Of mice and bats that are even bigger, and bolder, then pesky insects around these parts, and their nightlife.
— When the Smilin’ Moose opened, some people expected there might be mosquitoes in attendance when the big patio-styles windows were opened. What they didn’t expect were the occasional visit by one of the downtown bats, which left one of the bartenders literally stunned. Just like at the Freedom Value Center when while gassing up, one was seen doing foot-high flips off the pavement. Between those two incidents, fittingly, 93X played Bat Country by Avenged Sevenfold.
But that was nothing compared to a couple of bat encounters on my entry level job — that Ozzy wouldn’t even be able to top. When one took off midday and started swooping over the top of a quartet of cubicles, I grabbed a baseball bat from by my door — why it was there I don’t remember — and swung blinding. Oddly enough, I connected with such force that the guts flew 15 feet away and landed on the bosses desk.
So a few nights later, before deadline on a weekly newspaper, I played rock radio but it didn’t scare away another bat, which took a perch on the crevice between a 15-foot-high ceiling and the wall back in the print shop. I grabbed a pen, this time, and threw. It pierced the bat and it fell dead on the floor.
That was enough for me to have a sign, “Our hero,” placed on my door. Such would not be the case with the last rodent encounter of which I will tell you. I was part of a two-couple tandem that saw a mouse when getting ready to go out for the evening, and the women insisted they simply would not leave without the mouse being caught. They then waited in the car in the garage. So, the brainstorming men that we are, we found a half a hot dog in the fridge and put it in a napkin, with the end barely pointing out. It was displayed briefly as we walked over to the garbage can — see honey, we caught the sucker — and then off to see the band. (We love the ’80s, but I don’t think it was Ratt. Maybe Modest Mouse).
— A fan at Buffalo Wild Wings quite wildly cheered a three-pointer even though it provided a whopping 15-point lead with only 90 seconds left in a loss by the Miami Heat in an NBA Finals game. What made it interesting was that he was wearing a Lebron James jersey from back in his days with Cleveland. A few nights later a man who said he was born in Mexico requested with broken English that the basketball be switched off in favor of soccer’s World Cup. He was surprised to find that the bartender was even more fluent then he in the ways of soccer, and that the brackets were listed on the wall. The man, who later moved to Texas, then talked with me in a wideranging conversation that included a lot of references to traditional Catholicism, such as is practiced in Mexico.
— Those same people might not like it that so many people again flooded over the border to St. Croix County to get married, this time same-sex couples taking their earliest advantage of a new Wisconsin law. A few weekends back, a couple of lesbians introduced themselves and accepted kudos from the band on just being engaged. At the time, I just had to ask, I assumed that they were from Minnesota with all the hub-bub that’s being going on there about gay marriage. Turns out that they were from right here in Hudson.
— There have again been a couple of noteworthy deaths, and one of these people, Randy Westerling, was thought well enough of to have his remembrances posted on three different store marquees in town.
— One his last day of work at Green Mill, an employee was held in such high esteem that his car was criss-crossed inside and out with a police line as a gag, even though the car was such a junker it was virtually a crime.
— A man getting his ID checked at the Smilin’ Moose had apparently been at another concert that Friday the 13th. He said of the stripes on his arms, “I got poison ivy when I was in Somerset.”

Man of the year, NBA go-to guy, or singer of “The Man Who Stole the World?”
— When the player who has kept the Indiana Pacers afloat in their playoff battle against the Miami Heat, Paul George, was pictured in a television commercial, he was a splitting image for a local man who is just as tall. That man, Rich Metzger, almost ended up in the same league a number of years ago, when he had a tryout with the Portland Trailblazers. However, a few nights later in a sports network interview, the resemblance wasn’t nearly as strong. So you could say, it seems Rich couldn’t quite keep pace with that Pacer.
— After much voting and deliberation at Kozy Korner, the winner of the North Hudson Man of the Year award remained in-house, going to Cory Nelson, who bested Bob Dabruzzi in a final round that featured a several-day, meant-to-sway war of words on the pizzaria’s marquee. Near the start, one side said to vote for Kozy’s own Cory, because “he parties” while the other proclaimed his all-in-fun nemesis to be a “great American hero.” The next day, it got topical, and he was said to be “a nicer guy than the pope,” while the flip side said jokingly about Cory, “he doesn’t know who the pope is!” Perhaps more important is that the voting, at $1 apiece, raised $2,000 for a pair of local charitable causes.
