... Life in a Northern Town: Small Places in a Big World. Big Worlds in Small Places.

. . . Life In A

Northern

Town

Small places in a big world.

Big worlds in small places.

Jack Hart

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©

Copyright 2013 Jack Hart.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

isbn: 978-1-4669-7122-6 (sc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-7124-0 (hc)

isbn: 978-1-4669-7123-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012924341

Trafford rev. 01/15/2013

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE OF PREFACES

PRETRIBUTE

SEEDLINGS—for the rest’yahs . . . and dedication

AFTERTHOUGHTS—Back to the Future

WHY THE TITLE?

BASKETBALL/ FOOTBALL

GET FERDY!

LAKE LINDEN 39 CALUMET 4

LOCKER ROOM AND SHOWERS

WIND TUNNEL

CALUMET/UP IN GENERAL (TEN OF THIRTY, THUS FAR)

ACTION SPOT

CHAFFED SKIN AND GETTING USED TO THE WATER

DDT

FINNISH ACCENT? REALLY?

FIRST BLACKMAN

GAY BAR AND GAY PARADES IN THE KEWEENAW

GRATIOT LOCATION

HOCKEY IN DA ROAD

NIGGER BABIES, PILES AND TOES

SNOW DAYS—(DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER)

CHURCH

ARTY GAABO’S GRANDMA

THE INCHWORM INCIDENT

IN THE PEWS AND BEYOND

CLIQUETC (AKA CLIQUE, ETC.)

BARON VS. SMELT

BOOB TUBE

HANCOCK CHEERLEADERS

THE KIDNAPPING OF ROSS COLTMAN

OLD LADY SWANSON’S WRINKLED RED BUM

ROSS MAKES BILLY STEVENS CRY

SOPER AND THE ACT-CIDENT

SWORD FIGHT

UP THE GUT

COLLOQUIALISMS

GITCHE GUMEE

BEARS . . . IN A NORTHERN VILLAGE

BLEST BE THE TIE

CATHY FREDERICK AND PINK EYE

FLY SNIFFING

SAUNA MELTDOWN

SMOKEY JUMPING AND DRIVING AND CHASING AND STINKING AND SLEEPING

SUNRISE ROCK AND DELTA DAWN

GRADE SCHOOL/MIDDLE SCHOOL

CHAINMAN AND CHAIN DOG

OF PLIBBAHS AND PLOOBS

REDEMPTION WITH MR. DOUGLASS

VOTING FOR GEORGE WALLACE

HIGH SCHOOL

BIB DAY REBELLION

SIMO AND THE COURTEOUS ASSAULT

STOMPIN’ R US

TIM RYAN AND THE HEADSHOT

HOME/FAMILY/ FRIENDS/ NEIGHBORS

GOOGLEY EYES AND FROMUNDA CHEESE

WHERE DID THE POTATO GO?

WHO LET THE CAT OUT? WHOO! WHOO!

WHO LET THE PAT OUT (HEE HEE HAW HAW WHOO! WHOO!)

MOMENTS IN TIME

HINI AND FRENCH

LET’S GO BITCHATITCHY

NAMIN’ NAMES

EWART

HEIKKI LUNTA

JINGLES

JOANNA HOSANNA SIMULA

SQUEAKY CARLSON

SONGS DONE BY HART

CHRISTMAS (W)RAP I—by Jack (Kesty)Hart

CHRISTMAS (W)RAP II

COME TO PELKIE MICHIGAN (Sung to Gloria)

HEIKKI LUNTA’S COMIN’ TO TOWN

TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

WE TREE FINNS (To be sung to the tune of We Three Kings)

REGULAR IRREGULAR SONGS

SHE’S A LADY

SONGS DONE BY BRUDDERS AND UDDERS (TWO OF SIX LYRICS)

HEIKKI LUNTA’S SNOW DANCE SONG

USELESS BUNCH—by Tim Hoganson—in High School (tweak by Jack Hart) at thirteen years old

TERMS

BOSS!

BUM-SLAPPING SONGS

BUN RIDE

CARLSON

CLOSE-KNIT

CUT LOOSE!

FEMS

FLIP SIDE OF THE BUM

I DOUBT IT!

