Hardware the hard way

Great White Dispatch

Notes From Damn Near Canada

No. 37

9/23/09

19:47

Here in the Minnesota boonies, you have two options if you need furnace springs or c-clamp batteries. You can visit one of the helpful, privately-owned ACE Hardware stores that are pleasant in theory but likely don’t have what you need, or you go to Menard’s.

Menard’s is the Minny version of Home Depot or Lowe’s. I’m not saying that there aren’t Home Depots or Lowe’s stores available here, but they tend to stay huddled in the warm embrace of the cities. And usually when I need a doorjam pump, it’s an emergency that doesn’t allow me to make the overnight trek to civilization. So I go to a Menard’s, which thrives where no other hardware stores dare to venture.

Menard’s is exactly like your typical Home Depot except for the one fatal difference: They seem to have some sort of hiring policy that strictly prohibits attractive employees of any type. It’s not that they exclusively hire hunchbacks or midgets (although there IS a healthy amount of those freakshows running around). But everyone – EVERYONE – who works there has some sort of singular flaw that is as unexpected as it is creepy. From the back, she might be a cute little blonde checkout girl who fills out her dungarees quite nicely. And then she turns around and springs her harelip on you. Gah! And I didn’t even bring a can to open!

Or the classic little old guy with the toolbelt and overalls. From a distance, he kinda sorta looks like Joe Paterno stacking paint cans. Of course he can hep you. Except you get closer to ask where in the fuck they’ve hidden the blowtorch grommets and OH MY GOD HE’S NOT WEARING AND EYEPATCH BUT MOST CERTAINLY SHOULD BE WEARING AN EYEPATCH. Excuse me, sir, but I didn’t come here to SEE YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL through a hole in your face.

Or the hookhand who acts like there is no hookhand at the end of that pale, blotchy stump and waves it around dangerously close to your fleshy face-bits as he flails in the general direction of the toilet jacks. Thanks, Inspector Gadget, but the first Terminator flick scared the bejaysus out of me and you look like you just escaped from a SkyNet lab. Please get your droid arm away from my hoo-man eyeparts.

Or the customer-service whale with the birthmark shaped like the Lone Ranger's mask.

Or the dude in plumbing who looks like a bridge troll.

Or the actual bridge troll who runs the seasonal section.

Or the otherwise attractive teenage girl rocking the unibrow and full beard. Although I think she’s actually trying to make some sort of statement, because there’s no way to not know that you look like Kristen Bell crossed with Zach Galifianakis. She’s a goddamn Conan O’Brien gag. Sorry, hoss. Keep your style politics out of the workplace. I’m just trying to buy this here hammer jacket and I don’t need to think about complex societal issues such as these.

Menard’s is all the fun of a Home Depot (constantly getting lost, nonsensical organization, youthinkyerbetter’n me redneck contractors at every turn) mixed with the Mos Eisley Cantina and a Halloween Express. But they sell coffee and DVDs, so I guess they’re ok. And you never know when you'll need a chainsaw bubbler like, RIGHT NOW.

This may not end well

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 36
9/20/09
12:43


I guess it was just a matter of time until Pepe LePew started hanging out in the yard. The over/under for time until I have to drown a certain Weimaraner in tomato juice is 2 weeks.

21 Days of Summer

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 35
9/02/09
18:47

You look up and summer’s gone.

Your summer visitors have all trickled away. Your house is clean, your grass is mowed and for the first time in months, you have no plans – no chores – scheduled for the coming weekend. You build a big stack of magazines, comic books and even a real book or two, because you WILL sit your ass in that hammock and just read and enjoy the sun. Because you know it’s fading fast. Next weekend is going to ROCK.

And then you wake up on Monday and the temperature is 39 degrees. Fahrenheit. Seven degrees above freezing. In August. You suddenly remember you’re in Minnesota, and brother, your summer might be gone.

Ok. Enough of the second-person. This isn’t a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. But if it WERE, I’d certainly choose to step into the Cave of Time (the first CYOA book. A true classic.) and rewind to about three months ago. Maybe do some of the stuff I planned to do this summer.

On first reflection, it seems like this summer was a bigger waste than a Cleveland Browns season. Airika and I had plans. Big plans. We were gonna buy a second bike. Roll around, over and through the hundreds of miles of trails connecting our Little River Town to all the other Little River Towns in SE Minny.

We did buy a canoe. We were gonna explore all the little lakes, ponds, streams and rivers, not too mention grow a sack and put in on the Mississippi. We bought fishing poles with the names of some big-ass walleye and crappie stamped right on ‘em.

We were gonna hit every park, bluff and body of water between the Twin Cities and Iowa. Use ‘em and abuse ‘em. Make Tulip and Tilly wish they were housecats who got to stay at home and lay on top the TV.