— Word has it that the late Kurt Cobain was once seen partying in Hudson, at a back corner table next to the window at Dick’s Bar and Grill. Other patrons, at Guv’s Place in Houlton, said they had seen Cobain in the Twin Cities, cruising for a party and/or drugs. Does Courtney Love know about this? It also has been revealed that the legendary Deja Vu nude dancing club in Minneapolis once chartered a bus and had its company party, complete with many of its entertainers, by traveling to Dick’s. Word has it that it was quite the party.
The fact that Minneapolis just won the right to host the Super Bowl brought one other such memory to the fore: The first time around for hosting the event, all the Hudson motel rooms were full and the (then named) Best Western Hudson House Inn had to turn down a committee’s request for 30 rooms for a “team hideaway.” The closest thing we’ve had to that recently was the overflow from the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. A not-so-quick check of license plates in parking lots with the help of a friend, Tim, who had worked in the rental car business, revealed that strangers from virtually every state were staying here. (He decifered this even though the rental plates were non-descript). We also saw parked a television news boom truck from hundreds of miles away.
An opponent in that Super Bowl were the Redskins, and an old police report said a fan wearing a coat with their logo was a late night vandal at More-4. Reminds me of another such late-night experience, a couple of blocks to the north, this time when an NCAA championship came to the Twin Cities and fans stayed — and partied — here. In the process of writing a story, I politely asked a guy with a team jersey how he’d liked the game, but it turned out he’d taken their loss in a bad way. He threatened to beat the crap out of me!
— Earlier in the month, rock band frontmen had announced from the stage that there were people in the house, known by their printed sweatshirts, who are fans of Minnesota Wild opponents. But the marquee of Agave Kitchen pointed this out most aptly, in their ongoing series of messages on pro hockey followings, about a longtime local who is often on the scene: “Jon Coty is a Bruins fan.” (And the Wild hadn’t even progressed far enough into the playoffs to have a chance to face them!)

— And was there an overflow of Wild fans into Hudson to celebrate key playoff wins? This from the doorman at Dick’s: Only a few of the hockey principals who brought with them “their 19-year-old daughters” and wanted to gain entry, but needed to be turned away. Another theory was that some of the across-the-river fans turned in early because the next morning was the Minnesota fishing opener.

— We all know at this point that “the Moose is on the loose,” and in the newly popular western Wisconsin bar and grill as well as in Minnesota. But did you know that the beer of the month at Dick’s is a Schell’s product that proclaims “the Goose is loose?”Who has the patent here? And Dick’s also has Shiner’s beer, “made in Shiner by people made in Shiner.” Those people would seem to be living and working in Lakeland, Minn., where a new place called, of course, Shiner’s recently opened.

Lots of holidays and sports, so why are we watching the Food Channel? By golly, it could be Benny!
— A chef who is a regular at Guv’s Place in Houlton, Benny, works across the river at Smalley’s BBQ and had some air time when the place was featured on a national cable network, The Food Channel, where the well-known host is that cooking guy named Guy. The restaurant is known for its creative and over-the-top use of spices and also its pirate motif. That fits in because some of the decorative pirates, who often find themselves posing for pictures with patrons, are missing legs and have a peg-leg, and Benny does a great job despite the absence of part of one arm. He recently celebrated his birthday, and has said of Smalley’s that they tapped the first keg ever, anywhere, of local Farmer’s Daughter brew, and that if you need your summer party informally catered, just talk to him and he’ll get you some of the best BBQ you can imagine.
— Going wild at a Minnesota Wild game? Bartender Whitney lost her voice after taking off of work and going to her first playoff hockey game ever, and says it was just as intense, on and off the ice, as she had been told by patrons on her shift the previous evening. She added on her next work night that she is addicted, in a good way, and immediately began eyeing season tickets.
— The St. Croix River bridge construction has been underway for some time on the Minnesota side, with the lay of the land shifting along with tons of dirt seemingly from day to day, and for some diehards making the trek between Woody’s in Bayport and the Stillwater haunts quite daunting. However, the work on the Wisconsin side that involves a four-plus-mile detour of Hwy. 35 didn’t begin until March 17, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day traffic, in case you where going to the highly decorated Guv’s.
