Cookin' for the Arts!

Last Thursday night found me on the rain-drenched roads in the hills between Viroqua and Lafarge and points beyond.  The lightening forked through the clouds around me, but I couldn't hear the thunder for the roar of the rain on the hood and the roof of my little truck.  There was little traffic, which was fortunate because when the puddled rain wasn't trying to pull me to the shoulder, the thousands of worms were being turned to a slick puree under my tires.

So you might ask, "Gus, what the heck were you doing out in such weather?  Was it a family emergency?  A disaster of some sort?"  No, it was nothing like that.  Though, I say with some amount of bragging, it might have been a disaster of sorts if ol' Gus hadn't showed up.  Okay, yeah, I know I'm gonna go to hell for Pride.  So be it.  No, I was on my way back from working at a benefit dinner for a Writer's Workshop.  A fellow I had worked with in the construction trade, Jimmy, was hosting it, along with the Workshops director.  What was her name?  I don't recall, I'll call her, "Sonya."  Just because.

Details.  What details do I need?  Jimmy called me up to see if I could help out at this dinner, feeding about 50 people.  He knew I'd had experience in the food business.  Ol' Gus wouldn't call himself a chef by any means.  But he knows his way around a kitchen, he knows the basics.  I like to think that I shine at prep work, doing the behind the scenes stuff.  I've done the line cooking thing, but I'll tell ya, I just don't have the temperament.  As soon as I get an order in, I'm a bundle of nerves.  What's up with that?  I don't know.  I can do it, I have many times.  I've dealt with lines of hungry people.  But at the end of the day, I'm pretty wiped out just keeping the panic tamped down.  So there ya go, Gus's admission of weakness.

But I told Jimmy, sure.  I'd be happy to help out.  There was going to be a chef there putting stuff together, so all I need to do was help him out.  The chef was leaving before dinner got served, so I had to see that everything was ready to be plated up and served.  It was all pretty straightforward.  And I'd get to meet some literary-minded people, even a bona-fide Author, who was going to be reading from his latest release!

I got there and was introduced to the chef, Robert, who informed me that he wasn't an actual "chef", but his father was, and Robert had been cooking professionally since he was young.  And that was fine with me.  I respected him for not putting on airs.  I've met a few folks who I think could have been called "chef" who have learned it by the seat of their pants.

Robert put me to work peeling some ginger to be pureed, then slicing apples and pears for the desert.  Jimmy and Sonya were setting the tables and arranging things.  They were giddy and a little excited about the event.  I got the impression, though, that they didn't have much experience in setting up banquets.  They came into the kitchen, laughing and joking around.  And that was fine.  Sonya asked Robert a question about serving times, and it got discussed for a moment before I realized that they hadn't really been communicating that part very well.  They couldn't settle on a time for seating and serving, and it eventually became a heated argument that went on while I quietly sliced pears and apples as thinly as I could.  They were three people talking over each other, not getting anywhere.

At one point, Sonya mentioned that she wanted to express her feelings about how Robert was talking to her.  That didn't get very far either.  They finally agreed on a time, and then Robert told them both, "Now.  If you have any other questions, or anything to do with me, ask it now.  From now on my only communication is with Gus.  That's it.  We need to concentrate on what we're doing."  I thought that was a little extreme, considering that most everything was ready.  But I mentally shrugged and went back to cutting.  Jimmy and Sonya went back to work in the dining room.

Robert and I worked and talked.  We didn't talk about the job at hand so much as everything else.  Robert had cooked in cafes and restaurants out on the west coast, big and small, a lot of organic stuff.  He did seem to have a good knowledge of what he was up to, but I still couldn't help thinking he was still flying by the seat of his pants.  He also had a chip on his shoulder.  And then Sonya came in the kitchen to ask how a certain dish was going to be served up.  Robert's face grew dark, and he looked down at the bowl of ginger/lemon puree he was mashing up.

"I...what...Sonya...didn't I tell you..." He sighed heavily and seemed to be working himself into a higher plane of anger.  Sonya didn't seem to see it.  I wondered briefly if they were a couple, and if so, why were they still together.  "I just wanted to know so..."
"You know what I have going on here.  You know what I told you."  He didn't raise his voice, but spoke through clenched teeth.  Jimmy came back in, and then Sonya started talking about her feelings again, and why they should be known.
"I'll give all the information you need to Gus.  He'll fill you in.  After I leave."
Jimmy looked at me and smiled.  "Sounds good," he said.  "Come on Sonya.  Let's get changed."

She wanted to stay, to continue the discussion about her feelings.  But Robert was already reaching into cupboards and slamming spoons onto the counter and a pot on the stove.  She spun around and followed Jimmy.  I waited to hear an explanation from Robert, but it didn't come.  He started muttering under his breath, talking about polenta and water and ratios.  He spent five minutes trying to figure the amounts and ratios in his head.  Then he measured out the water, turned on the heat, and we went back to talking as if the argument had never happened.

In the end, everything went smoothly.  Robert left after the polenta was done.  Waitstaff volunteers showed up, a couple of dishwashers started scrubbing pans left over from the day.  I had help, very good help, plating up the food to serve.  Everyone was happy, even the vegetarian who had to have the mushrooms picked out of her dish before we could take it out to her.

Personally, Gus thought the beef dish was a little too acidic.  The tomato needed to be cut a little.  And the vegetarian choice could have been something a little more imaginative than just mushroom broth with a few vegetables.  But, like I said, everyone seemed to be happy.  And after everything was served, I got to take off my apron and put on a clean shirt and open up a bottle of Moon Man pale ale from New Glarus Brewing Co.  That hit the spot just fine.  I went out and mingled a little while someone else cleaned up behind me.  How often does that happen?

I did see some people I knew, and a few dear friends showed up.  But by the time Gus was out there, the reading was about to begin, so there was very little visiting to be done.  The reading began with a one-man skit that left the audience wondering if it was over or not, unsure of whether or not  to applaud.  But the reading went well, and drew a good response at the good humor and warmth of the writer.  Afterward there was a question and answer that left me wondering if people actually read the material before they asked the questions.  Oh, not everyone.  Just some.  And the best part of that was that Gus was sitting next to some friends and we were able to snicker quietly together.  Yeah, I know, Gus and Friends might have been being a little catty.  But come on, people!

After the presentation, everyone seemed to be ready to leave at once.  Gus had wanted to socialize a little more, but it just wasn't in the cards tonight.  I gathered up my tools and clothes and headed out to the truck and onto the highway out of town.  The air felt heavy and warm.  I couldn't see any stars.

The rain began to fall as soon as I got beyond the pale glow if the streetlights.  It grew heavy and rattled in sheets across the hood of the truck. The wind picked up right before I dropped into the valley.  I turned on the radio, and the local station, WDRT, was playing some really nice old blues.  I turned it up to hear it over the sound of the wind and the rain.  A pair of headlights came up from behind, caught up to me, then dropped back suddenly as the rain came down harder.  I turned on to Hwy. 82 and the pair of headlights kept on without following me.  The truck started the climb up the tree-lined and winding road to the next ridgetop.

