Of things in the past that remind us, joyfully, of things in the present …
– Michele, a bartender at Dick’s, took a brief vacation to travel to California with her boyfriend to see his favorite band, Social Distortion, and also have some other fun. They decided to go on a Badly Dressed Santa theme of a pub crawl, and soon noticed that something was amiss. It turned out that they had the wrong weekend! Still, they made the best of this potential social blunder and had a good “ho, ho, ho” time. All this harkens back to the Zombie pub crawl done in the Twin Cities around Halloween time, and the over-the-top, totally made-up pasty faces of longtime karaoke-meister Opal and her friends as they often participated. But to get back to the point, Social Distortion bandmembers grew up in the same neighborhood as Dick’s regular Duke, who hails from the Jersey shores and sometimes plays them on the jukebox.
– When Brett Favre first won the Super Bowl, it was time for numerous Ice Bowl parties — held outdoors — around the area. Of particular note was one on that historic Sunday where the backyard snow was plowed into the shape of a Lambeau Field, a full one-third as big as the original, with green and gold food coloring used to show yard lines. But perhaps more out-there, literally, was the hot tub a short distance away where a crew of fans spent virtually the entire game. There was too much steam rising from the water for a news photographer to get a good shot.
– I saw a couple I’d known for the first time in years at the Green Mill, and it brought back a memory. They and their cronies had gone on a themed pub crawl in the downtown, rather than on the hill, and they were well on their way to a win when they saw me and fulfilled a requirement — find Joe Winter and say hello.