— On that note, it would seem that an Irish lass would have a full dance card on St. Patrick’s Day, unless she is a bartender and has to work. So what’s up Jessie? Not so much, she said, just dinner with the folks. I told her I’d heard that if you’re really Irish and don’t really celebrate, a leprechaun will come and get you. Not always so, she replied, some of them can be really nice. But she added, you just might have to watch it.
— Recently at the Village Inn in North Hudson, the clock/sign temporarily malfunctioned and read that this drink is for you “if you were born on this date before 2093.” Think that’s just about everybody.
— On those Shake of the Day dice games, where you have to have so many of a kind to get a freebie, I think of another game, where you can get filthy rich by having all the NCAA tournament brackets correctly picked. If you get nine of nine dice to match, is it like the Quicken Loans offer where the winner gets a billion dollars?
— Maybe she’s just a little punchy. A woman recently gave one of the action downtown games, where patrons score points for the power of their boxing punch, the good old bob and weave treatment for the better part of a minute before actually swinging away. Later, at a different haunt while listening to some music, she did the same Muhammad Ali imitation, but this time it was her boyfriend jovially intercepting the punches with extended hands, not a punching bag. Reminds me of a band I saw just west of here, where the frontman did his version of the Ali Shuffle.
— Oh God, yes, I was finally roped into doing the Cuban Shuffle. I found I could handle the first couple of steps, but when it came to the next batch, I always seemed to have the wrong foot in motion, which meant I was shuffeling sideways in the wrong direction from the rest of the dancing horde. Talk about being out on a limb all by yourself!
— The beach party at Dick’s Bar and Grill was full, and so many people there were wearing flip-flops, despite the lingering cold, that you could state that scads were wearing sandals and digging their toes into the sand. So, it wasn’t brought in for nothing.

The recent holidays with a nightlife aspect range from Fat Tuesday to Valentine’s Day, but what’s coming up is the monster of them all, St. Patrick’s Day.
— It’s that time of year where you can’t go longer than it takes to shoot some Irish whiskey without hearing Dropkick Murphy’s on the local jukebox, or Celtic Women on a PBS fundraiser. With that said, extraordinary Hudson bartender and singer Amanda said she’s gotten off for St. Patrick’s Day to go see Gaelic Storm in the Cities, which she described as an “internationally known Irish band.” You can check it on-line. But is that comparison geographically non-sensical?
— A while back, I took in the performance of an Irish singer and storyteller at the Winzer Stube, and as part of a silly song he described the farts of a dainty young woman as “light and airy” and those of a heavy man as … well, we won’t go there. Some of my more prudish relatives started booing, lightly, and a bit embarrassed, I wanted to disappear, maybe into the restroom. I guess I won’t be taking them to that punk rock concert.
— The most Irish hats you can find, short of the Party City stores in the Cities, are hanging from the ceiling at Guv’s Place in Houlton, when after factoring in the other green decorations are almost one per ceiling tile. For another such display of glittery greenery, check out Dick’s Bar and Grill.
— Fat Tuesday was largely without bead exchange. However, at the Jeff Loven one-man band performance the following Sunday, a flirtatious young woman made up the difference by taking some of her scads of beads and draping them around the neck of the aforementioned Amanda while she sang. When Amanda returned to her bartending duties, that one woman stole the show from the one-man band in a way truly worthy of Fat Tuesday, if you know what I mean. Dick’s had advertised its offerings, pre-fish-eating and post-megamall-misdeeds, as “99 cent burgers on Fat Tuesday. Beads and Burgers … Just like the good ole days.” You might add a third B, that being beer.
— Here’s the ultimate Valentine’s Day drink, which was available most prominently at Pudge’s Bar: Kinky brand liquor, which was called a lot more fun than chocolates and flowers. Pictured on a flyer was a nostalgic-looking couple sitting on a Middle Class couch, straight out of Leave it to Beaver. This imagery seen in Hudson? No, no …
— And two new revelations about art, taken broadly: The Pepperfest King across the street had added big pink Valentine’s Day hearts to the front of his green ceremonial pepper, as he seems to be marking every holiday as it comes. Then there’s the brown, rustic-looking sign across the front of the huge ice sculpture created by Casanova’s Historic Liquors, which has been added to the presence of a US flag and is an ad for their beer cave event. The sign seems to be sliding downward over time, maybe because of (finally) melting snow.