A week or so ago my truck's tailpipe rusted off.  The rest of the exhaust is still there; catalytic converter and muffler.  So the noise isn't awfully bad.  But it exhausts under the truck bed now, so that resonates along the body and frame when I have to give it some gas.  I finally reached the top and then dropped down the other side into the next valley.  A distorted guitar wailed out of the radio, while someone sang about a love gone wrong.  The guitar and the voice were dark and muddy, like the night outside.  They were heavy with reverb and distortion.  The music belonged to the night.  It belonged to me and my truck with the missing tailpipe.  It seemed to go on for a long time while the truck sluiced down the road.  It became impossible to judge how far I had traveled, and for how long.  I came out on top of one ridge thinking I was not far from home, only to realize that I was two ridges too early.  There were miles to go.  I finally came to a small town that had one bar open in the middle of the block.  There were a few cars outside, and I saw some people sitting at the bar as I drove past.  But it didn't look like a place I would belong.  Often Gus wonders if there is such a place.  I left that town behind and was back in the dark countryside.  I rocked on through the dark and the rain and the wind and somewhere there was a dark and muddy part of my brain that wondered, as anyone is bound to wonder from time to time, if home was where I really wanted to go tonight.

Bad Coffee and Mad Women at the 29 Pines.

So anyway, Gus went to Eau Claire over the weekend of the mumblety-mumblth.  He went with his friend, and ex-employer, Jim.  It was for a convention, the topic of which I ain't a-gonna mention here, because when I did mention it to my friend, M, she broke into gales of derisive laughter.  So I think it's enough to say that the conference room was peopled entirely with women, except for Jim.  And me, of course, but I was only there to move heavy things and to be company.  And that's fine.  I was not attending the convention.

Okay, that's out of the way.  The convention was held at the 29 Pines Inn and Conference Center, which is basically a self-contained compound between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls, just off of what highway?  Highway 29, of course!  Right smack dab in the middle of the prairie, miles from anything.  It consisted of rooms, a swimming pool, a bar, a restaurant, store, gas station, laundromat and some slots.  Everyone has the slots!  And really, I didn't care.  It was good just to get out of my town and into another, just for a change of scenery.

We got up there in the afternoon.  I helped Jim get set up in the convention room.  While we were setting up, three women came up to Jim, all excited to see him.  They were all my age or older, but all, oddly, with perfectly blonde hair.  At that age, I tell you.  But Jim introduced them as some friends of his who love to party.  Well, that's fine too.  But then they disappeared.  Jim had some things to do, projects he was working on, so I went to the lounge and had a beer.

The lounge was pleasant enough, with some good beers in the cooler.  I passed the time writing and watching people and basketball.  And really, that first evening passed very uneventfully.

On Saturday Jim was going to be busy all day there.  I had come down to the continental breakfast lounge to have a cup of coffee that might have been okay except for the taste of styrofoam.  Man, if that doesn't leave a bad taste in your mouth!  So I took off and headed to Chippewa Falls to search for a good cup of coffee.  I finally found a place, a really funky little brick building with big picture windows.  It was the "4:30 Coffee House."  I went in and saw artwork that I didn't pay much attention to.  There was a group of high-school age, or young college age, kids sitting at the counter.  I got my coffee and sat down.  I took my first sip.  It was lousy.  It was just a lousy cup of coffee.  It was weak and bitter.  And I thought, "I just drove a half an hour for a bad cup of coffee."

Then I looked around.  The artwork was just photos of banal landscapes with some hot air balloons.  There was a little lending library filled with Tom Clancey and Dean Koontz novels.  And there were little family-type groups scattered around, the type of people who aren't going to complain about the coffee even if they do know it's bad.  I was really disappointed, but I sat and watched the people and drank my coffee.  I got to the bottom and tossed back the last of it and got a mouthful of grounds.  They tasted like twice-brewed grounds.  Nice.  I left.

And you know how it is when you're in an unfamiliar town, and you know you should explore and find something cool to do?  Well, that was my thought too.  But I just didn't have a starting point, to tell the truth.  I drove around aimlessly and finally found my van pointed back toward Eau Claire.  And I decided to go to Water Street.  I could find Water Street easily enough.  And I had some recollection of hearing that it was a cool part of town to be in.  Of course, I might have mis-remembered.  Or things might have changed.  Either way, I did end up on Water Street.  It looked a lot different than I remembered, but I drove through, saw a coffee shop, and pulled over.

This one looked neat, in an old brick building with a big picture window facing the sun.  It looked warm and welcoming.  There were college kids in there, reading and doing college stuff.  The girl at the counter was nice and friendly and gave me a coffee mug and pointed me to the carafes.  I tipped her and filled my mug and sat down.  I took a drink.  It was no better than the cup I had in Chippewa Falls!  I didn't know what to do.  Do I go up and tell the girl that I hate her coffee, when so many others are obviously fine with it?  Let's face it, I'm the odd man here.  So all I could do was sit quietly and drink the coffee and try to not scowl.  I watched a girl walk past the window in the sunshine.  She was wearing a red dress with white polka dots on it.  The dress was nice, but she was really clumsy on her high heels.  I finished my coffee and walked about 8 blocks, up and down the street, then drove back to the 29 Pines.

When I got there, I looked for Jim at his table.  He wasn't there.  Just on a whim, okay, maybe an educated guess, I checked the bar.  And there he was surrounded by the three cutest women at the convention.  They were nice looking, though two of them I think were older than me.  The third was about my age and had really nice friendly eyes.  There was an empty stool between her and the others.  She pointed me to it.  It seemed like a safe enough place to sit.
The women were all drinking Bloody Marys.  There were a couple of other women sitting on the other end of the row, around the "L",  furthest from me.  The biggest one seemed to be hitting it kind of hard.  She started to get loud, laughing a lot at her own jokes.  She started talking abut the size of her breasts.  They were huge.  They were enormous.  They rested on the bar on either side of her drink.  Then, since I was the only other guy in the room, she turned her attention to me.  She stretched the neck of her shirt way down to show me her print brassiere.  "Isn't this nice?" she shouted across the bar, daring me to contradict her.
"Um...sure."
"Jim say's you're a carpenter!!"
"Um...yeah."
"I got some work that needs doing.  I won't pay you any money though. But I'll take care of you, if you know what I mean!!"
I guess I turned red.  Everyone started laughing at me.  And even at that distance from her, I'm sure I flinched a little.
 "You don't need to be afraid of me," she shouted.  "I won't bite!  Unless you want," she added coyly.
 The woman beside me, the one with the nice eyes, put her arm around my shoulder and told the big woman, "Now you be nice to him!"
 The bartender was overworked, and finally brought my Bloody Mary.  It was huge, with a skewer of pepper jack cheese and some sort of Slim Jim sausage, and a few other things to munch on.  In the meantime, the big woman had two Old Fashions in front of her.  She drank one down and started on the next.  Then she started shouting at me about all of the work she needed done, and how she'd take good care of me if I did it.  She showed off her bra again, and the woman beside her started making comments about how scarey her breasts looked in the morning with nothing to hold them up.  Turns out it was her niece.  They were sharing a room.  The drunk woman's jokes got cringingly crude.  She shouted about if anyone needed milk in their coffee in the mornings, just ask.  Yeesh.  But maybe Gus is sharing too much.  He has to slip into third person to forget the horror.  The horror!


We all ordered chicken wings.  They were really messy and not very exciting.  Gus can't remember the last time he had wings, but knows enough to not be disappointed if he doesn't like them.  And he was not disappointed.  But he had a pleasant conversation with the woman beside him.  She was an ambulance driver in Milwaukee.  She used to be married to a baseball player who had been a pitcher for the Brewers but never got far.  Now they're divorced and she has a boyfriend in Green Bay, and is thinking of moving up there.

