yah, occasionally that may be the case.
But I’ve determined through some highly scientific analysis that that just ain’t true most a the time. If ya got just one particular team that just whoops on everybody, then ya got yourself a team of aliens playing in that tournament! No shit! No shineola! Aliens, dab-nab-it! And I ain’t talking about them illegal aliens that have jumped the fence to enter our borders. Nope. These dude’s are outer-space type aliens.
You’re thinking: that dude Jasper, has got a gear loose.
But I don’t. I’m tellin ya. I got the inside scoop on some classified government files that a friend of my brother’s friend’s friend, etc. managed to illegally extract off the internet. Its some valid honest to goodness shit.
These winning teams always show up and are registered from some far distant land that ya can’t even pronounce and have even less of a chance verifying. Like Skukumchuck, or Khatanga, or Olekminsk or maybe Thibaudeau. Where the hell are these places? How’d these guys get here to this hockey tournament, ehh?
I’m tellin ya that they aren’t from those places. They’re from someplace beyond our solar system. Guaranteed, that if you played in a tournament where one team overwhelmingly kicked everybody else’s ass then you’re also going to have some local reports of UFOs. Check it out. Do your own research, ehh. You’ll see.
According to the classified files, these weenies have been showing up for some years to compete in our sporting events. They like the competition I guess and as of late with all the identity theft issues and the modern security controls in place the tournaments are the only places that they can play. They’ve had a few guys that have played in the NHL over the years but they don’t really excel individually. This wasn’t discovered until Gretzky was in the league. The NSA thought that he might have been an alien that had been implanted in his family as an infant. Their reasoning for the study was that he was such a superstar yet was really a physical weakling (everybody knows that his upper body strength was always the weakest of any player on the teams that he played on). They couldn’t figure it out, but used him for some of the initial testing experiments.
The government has spent many years now developing an accurate test to determine whether someone is an alien or not. It used to be a blood test but most of the time you couldn’t get a decent blood sample unless there was a high stick injury or the results of an errant puck and a player’s face. I mean ya just can’t arbitrarily ask some one for a blood sample, can you? So they developed something else. Something that could be a little more indiscernible in its administration. They came up with a urine analysis.
All government employees and contractors that have security clearances now have to daily take this test to ensure that aliens haven’t infiltrated our secure ranks. The modern device is fairly similar to an EPT (early pregnancy test) and all ya have to do is piss on it. The chemical activation system on test strips, kind a like litmus paper, unfortunately, also indicates if you’re on steroids. If your piss turns the strip a shade of blue then, honey, you’ve been doing the juice. But if a red hue appears then you’re an f’n alien.
Like I said though, this handy little testing device is used within government ranks. When they want to check on the common public then they use a version that looks like a toilet bowl deorderizer. It comes in a couple of different forms: one with a wire hanger that can be hung over the edge of the bowl and one that looks like a hockey puck that is generally just dropped in urinals. Both version, prior to testing, are just a milky white color. But once they’ve been activated they either turn pinkish if an alien pissed on it or bluish if someone doing steroids whizzed on it. If I drizzled all over one of these detectors not a damn thing would happen.
So the next tournament that ya play in you might just be able to tell if you’ve got aliens or guys on steroids playing against ya by just checking in the can. If the NSA guys are on to some alien leads, and one team in the tourney is just creaming everybody else, then chances are you’ll notice the detection devices in use.
Word is, from that friend of a friend dude, that the government guys refer to the filthy rich pro athletes on steroids as “Bluebloods” because of the revealing color on the indicators.
“Redzonians”, apparently is the nickname that they’ve given to the aliens. The only time that I actually heard the term “Redzonian”, I thought he guy talking was referring to a guy on the ice that was playing just balls out with no fear. Guess I was wrong, ehh.
I pretty much believe all this shit and I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you do or not. But I’ve got one thing that I can’t figure out about these “Redzonians”. I mean they’re sure walking with wood, ehh? Kicking our asses from one end of the rink to the other. So here it is: How’d they learn how to play so damn good?
Jasper here walking with wood, but just bloody bewildered.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
JUST A LITTLE BIT OF PICK-UP
Oh, my gosh! I’m in puck heaven this morning!
For those of you that might be reading this at a later date let me fill you in from my antiquated time machine. Jasper Wheats here, lopsided little puckster from the backwoods of some place in the great white north, and its January 1st of the year 2008.
Happy New Year!
NBC and the NHL have just made my day. They pulled it off and my complements to the great folks of Buffalo, NY. A televised game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres at Ralph Wilson Stadium. An outdoor game being played inside a football arena in front of over 73,000 live fans.
By jiminy, this is just great, ehh. I haven’t been this amped up as a spectator of ice hockey since I watched my LA Kings play the Habs back in the Stanley Cup Finals in the early ‘90’s.
What a pleasure this is. I’m definitely walking with wood today!
The morning begins with a viewing of the Rose Parade on the tube. Here it is about five degrees heading for about fifteen below outside my cabin and the honey and I are watching these marching bands, floats, cowboys and even Indians parade down some street in Southern California where its going to be in the low seventies today. Them folks are spoiled, ehh. So, much to my surprise as the Anaheim float goes by I see the Stanley Cup curtsey of the Ducks. Cool! Seems as though they got special permission to display it without it being stuffed with flowers. Yup, that would-a been a mistake. Ain’t nothin supposed to be in that cup ‘cept beer or champagne. Right?
The Rose Parade broadcast ends and I change over to NBC for the “Winter Classic”. It’s snowing pretty good. The program shows a scene of a youngster doing a little puck-handling and shooting on a frozen pond. You know how I love pond hockey, ehh? I get a lump in my throat from this shit. It’s the best. Mike Milbury gives a bit of nostalgia about the roots of hockey for these guys - skating on ponds and in backyards when they were all just kids starting out in this - the best sport in the world.
Uhhh, I’m just getting too emotional over this. I call Jingles to see if he’s got the game on. He thought it was later this afternoon. Then I call Bronzy. Yup he’s TiVo’ing it for later review. Last I call Pops. He didn’t know about it. I can tell by the sound of his voice that he’s getting pretty damn emotional too as he gets his TV revved up.
Within a minute of the start of the game, with snow coming down hard, the Penguins get the first goal. Crosby pulls something unbelievable crossing the blue line. After that it is just great hit after great hit. Sure the snow causes some problems, They’ve got to run the Zams mid-period, shit we would have got the shovels out, ehh. Expected - no complaints here. I just hope that NBC doesn’t shorten the coverage because of the extra time needed.
The second period gets under way with it now sleeting. This is bringing back so many memories.
I head down to the pond or up to the high school on Saturday mornings. Maybe pack a thermos of something warm. Not so much to drink but to pour into a cup to warm up my hands later. Eventually enough of us show up and a couple of the guys chose up sides. Just a little bit of pick-up. That’s the best hockey in the world.
Maybe that’s what the NHL should do for the All Star game once in a while. I think it would be great if they had an outdoor All Star game like this today where seventy to ninety thousand fans showed up. Sure we still vote for the All Stars but when the guys get out on the ice for warm ups a couple of designated guys pick teams. No east against west, no North America against the rest, no nothing - just a little bit of pick-up. They switch jersey colors as needed and then get the game underway. It would be a blast. No chance to practice together - ya gotta jell out on the ice.
Hey National Hockey League - are you reading this? Are ya listening? NBC? (Versus? Fox Sports? Do you hear me?) Sell it boys. You heard it here first.
Buffalo scores within two minutes of the start of the second period. The sleet continues for most of the period. Again a lot of good hits. The game is fast. These guys are lit.
Like those pale blue Penguin sweaters. Reminds me of the Maine Black Bears, sort-a. They’ll sell a bunch of those replica babies, I’m sure.
Third period starts and there’s no snow, no sleet. Weird - a weatherman is part of the broadcast team. In Buffalo, you need him - the weather can change so fast coming off the lake. Mid period it’s starting to snow again. Predicting wind. The teams will change ends mid-period to be weather fair.
Hey, here’s to all those fans. A hearty bunch of folks they are! They’ve been prepped for this by watching the Bills play regularly.
And then I gotta tell ya that the commercials have been good too. I always appreciate the ones for the USMC - a special place in my heart for those guys (O.B.O. and M.A.J. - that’s for you guys). The Heiny one is good too - just too bad that beer tastes like a skunk’s ass. Give me a good Irish amber, ehh. Oh hell give me two or three cold ones.
So it’s snowing more again as they switch ends in the third. The announcers are getting cold. Wimps!
I wonder if Buffalo’s Miller has that stocking cap glued to his mask? Kinda surprised that the officials have let him wear it. What if it falls off during a skrum in the crease and it obstructs the puck? Probably won’t get a chance to see - but what if, ehh?