Here are the highlights of all the happenings (thus far) for Halloween and end-of-year holidays:
— The Halloween party thrown by Jess (see archived lead story) attracted a ton of people to Guv’s Place in Houlton, and maybe that’s what distracted a decoration witch a block away who ran into and speared a telephone pole. One of the newer bartenders found herself without a costume, but found she could easily get one of Jess’ old ones — all she needed do is ask. As for the decorator supreme, she was putting up the last of her outdoor decorations late last Friday and then said, “I have to go home and get a head.” And again on the late side, the guy being electrocuted on a rack did indeed show up, between two scary trees in an outdoor tent.
— Speaking of Guv’s, I have a newfound neighbor from North Hudson who I did not know about until I encountered her in Houlton, several miles away from home. It turned out that she lives just a block away, and she told me her daughter is one of the neighbor kids who just loves my moving-props Halloween display, and talks about it starting in spring!
— But here are the best costumes from the first of the two Halloween-Party weekends: The Geico motorcycle guy (who definitely beats Flo), and left some of his dollar bills scattered on the aisle floor at Dick’s Bar and Grill. He was all covered with them but his face, and said they were actually Monopoly money, mostly hundreds, to show that he indeed has the money to throw around. Then there was the guy dressed up as a human pinata, complete with carrying a stick to whack himself with. The counterpoint to that was a woman wearing two small sombreros where they shouldn’t be. Kozy Korner had at their party a technician in a zoot suit who had a helmet brimming with pipes and valves. The Village Inn best costume prize went to a (Big Head Todd and Monsters themed) noggin the size of a wheelbarrow. They also had a woman with all the right curves to emulate a lifesize martini glass.
— Just before the holiday, I saw a black cat crossing the freeway in front of my car late at night (how it got on the four-lane road, I have no idea). And OK, it was not pure black, there were some white spots.
— When Woody’s in Bayport held its annual Zero to Blitzed run recently, as well as during a bachelorette party at Dick’s Bar and Grill, in both cases there were a foursome who wore masks held up by a stick. They looked much like those sported by my roommate in college (slightly unpleasant memory).
— Members of the Half-Ass Morning Show on 93X radio said that at least one of them had received guitar lessons from Jeff Loven, the one-man-band guy who plays locally. However being this time of year, they questioned at length whether his name was indeed Jeff Coven, as in witch?
— This is a good season to recall someone — or something — I saw in a yard along the main drag in North Hudson while coming back from the Village Inn. It was a guy in a demonic hockey mask, jersey and stick, looking much like the bad guy in one of those horror movies. Maybe I should lay off the sauce for a while.
— My first siting of Halloween costuming for the season was at The Village on Saturday, Oct. 12, when some zombies showed up. That’s much like the Zombie Pub Crawl in the Twin Cities, done about the same time, that has always attracted plenty of Hudsonites, and leading the way is my friend and former karaoke-meister Opal, who now lives there. But the hottest zombies were at The Village last Saturday (actually they were virtually all of the servers).
— My friend Tom suggested it might be topical to go as Lady Gaga, in her awards show attire covered in red meat. He did acknowledge that the meat dripping with blood might attract too many vampires.
— Patrons at the party of the two-story Willow River Saloon last Saturday were treated to a monster or two shown as shadows perched in an upstairs windows.
— Pudges Bar gets the nod for the most realistic-looking mummy, a lifesize one propped up by the pay phone.
— The Willow River Players used the opportunity to downsize the stuff of their costume and props department, with a storage unit sale, and maybe the place where the aforementioned classic mummy came from.
— Dick’s was one of many places brimming with spider webs, to the point where one tall guy got his mohawk caught in them while shooting darts and started thrashing around. A short distance away, there was a glowing monster with only his extremities remaining. Reminds me of Ozzy singing, “pair of boots dancing with a glove.”