And by this time, they all got up to leave, except the really drunk woman.  The nice one beside me squeezed my arm when she left.  "Don't let her scare you," she said.  And just like that, I was alone with the drunk woman.  The nice women were gone.  Jim was gone.  Even the bartender had disappeared somewhere in the back.
"Come on over. I want to talk to you!"
"Nah, I've got my stuff right here.  I'm fine."  My ears were hot.  A man came in and sat at the far end of the bar, intent on the basketball game on T.V.
 "Well, I don't want to yell!"
I didn't want her to yell either, but I also didn't want to be seen with her.  I tried to compromise by moving down to the corner of the bar.  This at least quieted her down.  Quite a bit, actually.  So that helped, except that she started interrogating me about where I lived, why I was there, when I could come to Madison to work for her.  I answered really vaguely, and even lied about where I lived.  It seemed to work.  After a long, long time Jim came back in to see how I was doing.
"Fine," I told him.  "I'm gonna run to the bathroom.  I'll be right back."  When I got back, the woman was gone.  Jim was still there.
"I told her that her niece needed some help with something.  I guess we're eating in the restaurant here tonight.  Unless you found a different place."  But I hadn't.  And by dinner time, the really drunk woman was completely sober and quiet and apologetic.  But the nice ones had made other plans, and we didn't see them again until morning.

But that's not all!  That evening I wandered back to the lounge.  There was a group of people there, celebrating someone's birthday.  They all seemed to be couples, and they were all pretty drunk already.  They were locals, and I got the feeling that this was their regular Saturday night gathering place.  One of them was sitting next to me at the bar.  He was a fierce-looking guy on the high side of his fifties, I guessed.  He had a cloth engineer's hat on his head, and hard and mean glinting blue eyes.  He had a great bushy gray mustache that traveled around his mouth, down over his jaw on either side of his chin and down his neck to his shirt collar.  He was sucking on Bud Lights and tumblers of Jack Daniels while he talked with his friend, a gaunt and hollow-eyed guy who fidgeted and twitched the whole time.

They were discussing "that n***er in the White House," and how he was going to destroy this country with his health care system.  They talked about that for a while, then the discussion turned to their guns, and how they weren't giving them up.  The gaunt man said he didn't have any assault rifles anyway.  But Mustache Man reminded him that one of his rifles could be converted into an assault weapon.  "Oh yeah, that's right," said Gaunt Man.  "Well, either way, they're not gonna take it from me!"  He wandered off to talk to the women, who were sitting at a tall table together, drinking and screaming with laughter.  The women had been drinking "Mystery Shots" since about 5:00 that afternoon.  The Mystery Shots were a row of bottles with brown paper wrapped around them and numbered from 1 through 10.  Each one cost a dollar.  The bartender had told me earlier that it was really cheap booze that nobody would buy anyway, so this was a good way to get rid of it.

Another man took the stool beside Mustache Man.  He called for a couple of more drinks.  His arm was in a sling.  He said he had just had surgery on his shoulder.
"Oh, man," said Mustache Man.  "That can't be fun!  I remember when I messed mine up arm wrestling..."  I gave him a closer glance.  He didn't appear especially tall, but his neck was thick and corded and sloped outward to his shoulders like the foot of a stone mountain.  He seemed like a man who could back up his tough talk any day of the week.  We wasn't a man to be trifled with. I started listening more closely, even though he was pretty drunk and starting to repeat himself.
"...well, my arm was getting sore, and I should have stopped right there, you know?  I mean, I just beat five guys in a row, and that was enough.  But I said, 'Okay, one more!'  And this guy came up.  He was a sheet rocker!  And he was just a kid, but musta weighed 220 pounds if he was an ounce!  And I thought, 'Oh no.'  And I knew I'd have to take him right off the line or I wouldn't stand a chance.  So we locked hands there and the starter said, 'Go!'  And I pushed that kid's arm about yea far...and just stopped.  It was like I hit a fucking brick wall!  And that kid looked at me and smiled just as nice as anything, and says, 'Is that all you got?'  Smart-ass little shit.  Well, I tried to give it more, but I just didn't have it!  And before I knew it, he just pushed my arm all the way back and slammed it down on the table.  And I could feel it!  Man, I felt it and heard it, everything in my shoulder just going, 'R-r-r-r-r-rip!'  Jeezus!  And that was all she wrote.  I couldn't even pick up a fucking beer.  And I finally got up to go that night, and it was windy out there.  And the wind caught that door, and do you think I could pull it back?  Not to save my life.  And that was the last time I arm wrestled.  Hell, I used to wrestle with either hand.  But I want to save at least one, you know?  Anyway, if I tried today it would be just bone-on-bone.  I don't think there's any cartilage left..."

They each had another tumbler of Jack Daniels.  Two women came over to join them.  Jim showed up then, and ordered a martini.  He said he was done for the day.  Mustache Man turned to look at us, as if he hadn't even known I was there already.  He pulled off his hat and gave what might have passed for a grin, if not for those hard blue eyes.
"Well, look at us!" he said.  "Three bald men in a row!  I think that's lucky."  Jim didn't know any more than I did if that was good luck or not, but we were both agreeable to the idea.  Mustache Man aimed his eyes at me.  I got the feeling that he'd love to fight just to pass the time.  "How old are you?" he demanded.
"Ah...56."
"I've got you beat," he said.  "I'm 59!"  It sounded like a challenge.
"Yeah, I guess you do have me beat."
He seemed disappointed.  Then he said, "How old were you when you started losing your hair?"
"I don't really remember..."
"How old were you?!!"
"27"
He settled back onto his stool.  "Yeah, I was about 30."  He seemed to be brooding, and his eyes narrowed into little sparkles of pale blue.  "I ride out to Sturgis every summer.  And I don't wear nothing on my head.  So I get out that and my head's all red and so hot you can fry an egg on it..."  He stopped again and stared at the rows of bottles along the back bar.  Then he said, "You ever get these sores on top of your head?"
"What kind of sores...no, I don't get any sores."
"Well, I started to get 'em.  Now the doctor says I have to keep my head covered.  Sucks to get old...but it beats the other choice, I guess."  Jim and I agreed with him.

One of the women came over and leaned against Mustache Man.  Her hand was on his thigh, rubbing him a little.  "You ready to go home, babe?"  He seemed to consider this for a long time.  He was staring at a half tumbler of Jack Daniels and a can of Bud Light in front of him. He was giving them more attention than he gave to the woman.  He finally said, "Yah. I s'pose."  But it took a long time to finish those drinks.  He kept forgetting them while he talked to his friend, then mumbled to the woman.  They finally helped one another out the door and to the parking lot.  Jim and I agreed that we were glad we weren't on the road tonight.

Another Year Older at the Branding Iron Roadhouse.

Hmm.  Ol' Gus has been resisting (is that the word I want?  Hm.  No, more like "avoiding."  Yeah.) or rather, avoiding, writing anything at all.  What's up with that?  Gus doesn't know if it's a little bit of seasonal down-ness, or what, but it really sucks.  Gus has been avoiding liquor.  It seems that just one beer will send him into a downward spiral of a funk, and make him Very Grumpy Indeed.  I sit down to write in my notebook and just stare at it.  I have a letter halfway written, and it just sits there, getting older and more irrelevant every day.  Ah-yup.  Just like Ol' Gus.  Yes!  That's it!  I had a birthday yesterday.  And that was fine.

I got up and made coffee, fried up some potatoes and eggs and ham, then put on my long johns and work clothes and drove out to the workshop twelve miles outside of town.  The roads weren't too bad, except along the shady spots.  Last week had gotten kind of nasty, and one day while I was on my way out there I had to turn around because a big UPS truck had gotten stopped by the icy hill along the way and was backing down, almost a 1/8 mile stretch.  He wasn't moving any too quickly, so I cut a doughnut on the ice and went back to take another road out there.  That was nearly as bad, covered with a sheet of ice that had melted the day before and then frozen overnight.  But with a little patience and care, and a light foot on the gas, I made it.