We were gonna do a lot of things this summer. And here I find myself wondering where the eff my windshield scraper could be, because hey, there’s a goddamn frost warning and it’s not even September.

We didn’t do half the things we’d planned this summer. And that makes our first summer in Minnesota seem like a colossal bust. On the other hand, we did a ton of stuff that wasn’t on the itinerary. Things I never would have even thought to do if we hadn’t just…done them. Went to the Minnesota Zoo. Spent days wandering around the study in excess that is the Mall of America. Saved a baby deer. Watched plenty of great live music in the cities. Killed that hobo. Stumbled across the rickety old watchtower that sits atop a bluff in the southeastern tip of the state, and climbed that shit. Did some watching.

Wait. This watchtower deserves its own paragraph. We’d meant to check out Whitewater State Park, which, according to the Minnesota DNR website, has plenty of white water. Took us about 90 minutes of the usual twisty and turny Minnesota ‘highways’ to get there, and about 5 minutes before landfall, we saw this little sign on the side of the road. “Fire Tower,” it said, next to an arrow pointing, well, uppish. There are steps dug into the side of a bluff. Steep steps. 630 steep steps, by Airika’s count. Sucking wind, we crest the top of the bluff to see this not-what-you’d-call-embracing crow’s nest, sitting 100 feet or so in the air, atop 20 or so crisscrossing metal staircases. A flimsy chainlink fence surrounding the whole deal. It really doesn’t look like a place for visitors, except for the sign that says “Maximum visitors in tower: 6.” So we start up the first staircase. Which is swaying. Not even 15 feet up, we collectively decide to abort. Before we get the chance to start the long scoot back down the bluff, another party arrives and hustles to the top of this pointy metal deathtrap like it ain’t no thing. Did I mention that one member of this party was celebrating his 90th birthday? Shamed, we sucked it up and climbed the tower, swaying and praying to Jobu the whole time. And it was totally worth it. 100 feet above an already steep bluff that overlooks a picturesque little valley with a cute Children of the Corn town as its centerpiece. Smoke puffs in the distance, kids playing touch football in a clearing 600 feet down. Sadly, none of my pictures were worth a damn.

Anyway. We barely even made the park. And that’s what’s been kinda cool about this summer. Sure, all of our grand plans went up like smoke over Los Angeles (what, too soon?), but the stuff we did do turned out pretty ok. Practically all of our friends and family spent a few days with us (and if you haven’t, WTF?!), and for some reason, showing everyone around our little corner of Minny never seems to get old. Lark Toys and their awesome hand-crafted carousel, the National Eagle Center, Barns Bluff. Been there, done all that, bought the goddamn trinket. But it’s all worth seeing again, and I don’t mind having an excuse.

Still. With three official weeks left in the season, we have to really scramble to make the summer a success. Actually use the canoe that was such a pain in the ass to get. Catch at least one fish. Dip a toe into the Mississippi. Do what you’re supposed to so on weekends in the summer in a place such as this. There’s still time. We can salvage this beast.

Then there’s that huge stack of, er... literature I’ve built. There’s the hammock on the porch. Plans? Plans are for people who don’t have a place to stretch out and feel those fading rays of sunlight on their napping face. Pencil that in.

The Minnesota State Fair, in a nutshell

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 34
8/30/09
17:25

A deep-fried, chocolate-covered, battered nutshell. On a stick.



















And don't forget...

Bring your insulin!

Year One

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 33
7/26/09
20:15

Today marks the one-year anniversary of our move to Minnesota.

One friggin’ year.

One year since we packed my truck with everything left by the movers, stuffed the dogs into my tiny back seat, snug against a rusty propane tank, and headed towards the Mississippi. And brother, that vehicle was packed. We were strapped in so tight, I couldn’t fart without strumming a bungee cord. For 12 hours, we had a Dylan show tickling our ears. Only, y’know, stinkier.

One year ago, our main concern was surviving our first Minnesota winter. That was our Big Bad, and we got through it relatively unscathed. Now, a whole year later, here I am thinking about preparations for another Great White Tussle. In April of 2008, if you had told me that I’d actually find myself one day debating the merits of buying a chainsaw and chopping my own firewood vs. just buying precut wood, I’d have kicked you in the neck.

It’s been a quick year.

Other than the time zone and the weather prep, has anything really changed in the last 365? Uh, I own a canoe. And a 4WD vehicle – that I bought out of necessity. A pair of fishing poles. And a parka – that I bought out of necessity. And I’ve spent the last two Sunday evenings perched in my very own deer blind. So yeah, things have shifted. Just a touch.

I really expected to be settled in by now, bored with everything and reaching for flaws. The luster of a move usually shines a short time for me, and even though this was more than bumping over to a new place in Akron, I still expected the same Timeline of Hate for yours truly.

