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All gather ’round and hail All Hallows one more time, via Star Wars and Storm Troopers — not to mention Yoda (busted!)

A last Halloween round-up, if you will indulge me, and it involves rounding up some timely satire on the local scene.
One of my bartender friends was wearing a Star Wars shirt midweek, after earlier being out — and I’m pretty sure I’ve got the right person, although for obvious reasons I could not see his face — dressed head-to-toe as a Storm Trooper. Also word has it that Yoda — doing yoga on a bar stool — tried fakingly taking cover charges at the door, like so many tipsy women who think they’re being original, but was too short to reach up for the money; just kidding. All this goes hand-in-hand with the idea floated to turn the old Dog Track into a Star Wars theme park; again just pulling your chain. It will actually now be the home of the fittingly named River Hounds — might that more pertinently be called Rover? (See the back story on this a little further down) — a name that was taken since the Flying Fish already exist out of River Falls. That’s noteworthy since the brother of my bartender who also shows frequently, Rich Metzger, who actually had an NBA tryout with the Portland Trailblazers, recently was named at halftime to the UW-River Falls Hall of Fame for athletics, a school where he rewrote the record book. Both brothers could dunk at an early age, it’s also worth noting. And as far as that Rover reference: Back in my days with the Hudson Star-Observer, I accidentally had a typo in a story that called a business Rovertown, not Rivertown, (what, me a typo?) The business owner was none too happy and wrote my boss to say, “The only dog around here is Joe Winter!” Rim-shot!
Again, right after Halloween the costuming went on, in this case invoking another movie that’s old enough to have been around more than most bar patrons who are newly legal. This one was Mrs. Doubtfire. Maybe pouring down a Fireball after a (doubtful) day trying to win back those kids? They might soon be able to join him/her, as The Badger State politicians, led by a Tavern League ex, has floated a bill to drop the legal drinking age to 19.
That might answer a problem. Playing the part of bar and grill managers (or wait, they actually are), were the Four Horsemen of the A-Crop-A-List, so dubbed because one of them has been sent to the north suburbs to right the ship of an outlet there by making it a more friendly place to imbibe. Fittingly, they found their way to Dick’s, and like “Grayson,” battling the Joker or the Riddler, were planning strategy in a hands-on way. Hats off to them and their quest.
Lastly involving All Hallows, a guy walked into Dick’s who literally could have been Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, dreadlocks and bandana and all. This was not his costume, rather his 24/7 appearance. In the same block, however, was a costumed Pirate figure that also was deadeye. I asked a friend with a drop-dead crush on the lead pillager in the “Caribbean” movie what she would’ve done if seeing him. Not to be redundant, but she explained: “I would have gasped and gone up to him and said ‘you’re Johnny Depp!’ Just awesome …”
Going deep, the Packers did it against the Bears, who turned out to be cubbies, but not the Lions, who weren’t really kittens after all, despite the preview sign at Kozy Korner that said: The Lions haven’t returned to roaring again.
But beating their chests in the NFC are the Minnesota linemen, who have given much better protection to QBs these days. Unlike the quip made to my bartender friend Matt, when I accidentally got in his way just as he rushed to get behind the bar rail and pour a bar rail drink, as I told him, “I’m running interference better than the Viking offensive line.” He corrected my commentary.

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