As promised, for snippets of what’s been going on, here’s the lucky 13:
— Getting lucky enough to get on any magazine cover will bolster your career, especially if you’re an exotic dancer and the scope of the publication is more than just one state. That was the case in the recent edition of Midwest Nights, a PR vehicle for the strip clubs around a several-state region. On the cover was a blonde who could be old enough to be the mom of some of the other dancers pictured — good for her! — who has strong Hudson ties and for years had been a fixture at Dibbo’s while taking in rock bands. In the cover photo, she’s shown while dancing, stretching out toward the ceiling to grasp the top of a pole.
— Following the Vikings lackluster loss to Cleveland, a guy with one of those purple jerseys was seen outside of the Cajun Club in Houlton with his head bowed over the payload wall of a truck, (apparently weeping for minutes on end?) Inside, a dancer wearing a remarkably similar purple jersey proposed to two men who were similarly attired — that makes four such jerseys — that it was VIP dance time. Take that dancer-dabbling Brett Favre!
— A small tot dining at Green Mill broke away from his parents to the next booth over and started punching the buttons of the electronic Megatouch game. Pardon me for going Old School, but would that be like Kid ‘N Play?
— At Hudson’s Buffalo Wild Wings, a guy wearing a Chicago Bears sweatshirt and apparently recognizing me from my years of Hudson Raider sports coverage, came by with one insistent question: “What do you think of the new grey pants?”
— Late this week, a group of parents were downtown celebrating the upcoming Hudson High School homecoming. They cranked the jukebox and sang along to this line, “Daydream believer and homecoming queen.” Better not offer her a beer.
— It’s a My Birthday redux, or Yes, I’m Still Alive. When in late summer I turned 52, ouch, the question of creating my own, original birthday shot was revisited. And to recall, since I’m 100 percent German, again ouch, the name had to be something to do with Kaiser or Kraut, and had to mention Jag. My friend Chris, scheming, suggested Jagermeister, rum, pineapple “and one more.” Then he changed the theme, digressing, and recommended Beatwriter as a name. I now recall that what followed is this final, fuzzy thought, when the bartender Mabel came by — Mabel’s Able Ale — although OK that’s not technically a shot.
Fast forward to the other day at Woody’s in Bayport, where it seemed rumors of my demise were premature, I think. It seems someone posted outside the bar a sign that pointed to a riverside park and said, “Jim Winter’s Memorial.” Hmm, some of the servers thought, we don’t know any Jim Winter and could it be that the Joe Winter we know actually goes by “Jim?” It was somewhat touching that they were a bit distraught over the possibility of my death, but the next day they saw me again and breathed easier. Which caused me to quip to the bartender when I coughed up my money, “Hey, dead men don’t pay cash.” But soon I had to leave, with one more quip, “I have an appointment with my funeral director.” That’s creepy, she said, but somewhat funny.
— What happened to the pepper? My neighbor is the Pepperfest king, and the standard table-like box on which the standard three-foot pepper is propped was placed so close to the street that it might be in the right-of-way. That apparently was too close, as over a beer the other day he lamented that someone had cut the supporting cables and ripped it off? Call it the Peculiar Prank of the Disappearing Pepper.
— A guy was standing outside of Dick’s Bar and Grill and espousing the benefits of a local historical baseball team, the Afton Red Sox. The man also alluded to some type of ownership interest that was mentioned on Conan O’Brien’s talk show.
— When a patron walked into the Green Mill, quite nattily dressed, one of his friends asked him if he belonged on the cover of a “men’s magazine,” but should it be Outdoor Life or Golf Digest?
— This sign was made as a greeting by bartender Michele at Dick’s, the Mr. Spock “live long and prosper” version of V for Victory. Which caused me to quip about the heartbreaking brunette, that she’d just seen Spock for the first time show some emotion, crying in his beer!
— And this about the downtown “Dick’s University,” as proclaimed by their shirts. This inquiring reporter asked if some of the entertainment was anything like that at the scandal-ridden Oklahoma State University? The answer was taken a different direction than what I’d thought: This shirt is a classic and no longer printed, and is so hard to come by that any recruit would love to have one.
