Getting Slathered In Sleepy Eye

Fitness?? Who are they kidding?

I was pretty sure it was Sherburn, but it wasn't.  It was Sleepy Eye, Minnesota where we saw the banners draped across the main drag.  They tauted Buttered Corn Days coming the very next week in this corn belt crossroads.  My pal, The Skipper, and I were returning to Minneapolis after spending a few days at our fortieth high school reunion in Spencer, Iowa back in 2006.  We had concocted a plan to meet at the Twin Cities airport the week before, I flew in from San Diego and he from Boston.  It was a good plan. After checking out the mens room stall where that congressman from Idaho or Montana had been arrested the week before for having a "wide stance", we rented a car, headed south, visited the Spam Museum in Austin, sponged off his brother in Clear Lake for a couple of days and then, well rested, headed for the meet-up with everyone else who was now forty years older and fifty-thousand brain cells lighter.

The reunion went off perfectly.  Well, it was perfect except for the fact that many of our former cellmates from the penitentiary we called Spencer High School had not shown up.  They sent their parents instead.  At least it seemed that way.  Of course Dave, (the Skipper's given name) and I hadn't changed a bit and were cackling like a couple of escapees from the laughing academy as we contemplated the decay of old friends while we drove north headed for Minneapolis/St. Paul and a return to our post high school lives.

The "Buttered Corn Days" celebration was not in our plans.  Heck, we didn't even know it existed until we rolled into Sleepy Eye.  We briefly toyed with the idea of phoning our wives and extending our road trip in order to indulge our taste for sweet corn and that yummy Minnesota butter, but decided against it after weighing the cost of divorce.  Instead we decided that a Buttered Corn Days debauch would make a remarkably terrific bonus side trip package to accompany our fiftieth high school reunion.  And, right now---that's the plan.  It's dandy really.  We tack a couple of extra days on to the trip and-- bingo, we're knee deep in buttered corn and polka music.  I checked the Internet and saw that the Sleepy Eye town fathers have booked at least two polka bands for this year's event.  (By the way, it is still ON for this year in spite of the devastating draught that has ruined at least half of the Midwest corn crop.)  You can check the Internet for details.  Buttered Corn Days runs from August 17 through the 18th.  There is even a fun run.  Yeah, just what you want to participate in after gnawing on thirty ears of corn.

I'm hoping for a bumper crop of golden corn deliciousness in 2016.  The Skipper and I have plenty of Hawaiian shirts and will pack lots of "fat boy" pants to accommodate our expanding girth.  It should be a grand old middle America pig down for two deserving boys from the corn belt.  (Speaking of belts, I won't pack one.)

The "Land of 10,000 Lakes"?  How about the "Land of 10,000 Ears of Corn"?  My tummy is already saying HOWDY.  Lookout Sleepy Eye, two heavy hitters from the coast are ready to change Buttered Corn Days forever.   We plan to eat like we're going to The Chair.

Why Must They ALWAYS Look Like This?.

Why not Bridget Fonda?  One of the Olson twins, or even Flo from those Progressive Insurance commercials?  Nope.  Every time somebody gets naked to protest something or to make a point it's ALWAYS a guy.  Never a good looking guy, even they know that keeping things mysterious is the key to good marketing.  Invariably the "nekid" dude is an overweight, not particularly attractive schlub who is oblivious to the stomach churning propensities of his decision to ditch the shirt and pants.

John Brennan, a technology consultant, determined last April that he had been called on to make his displeasure with TSA frisking known to the screeners at Portland, Oregon International airport.  As a protest against TSA personnel, who he felt were harassing him after he tested positive for nitrates on his clothing, he simply decided to chuck the threads and proceed through security sans clothing.  "They are just doing their job, and as a citizen of the U.S. I'm doing my job to protect my constitutional right to privacy," Mr. Brennan said in a telephone interview with the San Jose Mercury News.  "The TSA had already violated my privacy by doing a pat-down and being pulled out of the line.  It's stripping me of any dignity."

The Portland cops thought otherwise and arrested him for indecent exposure.  The end?  Uh....not quite.  That was last April and now, after careful Portland style consideration, a judge in that weirdest of all West Coast cities has found Mr. Brennan NOT GUILTY of the misdemeanor charge.  It seems that the Oregon state Supreme Court has ruled that nudity is protected speech, and old John had disrobed with the idea he wasn't breaking any laws.

I pass this on as a public service for those of you planning Summer travel that involves a stop in the Pacific Northwest.  Make sure that you choose Portland International as your point of departure.  Just pile everything, and I DO mean EVERYTHING,  into a couple of those tubs the TSA folks run through the x-ray machine and you're good to go.  No fuss, no muss...and NO CLOTHES either.  You might even get early boarding.