Anyway, that was last week.  Yesterday was warm, up in the lower thirties, and the sun was shining.  I got out to the shop and grabbed the splitting maul and some wedges and went to work.  It doesn't take long to work up a sweat splitting wood, and after about ten minutes I was down to a long sleeved shirt while I wrestled chunks of wood up onto the splitting stump and drove the wedges in to make some stove-sized pieces.  During that time two separate flocks of geese flew overhead, pointing north.  It was good to see them, and to hear their calling back and forth over the soughing of the breeze through the stand of pines behind the shop.  It seems too early for them to be heralding Spring, but the weather was so mild that it felt right.

I worked until almost noon, until my arms were quivering.  I'll tell ya, if you don't do that sort of thing more often than I do, it takes a lot out of you.  When I had gotten everything stacked and put away, I got into the truck and my wrist was so limp that I could barely turn the key in the ignition.  Yeesh.

I had been informed that I was going out with friends on my birthday.  Reservations had been made.  So Gus did what anyone would do if they were going out; he took a nap.  And then he woke refreshed, an hour later, still holding the book he had intended to read.  My ride, G,  arrived at 6:30.  From there we drove to Lavalle, picked up P, who was just getting off of work, and then headed out of town along the dark winding and wintry roads through Ironton and then up the road past the Carr Valley Cheese Factory and finally to the Branding Iron Roadhouse in Lime Ridge.

I've been to the Branding Iron quite a bit over the past year.  Lisa and Steve raise their own beef for the hamburgers, and Lisa makes her own seasoning for the meat, and does a good job of grilling them.  If you ask for rare, she gives you rare.  That's  hard to find around here.  But the burgers are the best I've found for about fifty miles around.   She tries to buy everything locally, from the Carr Valley cheeses to the hamburger buns baked at the Amish bakery down in the valley.

J was already there with a tall Old Fashion in front of him.  There was a small and bearded man in black leather sitting next to him at the bar, cutting into a steak.  He seemed serious about it, and only glanced up at us as we walked in.  We were intentionally early for our reservation.  It gave us time to sit at the bar and relax with the row of Old Fashions that Steve mixed up for all of us.  They were tall and good.

Tonight, coincidentally, was Guest Chef Night.  The theme was "Supper Club Steak Night," with Chef Kimberly Anderson.  On the menu was home-grown ribeye steak, sweet potatoes with creme fraiche, and various side dishes.  As well as the Old Fashions.  Mmm.

The dining area there is pretty casual.  The pool table had been pushed to one side and the area filled with tables.  The tables were all filled with a nice mix of folks.  Some appeared to be locals, others didn't.  It's easy to spot a tourist if you're a local.  G struck up a conversation with some gals from New York who had just finished up their meal and were sitting at the bar.  They were transplants to the area, but that's all I heard of the conversation, except one of them commenting that "...men don't like assertive woman."  Well, Gus thinks that's just plain silly.  And that's all I'm saying about that.  And while we were sitting there and visiting, a group of people left and they all called out to the bearded man in black leather, "Good night, Father!"

Lisa showed us to our table after a bit.  There was a tray of pickled vegetables in the center.  There was pickled curried cauliflower that was really nice, and some spicy pickled carrots, hot pickled green beans and a few others.  They were all good, a nice starter.  Lisa took our order, which was pretty much, "How do you want your steak?" while we munched on these.  Then Lisa brought the salad of leafy greens topped with a vinaigrette and thin chilled slices of marinated grilled steak.  Oh, man, it was good.  And we were all hungry.  After that, the main course, along with more drinks.  The steaks were perfectly seared and mostly tender, not feed-lot tender.  We were a rare to medium-rare group, and fell to it carnivorously.  I was a little disappointed with the sweet potato dish.  It just seemed as if something with a little more consistency and flavor would have suited the steak better.  But that's a minor thing.  We had choices of sides.  J chose pickled beets (the pickled foods were all prepared by the chef) on a bed of dilled cottage cheese.  G had the sauerkraut soup and I chose the grilled mixed mushrooms, and we all shared with the others.  We all had a good time, except that the room was chilly and the big-screen T.V. was on over beside the kitchen.  There was a really good music mix going on that the television occasionally interfered with.  And I may have mentioned how I feel about television in restaurants before; I'm sure you don't need to read it again.

Dessert came then.  J got the frosty frozen fruit squares, which kind of surprised me because it was, as I mentioned, chilly in there.  The rest of us had the petit cocoa cakes with creme de menthe icing.  That went really well with the bottle of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel ale that I washed it down with.  Oh, man, Gus was feeling mellow by then.

There were only a few people left by this time.  The chef came out and visited with us, and a couple at another table.  She was interesting, and enthusiastic.  It was fun to visit with her, and hear her plans for other dinners.  The guests at the other table kind of know me, and they sang "Happy Birthday" to me, which was kind of embarrassing, but enjoyable anyway.  From there we wandered back up to the bar, where J and I decided that some good whiskey would take the chill off.  And it did.  J said that he had never been a whiskey drinker, but might change his mind.  It was smooth and mellow.

The booze didn't send Gus into a funk the way it has been of late.  No, everyone seemed to be having a good time, and that sort of mood can be infectious.  And it was.  You can feel the mood of a gathering of people, in much the same way that you can feel the mood of one person.  It changes the air around you, and runs through you if you let it, and maybe even if you don't.  And one might be flippant and say, "That's just the booze talking, Gus!"  But that's not the case, not always.  It happens all the time, sometimes when you wouldn't think it's there.  I've felt it in small crowds or large, as if there is a signal, some electricity that moves from person to person until it's a tangible thing, something that can bring a smile and warmth out before you realize it.

I have a memory from almost thirty years ago of going to see the Fourth of July fireworks in Lacrosse.  I went along with P and her nieces.  The fireworks were going to be shot off across the Mississippi River.  We had to park far away and walk down to the park.  And at one point I was carrying my niece on my shoulders in the middle of the press of people.  There were so many people that they filled the streets as far as we could see.  And I heard her laughing above me, and realized that I was laughing too, chuckling to myself as we moved down the street looking over the heads of the people and feeling the mood and the warmth of this happy crowd wrapping around us.

Yesterday I had a birthday.  I was able to visit with friends and strangers.  Today is cold again, but that doesn't matter because I saw the wild geese returning ahead of the coming Spring.

Gus's Cold

On Sunday afternoon, he felt a tickle and then a scratch in the back of his throat.  By Monday morning it had grown into a cold.  He woke up coughing and sniffling, and couldn't breathe through his nose until the second cup of coffee.  He told himself that he didn't feel all that bad, that it was only a cold, and he could work this off.  His plan was to go to the cabinet shop and split wood today, and that is what he intended to do.

He took his time with breakfast, and with getting dressed.  He dressed in layers, putting on his faded and worn work trousers, a cotton tee shirt, a flannel shirt, a hooded sweatshirt and a frayed green work coat.  His shoe lace snapped in two as he tightened up his work boots.  He coughed and grumbled while he knotted it together and walked out the door.

The starter on the truck had been giving him trouble over the last couple of months.  This morning it buzzed for a moment before it finally kicked in and groaned, laboriously turning the engine over.  After the engine started, he waited a minute, letting it run in neutral to warm up the transmission so it would shift easier.  Then he eased out of the driveway and down the alley and out of town.

The shop was twelve miles from town, down in a sheltered valley.  The wind was blowing hard, and rocked the little truck as he drove down the road, and then turned off onto a meandering side road that led up onto a ridge.  There was a woman he knew who lived there, up the road from the workshop.  She had told him that she had a bucket full of splitting wedges that he could borrow.  He stopped at her house to pick them up.  She asked if she could help with splitting wood.