— Two funny signs, on opposite ends of town. At Kozy Korner in North Hudson, one read, with apologies to Alanis Morrissette, “I’ve got one hand in my pocket, and the other’s eating a Kozy Pizza.” Then this one for the latest dinner theater production at the Hudson House Grand Inn, with a comma noticeably missing, Now Showing The Man In Pajamas. It apparently had Monte Python-ish stylings. Surprise, surprise!
— Congestedly, on Wednesday, Sept. 11, a two-mile-long stretch of highway — in Minnesota, surprise, surprise — was virtually closed because of repair. A busy part of Hwy. 95 that leads from Interstate 94 to Woody’s in Bayport and other parts unknown was restricted to one lane, on the shoulder no less, in work that was done in the middle of the day, not the middle of the night, like you might expect. All the more reason to be out and about … only in the late evening.
— Lastly … Wait a minute, that would be item 14. Never mind.

When drinking with Brits, don’t try to spell Hendrix, Skynyrd, or Saving Starz:
— The Brit-fest mentioned in Picks of the Week is not the only UK sighting there has been of late. Four women from England were anything but stoic when they recently visited Dick’s. They sang along with each jukebox song all the way through, for hours until they closed up the joint, and if there was a time they didn’t know a line, became indignant. They were having so much fun, it was hard to be dismayed by them, the bartenders said. One of the staffers, Brando, noted that when addressing them, he used the word “leisure” in the most appropriate British way, making it sound like “treasure.” I told Brando that it sounded like “ledger,” and that’s a word you don’t normally hear in bar conversations.
— What’s in an (odd) name, especially when it’s misspelled? It can be quite a bit. A local charity booked the trio Saving Starz and spelled the last letter of its name with the traditional ‘s’ not a ‘z’ on its flyers. That reminds me of one of my first entertainment columns for the Hudson Star-Observer back in the 1990s, when I, the novice, referred to the guitar legend as Jimmy Hendricks. Ouch! Around that same time, it was noted in an obituary, (written by another staffer, not me), that the favorite band of someone who had passed on was spelled as Leonard Skinnard.
— Another name, to be called. When taking in the St. Paul show of a jazz band called the Usual Suspects, (or is it Usual Suspect, singular, and you’ll see the reason that is important in a moment), the singer noted there has been some confusion about who’s who. There is another band with the same name, give or take the “s” went the lament. I told the guy that I thought I’d seen that band name in a flyer for a show in River Falls. Must have been the other guys.
— Word was traveling around Guv’s Place in Houlton about antics at Rock Fest in Cadott. Something about visiting multiple campgrounds while one of them was carting another around in a borrowed wheelchair. Hmmm.
— Jeff Loven now has even more groupies, as do I (?!?!). The ultimate one-man-band guy recently noted from the stage that a crew of people who hail from Oregon were present at Dick’s, taking in the show a second time after having seen him the day before at Meister’s just a bit northeast of here. They included some heavy metal fans, including the patriarch — “He’s into death metal. He’s from Sweden,” I was told. When it finally was time for me to take the stage, a large group of bridesmaids, (in number, not dress size), came in and started dancing and shouting so loud, I felt like one of the Beatles! One even got so into it she played air guitar with her friend’s uplifted leg. I couldn’t even hear myself sing.
— Two more holiday items have reared their heads, after the fact. A regular at Woody’s in Bayport with a gray beard the length of a Iranian terrorist (sorry about that reference), had it colored in a much more patriotic fashion, red, white and blue. And this from a guy just across the bar: “On Father’s Day, I always take my phone off the hook.”
— It’s a small world. A bartender at Woody’s said that she saw a bad fire while at home in St. Paul a couple of dozen miles away, and the next day one of her regulars, a firefighter for that department, came in and said he was one of those who battled it. A few days later a young boy came in with a parent, and said that while playing at Safety Camp in a nearby park, he had torn a tendon in his arm, which was heavily wrapped. His parent scoffed, saying it was just a strain, which made people in the place quip that the rescue people there should know which it is. After all, this was Safety Camp.
