A Paddy here and a Paddy there, and include the greenbacks that may come through May and Beyond, and this old pot of gold brings you up to a Lucky 13, when considering the recent Green Light on what you can do when out.
It only starts with The Beef. Corned Beef that is, and you will certainly be on board with the rest after I have spoken my piece. I recommend the well carved and shredded layers of the corned beef and cabbage at Paddy Ryan’s just off the freeway in the town of Hudson, which will freeze well and could be a total-taste and money-saving substitute for ham in your main meal of Easter and beyond, perhaps teamed with pastrami if there are such leftovers. Their red potatoes are also a draw, but as far as spuds go, there are also Yukon Gold and big white baked varieties, so why not put them all into a sure-to-please-all-tastes medley that can accommodate as far as the recipe, whatever number of ounces happen to be left in the fridge of each type. They can flow as seamlessly into any level or variations of degree, as a System of a Down guitar solo coasts from thrash to ballad, just ask Hudson’s own Taeja about her soul and instrumental mates who used to stop by the coffee shop, and save enough for a lot more than a latte. And while you’re at it, why not consider the five main forms of onion — white, yellow, green, Bermuda and pearl — in a manner where regardless of their mix of flavor, they will be joined with Wisconsin’s own butter and parsley for an appetizer. And that above-mentioned meat could be rested on a bed of rice, again with multiple mix-and-match money savers of white and brown, and for the adventuresome, Wild and even Spanish forms. And about that cabbage, hey it was not nearly as much of a hit as the CBC, but even hitting well over .300 says you have arrived as a chef, I’d say this: Cole Slaw. With finely sliced carrots. With red cabbage. With a bit of celery, and maybe even the leafy stems well cut — but that’s only my taste, and don’t spare the green sticks that make up the onion stem. Just a few sweet peas and half-inch green beans on the side. And don’t forget broccoli (as part of the base) and cauliflower (one or two florets only please), to taste, and that means just a sprig. All this makes for an empty refrigerator and a full wallet. And yes, you will need dressing, but we’ve got you covered even if you don’t want to go out and buy the expensive Neuman’s Own. Think regular mayonnaise, and it doesn’t have to be Miracle Whip, topped off with regular sugar and mixed. Pour in a little sugar at a time, until you can no longer notice an aftertaste. And even that lettuce salad where the top leaves are fading toward brown, peal them off and you still will have 90 percent of the head left, and use the salad croutons that remain from the turkey stuffing mix, topped off with olive oil and just a bit of the stuffing mix into a bag — spreading any remaining liquid, or light vegetable oil or even a pinch of corn syrup — and then shake and bake “around like you used to,” for Stones-style Satisfaction, although not stone dried — and flavor an on-top-at-dish-width garnish. Consider on the four corners of the main bowl, placing some of the slaw for variety, and other salad greens such as the buttery kind with a twinge of Russian dressing (you can mix honey with a variety of tomato sauces and tiny sweet vegie bits, but your honey will really appreciate it if heavy on the honey.