"If you want to."
"Yeah, I do," she said.  "It's a good day to split wood."

He agreed, and waited while she slipped her boots on.  She was only a few inches shorter than him, and in her heavy tan work coat appeared more muscular than him.  He followed her out to the shed where he picked up the bucket of wedges and she took her axe and splitting maul, one in each hand, and put them in the truck.

They drove down into the valley where the workshop was.  The cut maple was piled in a jumbled heap behind the workshop.  The pieces ranged in size from a foot across to some broad enough to turn into a dinner table.  He rolled a large one out for a splitting platform.  Then he rolled another on top of it.  She began tugging another out and started rolling it up the slope.

"I want to work up here," she said.  "The sun is shining up here.  It feels good."
"It's more steps."
"I don't care.  That's where I want to work."
"That's fine."  His voice sounded gruff to him, made harsh by his clogged sinuses and raw throat.  He smiled so that she knew it was okay, that she didn't need any more reason than that.  She didn't seem to notice either way.  She went to work on her stump while the wind roared over their heads, bending the tops of the trees that were further up the hill.  Down here there was scarcely a breeze.  If the wind changed, he knew, it might come sluicing up the valley, harder and harder as the valley narrowed.  He had felt it like that before, pushing the snow into waves of drifts.

He started swinging into the wood, driving the maul as hard as he could so that it would split across the center.  After a few swings, he pushed a steel wedge into the groove he had started.  Then he turned his maul around and began driving the wedge in, swinging steadily.  The wedge drove deeper while the ringing of steel on steel was joined by the ripping of wood fibers.  The wedge dropped suddenly as the slab split in two.  He looked up at the woman.  She had taken off her coat, and was busy driving her maul into a slab, slicing off smaller pieces for kindling.  He saw that even with her coat off, her arms looked strong.  She handled the maul easily.  He took off his coat as well, and started breaking the wood into stove-sized chunks.

He grew warm as he worked.  He could feel and smell the sweat on his body, even through the hooded coat and under the flannel.  He took off the hooded coat and continued working, splitting the stumps into ever smaller pieces and throwing them onto a pile to be moved when he grew tired of swinging the maul.  He felt good.  His breathing was easy now, and his head was clear.  He glanced up and saw that the woman was now in her tee-shirt.  She had disappeared into the woods once while he worked.  She was back five minutes later.  Another time he had heard her clearing her nostrils noisily onto the ground.  Both times he had kept working, concentrating on making sure that each blow of the maul landed where the last one did.  He didn't want to miss one and have the woman see.

He stripped down to his tee shirt and rolled another log onto the stump.  The maul only dented it, and bounced back.  He swung three or four more times before it sunk in.  He put a wedge in, and realized the woman was standing there, watching.

"That's a tough one," she said.
"It sure is."
"I can pile this stuff up if you want.  I'm tired of swinging the axe."
He was surprised.  When he had looked up, she seemed as if she could do it all day.
"Sure, that's fine.  I'll just keep on here then."  He opened his water jug and drank deeply.
"I didn't bring any water," she said, and reached for his jug.
"I have a cold."  She shrugged and took it from him anyway.  She drank greedily, and spilled some across her shirt.
"You can't drink it if it's on your shirt," he said.
"Yeah, I should be more careful."
She loaded some wood into her arms and carried it to the stack alongside the shop.  He went back to swinging the maul again, finishing the log and pushing it to one side.  The woman was already back, pulling one of the unsplit pieces from the pile.  On its end it was more than half as tall as she was. He guessed it was over a hundred pounds of wood.  She wrestled it over to his chopping block, alternately rolling and dragging it.  He helped her to place it on the center of the block.  It hung over the edge at either end.
"Thanks a lot," he said.  She smiled and carried away more of the split wood.

The wind was still loud overhead, but down in the little valley there was only a breeze, enough to dry the sweat on his shirt as he worked.  He swung the maul again, enjoying the heft of the head through the handle, the flexing of muscles in his wrists and biceps, in his shoulders and across his back.  He enjoyed the sound of the wood fibers splitting as the blade clove it through the middle.  He hadn't expected this one to split so easily.  He separated the two halves and split them in half, then halved again.  He was happy to feel his lungs clear, and to feel the air filling his lungs.  He felt good.  He felt strong.  He finished the log and started on another while the woman cleared away all that he had split.

They worked through the morning, until he was quivering and thirsty and the water had run out.  She told him that they could have soup at her house.  They loaded the tools and drove back up the hill.  The fire in her big cook stove was low, but it was still warm, and didn't take long to build back up.  She went to her refrigerator and pulled out ground beef and vegetables.
"I'll haul in some more wood if you want to chop this stuff up," she said.
He hadn't expected to help cook, but picked up a knife and went to work dicing onions, carrots, garlic and parsley.  His wrist holding the knife felt weak after swinging the maul.  His eyes began to feel heavy while he worked.  He finished chopping the vegetables, then seasoned the meat and browned it while she added more wood to the stove.
"Let's cook over the fire and shut the range off," she said.
"Okay, good."
"Are you okay with cooking on a wood range?"
"Sure."
He set the pot onto the flat black stove top, over the hottest part.  The meat started sizzling again, almost immediately.  They added the onions, then the other vegetables and broth and let it simmer off to the side, on the cooler part of the stove.  Halfway through the cooking, he noticed his lungs getting full again, and his head swelling.  By the time he slid the pot to one side, he felt drowsy and tired.  When he had first started cooking, the house smelled good.  Now he didn't smell anything.  His head started to hurt, and he told the woman.
"I thought you were looking a little peaked.  Sit down, I can finish."
She dished up the soup and they ate it with bread and butter.  He had been hungry earlier, but now was only able to eat one bowlful of soup.  His skin felt papery and dry.  He wished he would sweat again just to feel moisture.  When he opened his mouth to eat or speak, it seemed that he should hear the crinkling and rustling of his skin.
"I think I'm done for the day," he said.
"I figured as much."
"I'm going home, I guess."
"You go right ahead."
"Had a good morning," he said.  "That's a good pile of wood."
"Yeah.  It was a good morning."
At the door he stopped and said," I'm taking tomorrow off, I think."  He had told her that he would run new drain pipes for her kitchen sink.  Now it seemed like a Herculean task.
"That's fine," she said.  "I bet I won't see you for a couple of days."
"We'll see."
"Yah.  Don't push it."  She smiled and closed the door after him.  Out here the wind was blowing through his coat and whistling through the bare branches of the huge willow that stood along the driveway.  He shivered a little and climbed into his truck.  Even though the wind was sharp and cold, the sun was bright, and the cab was warm.  He turned the key and the truck groaned slowly over, then caught and started.  He put it into gear and pulled out of the driveway and down the gravel road, driving slowly until he reached the pavement.  His eyes felt puffy and tired, and his face felt as if it were filled with thick glue.  He forced himself to stay awake for the fifteen minutes that it took to drive home.  Once there, he climbed up the stairs and took a long hot shower, then put on some baggy clothes.

And he did nothing else but lie on the couch and watch simple movies all the rest of the day and into the night.

What??  You think Gus is gonna review food when he felt like this?  But it's okay, he's better now.  He even crawled under his truck and replaced the starter so he doesn't have to park on a hill any more.

Birds and Bees and the Trempealeau Hotel

And can this really be the end of September?  I guess that's a common enough complaint, or exclamation.  We all wonder where the time went, how it got to be so late.  Gus often wonders this at closing time when he's just not ready to go home yet.  Often, that's just when everyone else wants Gus to go home.  But I shall not visit that scene today.