This has been some old time hockey. We just need a bench clearing brawl to really make my day. Oh hell that would be icing on the cake. I’m happy enough as it is.
I gotta tell ya, you guys, these two teams, the officials, the live fans of Buffalo, NBC, the NHL and sponsors are all f’n walking with wood today! This is the best yet.
Damn! Pittsburgh penalty with seconds left. That’ll roll over into OT and make for an interesting start four on three.
Intense, this overtime. Finally its sent out of the Pittsburgh end and then back in again. A little jostling right in the crease and the puck is loose - scary. Penalty’s over now and we’ve got a face-off at center ice again. Weird ass buzzer and they change ends in OT. Fair? I guess so. End to end but seems like Buffalo’s got more control, more shots. Snowing steady again. Lovin it!
Fifty seconds left and the Penns get called for icing.
All that and nothing. No score in OT. It goes to a shoot out, my least favored part of modern hockey. No team aspect in this. Get rid of it. (Ding dang if I’m not getting opinionated, ehh.)
Because of the wind the shoot out will be only done in one end. Each goalie switching out between shots.
Buffalo - first shot - goal!
Pittsburgh - first shot - stumped
Buffalo - second shot - save
Pittsburgh - second shot - score!
Buffalo - third shooter - no goal
Pittsburgh - third shooter - goal - five hole - it’s the game winner for Crosby!!
And the fireworks go off!
I hope that they do this again next year. Its some good shit. I sure wish I could say “I was there!”
How ‘bout you? Were you there? Walking with wood?
For those of you that might be reading this at a later date let me fill you in from my antiquated time machine. Jasper Wheats here, lopsided little puckster from the backwoods of some place in the great white north, and its January 1st of the year 2008.
Happy New Year!
NBC and the NHL have just made my day. They pulled it off and my complements to the great folks of Buffalo, NY. A televised game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres at Ralph Wilson Stadium. An outdoor game being played inside a football arena in front of over 73,000 live fans.
By jiminy, this is just great, ehh. I haven’t been this amped up as a spectator of ice hockey since I watched my LA Kings play the Habs back in the Stanley Cup Finals in the early ‘90’s.
What a pleasure this is. I’m definitely walking with wood today!
The morning begins with a viewing of the Rose Parade on the tube. Here it is about five degrees heading for about fifteen below outside my cabin and the honey and I are watching these marching bands, floats, cowboys and even Indians parade down some street in Southern California where its going to be in the low seventies today. Them folks are spoiled, ehh. So, much to my surprise as the Anaheim float goes by I see the Stanley Cup curtsey of the Ducks. Cool! Seems as though they got special permission to display it without it being stuffed with flowers. Yup, that would-a been a mistake. Ain’t nothin supposed to be in that cup ‘cept beer or champagne. Right?
The Rose Parade broadcast ends and I change over to NBC for the “Winter Classic”. It’s snowing pretty good. The program shows a scene of a youngster doing a little puck-handling and shooting on a frozen pond. You know how I love pond hockey, ehh? I get a lump in my throat from this shit. It’s the best. Mike Milbury gives a bit of nostalgia about the roots of hockey for these guys - skating on ponds and in backyards when they were all just kids starting out in this - the best sport in the world.
Uhhh, I’m just getting too emotional over this. I call Jingles to see if he’s got the game on. He thought it was later this afternoon. Then I call Bronzy. Yup he’s TiVo’ing it for later review. Last I call Pops. He didn’t know about it. I can tell by the sound of his voice that he’s getting pretty damn emotional too as he gets his TV revved up.
Within a minute of the start of the game, with snow coming down hard, the Penguins get the first goal. Crosby pulls something unbelievable crossing the blue line. After that it is just great hit after great hit. Sure the snow causes some problems, They’ve got to run the Zams mid-period, shit we would have got the shovels out, ehh. Expected - no complaints here. I just hope that NBC doesn’t shorten the coverage because of the extra time needed.
The second period gets under way with it now sleeting. This is bringing back so many memories.
I head down to the pond or up to the high school on Saturday mornings. Maybe pack a thermos of something warm. Not so much to drink but to pour into a cup to warm up my hands later. Eventually enough of us show up and a couple of the guys chose up sides. Just a little bit of pick-up. That’s the best hockey in the world.
Maybe that’s what the NHL should do for the All Star game once in a while. I think it would be great if they had an outdoor All Star game like this today where seventy to ninety thousand fans showed up. Sure we still vote for the All Stars but when the guys get out on the ice for warm ups a couple of designated guys pick teams. No east against west, no North America against the rest, no nothing - just a little bit of pick-up. They switch jersey colors as needed and then get the game underway. It would be a blast. No chance to practice together - ya gotta jell out on the ice.
Hey National Hockey League - are you reading this? Are ya listening? NBC? (Versus? Fox Sports? Do you hear me?) Sell it boys. You heard it here first.
Buffalo scores within two minutes of the start of the second period. The sleet continues for most of the period. Again a lot of good hits. The game is fast. These guys are lit.
Like those pale blue Penguin sweaters. Reminds me of the Maine Black Bears, sort-a. They’ll sell a bunch of those replica babies, I’m sure.
Third period starts and there’s no snow, no sleet. Weird - a weatherman is part of the broadcast team. In Buffalo, you need him - the weather can change so fast coming off the lake. Mid period it’s starting to snow again. Predicting wind. The teams will change ends mid-period to be weather fair.
Hey, here’s to all those fans. A hearty bunch of folks they are! They’ve been prepped for this by watching the Bills play regularly.
And then I gotta tell ya that the commercials have been good too. I always appreciate the ones for the USMC - a special place in my heart for those guys (O.B.O. and M.A.J. - that’s for you guys). The Heiny one is good too - just too bad that beer tastes like a skunk’s ass. Give me a good Irish amber, ehh. Oh hell give me two or three cold ones.
So it’s snowing more again as they switch ends in the third. The announcers are getting cold. Wimps!
I wonder if Buffalo’s Miller has that stocking cap glued to his mask? Kinda surprised that the officials have let him wear it. What if it falls off during a skrum in the crease and it obstructs the puck? Probably won’t get a chance to see - but what if, ehh?
This has been some old time hockey. We just need a bench clearing brawl to really make my day. Oh hell that would be icing on the cake. I’m happy enough as it is.
I gotta tell ya, you guys, these two teams, the officials, the live fans of Buffalo, NBC, the NHL and sponsors are all f’n walking with wood today! This is the best yet.
Damn! Pittsburgh penalty with seconds left. That’ll roll over into OT and make for an interesting start four on three.
Intense, this overtime. Finally its sent out of the Pittsburgh end and then back in again. A little jostling right in the crease and the puck is loose - scary. Penalty’s over now and we’ve got a face-off at center ice again. Weird ass buzzer and they change ends in OT. Fair? I guess so. End to end but seems like Buffalo’s got more control, more shots. Snowing steady again. Lovin it!
Fifty seconds left and the Penns get called for icing.
All that and nothing. No score in OT. It goes to a shoot out, my least favored part of modern hockey. No team aspect in this. Get rid of it. (Ding dang if I’m not getting opinionated, ehh.)
Because of the wind the shoot out will be only done in one end. Each goalie switching out between shots.
Buffalo - first shot - goal!
Pittsburgh - first shot - stumped
Buffalo - second shot - save
Pittsburgh - second shot - score!
Buffalo - third shooter - no goal
Pittsburgh - third shooter - goal - five hole - it’s the game winner for Crosby!!
And the fireworks go off!
I hope that they do this again next year. Its some good shit. I sure wish I could say “I was there!”
How ‘bout you? Were you there? Walking with wood?
Saturday, December 29, 2007
NEGATE THE NIGHTMARES???
Hey gang!
How’s it hangin?
Saint Nick leave you a treat or two? I got mine. Nice!
Not much to write this week cuz I’m spending some time right now getting sauced with the honey. Got the fire going in the fireplace, the in-laws or out for a while and the snow is crispy. Most days I’d say “Oh, just for a rink in the back yard!” But not today.
Nope!
Got some other stuff on my mind.
But I read some legal shit recently that made it sound like Chuck Norris is going after people using his good name.
Scary!
You’d think he’d appreciate the free advertising, ehh? When you think about it, he should be probably paying us to wear his name on our jerseys, right?
“Norris’ Nightmares”. What a team! Those kids are the best damn hockey players you ever did see. They’ve got it all and more heart then you’d think possible from a bunch of hard-asses.
I’d hate to have to change their name because “Carlos” thinks he’s getting a bad rep.
In event he comes after us awe struck Chuck Norris wanna-bees, do any of you guys have an idea for a new name?
Let me know if ya come up with any good ideas. I just may need one.
Captain Morgan’s calling for another round so I gotta run.