— Lastly, in what I’m sure will be the social event of the season (yeah, right), Saturday, Aug. 17 is my birthday! Fifty-two has come so fast, but that hasn’t prevented some people in the past from tweeting that I made the rounds celebrating. Last year, a friend of mine met up with me by chance at Guv’s Place in Houlton on the day before and said that since I’m such a special person (yeah, right), we should concoct a new shot in my honor. For obvious reasons, I’m a bit fuzzy on the details, but it came down something like this: So, Joe, you’re 100 percent German, so I think we can work on a theme here. It’s got to be something with Kaiser in the name, and as part of this theme, Jagermeister, the quasi-official drink of St. Croix County, just has to be involved. At that point, the comely bartender, Mabel happened by, and the theme quickly shifted and the three of us through bleary eyes agreed that the drink should be named after her, not me.

Big fireworks? Especially if you find out you’re a father!
— Rock radio station 93X is teaming with Hudson’s Settler’s Liquor to sponsor tickets for a big, floating-party cruise on the St. Croix River over the Fourth of July. The promos that target a Twin Cities audience have been frequent, and unlike some on the radio touting this area as a destination — apparently for geographically challenged stoners — at least didn’t say that to get here all you must do is venture past Woodbury. Things are apparently different in that ‘burb. It makes one recall the time at Woody’s in Bayport where a man turned down a second drink, and a friend made the throat slash motion to indicate that he’d cut himself off, then said: “He’s dry. He’s from Woodbury.”
— But for floating mega-parties, nothing beats the one with several huge cruisers roped together on the St. Croix near — aptly — Beer Can Island, which allegedly feature better fireworks than most municipalities, rock bands and also virtually anything else you might want. An acquaintance named Nate said invites are hard to score, but that he’d get me one so I could “cover” it as a journalist, providing I use some discretion in just what I write. Alas, the local newspaper said no dice, since such a report might steal the thunder from city officials as far as the fireworks display they sponsor.
One other reason, to take Nate up on his offer? He insists that someone who would fit right into such a scene, actress Pamela Anderson, became a family friend before Baywatch fame when traveling here to have her taxes done each year. She still visits on occasion. Makes the whole Mary Anne vs. Ginger thing seem blase, eh?
— Lastly for the Fourth, one of those ads you see on the wall above the bathroom urinal made a pitch for lining up their commercial fireworks display for your party. It listed all kinds of occasions to celebrate, including divorces! Yep, bet that could cause some fireworks, if they weren’t had already. And I won’t even get into the possibilities for the category “weddings.”
— But moving on to skewer yet another holiday. On Father’s Day, Kozy Korner in North Hudson ran a sign saying that dads would be offered a free drink. Which is great, but made some of us wonder: Would you need to prove that you’re someone’s father to get it? Say, by supplying results of a paternity test? Or, getting out the dozens of pictures of your dozen children in your wallet, and showing them annoyingly until the bartender says in exasperation, take this drink and go, please?
Another actual bartender had her own — funnier — Dad’s Day story. She said jokingly that when she had gotten up in the morning, there was a man in her bed, and upon waking she smiled and said, “Happy Father’s Day!” He allegedly sprung into action even faster than the previous night, and was out the door before she could even get his phone number or address — or see the pictures of his dozen other children!
— Lastly, here’s a guy you want on your rec basketball team, and possibly in your office tournament pool to reduce the odds. Rich, a near seven-footer, had an NBA tryout, and he’s usually very good at assessing talent. But he said that during the recent NCAA tourney, he lost a few bucks here and there on small wagers when he picked the wrong squad.
But here’s a guy who really has game. He was watching his favorite team at Guv’s Place in Houlton with a baseball hat that on the front had a Gamecock prominently displayed — in a way that I’m not even going to go into.

Of closures, of the road and roadhouse:
— It seems Hefty’s Roadhouse in Bayport has lost its weight. About a-week-and-half ago, a surprising out-of-the-blue sign was posted on its front and back doors saying “Due to unforeseen circumstances, Hefty’s is closed.” In other words, after less than a year of operation, there will be no more creative Habareno-pepper-laced dishes, quasi-witty signs displayed all over the walls, and in what had been catching on, bean bag tournaments on the back patio and lawn. Front-facade spotlights continue to be run at night, and a truck for a construction business that shares some of the next-door-over space in the building can still be seen parked regularly in the small lot across from the patio. The owners of Hefty’s could not be reached for comment.