This past winter, I told of my search for canoe building materials in St. Paul, MN.  Well, a month or so ago, Gus finished his canoe!  Yes indeed, and he even chose a name for it, but I'm gonna keep that to myself for now.  I don't know why.  But here's the thing.  Ol' Gus put a lot of worry into building this craft.  Probably more worry than work went into it, to tell the truth.  There were periods of staring at it and wondering if this or that strip was the right one, or wondering why there was a small  gap in a joint where there was none the day before.  And there were times of famine, where Gus just couldn't scrape up the cash for epoxy or fiberglass.  Those were tough times, my friends (he intoned dramatically).  They were times of despair and self-doubt.  But you know, seriously, I've never wanted much, but my own canoe is one thing I've wanted for a long, long time.  Okay, I'll be honest and say that I'd really like my own sailboat as well, but Gus ain't a-gonna hold his breath on that one.

So, all that said, the canoe is finished, out of the shop to make way for other projects, and safely lodged in the shed out back.  It's been in some of the local ponds and a river.  And a few weekends ago I put it into the Deep River, the Ol' Man River, the Mississippi.

So on Sunday I woke at 4:30.  I had set my alarm for six, but didn't need it.  I got up and made coffee and then checked the weather.  I figured that if I made coffee first, I wouldn't change my mind.  The weather report was good, with breezes and a sunny sky.  I sucked down the first cup, then told the lady friend, P, that we were going canoeing.

One hour and a pot of coffee later we were on the road with the canoe resting securely on the roof of the old Toyota pickup.  The sun was up and the skies were clear.  There's something about the prow a canoe hanging over the hood of a truck that just feels right to Gus.  It just says, "We're going somewhere!"  Maybe other folks don't see it that way.  I hope they have something else that feels just as right.

It's about an hour and a half to Trempealeau State Park.  We pulled into the lot and parked and had the canoe in the water in less than ten minutes, including a quick run to the outhouses.  Another five and we had paddled out onto the rolling expanse of the Mississippi River.  There was only one other craft out there, a fishing boat anchored in the lee of the riverbank.  We took the canoe straight across the channel to an island, at which point we realized that we were both hungry and overheated already.  But we had food, and were overdressed, and were able to take care of both problems before we took off up the river.

It feels good to be in a canoe.  And that's really what this is about.  Gus could go on and on about the scenery and stuff.  And there was scenery, beautiful scenery.  The bluffs are tall and the islands are tree-covered.  And there are birds, and birds, and more birds.  There is also the sound of the highway a half mile away.  But for Gus it's all about the canoe, about pushing the paddle through the water so that the canoe moves forward.  It's about knowing how to turn, and how to stop.  It's about being one with the canoe, about reading the river, seeing the water ripple over stumps just below the surface, and steering your way around it.  It's about keeping it pointed where you want to go, no matter how the wind blows or the current turns.  And then there's the feeling in your shoulders and your back as you push through the water.  There's the entire physicality of the canoeing experience that, when coupled with just being outdoors with the river and the wildlife, can't be replicated.  It feels good to be in a canoe.

When I finished building the canoe this spring, I had to end with a fiberglass and epoxy coating.  I had some trouble with that, ending up with some bubbles and a few wrinkles and other blemishes.  So the first time I showed it to someone, I felt like I had to apologize for that.  But as I'm in the water more and more, the blemishes seem to disappear.  This is especially true when the currents get tricky and I'm able to handle it almost alone.  The canoe dances across the water almost joyfully.  But perhaps Gus is projecting.

We did have a good trip on the river.  We stopped for lunch on an island beach.  We had sardines and crackers and fruit while we watched the river go by.  It's pretty cool to watch the water swiftly flowing past.  Then we pushed on up the river, past the silver maples filled with black cormorants that dropped almost to the water before gliding across to the other shore.  We found a channel that cut through the island and followed that into a shallow channel that opened up as far down the river as we could see.  Halfway back to Trempealeau we encountered a flock of pelicans, right before a mad hornet settled on Gus's neck and stung.  And stung.  I could feel the poison shooting in, like liquid fire.  So I killed that hornet, right there on the spot.  My goodness but Gus was angry!  I did some cussing for a while, but there was nothing for it.  P worried that I might have developed a bee allergy over the last couple of years, but that wasn't the case.  P often worries needlessly.  But the sting was just a painful annoyance, like the Republican party, and we soldiered on.

I noticed at some point that I was doing all the work.  I mean, the canoe became hard to handle, slow to respond.  And I watched my paddling companion for a little while and noticed that her paddle was only settling into the water and gliding back of its own accord.  We call that "dip stroking."  I suggested that I could use a little help.  Even though we were heading down river, the headwind was more than making up for the current.  P dug in and concentrated on helping, and it made all the difference.  I did have to remind her a few more times along the way, but by the time we reached the park channel, we were both pretty tired.  Our drinking water was almost gone, as were the snacks.

Gus could really feel the weariness hit when we pulled in at the dock.  We both climbed out and walked around a little.  I eyed the canoe, thinking that it was going to take a great effort to pick it up.  While we walked around, someone pulled up to launch their fishing boat.  The man got out of his truck and walked over, looking at my canoe.  "That's a really nice-looking canoe!" he said.  I thanked him.  He admired it for a bit.  The bottom was covered with sand and grit, so it was hard to see the blemishes that I had lost sleep over.   I finally told him that I had built it, and he was properly impressed.  We talked a little more, then he went back to launching his boat and I found the strength to lift the canoe onto my shoulders and carry it across the lot to my truck.  I felt pretty good.

So of course we were hungry.  P likes the Trempealeau Hotel in downtown Trempealeau.  It is a very popular spot, and it's the home of the Walnut Burger.  But to tell the truth, I've been in there a few times and never really felt comfortable.  Oh, it's all nice and clean, with screened-in dining rooms and a nice bar.  There's a lovely view of the river, and the bluffs beyond if you're seated in the right place.  But there's just something indifferent about the service.  And today was no exception, even though it wasn't busy there.  We got there at about 3:30 in the afternoon, and there were some people, but plenty of open tables.  We were shown ours, ordered water and coffee and then looked at the menus.  I ordered the blackened catfish, P ordered the walnut burger.  And the waitress was cheerfully indifferent.  And then, just before our food arrived, in walked Gus's ex-employer from when he was cooking part time.  She came in with her boyfriend and another couple, and sat down right next to us before she saw us.  That was quite a nice surprise, but still seemed a little awkward, though I can't quite put my finger on it.  We chatted a little bit, but it just seemed stiff.  But my leaving that place of employment had been a bit awkward.  I think she had hoped I'd stay longer, and I feel kind of bad about that.  And that, as they say, is for another day.  Still, it was good to visit with them.  Our food came, and it was fine.  No, Gus can't complain about the food there.  It's always good.  It's just not great. Perhaps "uninspired" is the word I want.  And the service was, again, indifferent.  I have had the same experience when I was working in this town for a week or so a year ago.  I would come in and sit at the bar and try to look friendly, try to strike up a friendly howdy-do with the bartender, and it inevitably fell flat.

That same couple of weeks though, Gus spent a few happy hours at the Hungry Point down on Lake Road on the edge of Trempealeau.  Every visit there was friendly.  The bartenders were amiable, and I had a fun time just chatting it up, mostly listening to the patrons.  Yup, Gus will have to go back there some time. But back at the Trempealeau Hotel, it took a long time to get a coffee refill, and to get our bill.  When we finally stood up to go, we both felt bone-weary.  It was a good tired though.  And when we finally got home and unloaded, and Gus got all cleaned up and relaxed into his easy chair, he could still feel the river's current rolling under him.