But have yourselves one heck of Great New Year! Spend a little time walking with wood, ehh!
See ya then in 2008.
Jasper Wheats - your favorite little lopsided puck buddy.
How’s it hangin?
Saint Nick leave you a treat or two? I got mine. Nice!
Not much to write this week cuz I’m spending some time right now getting sauced with the honey. Got the fire going in the fireplace, the in-laws or out for a while and the snow is crispy. Most days I’d say “Oh, just for a rink in the back yard!” But not today.
Nope!
Got some other stuff on my mind.
But I read some legal shit recently that made it sound like Chuck Norris is going after people using his good name.
Scary!
You’d think he’d appreciate the free advertising, ehh? When you think about it, he should be probably paying us to wear his name on our jerseys, right?
“Norris’ Nightmares”. What a team! Those kids are the best damn hockey players you ever did see. They’ve got it all and more heart then you’d think possible from a bunch of hard-asses.
I’d hate to have to change their name because “Carlos” thinks he’s getting a bad rep.
In event he comes after us awe struck Chuck Norris wanna-bees, do any of you guys have an idea for a new name?
Let me know if ya come up with any good ideas. I just may need one.
Captain Morgan’s calling for another round so I gotta run.
But have yourselves one heck of Great New Year! Spend a little time walking with wood, ehh!
See ya then in 2008.
Jasper Wheats - your favorite little lopsided puck buddy.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
GREEN PARADE
A very Merry Christmas to all my fool puck buddies out there!
Hope that all of you have been good this year and are getting what ya want for Christmas.
Yup and I ain’t going to use some politically correct phrase to greet ya. Its “Christmas“, dab nab it. I’m a Christian by belief and that says that I’m celebrating the birth of Christ at this time of year and you can greet me any old dang way you want but I’m going to use the word “Christmas” when I greet you.
I’ve been writing this hockey humor now for a year and I have no intentions of stopping at this point. I do intend to spread the word a bit more in the coming year and will be posting last year’s blogs on myspace.com. You can probably find me there if you do a search while in myspace and look for either my user name “Hockey Bob” or my email “walkingwithwood”. At some point in time I also intend to develop a website - but not yet cuz I need a bit more free time in order to get started. If anybody wants to help me for free then just shoot me an email. OK?
Last night I watched a hockey game on TV. It was the Sharks versus the Ducks on Fox’s sports network in the Bay Area (San Francisco, CA) and the Ducks again pounded the Sharks on their own ice. I don’t really care, I’m an LA Kings fan anyway (FOOL!), but it was ice hockey and for it to be televised I was quite pleased. It made for an enjoyable evening to hang out with the honey. But shiiish, it was the third televised game between these two competitors in this week before Christmas. By now they must really hate each other, ehh?
While watching and at a point where I was really just listening I heard the announcers mention that Sher-Wood had announced it is going to stop producing their premium wooden hockey sticks. They came back a few minutes later and said that their support staff had determined that only seventeen (17) NHLr’s are currently using wooden sticks.
Blymie! My whole realm of existence is based on wooden hockey sticks. As Jasper Wheats my tag line is “walking with wood” and this news just can’t be true. How many times have I praised the good wood of Sher-wood hockey sticks, ehh? You guys know that I love these beautiful and deadly weapons of our trade. Right? I’ve always had a preference to use a Paul Coffee signature model P.M.P. 5030 droit (right to you English speaking folks). Damn! What is the world coming too?
My first thought last night was that the whole world is just going too green. Hence the title of this blog. It just might be the case when you dig deep enough. I remember back when we were all trying to be so ecological and at that early time it meant using things from the earth that were replenishable. That meant using things from plants and animals and not using things that required petroleum products. Trees can be planted and will grow, right? And cows will give birth to calves and calves will grow. So products made from these were good for us because someday we would run out of oil. Now you guys all know that plastics are made from petroleum products right? Doubt me? Then look it up.
But somewhere along the way green changed its meaning to using products that didn’t use replenishable forests. The tree huggers won, ehh? So instead we now have all of these plastic’s and other oil based wastes going into landfills where it will take ten million years or so to break down and revert back into a natural substance. I don’t think that that is so smart - but then I ain’t no rocket scientist am I? I’m just a little lopsided hockey player that likes to walk with wood. I like to use Sher-Woods and they make those out of wood, ehh. Replenishable. My first hockey helmet was made of leather, not plastic. It was an ugly little wrap around with a spider web top. All leather. I don’t know if it protected me so well, but it fit over a woolen knit stocking cap just fine. And then there’s that stocking cap - wool, not knit synthetics. Replenishable from sheep. And my first good skates were all leather uppers and soles from Bauers. Of course they had a small bit of plastic or glass reinforced resin armor between the inners and outers. You’d take those home and soak’em in hot water and then put them on for the day while they dried up and shrunk to a perfect fit around each foot. Then you’d wax them up with a good saddle soap - again made of replenishable animal fat. Of course I always wished that I could afford a good pair of Tac’s back then. They were made of kangaroo skin leather - again replenishable. By the time I could afford those light weight babies they made it illegal to use kangaroo. Some do-gooder came up with that “swell idea” not realizing that kangaroos are like rodents in Australia and they’ve got way too many of them.
Is Sher-Wood getting on the green parade?
So this morning I decide to google this issue with Sher-Wood.
I come a cross an interesting article by Sean Gordon, the Quebec Bureau Chief of the Toronto Star that was published November 5, 2007. Ok, so it’s old news now - almost two months old, ehh. But so what. I don’t get the Toronto Star delivered here to the cabin. It’s news to me.
Here’s the skinny.
Sherbrook Woodcraft was started up in 1949. The name has now been shortened to Sher-Wood which we are all familiar with and their always popular hockey sticks. Last year they made one million wooden hockey sticks and three-hundred and fifty thousand composite sticks.
So you can see there is still one hell of a market for wooden sticks.
What they are going to do is stop making their signature premium sticks at their factory in Quebec. Leopold Drolet the owner and earlier designer of the Sher-Woods that Guy LaFleur used has stated that it is “no longer possible to make a profit mass producing wooden sticks with Quebec timber”.
Well what the fuck are we going to do?
They will be made elsewhere. China, India, Timbuktoo. Shit I don’t know!
Drolet himself said that he doesn’t use a composite or aluminum shaft stick He won’t play with anything except a 5030. Well what the heck is he doing. About forty folks are going to lose their job at his plant. And that’s about half of them. Nice Christmas present, ehh?
After reading that statement I got up out my comfy recliner, walked barefooted over into the icy mud room and grabbed one of my 5030’s. Not broken yet, its an old Bellows 23 signature model feather-lite. And it felt good in my bare hands. I can still read the price tag: $24.60 USD. I preferred the Paul Coffee version but they must not have had any in stock when I bought this one. Shit, Drolet, raise the price. Here you’ve got one of the greatest sticks in the world and you could be selling it for a few more bucks, ehh. What’s a good composite cost - $80 - $150? You got some room in there to raise your prices.
This is what LaFleur had to say, “The P.M.P. 5030 was the best stick in the world.” And then he said something about gaining ten to twenty miles an hour on your shot with a composite. But what good is that if ya miss the net by fifty feet? The hero, LaFleur, knows what he’s talking about, ehh. Didn’t he score almost 620 goals in his career? I do believe that he also said something about “crap” and questioning what kind of parent can afford a $200 stick for a kid that shows an interest in the sport and is just starting out.
Well, who are these seventeen NHL players that are still using wooden sticks? I want to know. I know of one that is and he’s using Sher-Woods. That’s Jason Spezza of the Ottawa Senators. Yeah the dude is walking with wood, ehh! And you should be too!
That’s it for now.
Jasper here until next year.
Merry Christmas and I hope ya get some wood for the new year.
Hope that all of you have been good this year and are getting what ya want for Christmas.
Yup and I ain’t going to use some politically correct phrase to greet ya. Its “Christmas“, dab nab it. I’m a Christian by belief and that says that I’m celebrating the birth of Christ at this time of year and you can greet me any old dang way you want but I’m going to use the word “Christmas” when I greet you.
I’ve been writing this hockey humor now for a year and I have no intentions of stopping at this point. I do intend to spread the word a bit more in the coming year and will be posting last year’s blogs on myspace.com. You can probably find me there if you do a search while in myspace and look for either my user name “Hockey Bob” or my email “walkingwithwood”. At some point in time I also intend to develop a website - but not yet cuz I need a bit more free time in order to get started. If anybody wants to help me for free then just shoot me an email. OK?
Last night I watched a hockey game on TV. It was the Sharks versus the Ducks on Fox’s sports network in the Bay Area (San Francisco, CA) and the Ducks again pounded the Sharks on their own ice. I don’t really care, I’m an LA Kings fan anyway (FOOL!), but it was ice hockey and for it to be televised I was quite pleased. It made for an enjoyable evening to hang out with the honey. But shiiish, it was the third televised game between these two competitors in this week before Christmas. By now they must really hate each other, ehh?
