Author Archives: The Night Writer

The Crappe-Whisperer

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One of the people I always look forward to seeing at our annual Inside Outfitters men’s fishing weekend is big Don Steele. Don is originally from Jamaica and still has his delightful, lilting accent to go along with being one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. His, “Heeey, Brudder John!” greeting is one of the things that keeps me coming back. Next to God and his own wife and family, Don’s passion is fishing and he appears to have a special gifting for finding and catching messes of crappe. This year was no exception as he caught 20 crappe Friday night, then went out with a fresh stringer Saturday morning and came back with another haul (see photo).

I met Don seven or eight years ago at one of our outings. The first time I saw him he was hauling a long fat stringer full of crappes from the dock to his cabin, looking more than a bit like a Jamaican-piscatorial version of Santa Claus. It later turned out that his cabin was also my cabin, which we were sharing with three or four other guys. I took the couch in the main room/kitchen of the cabin to sleep on, while Don bedded his crappes down — still alive — in several rubber tubs of water in the refrigerator.

I was used to the sounds of snoring, but it was hard for me to tune out the near-constant crappe-flapping coming from the frig 10 feet away. I opened one eye when I heard the slapping sound of Don’s bare feet on the tile floor, in time to see him illuminated in the refrigerator light as he opened the door and leaned in. St. Nick-like he raised his finger to his face, placing it on his lips rather than the side of his nose. “Shhhhh,” he whispered. “Peeple be sleepin’!”

My belly still shakes like a bowl full of jelly when I think of this, in part because of the absurdity of the scene, but also because his admonishment worked!

Hmmm, it’s September 19, I wonder what that means?

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Yo-ness, oops, I mean, AAARRRGGGHHHAAA!!!! It’s (argh) National (argh) Talk (argh) Like (argh) A (argh) Pirate (argh) Day!!!!

Batten down the hatches! And yer sister! And any Bens that might happen to be wanderin’ around….

We’re about to go get some grub, and I’m sure there will be an opportunity to make ol’ Peg Leg (my Dad) right proud. Aye!

So go out there and be piratey! Yell ‘Avast!’ at each passing person! Scoff at their weird looks! Buy a sword and swing it about! Sail the seven seas! Don’t get caught by the police! Aah, so many pirate-ish things to do, not enough time.

Remember, people, this only comes around once a year, so make the best of it!

Ciao for now!
Wait…
Argh, do something productive and walk the plank!!!

Experts from afar

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I’m still on vacation and resting up right now for the final leg of my break, the weekend fishing trip. I won’t be at Keegan’s for Thursday night trivia, but I’d be remiss not to mention that last Thursday the Women of the Night, Uncle Ben and myself pitted our store of semi-useless knowledge against all comers at Sven & Ole’s weekly trivia competition in Grand Marais. Had Ben and I been able to reach consensus on which U.S. president had the longest retirement (we were going back and forth between Ford and Hoover, we picked Ford and it was Hoover) we’d have likely finished first. Our team, The Out-of-Towners, finished second.

The scoring format was different from Keegan’s, and the questions were pretty arcane (local knowledge would also have been helpful), but the biggest difference between Sven & Ole’s and Keegan’s is that second place is worth a $50 gift certificate! Sure, it’s for Sven & Ole’s which isn’t that handy, but it’s good indefinitely. If we don’t loose the gift certificate in the meantime we’ll use it in our next trip to Grand Marais. Either that or it might make a great White Elephant gift at the holidays, or my wedding present to the Mall Diva and Ben!

The 5-hour tour hike

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After logging off at Neptune’s Cyber-cafe in Grand Marais yesterday I walked around the harbor area enjoying the sights and the sunny fall afternoon. I’d have taken some photos but the camera went with the girls and Ben on the hike along the Cascade River and up Moose Mountain. That didn’t keep me from “snapping” some shots into my memory of small boats bobbing on the water and the slower pace of commerce during an weekday in the off-season. At one point, however, I looked out to the lake and suddenly realized that fog had arrived, not on little cat’s feet, but like an invading continent about half-a-mile out and moving steadily inland. Other than knowing that Lake Superior weather can change quickly and dramatically, I wasn’t sure what a sudden fog might entail, but I thought I might soon have some wet hikers on my hands so I headed out to the rendezvous a little ahead of schedule.

All was well, however, as their six-mile, five-hour hike up the mountain hadn’t taken as long as they expected. They, too, had seen the fog move in and climb up through the forest. Rather than wait for me at the pick-up spot they had gone to the restaurant at Cascade Lodge, about 100 yards from where I was waiting for them. We eventually hooked up, and they showed me photos from their hike.

The terrain around Lake Superior is rugged and dramatic, as the rocks try to stand against the combined forces of water and gravity.

Apparently there was lots of lovely scenery as well.

Girls in the trees.

Hey, that’s an interesting mushroom. I wonder what it might taste like.

Mmmm. Tastes interesting, too. Oh, calm down…what’s the worst that can happen?

Hey! (Photos by Uncle Ben.)

Sisters.

The Reverend Mother on the rocks.

Mall Diva and What’s-His-Name.

This fog comes in on moose feet.

