Amongst the recent coming and goings of venerable people, venues and events, this trio of happenings stand out (without flipping).
— The bad news is that the head coach and director of basketball operations for the Timberwolves, Flip Saunders, has lymphoma cancer. The good news is that his form is termed “highly treatable.”
Maybe this would be a good time for him to contact an old friend who once lived in North Hudson, and was an assistant coach who a decade ago taught the players a newly legalized form of defense, the matchup zone, while at the same time running the NBA team’s camps for kids. When the new assistant was just starting, and in the process of buying a house near the Lake Mallalieu bluffs, he stayed for a time with Saunders and family and the two would stay up all night watching game film. Shortly afterward, we watched a Timberwolves game together at Target Center, as we had gotten to know each other well because of sports coverage, and he gave me what then was then some inside information. A bit that stuck in my mind was that many players in the NBA back away when being dunked on so they won’t look bad on ESPN. And, he gave the dirt on some scoring superstars who can’t play a lick of defense and have to be covered for, like Dirk Nowitzke, the three-point specialist on the opponent that day, the Dallas Mavericks.
— In the north parking lot being redone by Pudge’s Bar, there has been a longtime sign that advertises another business but missing at “R” that therefore reads “Ivertown.” That would seem to indicate that Hudson is actually the homeland of the well-known Eau Claire band Bon Iver, (which was over there for its musical “experimental festival” so obviously could not be present for Hudson reconstruction). None of this stopped a downtown patron from slipping into the porta-potty that was positioned directly below the sign and doing his business. Apparently he couldn’t wait long enough to get a block or two further to an open establishment.
— There were more overnighters than ever when at Pepperfest the royal guard from St. Paul, which is given the task of defending King Boreas and the Queen of the Snows as part of Vulcan lore, camped out in the yard of a longtime Fourth Street North resident. Their presence even was announced on a banner on the side of an oversize truck just onto the grass. At times there was a light flashing to draw even more attention to the visitors. As far as the Vulcan actors, they appear to have revisited the practice of smudging willing womens’ cheeks.