KEENO

TRACK TRIPS

FAIRIES IN THE FIELD

PATRIOTISM

TRIBUTE

CHARLES AND JOYCE HART

EVY BARON

MRS. MOHAR

PAM SELDEN

RAY HENDERSON

SCOTTY AND JOEL COLTMAN

TOURNQUIST

WALT KITTY

PS

BIG MAC AND THE REALLY BIG MAC

BIRD BRAINS AND ONTONOGAN

IN AND OUT OF TRAPROCK VALLEY

JULIE AT FIFTH AND ELM

OF CARLSON AND INFAMY

FINALLY

TOTALITY—SEVENTY-SIX LAVATORY STORIES AND TWO INDEXES, DERE PLUS SOME UDDER ODDS AND ENDS (MOSTLY ODDS) —BASED ON 365.25 DAYS AND SEVENTY-EIGHT READINGS—ABOUT ONE IN EVERY 4.16 DAYS.

INTRODUCTION

Life in a Northern Town (or when God wrote a sitcom and such)

PREFACE OF PREFACES

Maybe you’ve heard it said, The legend is always better than the truth. Well, no. Not every time. Not this time. This time, the inverse—the truth is better than the legend—holds . . . true. Much like a legend, it does live on. Yet the truth here lies much deeper than the visceral superficiality of what’s offered in a legend that wanes when you really think about it long or smart enough. Truth in the depths, below, is an oil well rich in purity; so much so that when you really think about truth enough, you understand that there’s even more to think about than you’d imagined in the first place and that you’re compelled to do so over and over again, for an even longer period of time. The bigger world in smaller places reveals exponential potential. The oil is thick and saturating. And so very rich. Just ask Jed Clampett. He probably wouldn’t say, Yuhh, you betcha. But you’d get the drift. Hawwt, doggie! or something. It’s more than expected, anyway.

As of 10/15/2011, I have counted 646 individual entries of persons, places, and things I have returned to and they to me. These are memories, and memories that flow like that of petroleum and the geyser just never stops a-bubblin’. Some are shorter or smaller percolations in the scheme of things. Of course, the theme of bigger worlds in smaller places applies as well to the propensities of bigger long lasting residuals in smaller time frames; some of which were but seconds, even fractions of moments and such.

Oh, and there will be more.

Oh, and there will be more.

Many of you who have picked up this book have come from and lived a good portion of your life in a small town. I would put more money down on suspecting than I would on hoping that this would tap into your own wellsprings of reminiscences and nostalgia. This is a springboard for you to do that, as well. Jump right in and romp around a bit. Share and cavort with those in the know.

Of course, I’ve had to wield the entries down a bit. When I first started indexing all of this, I had no idea how exponential it would become. Saying that, it wasn’t long before the theme of what makes things like this contagious in the first place came to mind, thus inspiring the theme that you can see in the reflection of the book cover (by Simochuck—thank you for covisualizing it and materializing it, as such!). What prompted the project (that eventually transmogrified into a massive encyclopedia of fun), well, I will tell you down below.

I will note that I originally thought it might be amusing and different to list every last one of the kernels to be enlarged at some point in the next three hundred volumes to come. I pictured some of those interested in taking this train, perusing the list and looking forward to something that they might recognize or relate to, laugh at, or ponder with. Like Locker Rooms and Showers in this volume, catching the eye and, perhaps more pungently—I mean poignantly (or do I?)—the nose of some of my old basketball buddies and anyone who stepped close to it . . . You know, that kinda stuff.

Eventually, I succumbed to the reality that you, the reader, would have probably been distracted by all that. What? I’ve been reading all day, and I’m still not through the index? Forget it! All that to say that if you like what’s here, there’s a lot more coming with varying degrees and distinctions of visceral landscapes in each one. What is revealed from that, which was discovered on the MapQuest of the brain, may or may not be suitable to the taste; but it all—I mean absolutely all—all comes directly from the heart, soul, and spirit of raw imagery that soaked into the totality of those vital organs, both physically, as well as metaphorically, back on the two tracks and other roads without streetlights in the days of yore, yore, and your Yooper Lore. If you don’t like what’s here, then take this as a warning about all that. Just kidding. I know you’ll like most of it. So let’s get on with it, eh?