<And butter, and not much of it, with honey>
First, the rest of the many foods with which to celebrate the various holidays of spring, which kind of morph into each other as the applicable edible items move forward on the calendar, to start with being the St. Patrick’s Day that wasn’t and related offerings of Easter, which was also a no-show if you wanted to dine-in at a diner with the family of all ages — including those with no excuse this time around to bolt from the company of, and tolerate the family that includes strange Uncle Sid, while in the realm of any year but 2020, where you might be nursing a weeks-old music and more hangover. At least for Easter brunch such as it was, you might be feeding on some killer drive-up ham that might even rival your mom’s recipe that’s been around since before you did your first Easter Egg hunt — ouch! — but this time she won’t have to be slaving away at the stove to make it just right, and at best grab a few bites on the fly for quality control of both lean meat and not so lean champagne. And yes mom, we know about Mother’s Little Helper in its various forms. Hey, in those past years, mom might not even be able to bite into her creation(s) until every buddy else is already at her various desserts, and they are always pots of gold pieces in number, the price of listening to Uncle Sid be the ham that he always is. Mom of course was too busy getting all the last side dishes going and maybe there was a reason — mom knows best — for being in the kitchen rather than the dining room, and she never even did find time to munch in short order, as a short order chef and much more, while seated at the table itself, rather being on the move past the pantry because that last scrumptious dessert was still to be served and — Heaven Help Us! — she still can’t find the vanilla extract. So what is her method? She won’t have to pretend to laugh at the bad punch line that often doesn’t even make sense, if Uncle Sid remembers it at all after a lengthy build-up about walking past telephone wires on poles that when a wee lad were almost buried by snow drifts even at Easter, and for sure were “that high” on St. Patrick’s Day, not to mention the now infamous 4-20 that wasn’t around when Uncle Sid would only get juiced on his famous stogies … and then fall soundly asleep. And what do you think he would have done with a turkey and its enzymes instead? And yes, you would rather treat in mom’s way, and to be sure its always over-the-top, that Irish redhaired honey you met in mid-March, and go for the gold even at the end of April.
So what’s the moral to this long story? The aforementioned holidays that include Earth Day and Passover, and you can throw in some motorcycle rallies and even April Fool’s Day, are all about green, and were not talking dollar bills — just a single one of them being Uncle Sid’s usual tip. Its about all the great food, drink, clothing and decor that didn’t take place fully just before the start of the spring, so all of the St. Patrick’s people did, I’m willing to guess, what people do if their 21st birthday is on a Wednesday, not celebrate a birthday only, but even a birth week and birth month. So even when Easter came hopping along, the Irish were still in celebration mode for almost another full week. And stores knew this and for the rest of the spring forward and unto summer focused, intentionally with their specials or not, on fare that arguably would sell very well into April, May and into Xfinity and beyond. They say that everyone is indeed Irish, at least for an (extended) time. And maybe that Earth-Day-health-focus on lean meat mom chose could have been thin flat corned beef, not chunky hunks with fat/gristle connecting them. (More of that later). And her lean (maybe) drink, could be some “smooth” Irish whiskey, or a 99 cent frappe that’s basically is a legal self-service (gasp?) smoothie at Kwik Trip. And not to get further started on all the green husked, ripe or not, produce out there, (hey make it all of the spring quarter with a plus when farmers markets soon open, and we recommend the each weekend one that’s “a friendly” at Plaza 94, maybe before other competing businesses reopen), here’s one example to pick from among the many ‘cuz we know jack too: tropical Jack Fruit, which looks like a kids toy not quite as big as a self-respecting pineapple, having many hundreds of little arms springing from them. Looks cool. It could be a great centerpiece for a fruit plate that’s not just the usual melon-mania, and even if you don’t know jack about it, its still just a matter of giving a few slices to what’s still available at the grocer. Which one(s) you ask? Do you think I’m going to give all my secrets away that easy? Stay tuned. OK, that was long enough. Just suffice it to say, my college readers can get it almost between classes, once they are held again. But they might want to lobby their dean of student fruit affairs, Take Consumer Education 101, for another Two Minutes To Midnight, but day tripping version. But then it might be “bumped” up to CE 301. Bummer, and it is pass/fail if you know what I mean …

— 15 — But not quite as bad off as your stomach and indeed your soul will be if you ignore, CE 101, and the rest of the story on these long-ballyhooed 15 tips on the ways to get by in virus land, and fail to put them into play. So finally now, you gotta Give Me Three Steps plus a dozen, with the first category of that 15 being what I just hit on already, with the later addition of plenty of specifics to offer your palette and its Appetite For Destruction; then keeping up via the next paragraph, 14; and now 13, (and that’s a baker’s dozen in this countdown, of the different ways you can save even more than the equivalent of a postage stamp, for that Easter Day is the main subject of the feared family letter in which your kid took and ate the last jelly bean after ripping it out of the dog’s mouth, which in turn made Uncle Sid so nauseous that he bolted carrying a Wal-Mart bag with him for, you know … Won’t see him again until all that’s left of the ham is that part which is wings; but wait a minute …) And didn’t Reagan do the same thing, when Nancy couldn’t convince him that the dog drool, some of it was already caked on the Red Button, is not the same as turkey gravy?