— Bad storms last Friday and Saturday in the early morning changed the mix of things. One of the Green Mill’s main competitors suffered a power outage, and the Green Mill was much busier than usual, as has been its trend lately, but this time much more so as people were lined up at the bar three-deep. A few days later in the evening, there were seven repair trucks seen parked when you take into consideration its lot and the northern side of the one for Shanghai Bistro.
— Sometimes “public safety” isn’t so much the case. Repair work on Interstate 94 between the two Hudson exits meant that there was only one lane of traffic late at night on weekdays — and vehicles merging onto it from the Carmichael Road ramp had to come to a near stop to do so. Workers’ equipment was at some times being operated so close to the lane of traffic that it edged onto the painted stripes. But of most concern is that when making what needs to be a very sudden exit to go to the downtown, a worker didn’t see me and ambled directly in front of my car. I immediately hit the brakes and stopped just a few feet short of him. He didn’t notice me until I had already braked substantially, and even then just took a quick half-step backwards. It should be noted that the exit ramp was temporarily designed to be wider than one lane.
On the lighter side of road repair, a lighted “test” sign along the median of the same area has been redundant to the point of being humorous. At times it has displayed the word “test” nine times in the shape of a tic-tac-toe game, and at other junctures has included the numerical phrase “123.” I wonder if like myself, they get paid by the word.
— I saw a couple of my favorite service industry workers, known for their long locks, when they stopped in after competing in a sporting event. I asked the “blond bombers” how the game went, only to be told I had the wrong sport — they don’t compete on a ball diamond, rather a sand volleyball court. Also, a man who often sits a few seats down and has a bit of a receding hairline, but also for years has had long and flowing blond locks ala Mickey Rourke in his wrestling movie, recently got almost all of it cut off! Will this be a Sampson thing? Will he retain the title?

Fore: What for? Some killer shades:

— It’s amazing what some younger people know about pop culture from back before they were born. A server friend of mine, Brooke, who works at Green Mill, strolled in the door wearing some amped up sunglasses, and I joked about them looking like Foster Grants. She knew all about the brand, back to when the pitch person was a very young Rachel Welch! The other day, she ventured over and said that while watching the tube, she saw that the new spokesmodel was another Brooke, that being Shields, and not from her Blue Lagoon Days, but currently.
— The golf season is well underway, and the Golf Network is often being shown at sports bars. One of the up-and-comers who is getting some fine finishes, Steve Stricker, got part of his start right here in the Hudson area. The Nationwide Tour was in full force as a stepping stone to the PGA, and there was a regular stop at Troy Burne south of town. As a sports reporter, I photographed Stricker winning one of those tournaments, years before his current glory days. During one of those other meets, I was directed to follow around a young man from Fargo and take photo after photo for virtually the entire tournament. The man was related to one of the head honchos at Forum Communications in Fargo, and he pulled rank to persuade the local paper, the Star-Observer, to free up a reporter for the better part of a week. The Star-Observer is owned by Forum Communications. So if you didn’t see a shot of little Johnnie hitting a home run that week …
— I’ve reported before on this web page that that a bartender friend, Michelle, has a (not so) secret crush on Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers. So I had to tease her that as part of a marketing promotion, a lucky fan would be invited to “spend a night in Braun’s suite.” She gave a disappointed little pout when I informed her that (1) that suite was a luxury box at the ballpark, not a room elsewhere, and (2) the offer is being rescinded since the suite is now given as a perk to the administrator who will decide on the latest round of his steroid allegations. (OK I made that last sentence up).
— Speaking of Michelle, she engaged myself and an out-of-town visitor in fantastic conversation just the other day. It came up that a favorite cartoon character is a creature called Sharkopus, and we think that he just might reside in the St. Croix River. (Does regular patron “Bones,” who insists that Hudson has tree leaches and other mysterious quasi-marine animals, know about this?) The visitor also said that he works for a railroad company and was sent up here from Kansas City for the sole business purpose of attending a pair of meetings, both of which only went ten minutes. So he had some time to kill talking about Sharkopus. (Revoke this man’s expense account!)
— It is now what we hope will be an extended summer, which means music festivals, and a recent one in River Falls that featured folk tunes filled most of the venues that entire weekend. One twist I didn’t expect was an offering at the West Wind supper club, which is more known for their food than having bands. The West Wind was the only place in town to have a music offering that Sunday night, and a packed house watched them play.