The long spell of severe cold is on the way out the door — although sometimes it seems it hasn’t ever actually left — and as Metallica so famously sung, “the memory remains.”
– The doorman at Dick’s Bar and Grill said that because of the cold he needed another sweatshirt to stave off drafts from the other side of the door three feet away, and had to scour the store racks to find one to match his bright-red Dick’s “staff” T-shirt. I suggested that, like that old McDonald’s commercial where you’d only fork over for your Big Mac the rate of the current temperature, perhaps he should charge me the equivalent of the wind chill. But wait a minute, then he’d be giving me money! We both laughed, even though our jaws were nearly frozen in place.
– The radio was playing — ugh, although they’ve gotten better — Kool 108, to which the deejay recently read the call letters “kkoo-oo-l” to mock the frosty conditions outside his cubicle. OK, that was cool (conventional spelling). Earlier, however, another deejay (if you can call her that) gave her rockin’ out apologies to one-upting the much more-up-tempo companion stations in the same building. Then she played of all songs, one by Toni Basil. Huh?
– Minnesota recently was announced over the airwaves as being ranked the worst state in the country, as far as its difficult winters. Wisconsin was a few states behind. So wear exactly does that leave those of us here in the Hudson area of Minnesconin? Hey, we’re No. 2?
– Another applicable number is 60, as in degrees below zero. Some emailed a Twin Cities TV news station, which was reporting on the coldest weather ever seen in Minnesota, and said he had lived through that record cold up in the hinterlands of the state. The response from the weatherman: “If you have experienced 60 below, you’d hold it over everyone else at the bar.” As a sign at Dick’s about their beer has said, “No great story every started with a salad.”
– That number 60 is almost the difference in degrees between what we have here and what is typically felt in Vegas, which caused a recent transplant a couple of months ago at the Village Inn to say that she was having trouble adjusting, even though it was nowhere near the freezing mark. Just wait, she was told. Now, she probably knows it does get worse.
– With the much mourned passing of Randy St. Ores, there was the Agave Kitchen sign: RIP RSO HPD. There were other such references, all using versions of those three letters grouped together, at The Village Inn, Kozy Korner and Seasons Tavern, all in North Hudson.
– When I was in Dick’s very late one recent week-night, which has become more unusual for me since I “got old” and was pointed out by the bartender, that same staffer jokingly complemented one of the patrons for hanging around the entire night. He said to do this was his new year’s resolution. Maybe that should be mine as well. Or not. When I had walked in close to bar time, a women slipped on the ice and would have fallen except for giving a stiff-arm to the concrete, like might have been seen earlier on Thursday night football. Maybe, if a bit tipsy, she should forego any such resolution.
– What would Coach K say about the lack of a given letter? There was a sports bar sign recently revealed that said to favor the “Vicings” and the “Pacers.” — Things are mostly Green Bay based right now, although only a couple of weeks ago sports bar signs referenced Skol! as much as Go Pack.
– A sports TV broadcast right before the new year cited a scoring stat, then added the effective period of time was “this calendar year.” Might he just have said “2016?” For another calendar-related bit, the new Next Stop bar in Houlton promised to serve Happy Hour prices all day from Sunday through Thursday to wrap up the old year. But wait a minute, that would only take you through the 29th!
– With Trump now firmly in place as president, word has it that there will be a constitutional amendment, in conjunction with a certain Redneck Woman, that all Americans be required to “leave the Christmas lights on, on our front porch all year long.” Just kidding.