<Anyway, and this is a long overdue anyway>
— 14 — What all the hospitality industry dine-in or drink-in closures really mean for the dozens of categories of venues that had the main part of their business shut down, as there are noteable exceptions (lapses?) in the close-to-Big-Brother executive orders that could be unintended loopholes used to keep your business running, and how it would seem that the very number of workers involved in these occupations would bring political attention, (read as voters). But I will tell you about how these volumes of people, and in which job categories they roll, now form an undesired new underclass severely impacted by the Still Runnin’ lawmakers-on-steroids and the magnitude on which they have wrought their powerful decisions. Seen especially at the gubernatorial level of our two states, they have done very well on a no-sleep-till-Brooklyn Park type of demanding schedule, with the multi-layered hand they were dealt, and needed to respond to almost overnight, in what makes my early-morning deadlines seem like a piece of cake, or at least hard to handle in an economic market that for most all communications businesses literally died on the vine in 2001. And who was it that tried to move into his Washington Office at about that time, but was betwixted and between on just what an Oval was? If he or Trump would have been at the helm from that year on; my God there would be no underclass or even middle class existing, unless the Dems stepped in like a seasonal Messiah all over again and paid down the hideous beast that’s our now-by-far-highest-and-growing national decifit, you know the one where Trump basically bolstered his popularity by simply printing more money with nothing to back it, (said reportedly, by his printer/dungeon master who is Overlording the migrants under his thumb, and getting them to man the presses well before sunrise, or even moonrise, so they can produce In What Only Trump Would Consider An Essential Service). Much better to be designated by the likes of Walz and Evers, who have simply done a bang-up job. Did I say that? I will say this, I had been confident for a time now that when I dropped my five dollar bill and one dollar bill at the bank”s teller counter, they would not bounce. After all, I’d just printed them up that morning in the downstairs of my one room flat, but the bank wasn’t open its regular hours, and there was no counter to be found anyway in the drive-through. Biting humor? Well of course. Sometimes satire is the best teacher. A tough job but somebody’s got to do it, and hope it will start an open exchange of ideas that goes far beyond the hopelessly vague We Will Make America Great Again. So back to the state level, here’s an example of what oversights, (or are they, as money breeds power and influence?), do exist in greater Minnesconsin, as determined by a thorough reading of Executive Orders and what jobs and activities are singled out for stay-at-home and travel exclusions, (or leave silence because they are not specifically listed, where others in the same scope are. The only difference I can see is why such choices, except for the sheer light speed at which they needed to be made, which limits a long examination, are impacted mainly by socio-economic status). Are you ready? If you want to go anywhere across town to be babysitter for pay, you are simply out, as far as being able to legally travel. A single mom working her way through college? Don’t care. Unless you have a hefty student loan you want to refinance, and then our people will be calling your people, if they haven’t already. The flip-side as an exclusion from bans, is the St. Croix River effect. You want to buy a great big cruiser of a ship, not too much smaller than the deck where that annoying hip-hop video, “I’m On A Boat,” was filmed, “And Come Over Here, Dear Boy Have A Cigar, You’re Gonna Go Far,” you might even be set up with a cushy Small Business Loan. And you can house your brand new toy at the local marina or boat launch, and pay to drive it to the other side of town to be serviced. All these water sports are Essentially Services? I’ll let you figure that one out.