The "Big Bad Beezer Burger," and Other Challenges

I'll tell ya right now, I wrote most of this while I sat at Beezer's with my lady friend, drinking a few beers at the end of the day.  That's Beezer's on the edge of Hillsboro, Wisconsin.  I stop in here a couple of times a month, or a couple of times a week, depending on my work location.  (Gus do get around, don'cha know?)  They have a pretty good selection of beers, and the waitstaff is always top-notch and cheerful.  There are a few too  many televisions there, but often the sound is turned down so that if you sit quietly you can listen to the locals.  After a few beers, you can even join them!

The food is...well...I don't know what to say.  See, I kind of like hanging out there.  It's cheerful and friendly, and the beer selection works for me.  But the food, well, it's just okay.  It's bar/restaurant fare with little imagination or inspiration behind it.  My friend protests to me, because she likes the place too, that "their thin crust pizza is decent!"  Well, that's fine.  And there is also, for those who have nothing left to live for, the two-pound "Big Bad Beezer Burger Challenge," complete with a side of potatoes and coleslaw.  If you eat the entire thing, by yourself, with all the fixins, in under 30 minutes, you get a free tee-shirt.  There is no mention of whether or not the meal is free as well, but I'll leave that for someone else to find out.

So, hello, and good day, and I hope everyone is doing great today!  Yes, I really do.  Ol' Gus, he feels best when everyone is happy.  What else is there to live for?

Today is supposed to be the last day of this heat wave.
Today the temperature is supposed to hit 103 degrees.
Today the heat index is going to be 108 degrees.

And today I picked up my mother from the assisted living center to drive her to a memory care center, a place that takes care of folks with Alzheimer's.

This has been a while coming.  The director at her home warned me of it a while back, though I knew it was inevitable.  Then a week ago came the news, that we needed to have her moved inside of a couple of weeks.  We did a little shopping, but settled on the place in Hillsboro.  But all of that is just background.  Today is when I took her there, from Reedsburg to Hillsboro, a distance of about 24 miles.

I drove over early, while it was still cool.  I got there at about 8:30 and went into the dining room.  There weren't a lot a people there.  I had expected more at the breakfast tables.  The people at Mom's table seemed happy to see me.  One old guy tried to take the coffee cake that a gal in the kitchen had given me.  But he was just kidding around.

Mom was in a cheerful mood, and so were her three table mates, so I knew that Mom hadn't been told yet that she was being moved away from them.  Or if she had been told, she had already forgotten.  I sat with them and listened to their joshing, and was able to join in from time to time.  They were laughing at a little couplet that Mom had told them, one that I vaguely remembered.

"Oh my darling sweet potato
Don't you carrot all for me?"

And so on, I don't remember it.  But one of the kitchen workers promptly sat with us and wrote it down, telling me how much she enjoyed hearing things like that from my mom.  I was only halfway enjoying this, not forgetting why I was there.  I had been awake since four-thirty this morning, and was jumpy and nervous.

Linda, the supervisor, came up the hall.  She beckoned to Mom and me.  As Mom made her slow way out of her chair, Linda quietly said to me, "I've decided that I'll tell her, in her room.  That way she won't think you're the bad guy."  I squeezed her shoulder, touched almost to tears in my keyed-up state of mind.  Any kind words could easily pushed me that little bit further.

Back in Mom's room, Linda had her sit down in her easy chair, while Linda carried a chair over beside her.  Mom was still cheerful and unaware of any problems, thinking that this was going to be a pleasant chat.  Linda sat down in front of her, face-to-face, and said, "Rosemary..."

I honestly don't recall what she said after that.  But Mom sat there and cheerfully nodded and agreed, as if she were being told that she was moving down the hall.  And even when Linda and I got up to gather a few clothes and things together for the day, she didn't really seem to comprehend what was going on.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help?" she asked once.  Another time she said, "Boy, I'm sure glad you're doing all the work!"

We loaded up a small cart, and Linda said, "I'll go down the hall and get Ellie.  She'll want to know you're leaving."
"Okay," said Mom.  "I'll be here."
I let her know that I was taking stuff out to the car.  "I'll be right back," I emphasized.  Those words have become very important to Mom.  "I'll be right back!"

When I returned, I stopped just outside of her door.  Ellie was inside, talking.  "Well, you certainly have been such a good friend," I heard her say.  "I sure have enjoyed your company."  I waited a moment, then walked in.

Linda looked up at me.  She was smiling, but her eyes were sad and teary behind her glasses.  "Oh, here's Gus!" she said, and jumped up.  "Let's get started down the hall."  She helped Mom up and handed her her walking cane.  Ellie followed in her walker, with Linda right behind.  I walked in front, glancing back from time to time while we moved oh so slowly down the carpeted hall.

"Well," said Ellie.  "You won't be too far away, will you?"
"No, I'll just be down the road," said Mom, though really she was just agreeing with anything anyone said.  And then as they shuffled along down that long hallway, Mom started singing softly:

"Show me the way to go home, boys.
I'm tired and I want to go to bed,"

Then Ellie joined in:

"I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it went right to my head..."

They finished that one together.  Then after another shuffling step or two, Mom started again.

"Oh, we ain't got a barrel of money.
Maybe we're ragged and funny!
But we'll travel along,
Singing a song,
Side
by
side."

They were singing to themselves, to each other, to Linda and me, singing softly and in time to their slow halting steps down the quiet hallway.  I wanted to turn to look at them both, but knew that I couldn't.  I knew that I was taking my mother away from her little apple-cheeked, cheerful friend, and that this was the last song that they would sing together under this roof.

Linda and Ellie hugged me before I got into the car.  Linda's cheeks were wet.  Ellie smiled hopefully at me, but her eyes seemed to somewhere else, on the houses and trees and the hot, hot sky.  Mom was intent on fastening her seatbelt, and on looking out of the windshield.  She waved absently at them as they called their good-byes.

Gus wonders about brain disease.  What goes on in there?  Is there a part that is rational, but kept down while the rest of the brain puts up road blocks, barriers that keep it from being heard?  Or is there nothing mysterious about it, just the brain shutting down?  I don't know, and I'm sure that others have thought of that too.

With only Mom and me in the car, Mom seemed to realize at last what was happening.  "Why would Linda think she had to do this?" she asked.
"Well, she was worried about you."
"Why?"
"Well, you've been forgetting a lot of things, and walking around at night.  She's afraid that something might happen to you when she's not there."
"I haven't been doing that!  I don't remember doing that!"
"I know you don't," I told her.

It's only twenty-four miles to Hillsboro from Reedsburg, but the conversation ran in that circle the entire way, with Mom forgetting that she had just asked the same questions.  She vaguely recognized the County Market as the former Piggly Wiggly.  And when we pulled up in front of her new residence, she said, "Well, I guess we'll look it over."

We were greeted at the door.  The girl there knew who we were, and took us down the hallway to Mom's room.  It was, of course, a slow walk.  Along the way, the girl stopped to inform and old guy, Leo, that he was in the wrong room.  Then we reached Mom's room, and the girl opened the door.

The room that Mom had just moved out of was not exactly large.  But this one is smaller still.  Mom stood there and looked at it uncertainly.  The girl offered to show it to her.  "I'll get your stuff out of the car," I said.  "I'll be right back."

When I came back, the girl left us alone.  Mom sat down on the edge of the bed and started to cry.  "What's wrong with me?" she sobbed.  "I shouldn't be here.  I'm not supposed to be here!"  I brought her a box of tissues.  I sat down beside her.  I held her and told her, "I know, Mom.  I know."