Surprisingly though, the sense of wonder hasn’t faded a whole helluva lot in the year since we left the Land That GM Hateraped. Sure, the outright crazy coolness of those first few weeks has subsided, but Christ, how could they not? From the ill advised drive out here – we’d spent an exhausting day cleaning and packing and were about 8 hours behind schedule, but said ‘fuggit’ and came anyway, bobbing and weaving down I-90 the entire night – to those first two weeks spent in a strange, cavernous house with no furniture, lotsa windows and plenty of way-too-close animal howls, there’s no way we’ll never top that adventure without losing a member of our party to an Amazon tribe.

But one year in, I still wake up and marvel at my surroundings. Every last bit of it baffles me, still doesn’t seem quite real. The herds – herds! – of deer hanging around every morning in the front yard, mingling with the wild turkeys.. The skunk who occasionally corners me on my morning run. The fact that people use my driveway for sightseeing jaunts. The shapes of the bluffs that poke at the sky on my drive to work, those shark teeth and humpbacks and skyboxes.

And tying it all together, there’s the river. On a clear Sunday afternoon, the way the sun bangs off the surface, backlighting hundreds of sailboats, lighting up the limestone hanging 500 feet above Wisconsin, it’s goddamn eye-popping. And while most of me wonders how the hell we ended up here, the good ol’ Ohio portion still hanging on wonders when it’s all gonna end. Because all good things, yeah?

I try not to think like that any more. Minnesota has a way of bringing out the positive in you, the friendly that’s been hibernating all this time. So rather than focus on the neggo, I’ll enjoy the adventure. There’s a ton of stuff we have left to do, places we haven’t been, rivers to chart, trails to hike and lakes to fish.

Heh. Trails to hike and lakes to fish. Naw, nothing’s changed.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go celebrate an anniversary by farting on a bungee cord.

I know why the caged Bantha sings

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 32
7/28/09
20:10


Welcome back, my friends to the show that never ends. It’s been a while, so I have a long one for you. Hope you packed a lunch. By the way, there's a ton of new pics up on my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vangoat

Finally got around to visiting the Minneapolis zoo this week, and it was pretty great. About the same size as the Cleveland Zoo, but with easier and/or closer access to the animals. Most of the animal areas are made of some sort of clear super plastic as opposed to the typical fence/giant safety pit/fence/dangerous hungry animal layout. This means that you can literally press your face right up against the bear as he sleeps behind a rock, instead of watching from 90 feet away as the lazy bastard sleeps behind a rock.

The aquarium-style format is awesome. You can watch the otters and sea lions (and yeah, even the bears, after they popped some Red Bull or were cow-prodded into action. Dance, puppet, dance!) play underwater UFC right in front of your face. It adds a whole new depth to the zoo experience.

Unfortunately, the prairie dog area was set up the same way, except with shorter walls. You could literally lean over and snatch a dog if you wanted. You could also easily throw shit into the cage or hand feed the little guys if you wanted, despite the goddamn signs that said PLEASE DON’T FEED THE PRAIRIE DOGS. Was there an entire redneck family feeding the prairie dogs? Of course there was. Led by the father, naturally. I’m paraphrasing here, but only a little:



Redneck Daddy (to failure-spawn): Hey Cletus, check this out! (Feeds helpless little P-dog handful of weeds pulled from a ditch.)
Cletus (in flipflops, natch): Uhuhuhuhuhuhuh. Hamster hungry!
Redneck Daddy (arm draped over the Do Not Feed sign, because, hey, it’s too F’n hot to stand up on his own gumption): Cletus, gowon over there and grab some moradem weeds!
Redneck Mommy (tubetop, way too much of her way too freckily failure-feeders showing, prison-tat on neck): Ain’t they the cutest? We should get one them ginny pigs! (feeds prairie dog a McDonalds Styrofoam coffee cup from the 80s. Earth just gives up and swallows all of us, shits us into space and starts over with nice friendly bacteria).

Anyway. Redneck family aside, an enjoyable time at the zoo. For five bucks you could slap a few crackers on a giraffe’s tongue, and maybe that giraffe would slap the tongue on your face:


Oh yeah, and I have no idea how they got it back here all the way from Tatooine, but they had a Bantha:
Apparently, it’s actually an Earthling called a Takin, but I swear to god I half expected to see some Sand People giving Obi-Wan the finger from the Bantha’s back.

Usually when I visit the zoo, I think about how much it’s gotta suck to be an animal trapped in one of the displays. How sad is a timberwolf with only a third-acre of timber to lope around in? Has to be terrible, right?

