What season of the year is it? Christmas? The Fourth? Construction? Community festival? Your favorite seasonal brew? Whatever your fave, there was and will be something in after-hours Hudson for it.
— Overheard at Green Mill, when regulars were pondering which summer-style beverage to order: “Why was the orchard angry? It got eaten by a spotted cow.” And on the way to that bar and grill up the hill, one could see a different twist on pitching music offerings, and the eyes have it. At the Nova, a wine bar that features weekend acoustic music on the back patio, there were a pair of classic cars parked at the front to drum up business, each being given a big pair of eye balls in the windshield as part of the sun screening. Would that mean they are Four Eyes?
— Is it Christmas (lights) in July? With the road construction barrels back in place in the stretch between Hudson and North Hudson, one can see late at night the scores of twinkling lights atop the sawhorses to guide After Midnight drivers through the maze of road work. And they just might need that.
— This was an “alternative” way to beat the heat, which has continued on into the late night. As I was driving past the city sewage treatment plant to get to downtown rock and alt bands, a blast of water from the sprinkler system hit my windshield, obscuring my vision of even the wide St. Croix River. Which is quite topicable, since a boater type I met in a chance encounter in St. Paul that same day made it a point to note that several St. Croix islands were flooded.
— A couple of typically-more-late-night friends I met up with at the Freedom Value Center in North Hudson said they were following their more typical — in a different mode — pattern of treating themselves with ala mode, due to their walk all the way to the downtown Dairy Queen, which hopefully wore off any added calories and more. Like many others, they probably encountered sidewalk construction issues along the route. But the “treat” aspect reminded of a guy in North Hudson who recently bought cigarettes, beer, smokeless tobacco and in addition, some of that high-powered malted liquor. That’s four vices for The Fourth.
— Dick’s Bar and Grill often gets a bulk of the boater traffic that comes into local bars from the St. Croix River, but recently there was a different twist. Stalwarts from the vintage ship patterned after that sailed by Columbus, which was docked just down the way, were out in droves at Dick’s recently, and bartenders said that was why there was an unusually high amount of customer traffic on what typically would have been a slow weeknight.
— At the flip-side end of such things, during the opening night of Lumberjack Days in Stillwater, customer traffic in downtown Hudson was mostly slim, but as you moved northward into North Hudson and got closer to the main fest, it picked up. Looks like those Minnesota-based partiers could still find their way around, without driving too far.
— The local Demon Rum people have their faves as far as where there concoction is on special, and one of them has a coaster to hold your drink and devoted to their brand. It shows a darkly-exotic-looking model caressing one of the bottles, and holding it close to her lovely face, and saying “unleash your demon.” Just so happens that this women bears a striking resemblance to a server who has worked downtown for as long as I can remember. The same venue has at times had a coaster that advertised a local jeweler as keeping husbands out of trouble for decades, a reference to the notorious emergency gifts that are one of their specialties. Got to love the joke, although I’ve never needed to use their downtown store for that purpose.
— Seen on the sign at Village Inn in North Hudson: Chicken sandwiches, cold beer. They made it careful that there be a distinction between the brew and any COLD chicken sandwiches.
— The sign outside the Agave Kitchen, which always has something to say and is usually changed nightly, had a several day run, which is atypical, espousing their support for law enforcement in the wake of the recent mass shootings. On a lighter note, before and after those messages, was one that made a pitch for quite hearty food: Pineapple, salmon, salsa, tacos. #CU2MRW. Reminds me of a joking reference awhile back on a sign in North Hudson, about a different kind of sustenance that you can intake: “The Kozy Korner motto, A Drink in Both Hands. Sorry Van Halen.” But hey, it is now the heat of summer, so to quote that song, “got my toes in the sand.”