PRETRIBUTE

Despite the fact that there is more to this book than . . . the clique, it is important to distinguish that there were seven main characters who made up the core of the said clique and the nucleus of inspiration to return to the Life in a Northern Town. In alphabetical order, their real names were:

Ross Coltman

Rick Emrich

Jack Hart

Tim Hoganson

David Soper

Steve Simula

Doug Taylor

Except for a brief time when we thought Ross was being too haughty during his sophomore year when he made the Varsity Football Team, this was a Clique of the Round Table. To avoid any waste of time in this prologue, let’s shorten it with this: We’d been best friends since we were embryos. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it is best to err on that end than to toil over enigmas impossible to explain, too labor intensive to outline or too tedious for you to read. I’m looking out for you as well, you see. Lucky you.

Thank you to my sister Lois, who spent countless hours reading and critiquing this all. If you ever come across her, she may be able to sit down with you and offer the script with her eyes closed. She may even be sleeping when she does. She lives on Catalina Island; it is too beautiful there to keep them that way for too long, though.

Thanks, Simo for your awesome cover design. Just look at it ! Oh, and we’re even on that car thingy.

A lot more Thanks are implied, below as well, and you will find them as you read.

SEEDLINGS—for the rest’yahs . . . and dedication

It was early spring of 1991 when we planned a clique reunion. I thought it would be fun to delve into the deep resources of my memory and summon as much of the welcomed reminiscence that would surface. As a result, I ended up putting together a number of questions, which was easier than simple to answer and easier than that to laugh out loud about. And laugh, we all did. I also put together as many of the terms and sayings that we eventually took for granted as part of our repertoire for a fill in the _____________. I’d find out that the recall would be more challenging for the boys to man than I’d expected, even for the one (Tim Hoganson . . . Hogie) who originally extracted the terms from his unconventional psyche.

This got me thinking about why I was the one who remembered all of this stuff. The psychologist came out of me on that one. Did I attach myself too much to my childhood in some sort of pervasive regression? Ah, I thought, I traveled the world. I lived in L. A. and worked in the inner city (near where Reginald Oliver Denny got his butt kicked during the Rodney King riots). Hey, I worked and lived in the desert with hardened criminals. I didn’t metaphorically cling to the Linus blanket, did I? Nah . . . did I? Maybe I didn’t physically or occupationally, but did so psychologically? I finally came to two conclusions: one, that perhaps there was a tinge of truth to my reenveloping the pacified past, but I examined myself and determined to have a healthy enough autonomy and balance in all of it. I have a master’s degree in clinical psychology, and I stand by my assessment.

I discovered that as well when we visited up north. My kids were fascinated by the stories I told of my childhood world. I visited a family with them one time—our old neighbors, the Lanfrankies, who I hadn’t seen in almost thirty years. And we were mutually amazed and in one accord at how intricate and impacting the memories were for us all. At night, the two of them (my kids, not the Lanfrankies, now . . .) would ask me to tell them stories of those days, and they would struggle to stay awake and slur requests for some more of them. For that sake alone, I am motivated and inspired to write. If no one else reads any of this, I am absolutely okay with that; yet I encourage you to read on nevertheless with a 100 percent guarantee that you will enjoy 91. 87 percent of its content and . . . maybe 83.49 percent of the intensity. Still, that’s a lot, doh.

Second of all, I realized that there is something inherent in my brain mass that offers yet another explanation. I believe it to be biochemical in nature, and I am in fact not qualified here (as there is a notable difference between what psychologists study and know to that of which psychiatrists study and know) to actually determine it as such. Both fields have the commonality of hypothesizing, and I will leave it at that. Anyway, all that to preface the following paragraph . . .

Every day . . . every freakin’ day, I s-pend time and ex-pend countless energy trying to locate my keys and my wallet and my this and my that and my that and my this and on and on. It’s consistently and completely maddening. Ask my kids . . . Ahh, no . . . don’t. It’s an excruciating detail. I sometimes blame my short-term memory on the diabetic coma that I suffered back in 1995, and to some extent, there is a legitimate tie to that.

In contrast, however, my long-term memory has no sign of dissolution. In fact, the opposite seems to be true. The things that I hope you read in this book represents just that. What’s to come in the following chapters are flashbacks that, in my experience, are capable of superimposing myself within the space of feet, sometimes inches of those events and occurrences. During those times that I flashbacked with my kids, all I had to do was pick a longitude and latitude, and the video would run. That’s what started the mini series. I’m not sure what to call it now. As much as I wish for better short-term synoptic efficacy within the realm of my neurological ecosystem, I would be reluctant to do so, if it meant that I would be left with less than the virtual reality that pervades in the vividness of those days . . . those beloved days that I—and we—experienced and often, for therapeutic purposes, relive in the surroundings of that northern town.