Once aboard make sure you mention that you're "looking for a little hog-eye for your ham bone" and you should have plenty of room to relax in comfort.

Naked flying--it could catch on.  Portland has always been so cutting edge.

"Somebody frisk me.  I'm packin'!!"

Calling It a Career

Retirement isn't what it used to be.  My father's generation usually toiled for the same employer most of their adult life; got the gold watch and headed to Florida or Arizona to settle into a sunny but boring decline.  Golf and dinner at 4:30 PM were pretty much the only events on the schedule until it was time to fall into the hole.

Like everything else, change has come for working men and women.  It's now dads AND moms who have careers and those jobs generally come with serial employers and tenures that don't get you to age 65 or even 62.  It is increasingly rare to find someone who can actually call their own "time out".  For most of us our last day on "the job" is determined by our employer.  And, if you're over 50, your boss may be the one who schedules the surprising day you're put out to pasture.  Many a working stiff is retiring early--and not by choice.

Show business careers have always been especially fragile.  If that is your chosen path it is almost certainly imperative to have a backup profession to ease you past the employment gaps in an often short career.  God knows I got an education in the broadcast racket.  When my radio partner and I got the boot from what turned out to be my seventeenth and final station, we both really assumed we'd be back on the air somewhere in no time.  We didn't count on the entire industry slashing thousands of jobs while  committing suicide via the elimination of compelling content.   These days giant corporations have the idea that paid infomercials for colon cleansers and real estate scams are just what listeners are hungry for.  They also seem confused by those massive ratings declines.  Bankruptsy anyone?

The movie business is in an even greater state of flux.  Audiences are tired of mind numbing content and $12 popcorn when they can wait a couple of weeks to stream the films they care about on their big screen TVs right there at home.  So,  the little noted announcement that show biz icon Peter O'Toole is saying so long to acting is such good news.  He is leaving on HIS OWN TERMS!  He could still work if he wanted, but he doesn't care to anymore.  He turns 80 on August 2 and has decided that he has nothing left to prove and is more than happy to do little or nothing until the ultimate gig in the big "up yonder" has his name on the casting list.  

"The stage and screen have brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I've shared the inevitable lot of all actors:  flops and hits."  "So I bid the profession a dry-eyed and profoundly grateful farewell."

A classy exit for a classy guy.   We should all be so lucky. 

"Fifty years is enough."

It's a WHAT?

A DERECHO, that's what.

  

You know how it is.  Every once in awhile the big shots in TV news departments have to promote a fancy new word that we peons have blissfully been doing without and make it the new "IT" word.  In the sixties the stuff outdoors went from being, well---"the stuff outdoors" to The Environment, then roughly ten or fifteen years ago "hot enough for you?" became Global Warming.  Naturally, when folks began to notice that they weren't hotter than Barney Frank at Boy Scout camp, it became  Climate Change.

I can't keep up.

Now we have DERECHO.  This Spanish expression meaning "straight ahead" is all the rage at the Weather Channel, CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX.  (Probably CNN and MSNBC too--but who watches?)  Now we're all supposed to just hop aboard and start working that awkward mouthful into our conversations.  

I believe I'll opt out.

"Frog strangler" in the making.

I prefer weather related conversations to reflect my rural and small town American roots.  In the "sticks" we prefer communicating like this:

Zeke--"Hey Kermit, hot enough for ya?"

Kermit--"Damn straight buddy."

"That gully washer that come up last night pert near blasted me and the missus out of bed and into Watumka county.  Most that bed has shook since our honeymoon."

Zeke--"I hear ya.  That rain sounded just like one of your cows pissin' on a flat rock."

Kermit--"Funny you should mention it...Wanda, my number one milker is givin' nothin' but cottage cheese this morinin'.  AND, the wind blowed down Fat Crumpler's barn."

Zeke--"Sum bitch, Fat had my good manure spreader in there, not to mention that not too bright cousin of yours!"


Kermit--"Yep, I got plenty more cousins but a good spreader...well, them's hard to come by."


I just can't imagine old Zeke and Kermit working derecho into the conversation.  And, why should they?  Isn't it bad enough that politicians do that?  You know--taxes are "revenues", terrorism is "man caused destruction",  hand outs are "entitlements",  raising the budget by 4 % is called "cutting spending" and taxing everybody to pay for thirty million deadbeats is called "AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE".
Perhaps it all depends on what your definition of "IS" is.
Baton down the hatches baby, we've got a derecho out there.

Typical Americans prepare for derecho