I stayed with her for an hour while her mood swung from dark to not so dark to hungry, and then to a state where she was ready to be shown around a little more.  I fetched the supervisor, who began to give Mom the tour.

The daughter of one of the nurses had just had a baby, and she brought it in about then.  Mom was immediately drawn to it.  The mother let Mom touch the baby, let the baby wrap its tiny fist around Mom's finger while Mom cooed at it, and made faces.  I'm pretty sure I saw the baby smile.

I was suddenly forgotten, left outside of the tunnel of her attention, like an abstract thought, like Linda and Ellie had been forgotten.  The supervisor nodded at me and whispered that this might be a good time to leave, if I thought I needed to.  But for a moment I forgot whatever could be so important as what I was seeing here.  

Supper Club, Country Club, and Learning to Drive.

So, here's the thing.  The thing is, it's kind of pointless to visit the Valley Inn supper club just outside of Elroy.  I mean, don't even bother.  This place used to be the showplace eating establishment of Juneau county, years and years ago.  It was built, according to my Pa, by ol' Art Overgaard, who owned the rock quarry a couple of miles outside of town.  He wanted a place for fine dining, and he had the money, and he built it, and people came.  The food was good, the decor was pleasant, with a dark and quiet bar/lounge area.  It was a professional-type joint.

But now?  Well, the outside still looks much the same, except that the old sign that had the longhorn motif is gone.  To his credit, the current owner did try to save it.  But a windstorm tore it up when some work was being done.  But ya know, that's about all the credit I'm gonna give.  The inside of that place has been shoddily and tackily remodeled.  The lounge is too bright and has too many big and loud televisions.  And ya'll know how Gus feels about the teevee.  Remember those stories about Elvis shooting out his television screen?  He wasn't crazy.

So anyway, the lounge.  I don't know, it just doesn't have the feel of a lounge, of a dimly-lit place to have a quiet drink and to socialize a little.  The dining room, well, that's fine, I won't rip on the decor there.  It's mostly windows anyway.  But the food?  All that comes to mind is, "Meh."  It's mostly from out of a box, dropped onto the griddle or into the fryer.  And speaking of fryers, who ever decided that it was okay to prepare fried potatoes in the deep fryer?  I've seen that a few times too many, and the Valley Inn is no exception.  And it's a sad thing for Gus to hear people looking at the menu while they sit at the bar and exclaiming, (for instance) "Oh, the shrimp dinner is really good here!"  Well, look, it's the same shrimp dinner that a million other bars serve, pre-breaded, pre-cooked, then portioned and frozen so that all you have to do is drop it into the fryer.  It's not anything special!  They're praising food that has never been touched by human hands!  Why have people become so uncaring about what they eat?  I just don't get it, but there it is.  Folks are happy if you give them a lot, no matter what the quality is.  So, once again, I wouldn't bother going there if I were you.  And if you do, just go without any great expectations.

So, I'm gonna leave the Valley Inn and head on up the country, way up on a hillside past Overgaard's quarry to Babe's Country Club.  At first glance this might seem like an ironic name for this unassuming little place.  But it was started, according to the bartender, with every intention of becoming a country club/resort.  The original owner bought up as much land around there as he could and then built a bar.  His intention was to also dam up the creek and have a lake just below.  But alas, one man would not sell, and so the lake never happened.  And so Babe's never got beyond the tavern stage.

The first time I ever heard of Babe's was when I was just learning to drive.  Dad and I went out in his old '63 Mercury Comet one evening.  He wanted me to learn to drive a manual transmission.  The Comet had the old three-on-the-tree shifter, up on the steering column.  The car was rusting and underpowered, with a little 170 engine under the hood.  We backed out of the driveway and ended facing uphill.  It took me about five tries to get that car moving forward, and then I was gunning it and kicking up dust on that old gravel road.  I eased up and shifted clumsily.  The car jerked and faltered, but we were on the level and were able to keep some momentum.  "We'll have to work on that," said Dad.  "Let's just keep on up to the four corners."

Everyone in high school knew about the four corners.  That's where parties happened, mostly underage and after bar time.  We didn't live far from there, but I'd never gone to any doings.  I was pretty sure that if I did, I'd get beat up.  When I look back on it now, I'm pretty sure that was an irrational fear.

I drove up the the intersection, and Dad said, "Turn right here, and we'll head on down this road.  Don't forget to downshift when you turn."  I tried to drop it into first, but the old Comet didn't have a synchronized first gear and only made a lot of grinding noise when I tried.  "Second is fine," said Dad.  And it was, once the car finished stalling out.  Here Overgaard road wound through the close forest for a couple of miles.  On the left were momentary flashes of open farmland seen briefly through the trees.  To the right was only dark woods as far as I could see.  The gravel of the road clattered off the tires and against the wheel wells.  Dust trickled into the car through the rotted old chassis.  If you drove on any of these roads in this car for very long, you would be feeling the grit of the roads between your teeth.  On a hot day it would stick to your skin in a fine coating of dust.

Dad guided me along these roads for some miles, telling me when to turn, and when to slow down.  We turned onto the highway and followed that for a while.  Then we turned up another narrow gravel road to another intersection, up another hill past a small farm where a herd of about twenty cows were just being let out of the barn.  Then we suddenly plunging into another wooded area.  After a mile, Dad said, "Now up ahead it opens up.  And it's the real purty view."  I seldom heard Dad comment on aesthetics, and the word, "pretty" didn't come easily to him.

Sure enough, the woods ended suddenly, opening up to a broad open vista of rolling hills and farms as far as we could see.  The sun, getting low in the west, shone on a small cemetery beside the road overlooking the valley.  "Wow," I said.  "That is nice."
"Yep.  Take a left at this stop sign."
We followed that road along the hillside until we came to an old red barn that sat beside the road.  There was a lit "Old Style" sign attached to the barn, and a long driveway the led down the hill.  "Turn down here," said Dad.

We pulled up to a long one-story building that looked more like a house than a tavern.  I don't think there was even a beer sign in the window, only a neon "Open" sign.  I followed Dad inside.  The bar was dim and quiet, and the bartender was the only other person there in the middle of the week.  He recognized Dad, and we sat down.  I had a Mountain Dew (jeeze, did I really drink that stuff?) and Dad had a Pabst.  He and the bartender talked, I don't remember what about.  I know he mentioned that he was, "...teaching the boy to drive," but to tell the truth, that's about it.  I was busy looking around at the dim dancing area, with the booths lining the far wall, and reading the silly little signs posted behind the bar, things like, "I woke up grumpy this morning.  I should have let her sleep."  We stayed long enough to finish our drinks and head back home.

That was almost forty years ago.  I still stop at Babe's now and then, and, except for the first names of the customers, it hasn't changed much at all.  They don't serve food there, only drinks and snacks.  The only television is a small one up in the corner on the wall.  The booths are still there, the silly signs behind the bar are still there.  Babe's looks the same as it did, I'm guessing, when Babe built it back in the sixties.  It's a good place to sit and relax and have a Pabst or an Old Style, maybe a frozen pizza or some chips.  On weekends it gets pretty rowdy sometimes.  Halloween can be especially eye-opening there.  Yes indeed.  But for the most part it's pretty mellow.  Old farmers still come in to discuss the price of corn or what's wrong with the world today, and more often than not they seem to know what they're talking about.  And in the evening, after a quiet couple of beers, you can walk outside to the sound of the night birds in the woods and the distant lowing of cows and look out over the deep valley and imagine that the tops of the trees there are the lake that Babe dreamed of when he built his country club.