These are holograms embedded, long termed and deeply within the vortex of my medulla. Not that I have a choice concerning the hypothetical trade. And since I don’t, and therefore cannot, I am going to take advantage of what I have left up there and relate the details to you. I’m willing to bet that many of you will find the stories parallel to your own experiences both in material and spirit. Some are fun (like a good portion that you’ll read here), and perhaps some are not so much fun, yet certainly impressionable or influential. I challenge and encourage you to write ’em down for your kids and for generations to come. Spread the wealth! You know what I mean? Write your own book, for goodness sakes! Nice, clean short stories that can be read in the bathroom. That is my main focus in this phase, anyway.

If you can’t relate to this, you’re probably a city slicker—rich in material, poor in soul . . . soul, who had all the money in the world to blow on stuff that kept you from the woods, or from making something out of nothing at the beach or with marbles on the floor of the living room. I’m not worried about satisfying you or offending you in saying this, by the way, because you don’t take time to read this kinda stuff, anyway. Important Qualifier—but if you do take time, perhaps, somehow you can attain some vicarious satisfaction . . . just pretend it’s virtual and all that . . . Oh, and . . . buy the book.

I really don’t know if I flashback and it all seems just as real, or if I was actually just there and somehow in a blink, I popped forward, now, forty some years later. In any scenario, it is that real and lucid in the aforementioned long-term memory, and it is very much intact or is bent just so in order to accommodate the time warp. I reemphasize this in order for you to understand the purity of all this. The limitations making this real for you are modified only in the manner and efficacy of my delivery. To compensate for any shortcomings, I bring a passion that I would argue would be difficult for anyone to surpass, let alone challenge. With that, I will do my best to match that vigor with some readability. This will be important, as those who can relate in experience and spirit are entitled to sharing all this as joyously or as pertinently as possible. Know that it is my intent to do just that. It is the pleasures relished in all towns (small or even not so small southern, western, or eastern ones) where friends and family still trump whatever society manufactures to replace that which the heart inherently yearns for. For it is not the Wii, but the we who know of what I speak of. No offense there, gamers (who don’t, yeah, go out in those woods or make something out of nothing on the floor of the living room and such). So this really answers the question as to why I would have the notion that someone would want to read any of this. There is a certain population out there that know of the narratives to come. For those that recognize and appreciate it best, enjoy in what we share and allow the power that comes with the gift that your childhood (and subsequent nostalgia) provides and, if needed, the reparation of your soul to gain or regain access to the inspiration that will prompt you to pass along any remnant that your children and loved ones can benefit from—and here is the best part—with you.

It’s funny. I had an older lady tell me the other day that she was traveling to Barcelona to do some research for a book she’s writing. It’s important to get a taste of the culture for, you know, understanding the uniqueness, the nuances, the dynamics, the texture from all angles and senses and such.

It got me thinking about what was required for the one I’m writing here, and yeah, it hit me. I had twenty years plus of research and valuable experience in—and with—all those prerequisites. Not only that, I’ve conducted that test market survey without effort or any attempts to validate this. It all transpired late at night in the loft of my parents’ cabin where I spent most of my summer nights and now had my kids yearning for those stories. Of all the ironies, the extent of my travels took me what can be measured from my cerebellum in my brain to the pinch in my right hand where I started scribbling notes just for fun. All of three feet at the most.

It is through the prism of this culture, which renders the hue, the texture, and, on occasion, singularity that can only somewhat be absorbed in the back woods swamp and such. This is where I want to take you to sponge it all in with us. Some of it has titrated into adulthood and to places beyond the fields and streams there, in the way of the spirit, which is ceaseless in its presence and seamless in its presents. It is a soul inhabited by all that is treasured by the memories and the rebirthing of similar joys and reenlightenment. Even in places not so north. The entity is replete with its own inheritances of nostalgia. I realize that I am no Garrison Keillor, but I will do my best to provide some virtual reality in a different tweak of it and help you all get as soaking wet as possible so you can sink in with it and with us, as well. Who cares if the oil stains a bit? I have a feeling we would like to have you there with us, and we hope you walk away, only to do so with anticipation of a return. Wear the stain and point it out.

In reality, this is my priority—that my family and friends have access to this and take pleasure in