While watching and at a point where I was really just listening I heard the announcers mention that Sher-Wood had announced it is going to stop producing their premium wooden hockey sticks. They came back a few minutes later and said that their support staff had determined that only seventeen (17) NHLr’s are currently using wooden sticks.
Blymie! My whole realm of existence is based on wooden hockey sticks. As Jasper Wheats my tag line is “walking with wood” and this news just can’t be true. How many times have I praised the good wood of Sher-wood hockey sticks, ehh? You guys know that I love these beautiful and deadly weapons of our trade. Right? I’ve always had a preference to use a Paul Coffee signature model P.M.P. 5030 droit (right to you English speaking folks). Damn! What is the world coming too?
My first thought last night was that the whole world is just going too green. Hence the title of this blog. It just might be the case when you dig deep enough. I remember back when we were all trying to be so ecological and at that early time it meant using things from the earth that were replenishable. That meant using things from plants and animals and not using things that required petroleum products. Trees can be planted and will grow, right? And cows will give birth to calves and calves will grow. So products made from these were good for us because someday we would run out of oil. Now you guys all know that plastics are made from petroleum products right? Doubt me? Then look it up.
But somewhere along the way green changed its meaning to using products that didn’t use replenishable forests. The tree huggers won, ehh? So instead we now have all of these plastic’s and other oil based wastes going into landfills where it will take ten million years or so to break down and revert back into a natural substance. I don’t think that that is so smart - but then I ain’t no rocket scientist am I? I’m just a little lopsided hockey player that likes to walk with wood. I like to use Sher-Woods and they make those out of wood, ehh. Replenishable. My first hockey helmet was made of leather, not plastic. It was an ugly little wrap around with a spider web top. All leather. I don’t know if it protected me so well, but it fit over a woolen knit stocking cap just fine. And then there’s that stocking cap - wool, not knit synthetics. Replenishable from sheep. And my first good skates were all leather uppers and soles from Bauers. Of course they had a small bit of plastic or glass reinforced resin armor between the inners and outers. You’d take those home and soak’em in hot water and then put them on for the day while they dried up and shrunk to a perfect fit around each foot. Then you’d wax them up with a good saddle soap - again made of replenishable animal fat. Of course I always wished that I could afford a good pair of Tac’s back then. They were made of kangaroo skin leather - again replenishable. By the time I could afford those light weight babies they made it illegal to use kangaroo. Some do-gooder came up with that “swell idea” not realizing that kangaroos are like rodents in Australia and they’ve got way too many of them.
Is Sher-Wood getting on the green parade?
So this morning I decide to google this issue with Sher-Wood.
I come a cross an interesting article by Sean Gordon, the Quebec Bureau Chief of the Toronto Star that was published November 5, 2007. Ok, so it’s old news now - almost two months old, ehh. But so what. I don’t get the Toronto Star delivered here to the cabin. It’s news to me.
Here’s the skinny.
Sherbrook Woodcraft was started up in 1949. The name has now been shortened to Sher-Wood which we are all familiar with and their always popular hockey sticks. Last year they made one million wooden hockey sticks and three-hundred and fifty thousand composite sticks.
So you can see there is still one hell of a market for wooden sticks.
What they are going to do is stop making their signature premium sticks at their factory in Quebec. Leopold Drolet the owner and earlier designer of the Sher-Woods that Guy LaFleur used has stated that it is “no longer possible to make a profit mass producing wooden sticks with Quebec timber”.
Well what the fuck are we going to do?
They will be made elsewhere. China, India, Timbuktoo. Shit I don’t know!
Drolet himself said that he doesn’t use a composite or aluminum shaft stick He won’t play with anything except a 5030. Well what the heck is he doing. About forty folks are going to lose their job at his plant. And that’s about half of them. Nice Christmas present, ehh?
After reading that statement I got up out my comfy recliner, walked barefooted over into the icy mud room and grabbed one of my 5030’s. Not broken yet, its an old Bellows 23 signature model feather-lite. And it felt good in my bare hands. I can still read the price tag: $24.60 USD. I preferred the Paul Coffee version but they must not have had any in stock when I bought this one. Shit, Drolet, raise the price. Here you’ve got one of the greatest sticks in the world and you could be selling it for a few more bucks, ehh. What’s a good composite cost - $80 - $150? You got some room in there to raise your prices.
This is what LaFleur had to say, “The P.M.P. 5030 was the best stick in the world.” And then he said something about gaining ten to twenty miles an hour on your shot with a composite. But what good is that if ya miss the net by fifty feet? The hero, LaFleur, knows what he’s talking about, ehh. Didn’t he score almost 620 goals in his career? I do believe that he also said something about “crap” and questioning what kind of parent can afford a $200 stick for a kid that shows an interest in the sport and is just starting out.
Well, who are these seventeen NHL players that are still using wooden sticks? I want to know. I know of one that is and he’s using Sher-Woods. That’s Jason Spezza of the Ottawa Senators. Yeah the dude is walking with wood, ehh! And you should be too!
That’s it for now.
Jasper here until next year.
Merry Christmas and I hope ya get some wood for the new year.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
CHRISTMAS TOADS
Hey you guys, here’s a Happy Good Holiday to you!
It’s been a fair week so far for me. Been back home for most of it instead of being on the road. The company Christmas Party is tonight, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice. Me and the honey will get dolled up and have some fun. She bought me some nice dress slacks and had them tailored so that my short leg doesn’t have a damn pile of fabric hangin on my boot. It helps to look spiffed up for these things ya know. She’ll look stunning as usual - damn I love that lady!
So being in town I got a chance to coach a couple of games with my Norris’s Nightmares. Jingles and Bronzy have been doing wonders with them. They looked tight and are two games out of first place in their division. They split the games with the Red Dogs over in Wateca. The Red Dogs have got that hotter then shit girl goalie. She’s got that glove hand that every guy is looking for around midnight if ya know what I mean - fast. Tanker bullnosed through the slot for a couple of goals in the second game knocking her on her keister both times. Just a tiny bit of fisticuffs erupted as would be expected. But the bitch is tough, and takes her teeth out when she plays. She knows what she’s up against every night. Our defense finally looks like their working as team-mates now when they’re out on the ice. Seem to know where each other is at or at least where they’re supposed to be at. It looked good. I was real pleased. These guys have really been working hard and I gotta say that they’re walking with wood right now.
I also managed to hook up for a game with the Outlaws last night. Woody moved out of state earlier in the season so I played as him. He’s my drunken twin to most folks who have ever seen us together, ’cept his short legs are both the same length. I don’t have his skills either, but who cares - nobody gives a rats ass. It was fun. We went over to Maggy’s and closed the place like old times. Nothin like chugging brewskies and having the barmaid bringin ya free shooters, ehh. I hadn’t hung out with these guys for a while so It was the tits of a good time.
Maggy’s parking lot is gravel and this time of year ya can’t see much of it due to the snow. Stinky comes over and plows it out for her and gets free lunches a couple a times a week for helping out. So anyway ya gotta kinda watch your step out there cuz one step ya take might be on some packed ice or re-melt with a bit of a slip and the next ya might hit exposed gravel grabbin your foot fo a nose dive. It’s a little dicey.
We call it a night inside but Jingles and Bronzy continue some small talk as we head towards my truck. I pull my gear out the cab to throw into the bed when out of the dark Tidwilly and the Wanker boys jump me. Oh shit! What a mess that was. Jingles just about ripped Tidwilly apart. He picked him up at one point and threw him completely over the hood of my truck. The dude just has an Irish mean streak that comes out sometimes and when he’s pumped there’s some unbelievable strength lurking beneath that mellow nature of his. Bronzy, too, don’t believe I ever seen him fight with such vigor. Me, I slipped on the packed snow at the first blow but by the time I was up, Jingles was on Tidwilly. So I squared off with one of the Wanker boys, I can’t tell em apart. They’re both just no good sons of a bitches. We took our blows but I truly believe we pretty much pounded the shit outta them before the sheriff deputies showed up.
Deputy Skolyan took charge of the situation and had dictated cuffing us all. Man was I pumped! After a few minutes while he was on the radio we sat in crusiers waiting to get hauled in. Then he came over to the car that me and my brothers were in and said “Un-cuff the Wheats’. Jasper, you, and your brothers, head-on on home now. Don’t get in anymore shit. These dirt bags that ya whooped on have got some recent warrants against them. I ‘spect that they’ll do thirty days or so. Gonna be Christmas Toads back at our little county lockup. Now git outta here.”