— 13 — A point by point synopsis of how we got to this juncture with all the viral rules weighed in on and voiced, starting on St. Patrick’s Day itself, as I’ll fork over the hour by hour breakdown on how decisions to cancel the three main local parades were made, and then chime in like dominos about even the the rockers being left out in the cold about The Day The Music Died, as one entity waited to see what others that included those in The Cities would do, then act in a clump in what became a wierd but very understandable game of chicken that ended up effecting virtually all activities. But these things green were kept in view and continued to unfold into the following days, and lime shadings were everywhere you looked, with again a key exception, the week-or-so long observance (as shown by the Sunday paper inserts on the immediately following weekend), of What I’ll Call German Week.
— 12 — The spiritual end is still being valued, even by lawmakers, as a Near-Essential Service, (I’m thinking it’s termed something like therapeutic enhancement), placing it in a same odd category as part of a Chosen Few types of venues, which are adapting the communion end of their services to conform to Social Distancing, “I’m Gonna Drink That Wine Because It’s Right There In Front Of Me.” We know the theology you’re getting at, Brother Cain, but its hard to get any wine-in during these days of only delivery and take-out, even for a church, and we might need to get even more Rock Steady and echo the local Catholic Diocese as it reaches up north and often needs to run a priest around a big circuit of clustered, small parishes to pre-consecrate communion hosts. Not ideal, but better than not having any type of Eucharistic celebration at all, some state Catholics think. But there are many more ways to get what you need as far as religious worship, if you are willing to again, adapt a bit as far as format, delivery method and hours of operation available for prayer, which these days is not always with the whole community, but maybe that’s an opportunity, on various fronts that include making virus spread very unlikely. Why could you not meet the requirements by having your flock seat themselves in only one to a pew, and every other pew. Or check in with various other faith communities that are relatively new, but all are within a block or two of each other, so see what makes them different enough to not only stay in business so to speak, but even thrive. (I know there is a certain amount of penance involved with worship, but if your belief system holds that there need be such a type of self-reflection in the immediate forecast, hey, if you have to walk a block in the cold, rainy weather of this two-state area, rather than brave in the cold and wet for Another Mile, I think God would understand. Doesn’t he see this as yet another form of being One with his Congregation(s), and at the same time lead the way in not spreading the virus? I have scoped out for you the best ways, although admittedly obscure at times, to find the spiritual in these days where it was hard enough to access already. I will list as many dates and times of options as I can.
— 11 — How the various workplaces and management styles are dealing with the crisis. And yes, this web site is after all about music, entertainment and nightlife broadly, and these businesses and their workers cumulatively are some of the hardest hit. All the hours they are open, and coming and going almost by the day, with how they are coping and indeed just trying to survive week to week, are taking new form almost hour to hour. I will describe all the manners of making their way in a time that our forefathers, and even the local Chambers of Commerce, could not even have dreamt about. Hours in this end are changing (being shortened, especially when the evening comes) the most of any industry than possibly in retail and fast food.
— 10 — How the businesses in the Hudson area fell apart, literally overnight, following the governor’s midweek decree. And what the local business scene was like that day at the 5 p.m. cutoff and immediately following. Why did a burgeoning city heading toward medium-size fall prey to the virus and its ramifications just like that, at a speed basically unheard of anywhere else in the country? We here are enslaved to the fickle leanings of one dominant industry, which when considering its few separate branches as offshoots, impacts almost every business in town. The effect was not unlike putting all your 401K money into one very risky stock and not diversifying, so it all crashed down. I’ll explore this factor at length later on down, and what’s being done right now and building on month’s past, and pieced together very fast, by successful management that can adjust on the fly and right the ship. That’s a hint about the unwitted culprit that became horrific everywhere, but in a special way the Hudson horror, (from as The White Stripes with such symbolic purity of color sang and somehow knew well in advance how the virus does not respect money and powerful positions, no matter how much of those you have. To wit: “From The Queen Of England To The Hounds Of Hell).