But what if it isn’t? I’ve spent the last 11 months watching wild animals cavort just outside my kitchen window. In these 11 months, I’ve learned to things:
-Blue Jays are dicks
-Being a wild animal is overrated.

Seriously. Deer, for instance. My yard is a safehaven for about 15 whitetails. They come here, they know that a)they’ll be fed a steady diet of corn, salt and other assorted deer goodies and b)the biggest danger they’ll face is a dipshit weimaraner with no chance of catching them. They KNOW this. They’re so comfortable with me that I can walk to within 15 feet of the Old Country Starch Buffet before they even raise their heads.

Despite all this security and a pretty gaping lack of predators (until hunting season, anyway) this far south, these guys are CONSTANTLY on edge. If I so much as fart in my own kitchen, even a slow-burn, one-cheek squeak, any deer in the yard bolt like I just launched the space shuttle out my ass. They’re never comfortable. I’m telling you, it’s no way to live.

An example of the typical deer dinnertime:

Two bucks, both at least 10 points, are munching whole corn with two younger bucks and the family matriarch. Having a good time. Two miles away, a farmer drops a chicken egg into a haystack.

Five heads, 26 points, five tails shoot straight up. Ten eyes strain in the general direction of the egg drop. Hold this pose for 17 seconds.

The two big bucks decide they aren’t taking any chances (which might explain why they got to be so big) and bolt like Witzy during a dinosaur attack. The other three go back to their fine corn dinner. Until, half a minute later, a eagle shits in the river four miles away. Repeat scene ad nauseum.

So maybe being cooped up in a cage where you’re fed three squares a day (or more if there’s an illiterate redneck family mouth breathing near your hut) ain’t all bad. There are those myths of poor urban folks who spend their lives trying to get INTO prison because they have no place to go and nothing to eat on the outside. I can see it.

Of course everything yearns to be free. You see this wolf lying there and you know he’s dreaming about running down a caribou on some frosty plain, not being chucked a plate of Kal Kan three times a day by a highschooler in khaki shorts.

I certainly understand his pain. I moved out of Ohio and into the almost-bush for similar reasons (‘Course, Captain Fangs here never tried to find a job in Ohio. Who has it tougher in the wild NOW, bitch?). On the other hand, if I had to worry about being mauled by a grizzly bear or stalked by a lion every time I speared a pancake at the Whistle Stop, maybe those four walls of climate-controlled wilderness wouldn’t seem so bad.

Then again, maybe not. Only the Bantha knows for sure.

It was a good day

Great White Dispatch
Notes From Damn Near Canada
No. 31
7/04/09
23:32


Red Wing puts on quite a nice Fourth of July show. The whole town turns out for a day of patriotic music at the brand new outdoor auditorium nestled in the middle of a gently sloping, shady park. After the music, the city displays a movie on an outdoor screen. Independence Day, no less, shown completely without irony. A good chunk of the town turns out for that, and after Jeff Golblum uploads his computer virus, the everyone strolls over to the river's edge to watch the fireworks shoot out over the water. It's all very Stars Hollow.

My office building is probably the nicest place in town. It looks like a tiny version of Wolfram and Hart, what with the perty oak trim and open staircase and no-expense-spared decor. And we have a pretty goddamn nice rooftop, which meant Airika and I had the best seat in town for fireworks today. Four stories up, overlooking the river. Totally the thing to do.

Hell with all that noise.

Our day:

Slept in. Drank some damn fine coffee with my Lucky Charms and the weekend edition of USA Today. Screw you. I like my news bite-sized and color-coded.

Cleaned the house. Because when I have nothing to do and no plans to make, this is what I do. Weirdly relaxing.

Spent two hours at a wedding reception. Only hiccup of the day. Although I did hoarf down three shredded chicken samiches, some tasty homeade pretzels and a pile of soft cookies. The food made it nearly worth getting dressed in my finest denim leg coverings.

After a quick exit, we hit Caribou Coffee and came home, where we sat on the porch. All night. Surrounded by tiki torches and Citronella candles, we watched the deer and the birds. The dogs failed (once again) to catch everything they chased. Airika read about chickens. I read the second volume of the Starman Omnibus. Random tunes wafted from the iPod dock out to the porch, mingling with the distant cracks and booms of rednecks gambling with fingers.

After dark, we strolled out to the prairie and watched home-job fireworks displays dot the sky from all directions. More impressive was the night, and how it was so bright you could read by moonlight alone.

It hasn't been very often when I experienced an Independence Day and really felt anything close to independence. Never, actually. The holiday's always been kind of a joke. Forced to run around, see people, have a picnic. A day off always turned into an agenda. But today. Today was different. Monday morning is careening back around again and I know that it will bring everything that shackles me in annoyance and worry. But today? Yeah, I feel free. And I don't need a goddamn fireworks display for that.