I looked over at Jingles and he had one of his shit eattin grins on and was looking at his bloody knuckles and then I looked over at Bronzy. The dude looked like he was on speed or something. His eyes were so dilated - I realized he was just as torqued as me.
I said, “Hey, sleep ain’t gonna come easy tonight. What say we go down to Denny’s for Grand Slams?”
Jingles smirks, “I think we just had one, but that suits me just fine, Jasper. Lets roll.”
Over to Denny’s we get our chow and like Jingles likes to say “The thousand assorted jellies.” Damn it’s good to be hangin out with my brothers.
Jingles is eight years younger then me. He was born in early January and I like to think that he is one of the best late Christmas presents I ever got. I had been the only boy in the family until he came along - shit having five sisters up until then. I remember how proud I was of him when I was just a kid. I remember the first Christmas present that I bought for him. Cost me a whole dime. It was a blue plastic bear, about five or six inches long. I thought it was just the coolest thing to give your baby brother. Yup, you ain’t real smart when you’re just a kid yet. But he was special to me. Seems as though in fourth or fifth grade I took him with me on the last day of school for show-and-tell. Damn, using your brother as a show-and-tell piece. Crazy, ehh?
We jabbered about all the old time shit while we ate our breakfasts. I told em that watchin Jingles throw Tidwilly reminded me of the time when Bronzy was snooping around under the Christmas tree as a kid and it pissed me off so much that I picked him up and took him outside and threw him into junipers in the front yard.
Bronzy responds, “Yeah, Jasp, you’d go a little crazy now and then didn’t ya?”
Jingles joins the chew on me and says “Shit, remember when I was your jinx whenever you were working on your car. I remember you throwing me around a bit too.”
“Fuck you, you guys. Nobody knew it back then, that I had a blood sugar problem that would make me damn cantankerous if I didn’t eat with regularity. That’s what most of the problem was. I’ve come to figure out that that’s why I’d get so angry about having to wait to eat dinner after Dad got home from work.”
Bronzy about spews his Tabasco’d eggs, “Nine o’clock?”
“Yeah, nine o’clock, Jasper! You still got that clock that Lori and Jim gave you for Christmas that year that only has nine’s on it? Shit, you always were screaming at Mom, “When are we gonna eat, nine o‘clock?“”
“Damn right I still have it. Keep it in my office at home along side some other treasured stuff. I replace the battery in it every year or so and never had any problem telling what time it is with it.” And I jab back, “Ya still got those Nuclear Briefs that I made for you that one Christmas?”
We had made Christmas lists back then and he had written "Nuclear Briefs" on his list. So I made him some. Bought a jock strap and spray painted it gold and threaded an electrical cord into the waist elastic. Made a semi-professional label for a box and wrapped it all up for him. It was hilarious.
“Did anybody ever take a picture of you wearing it? I’d love to post that on a website.”
“Eat shit Jasper. I have no idea what happened to that thing. I figure that one of these years Ry-Ry will surprise me with a new pair.”
We carried on for some time talking about the old days.
Family is something great and I gotta tell ya (not tryin to be all mushy and shit) ya gotta cherish every single moment. Like country singer, Kenny Chesny‘s song “Don’t Blink.” It all goes so fast and every moment can create a hell of a memory for ya. Hang on to them. Tell the stories later and you’ll be walking with wood in the eyes of your future kids or grandkids.
I think back at Christmas’s when I was a kid and the few gifts that I got. We weren’t rich and there sure were a bunch of us in the family. As I recall these items mentioned next were my main gifts in any particular year.
A model airplane, Navy Trainer, made of thin webbed plastic with a rubber band driven prop. Dad could make it fly further then I could. Guess it was because of his height - the plane had more altitude to start with. Me, I’d just wind the rubber band as tight as I could to help it out. Broke the rubber band a few times. Took forever after breaking this gift for me to figure out how to fix things.
An orangish-yellow sweatshirt that had either Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett on it. I’ve never had a yellow sweatshirt since then but wear grays, blues, blacks and whites all the times now days.
An eighty power Gilbert reflecting telescope. Still like looking at the sky at night and all sorts of other heavenly bodies.
Mark Twain’s book “Tom Sawyer”. Probably this tale has had more influence on me then much else. Am I not a little Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn myself, ehh? Could I become the new Mark Twain?
‘Course I got to pick out a new hockey stick one year and we know where that took me.
Oh yeah, those past holidays of gift giving and receiving were great times. Are the physical gifts more lasting then the emotional ones? Nah I don’t thinks so.
What kinda memories of your past holidays can you dig up?
Like I mentioned earlier, I want all of you to have a great Christmas. There’s no point in moping about over bad times. Make your own good times. Have a blast! You just gotta skate hard and walk with wood.
Don’t be a Christmas Toad, ehh.
Now I got some knuckle bumps to heal and some sleep to catch up on before tonight’s company party. So I’ll see ya later.
It’s been a fair week so far for me. Been back home for most of it instead of being on the road. The company Christmas Party is tonight, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice. Me and the honey will get dolled up and have some fun. She bought me some nice dress slacks and had them tailored so that my short leg doesn’t have a damn pile of fabric hangin on my boot. It helps to look spiffed up for these things ya know. She’ll look stunning as usual - damn I love that lady!
So being in town I got a chance to coach a couple of games with my Norris’s Nightmares. Jingles and Bronzy have been doing wonders with them. They looked tight and are two games out of first place in their division. They split the games with the Red Dogs over in Wateca. The Red Dogs have got that hotter then shit girl goalie. She’s got that glove hand that every guy is looking for around midnight if ya know what I mean - fast. Tanker bullnosed through the slot for a couple of goals in the second game knocking her on her keister both times. Just a tiny bit of fisticuffs erupted as would be expected. But the bitch is tough, and takes her teeth out when she plays. She knows what she’s up against every night. Our defense finally looks like their working as team-mates now when they’re out on the ice. Seem to know where each other is at or at least where they’re supposed to be at. It looked good. I was real pleased. These guys have really been working hard and I gotta say that they’re walking with wood right now.
I also managed to hook up for a game with the Outlaws last night. Woody moved out of state earlier in the season so I played as him. He’s my drunken twin to most folks who have ever seen us together, ’cept his short legs are both the same length. I don’t have his skills either, but who cares - nobody gives a rats ass. It was fun. We went over to Maggy’s and closed the place like old times. Nothin like chugging brewskies and having the barmaid bringin ya free shooters, ehh. I hadn’t hung out with these guys for a while so It was the tits of a good time.
Maggy’s parking lot is gravel and this time of year ya can’t see much of it due to the snow. Stinky comes over and plows it out for her and gets free lunches a couple a times a week for helping out. So anyway ya gotta kinda watch your step out there cuz one step ya take might be on some packed ice or re-melt with a bit of a slip and the next ya might hit exposed gravel grabbin your foot fo a nose dive. It’s a little dicey.
We call it a night inside but Jingles and Bronzy continue some small talk as we head towards my truck. I pull my gear out the cab to throw into the bed when out of the dark Tidwilly and the Wanker boys jump me. Oh shit! What a mess that was. Jingles just about ripped Tidwilly apart. He picked him up at one point and threw him completely over the hood of my truck. The dude just has an Irish mean streak that comes out sometimes and when he’s pumped there’s some unbelievable strength lurking beneath that mellow nature of his. Bronzy, too, don’t believe I ever seen him fight with such vigor. Me, I slipped on the packed snow at the first blow but by the time I was up, Jingles was on Tidwilly. So I squared off with one of the Wanker boys, I can’t tell em apart. They’re both just no good sons of a bitches. We took our blows but I truly believe we pretty much pounded the shit outta them before the sheriff deputies showed up.
Deputy Skolyan took charge of the situation and had dictated cuffing us all. Man was I pumped! After a few minutes while he was on the radio we sat in crusiers waiting to get hauled in. Then he came over to the car that me and my brothers were in and said “Un-cuff the Wheats’. Jasper, you, and your brothers, head-on on home now. Don’t get in anymore shit. These dirt bags that ya whooped on have got some recent warrants against them. I ‘spect that they’ll do thirty days or so. Gonna be Christmas Toads back at our little county lockup. Now git outta here.”
I looked over at Jingles and he had one of his shit eattin grins on and was looking at his bloody knuckles and then I looked over at Bronzy. The dude looked like he was on speed or something. His eyes were so dilated - I realized he was just as torqued as me.
I said, “Hey, sleep ain’t gonna come easy tonight. What say we go down to Denny’s for Grand Slams?”
Jingles smirks, “I think we just had one, but that suits me just fine, Jasper. Lets roll.”
Over to Denny’s we get our chow and like Jingles likes to say “The thousand assorted jellies.” Damn it’s good to be hangin out with my brothers.