Hey, all this and the real meat of it, in the form of my virtual (or literal) top 10, is still hanging on the vine, so to speak: A hint, some of the best and most creative, and at the same time most obscure and nether-reaching, sources in low places are still to come with a chime in:

<And here are the rest of the Lucky Seven stories that are coming, to make it a total of Lucky 13, and hey, if I can’t count, it may be only my Irish Charm Lucky that cuts muster>
Admittedly, the charms are in the cases where pubs could only serve breakfast from remote. But they are actually part of my synopsis that even as such carries forward, and as I said Back In The Early Days, from long ago when I was not so strong you know — social distancing will bite everybody’s butt — but as we move forward to The Summer, skipping past what was a spring monumental for all the wrong reasons. So be they spiritual, disabled in all the wrong forms of this set of holidays, and where several-word lawn signs become the substance of communication, even via Joe’s tales of his own crypt:
— You can have your religion fix, in whatever way you determine that to be, and HudsonWiNightlife will help you! If you want simple prayer time, you can get it in a chapel at a local church for a full baker’s dozen hours each day, and go up the street a bit more and there is a full-fledged prayer/meditation/walking path of a thoughtful labyrinth that even becomes more bountiful when you consider there are others like it, the brainstorm of an area prayer “partner” that has done it in an even more whole-hog way in the Stillwater area and has become a veritable leader nationally in reconstruction of such an Old School effort. And if Catholic, you can confess your sins, such as they might be, now that the bands are back open for listing/viewing, just make an appointment with Fr. John at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. As I refer to music and also communion status, which can be an option of thus, as the rock band Brother Cain and what they say when chiming in about the needs of a particular person over the arbitrary “rules” of it you are divorced More on all of that later, not be be coy, but. … More later
— If stir crazy, new (and past) exercise options are now abundant, and I swear the hotties are making the most of it. You know the ones of whom I speak, who are out at dawn showing off their 110-pound eye candy and manage a pace to be much more than those pudgy middle aged guys out walking their dog for the umpteenth time out of stir craziness and hey a chance to wink at that other referenced women. How does this play out as far as social distancing? Read on for more later … And where are my friends in the on-again, off-again band New Skinny, these days. Luv you guys …
— People having disabilities, and with my Tourette Syndrome I am speaking from the trenches, as things as far as suspicions have gone over the roof, but there are also lots of new opportunities. Read about the many, many ends of both, as they are unfolding, in scads of info you will only find here, and how law enforcement can be your best friend — and worst night-mare.
— All things as far as coping mechanisms have been taken away, as far as one disabled man’s story tells with poignancy, and how he is getting it back peace by piece. He’s more like Josh Turner as far as listening, and you may even see a column of his in the near future, but he can resonate with Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind …
— And them there is Joe’s future picks, not bands necessarily but all things as far as how people’s wants and needs get met/or not in the coming weeks and months, (lets hope its not years), as far as prognostications, that are not pure doom. Poignant again is a band reference, going back to the mythology of the river Styx, which was my first rock concert, back in the days of the Lincoln County Fair in Merrill, of all places — right before they broke it big (as is underscored by the fact that they were equally billed with old Black Oak Arkansas, “Woah Jim Dandy, Woah Jim Dandy,” of Southern Rock fame. So then Styx moved up the “river” and came on with their plea: “So many things I need to know … Crystal Ball.”