Home safely in time to view Superior by moonlight. (photo by Tiger Lilly)

Vacation photos, greetings from Duluth

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Friday morning, Grand Marias. The Reverend Mother, Tiger Lilly, Mall Diva and Ben have set off on a five-hour hike. There’s no wi-fi on the Cascade Trail, however, so I can’t “live-blog” the hike. Therefore I left them at the trailhead and “hiked” myself to the cyber-cafe. Having hiked with this group before, however, here’s a sample of the conversation:

Tiger Lilly: There’s a boulder!
Mall Diva: That’s a niiice boulder.
Rev. Mum: I need to find a potty.
Ben: Take your pick of any tree.

Personally, I don’t do five-hour hikes unless there’s a golfball involved. You’d think the girls would have figured this out by now, and brought golf balls along. Then they could just throw a golf ball out ahead and I’d take off after it like a Labrador. Don’t tell them.

Anyway, I have an opportunity to upload some photos of our vacation so far. After a late getaway Wednesday afternoon (when you’ve borrowed a minivan you simply can’t leave until every available inch of space has been filled with indispensable supplies) we were as far as Duluth by dinner-time. That’s okay, Duluth is one of our favorite places, especially around Canal Park. Evening light is also great for taking photos. The hikers have the digital camera today, so photos from Grand Marias and vicinity are yet to come.

A couple shots of the Duluth canal lighthouses.

The Mall Diva and Ben gaze out over Lake Superior, perhaps wondering if it’s even as big as their future together.

Hmmm. Birds are flying south, leaves are beginning to turn, there’s a nip in the air. That can only mean…it’s wrist-sweater season!

A meditative moose.

A couple of years ago the ACLU threatened to sue Duluth because there was a 10 Commandments monument in front of the courthouse (donated by the Fraternal Order of Eagles back in the 1950s) on public land. The monument was then purchased by private interests and now sits on private land — where you can still visit them and, perhaps, even read them! Living by them is still up to you.

On vacation

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Photo: My World of Postcards

The family, including Ben, is heading up to Grand Marais for our “summer” vacation. This is the scene of last year’s vacation, and the setting for Mall Diva’s mortification at the Crooked Spoon. We may have to do to our dining at Sven & Ole’s this year, or maybe the Angry Trout Cafe.

We’ll be in Grand Marais the rest of the week and then I’m heading to Missouri Sunday night for the Chuck Stewart Memorial Golf Tourney benefiting the Shrine Hospitals. After the golf tournament it’s back to Cold Spring, MN for the annual Inside Outfitters’ men’s weekend. Whew! I’ll need to get back to work so I can rest! I’ll likely start posting again once I get to Missouri.

Lazarus Shrugged

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Something kept tickling the back of my mind and memory this week, and then it came to me. The following excerpt is from “The Notebooks of Lazarus Long”, a kind of intermission section in Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi classic, “Time Enough For Love”, which detailed the adventures of the oldest living (2,000 years+) human, the afore-mentioned Lazarus.

Those who refuse to support and defend a state have no claim to protection by that state. Killing an anarchist or a pacifist should not be defined as “murder” in a legalistic sense. The offense against the state, if any, should be “Using deadly weapons inside city limits,” or “Creating a traffic hazard,” or “Endangering bystanders,” or other misdemeanor. However, the state may reasonably place a closed season on these exotic asocial animals whenever they are in danger of becoming extinct. An authentic buck pacifist has rarely been seen off Earth, and it is doubtful that any have survived the trouble there…regrettable, as they had the biggest mouths and the smallest brains of any of the primates. The small-mouthed variety of anarchist has spread through the Galaxy at the very wave front of the Diaspora; there is no need to protect them. But they often shoot back.

Not that I agree completely, but it did make me smile. I get the sense that those willing to resort to violence to protest the state are not much different from those who say they read Playboy for the articles.

The St. Paul 396

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396 people involved in Thursday’s Anti-War Committee protest were arrested after the group’s protest turned into an attempted march on the Xcel Energy Center when the group’s permit expired. A heavy, and highly-organized tactical police response anticipated the protesters, perhaps as a result of a press conference last July where Katrina Plotz of the AWC promised a more militant, less family-friendly protest for September 4. Strangely enough, Plotz also had a speaking part in the Strib’s account of yesterday’s action:

“They’re trying to steal our protest — we have to ignore the police intimidation,” Katrina Plotz, an organizer with the Anti-War Committee, hollered from a stage in front of the Capitol steps.

The AWC came to St. Paul in the grandiose hopes of stealing or shutting down the RNC through violence and intimidation, only to be out-maneuvered and out-intimidated. How did that song go a few years back — “Isn’t it ironic?”

Police Chief Marlin Perkins…

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The Strib story detailing the post-concert exploits of Rage Against the Machine fans and the Minneapolis police included this phrase:

87 people were brought in, tagged and released…

I couldn’t help but get a picture in my head of some wild child being hit with a tranquilizer dart, taken down in the street and then a police officer named Jim affixing a tracking tag to a part of the dude’s body not already obscured with tattoos and piercings, then moving off to a safe distance as the kid staggers back to rejoin the herd. The tag, of course, would be in the hopes of future arresting officers calling in to report the location of the bust, providing important scientific data about the migratory patterns of this species.

Perhaps I watched too much of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom when I was a kid.