Jingles is eight years younger then me. He was born in early January and I like to think that he is one of the best late Christmas presents I ever got. I had been the only boy in the family until he came along - shit having five sisters up until then. I remember how proud I was of him when I was just a kid. I remember the first Christmas present that I bought for him. Cost me a whole dime. It was a blue plastic bear, about five or six inches long. I thought it was just the coolest thing to give your baby brother. Yup, you ain’t real smart when you’re just a kid yet. But he was special to me. Seems as though in fourth or fifth grade I took him with me on the last day of school for show-and-tell. Damn, using your brother as a show-and-tell piece. Crazy, ehh?
We jabbered about all the old time shit while we ate our breakfasts. I told em that watchin Jingles throw Tidwilly reminded me of the time when Bronzy was snooping around under the Christmas tree as a kid and it pissed me off so much that I picked him up and took him outside and threw him into junipers in the front yard.
Bronzy responds, “Yeah, Jasp, you’d go a little crazy now and then didn’t ya?”
Jingles joins the chew on me and says “Shit, remember when I was your jinx whenever you were working on your car. I remember you throwing me around a bit too.”
“Fuck you, you guys. Nobody knew it back then, that I had a blood sugar problem that would make me damn cantankerous if I didn’t eat with regularity. That’s what most of the problem was. I’ve come to figure out that that’s why I’d get so angry about having to wait to eat dinner after Dad got home from work.”
Bronzy about spews his Tabasco’d eggs, “Nine o’clock?”
“Yeah, nine o’clock, Jasper! You still got that clock that Lori and Jim gave you for Christmas that year that only has nine’s on it? Shit, you always were screaming at Mom, “When are we gonna eat, nine o‘clock?“”
“Damn right I still have it. Keep it in my office at home along side some other treasured stuff. I replace the battery in it every year or so and never had any problem telling what time it is with it.” And I jab back, “Ya still got those Nuclear Briefs that I made for you that one Christmas?”
We had made Christmas lists back then and he had written "Nuclear Briefs" on his list. So I made him some. Bought a jock strap and spray painted it gold and threaded an electrical cord into the waist elastic. Made a semi-professional label for a box and wrapped it all up for him. It was hilarious.
“Did anybody ever take a picture of you wearing it? I’d love to post that on a website.”
“Eat shit Jasper. I have no idea what happened to that thing. I figure that one of these years Ry-Ry will surprise me with a new pair.”
We carried on for some time talking about the old days.
Family is something great and I gotta tell ya (not tryin to be all mushy and shit) ya gotta cherish every single moment. Like country singer, Kenny Chesny‘s song “Don’t Blink.” It all goes so fast and every moment can create a hell of a memory for ya. Hang on to them. Tell the stories later and you’ll be walking with wood in the eyes of your future kids or grandkids.
I think back at Christmas’s when I was a kid and the few gifts that I got. We weren’t rich and there sure were a bunch of us in the family. As I recall these items mentioned next were my main gifts in any particular year.
A model airplane, Navy Trainer, made of thin webbed plastic with a rubber band driven prop. Dad could make it fly further then I could. Guess it was because of his height - the plane had more altitude to start with. Me, I’d just wind the rubber band as tight as I could to help it out. Broke the rubber band a few times. Took forever after breaking this gift for me to figure out how to fix things.
An orangish-yellow sweatshirt that had either Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett on it. I’ve never had a yellow sweatshirt since then but wear grays, blues, blacks and whites all the times now days.
An eighty power Gilbert reflecting telescope. Still like looking at the sky at night and all sorts of other heavenly bodies.
Mark Twain’s book “Tom Sawyer”. Probably this tale has had more influence on me then much else. Am I not a little Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn myself, ehh? Could I become the new Mark Twain?
‘Course I got to pick out a new hockey stick one year and we know where that took me.
Oh yeah, those past holidays of gift giving and receiving were great times. Are the physical gifts more lasting then the emotional ones? Nah I don’t thinks so.
What kinda memories of your past holidays can you dig up?
Like I mentioned earlier, I want all of you to have a great Christmas. There’s no point in moping about over bad times. Make your own good times. Have a blast! You just gotta skate hard and walk with wood.
Don’t be a Christmas Toad, ehh.
Now I got some knuckle bumps to heal and some sleep to catch up on before tonight’s company party. So I’ll see ya later.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
HASH
Hey, you guys. Sorry I missed ya last week. Just have been ’streamly busy with my real job. I’ve had to travel a quite a bit recently and then had problems with the company vehicle that really clobbered the old gumption to tell ya a new story here. Besides work, Christmas is fast approaching and the season makes my mind wonder a bit. Start thinking about the old days, ehh, and holiday hockey out on the pond again. Those were the times! You guys can relate to that?
But I’ve also been really tied up in an old rag knot with a new endeavor. I’ll be teaching a university class this spring and have to do a lot prep shit for that too. With all that’s going on I sure hope that someday I’ll have sacked away enough money that the honey and me can afford to quit milkin the cows, if ya know what I mean.
So here goes this week’s trip into my world. Hang on, cuz I sure hope ya got an appetite for some excitement and dad-burn foolishness.
HASH - you’re familiar with the word, ehh? Yah. A shortened version of the word hashish that Webster says is “unadulterated resin from the flowering tops of the female hemp plant that is smoked, chewed or drunk for its intoxicating effect.”
Oh yeah!
Put it simply it’s the illegal drug that the youth of world toked up in bongs and hash pipes long before all this chemical crap got invented that kids are getting fucked up on nowadays. Yup, it’s the flowering sap from pot plants. A smelly, brownish, little turd looking substance that’ll get ya high.
Experience says it works. But my drugs of choice these days only include the caffeine in my coffee or cola pops, alcohol in my beerskies (or during this Holiday Season a little Irish Cream and Kahlua), prescription meds that the doc gives me to let me live to a ripe ass age, and ibuprofen for all my ding-dang aches and pains.
But in the day I wasn’t no panty-waist. I did the shit. Makes me wonder, though, thinking back a few years that how much I enjoyed the morphine after they replaced my hip. Just surprised that I didn’t end up a geezed out street druggy instead of the upstanding old fart that I am today.
But back to HASH, ehh. Like pot, it gives ya the munchies. Now the munchies are something we can probably talk about. You guys really know what I mean here, ehh? I mean come on, you’ve seen that Jack in the Box commercial where the dude is trying to figure out what to order and he’s talking to the bobble head Jack on the dash of his van … “Yeahhhh….. That’sss what I wasss thinkinnnn.” Sure for shit when ya got the munchies ya just gotta eat. That’s it! Flat as a pancake and time to scarf.
Well, I’ll be damned if I don’t wake up with the munchies every morning. Don’t you?
Its been that way since I was a fool kid not even tall enough to look over the kitchen table. I can remember a time when I was just a little tike and Mom had fixed chili for dinner. I wouldn’t eat it. She kept me sitting at the table until bedtime and then had me sit with that cold bowl of chili in front of me in the morning too. I wouldn’t eat it - no way - no how. I didn’t like chili and I sure for shit didn’t like anything with tomatoes in it back then. Sure I was starving big time. Munchies galore.
Being a bit pissed off while I was sitting there, I poured all the salt from the shaker into the sugar bowl and later on when Mom finally relented and let me have a bowl of Cheerios I plumb forgot. Egads - that was the biggest waste of breakfast cereal that ever happened in my lifetime I’m sure.
Breakfast is the stuff of life. Cures that morning munchy and leaves ya set for the day, ehh. A good breakfast and ya can be walking with wood all day long.
When I was a kid, cold cereal was definitely the standard. Cheerios first then I moved on to Wheaties. General Mills products - good stuff from a good company. They sponsored my Babe Ruth baseball team (wished it had been my hockey team, ehh). Now that’s a story. Had that big G on my uniform. Wanted to be a catcher but the coach’s son played that position. Fat chance for that opportunity. I must have really sucked anyway cuz I only got to play in one game and that was for the opposing team on an account they didn’t have enough guys show up. A real ego booster - that was - Babe Ruth Baseball. Huh?
It was always a real treat if we got sugar coated cereals when I was kid. But occasionally we would get some Frosted Flakes, Sugar Pops, AlphaBits or Sugar Smacks. Mmmmm mmmmm mmmm! I sure loved those sweet morning bowls filled to the brim with milk.
My school buddy, Girbin, just loved those Sugar Smacks and the old sugar bear that they used in the advertisements. We’d get nuts-o after school eating a bowl or two together.
Coulda been a sugar fiend I guess too, if not a morphine addict. Maybe most of us were. Some of us still are. Gotta have our fix.
Mom was pretty strict about that sugar consumption though. Or at least with me anyway. Around the time Jingles and Bronzy were around she musta lightened up a bit. Damn, they ate Cap’n Crunch. Is it still around? I don’t know. Turned the milk yellow in the bowl and I think it was 40 to 60 percent sugar. Each of em used to eat a whole box for breakfast. You didn’t have to add more milk - just add more cereal. Poor Mom, I’m sure she had to deal with the sugar high that these little junkies took off on.
I still wake up with the munchies every day and I still occasionally fix myself a bowl of cold cereal to remedy that need. ‘Cept now days I start with about a third of a bowl of crisp rice (all generic no name brands any more), a sliced up half a banana, a third a bowl of wheat bran, a couple of table spoons of raisins, and then topping out the bowl with some sugar coated corn flakes. All that scrunched down to make room for that good old 2% milk. Good stuff, Maynard! You’re set for the day after a munchy buster like that.
Now up here in the North Woods that kind a breakfast won’t suit ya too well durin the late fall and winter. Ya don’t want to be puttin too much cold shit in your body so early in the day. Ya need something a little more substantial. Something warm and I ain’t talkin about no damn oatmeal or Malt-O-Meal slop.
Ya need to add some eggs and such to your meal. Now Denny’s, I can vouch for, makes a damn fine breakfast. The Original Grand Slam will suit me just right. Ya get some eggs, pancakes, and choice of meat. Me, I usually go “all bacon and eggs over medium with coffee and a glass of milk with the meal“. Now this meal works great for a morning breakfast, as I figure, my family that hangs out in the city got together again this morning and probably sat down to eight or so orders of Grand Slams this morning. But it also works for filling your gut after a good game of late night hockey and then closing the bar. Done that enough times for sure!
But then there’s my other choice from Denny’s or any other reputable greasy spoon and that’s “bacon and eggs over medium with hash browns, toast and coffee with milk with the meal”. Now Denny’s has a little one up-manship here over others in that they’ll offer their “a thousand assortments of jellies” for your toast (if ya like the three flavors that they’re serving that day - that is). Ya can’t beat it, ehh?
Munchies, uh huh! I sure had them this morning again. I got up pretty early and the honey allows me to make my own breakfast and mess. Its one of the few things that I’ve been able to carry over into marriage from my years of bachelorhood besides hockey.
But it was too damned cold in the cabin to think about cereal. I figured that I’d fire up the stove and make myself something warm, tasty and filling. I checked out the refrigerator and saw that we had eggs. That’s good. Now there might be some leftover red potatoes from the roast beef earlier this week. Yup. That’s good. Now for the meat I see we’ve got some ham, roast beef and meat loaf leftovers, and a bag of salad bacon bits. Hmmm? Looks like the meat loaf and I’ll make some hash.
HASH?
Yup. You guys, it’s the same word - just a different meaning. Now hash as from hashish we know now is a drug, ehh? I don’t know where it gets that “ish” on the end of the word but its probably like Turkish, or English, or Berkleyish; but more then likely it comes from Mendocinoish. I mean cuz like the best shit comes from there, ehh!
But hash for the kitchen fixin, now that’s something else! Again, Webster, my good bud, says “to chop, as in to small pieces; chopped meat mixed with potatoes and browned”. Yeah that’s the stuff!
So, I’m makin some hash you guys. The meatloaf was the heal end out of the pan stuffed into a baggy. I just crumbled that all up while it was still in the baggy. Fired up a large skillet with a mess a olive oil in it. Diced an already cooked red potato and started browning those pups. Dumped in the crumbled meat loaf, diced up a quarter of a bell pepper, kept the fire going and started stirring and flipping. Added a couple of heaping tablespoons of those bacon bits and shook a shit load of black pepper over the top. Smells damn good! Normally I add onions but the meatloaf already had enough in it for my tastes. While this was browning to perfection I got the heat under an egg pan and fried up a couple over medium. All finished I slop the hash on a platter size plate and set the eggs over the top - all to be chopped and mixed up together for a fine morning feast with a little salt and a glass of moo.
Now I use a plastic spatula for flippin the hash in the pan. When the honey makes this or similar dishes like fried potatoes she uses a little wooden thingy. Not quite a wooden spoon and not quite a wooden spatula. I personally hate the thing, but she likes it. After I sort of did my post cooking cleanup I noticed some unusual utensils on the counter that I’d never seen before. The honey must a got them when I was outta town or something. They look like white porcelain but are melamine, whatever the fuck that is, and were made in Thailand if ya can believe that. I had to ask her later where she got them and said she said at the grocery store. I didn’t believe her. They look like they came from a sci-fi store. The first one that I saw kind of looked like a fat tonged table fork with only two tongs. But not really functional as a fork - too fat. What it really looks like is a miniature electronic probe/jabbing gizmo that an alien might have used in Star Trek, Star Wars, or other sci-fi flick. She said its for poking things. I told her, I got the tool for poking things and it sure don’t look like that. This damn thing evens rings when ya tap it, like I said fine porcelain, uh huh. Scary! Now the other utensil looks kind of like a wide blade skinning knife but again that melamine shit. Must be a set or something. Before I talked to her about them I thought, well maybe its new silverware, but if the first one is the fork then this one could be the knife or spoon. Neither too functional. Too flat for a spoon - wouldn’t hold a bit of cereal, and too dull for a knife. She said its for spreading stuff for like icing on a cake. I don’t know though. Could be alien instruments if ya ask me. I’ll have to watch her for a while, ehh.
I’m going to tell ya - hash is a damn good pre-game meal. Ya just wanta make sure that ya scarf it down a couple hours ahead a lacing em up though, cuz it can sit pretty heavy and also cause ya to burp up them peppers and onions. I used to fix it with lard instead of the olive oil like I use now. Moves through ya quite quick that way with the lard and makes ya light for the game if ya know what I mean.
Hash is good fixins for camping too. I fix it for the guys when we go fishin and shit. Makes for a one pot meal that ya can have for breakfast or dinner alike.
I’ve been fixin it for years now, I made it with every kind of meat ya can think of: chicken, fillet mignon, pork chops, ham, steak, hamburger, elk, trout, bacon, leftover sloppy-joe, sausage, turkey dark meat. Its really a “leftover dream meal”.
So here’s the word from Jasper here, ya wanta push a little poop through the shoot and energy up for your pond hockey game tonight in the subzero weather then fix yourself a big old batch of HASH. You’ll be walking with wood like the big boys do!
Keep your sticks down and skate hard!
But I’ve also been really tied up in an old rag knot with a new endeavor. I’ll be teaching a university class this spring and have to do a lot prep shit for that too. With all that’s going on I sure hope that someday I’ll have sacked away enough money that the honey and me can afford to quit milkin the cows, if ya know what I mean.
So here goes this week’s trip into my world. Hang on, cuz I sure hope ya got an appetite for some excitement and dad-burn foolishness.
HASH - you’re familiar with the word, ehh? Yah. A shortened version of the word hashish that Webster says is “unadulterated resin from the flowering tops of the female hemp plant that is smoked, chewed or drunk for its intoxicating effect.”
Oh yeah!
Put it simply it’s the illegal drug that the youth of world toked up in bongs and hash pipes long before all this chemical crap got invented that kids are getting fucked up on nowadays. Yup, it’s the flowering sap from pot plants. A smelly, brownish, little turd looking substance that’ll get ya high.
Experience says it works. But my drugs of choice these days only include the caffeine in my coffee or cola pops, alcohol in my beerskies (or during this Holiday Season a little Irish Cream and Kahlua), prescription meds that the doc gives me to let me live to a ripe ass age, and ibuprofen for all my ding-dang aches and pains.
But in the day I wasn’t no panty-waist. I did the shit. Makes me wonder, though, thinking back a few years that how much I enjoyed the morphine after they replaced my hip. Just surprised that I didn’t end up a geezed out street druggy instead of the upstanding old fart that I am today.
But back to HASH, ehh. Like pot, it gives ya the munchies. Now the munchies are something we can probably talk about. You guys really know what I mean here, ehh? I mean come on, you’ve seen that Jack in the Box commercial where the dude is trying to figure out what to order and he’s talking to the bobble head Jack on the dash of his van … “Yeahhhh….. That’sss what I wasss thinkinnnn.” Sure for shit when ya got the munchies ya just gotta eat. That’s it! Flat as a pancake and time to scarf.
Well, I’ll be damned if I don’t wake up with the munchies every morning. Don’t you?
Its been that way since I was a fool kid not even tall enough to look over the kitchen table. I can remember a time when I was just a little tike and Mom had fixed chili for dinner. I wouldn’t eat it. She kept me sitting at the table until bedtime and then had me sit with that cold bowl of chili in front of me in the morning too. I wouldn’t eat it - no way - no how. I didn’t like chili and I sure for shit didn’t like anything with tomatoes in it back then. Sure I was starving big time. Munchies galore.
Being a bit pissed off while I was sitting there, I poured all the salt from the shaker into the sugar bowl and later on when Mom finally relented and let me have a bowl of Cheerios I plumb forgot. Egads - that was the biggest waste of breakfast cereal that ever happened in my lifetime I’m sure.
Breakfast is the stuff of life. Cures that morning munchy and leaves ya set for the day, ehh. A good breakfast and ya can be walking with wood all day long.
When I was a kid, cold cereal was definitely the standard. Cheerios first then I moved on to Wheaties. General Mills products - good stuff from a good company. They sponsored my Babe Ruth baseball team (wished it had been my hockey team, ehh). Now that’s a story. Had that big G on my uniform. Wanted to be a catcher but the coach’s son played that position. Fat chance for that opportunity. I must have really sucked anyway cuz I only got to play in one game and that was for the opposing team on an account they didn’t have enough guys show up. A real ego booster - that was - Babe Ruth Baseball. Huh?
It was always a real treat if we got sugar coated cereals when I was kid. But occasionally we would get some Frosted Flakes, Sugar Pops, AlphaBits or Sugar Smacks. Mmmmm mmmmm mmmm! I sure loved those sweet morning bowls filled to the brim with milk.
My school buddy, Girbin, just loved those Sugar Smacks and the old sugar bear that they used in the advertisements. We’d get nuts-o after school eating a bowl or two together.
Coulda been a sugar fiend I guess too, if not a morphine addict. Maybe most of us were. Some of us still are. Gotta have our fix.
Mom was pretty strict about that sugar consumption though. Or at least with me anyway. Around the time Jingles and Bronzy were around she musta lightened up a bit. Damn, they ate Cap’n Crunch. Is it still around? I don’t know. Turned the milk yellow in the bowl and I think it was 40 to 60 percent sugar. Each of em used to eat a whole box for breakfast. You didn’t have to add more milk - just add more cereal. Poor Mom, I’m sure she had to deal with the sugar high that these little junkies took off on.
I still wake up with the munchies every day and I still occasionally fix myself a bowl of cold cereal to remedy that need. ‘Cept now days I start with about a third of a bowl of crisp rice (all generic no name brands any more), a sliced up half a banana, a third a bowl of wheat bran, a couple of table spoons of raisins, and then topping out the bowl with some sugar coated corn flakes. All that scrunched down to make room for that good old 2% milk. Good stuff, Maynard! You’re set for the day after a munchy buster like that.
Now up here in the North Woods that kind a breakfast won’t suit ya too well durin the late fall and winter. Ya don’t want to be puttin too much cold shit in your body so early in the day. Ya need something a little more substantial. Something warm and I ain’t talkin about no damn oatmeal or Malt-O-Meal slop.
Ya need to add some eggs and such to your meal. Now Denny’s, I can vouch for, makes a damn fine breakfast. The Original Grand Slam will suit me just right. Ya get some eggs, pancakes, and choice of meat. Me, I usually go “all bacon and eggs over medium with coffee and a glass of milk with the meal“. Now this meal works great for a morning breakfast, as I figure, my family that hangs out in the city got together again this morning and probably sat down to eight or so orders of Grand Slams this morning. But it also works for filling your gut after a good game of late night hockey and then closing the bar. Done that enough times for sure!
But then there’s my other choice from Denny’s or any other reputable greasy spoon and that’s “bacon and eggs over medium with hash browns, toast and coffee with milk with the meal”. Now Denny’s has a little one up-manship here over others in that they’ll offer their “a thousand assortments of jellies” for your toast (if ya like the three flavors that they’re serving that day - that is). Ya can’t beat it, ehh?
Munchies, uh huh! I sure had them this morning again. I got up pretty early and the honey allows me to make my own breakfast and mess. Its one of the few things that I’ve been able to carry over into marriage from my years of bachelorhood besides hockey.
But it was too damned cold in the cabin to think about cereal. I figured that I’d fire up the stove and make myself something warm, tasty and filling. I checked out the refrigerator and saw that we had eggs. That’s good. Now there might be some leftover red potatoes from the roast beef earlier this week. Yup. That’s good. Now for the meat I see we’ve got some ham, roast beef and meat loaf leftovers, and a bag of salad bacon bits. Hmmm? Looks like the meat loaf and I’ll make some hash.
HASH?
Yup. You guys, it’s the same word - just a different meaning. Now hash as from hashish we know now is a drug, ehh? I don’t know where it gets that “ish” on the end of the word but its probably like Turkish, or English, or Berkleyish; but more then likely it comes from Mendocinoish. I mean cuz like the best shit comes from there, ehh!
But hash for the kitchen fixin, now that’s something else! Again, Webster, my good bud, says “to chop, as in to small pieces; chopped meat mixed with potatoes and browned”. Yeah that’s the stuff!
So, I’m makin some hash you guys. The meatloaf was the heal end out of the pan stuffed into a baggy. I just crumbled that all up while it was still in the baggy. Fired up a large skillet with a mess a olive oil in it. Diced an already cooked red potato and started browning those pups. Dumped in the crumbled meat loaf, diced up a quarter of a bell pepper, kept the fire going and started stirring and flipping. Added a couple of heaping tablespoons of those bacon bits and shook a shit load of black pepper over the top. Smells damn good! Normally I add onions but the meatloaf already had enough in it for my tastes. While this was browning to perfection I got the heat under an egg pan and fried up a couple over medium. All finished I slop the hash on a platter size plate and set the eggs over the top - all to be chopped and mixed up together for a fine morning feast with a little salt and a glass of moo.
Now I use a plastic spatula for flippin the hash in the pan. When the honey makes this or similar dishes like fried potatoes she uses a little wooden thingy. Not quite a wooden spoon and not quite a wooden spatula. I personally hate the thing, but she likes it. After I sort of did my post cooking cleanup I noticed some unusual utensils on the counter that I’d never seen before. The honey must a got them when I was outta town or something. They look like white porcelain but are melamine, whatever the fuck that is, and were made in Thailand if ya can believe that. I had to ask her later where she got them and said she said at the grocery store. I didn’t believe her. They look like they came from a sci-fi store. The first one that I saw kind of looked like a fat tonged table fork with only two tongs. But not really functional as a fork - too fat. What it really looks like is a miniature electronic probe/jabbing gizmo that an alien might have used in Star Trek, Star Wars, or other sci-fi flick. She said its for poking things. I told her, I got the tool for poking things and it sure don’t look like that. This damn thing evens rings when ya tap it, like I said fine porcelain, uh huh. Scary! Now the other utensil looks kind of like a wide blade skinning knife but again that melamine shit. Must be a set or something. Before I talked to her about them I thought, well maybe its new silverware, but if the first one is the fork then this one could be the knife or spoon. Neither too functional. Too flat for a spoon - wouldn’t hold a bit of cereal, and too dull for a knife. She said its for spreading stuff for like icing on a cake. I don’t know though. Could be alien instruments if ya ask me. I’ll have to watch her for a while, ehh.
I’m going to tell ya - hash is a damn good pre-game meal. Ya just wanta make sure that ya scarf it down a couple hours ahead a lacing em up though, cuz it can sit pretty heavy and also cause ya to burp up them peppers and onions. I used to fix it with lard instead of the olive oil like I use now. Moves through ya quite quick that way with the lard and makes ya light for the game if ya know what I mean.
Hash is good fixins for camping too. I fix it for the guys when we go fishin and shit. Makes for a one pot meal that ya can have for breakfast or dinner alike.
I’ve been fixin it for years now, I made it with every kind of meat ya can think of: chicken, fillet mignon, pork chops, ham, steak, hamburger, elk, trout, bacon, leftover sloppy-joe, sausage, turkey dark meat. Its really a “leftover dream meal”.
So here’s the word from Jasper here, ya wanta push a little poop through the shoot and energy up for your pond hockey game tonight in the subzero weather then fix yourself a big old batch of HASH. You’ll be walking with wood like the big boys do!
Keep your sticks down and skate hard!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Troubles
To my dedicated readers - I apologize for not posting a new Jasper Wheats tale for your entertainment this week. I had some travel problems this weekend and some duties for future opportunities to take care of.
I actually started something about half an hour ago and then my laptop hiccupped and the whole of what I had written just diappeared into the nether world.
The idea still dwells in a wrinkle of my brain so given that I end up having both the time and the energy I'll get you something fresh before the end of the week.
Bobby (those of you at myspace.com that's "Hockey Bob")
I actually started something about half an hour ago and then my laptop hiccupped and the whole of what I had written just diappeared into the nether world.
The idea still dwells in a wrinkle of my brain so given that I end up having both the time and the energy I'll get you something fresh before the end of the week.
Bobby (those of you at myspace.com that's "Hockey Bob")
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