— The lay of the land is in lawn signs, as apparently homeowners are getting stir crazy and/or either doing projects themselves to save every hard-earned dollar, or paying up the ante for it. One ace in the hole if you quality, are coming from the local school district, and its extension-based classes, which favor the end of wellness, which is primo at getting the job done these days — think weight training. There are also signs everywhere, including the green lawn area by the former Freedom convenience store, one for a sign for home sales, one for gutter cleaning and even one for mole and gopher removal. As I say as a representative of the new gig economy, stay tuned …
— Lastly, there are a group of Joe’s silly stories, where like the old Tim Conway’s skits, the harder one tries to be frugal/cheap, the much, much worse it gets. Again, only here. And what else is here for food and all the fixings, as mama would do? See the Notes of the Beat Department, or also read on below later:

First, the rest of the many foods with which to celebrate the various holidays of spring, which kind of morph into each other as the applicable edible items move forward on the calendar, to start with being the St. Patrick’s Day that wasn’t and related offerings of Easter, which was also a no-show if you wanted to dine-in at a diner with the family of all ages — including those with no excuse this time around to bolt from the company of, and tolerate the family that includes strange Uncle Sid, while in the realm of any year but 2020, where you might be nursing a weeks-old music and more hangover. At least for Easter brunch such as it was, you might be feeding on some killer drive-up ham that might even rival your mom’s recipe that’s been around since before you did your first Easter Egg hunt — ouch! — but this time she won’t have to be slaving away at the stove to make it just right, and at best grab a few bites on the fly for quality control of both lean meat and not so lean champagne. And yes mom, we know about Mother’s Little Helper in its various forms. Hey, in those past years, mom might not even be able to bite into her creation(s) until every buddy else is already at her various desserts, and they are always pots of gold pieces in number, the price of listening to Uncle Sid be the ham that he always is. Mom of course was too busy getting all the last side dishes going and maybe there was a reason — mom knows best — for being in the kitchen rather than the dining room, and she never even did find time to munch in short order, as a short order chef and much more, while seated at the table itself, rather being on the move past the pantry because that last scrumptious dessert was still to be served and — Heaven Help Us! — she still can’t find the vanilla extract. So what is her method? She won’t have to pretend to laugh at the bad punch line that often doesn’t even make sense, if Uncle Sid remembers it at all after a lengthy build-up about walking past telephone wires on poles that when a wee lad were almost buried by snow drifts even at Easter, and for sure were “that high” on St. Patrick’s Day, not to mention the now infamous 4-20 that wasn’t around when Uncle Sid would only get juiced on his famous stogies … and then fall soundly asleep. And what do you think he would have done with a turkey and its enzymes instead? And yes, you would rather treat in mom’s way, and to be sure its always over-the-top, that Irish redhaired honey you met in mid-March, and go for the gold even at the end of April.
So what’s the moral to this long story? The aforementioned holidays that include Earth Day and Passover, and you can throw in some motorcycle rallies and even April Fool’s Day, are all about green, and were not talking dollar bills — just a single one of them being Uncle Sid’s usual tip. Its about all the great food, drink, clothing and decor that didn’t take place fully just before the start of the spring, so all of the St. Patrick’s people did, I’m willing to guess, what people do if their 21st birthday is on a Wednesday, not celebrate a birthday only, but even a birth week and birth month. So even when Easter came hopping along, the Irish were still in celebration mode for almost another full week. And stores knew this and for the rest of the spring forward and unto summer focused, intentionally with their specials or not, on fare that arguably would sell very well into April, May and into Xfinity and beyond. They say that everyone is indeed Irish, at least for an (extended) time. And maybe that Earth-Day-health-focus on lean meat mom chose could have been thin flat corned beef, not chunky hunks with fat/gristle connecting them. (More of that later). And her lean (maybe) drink, could be some “smooth” Irish whiskey, or a 99 cent frappe that’s basically is a legal self-service (gasp?) smoothie at Kwik Trip. And not to get further started on all the green husked, ripe or not, produce out there, (hey make it all of the spring quarter with a plus when farmers markets soon open, and we recommend the each weekend one that’s “a friendly” at Plaza 94, maybe before other competing businesses reopon), here’s one example to pick from among the many ‘cuz we know jack too: tropical Jack Fruit, which looks like a kids toy not quite as big as a self-respecting pineapple, having many hundreds of little arms springing from them. Looks cool. It could be a great centerpiece for a fruit plate that’s not just the usual melon-mania, and even if you don’t know jack about it, its still just a matter of giving a few slices to what’s still available at the grocer. Which one(s) you ask? Do you think I’m going to give all my secrets away that easy? Stay tuned. OK, that was long enough. Just suffice it to say, my college readers can get it almost between classes, once they are held again. But they might want to lobby their dean of student fruit affairs, Take Consumer Education 101, for another Two Minutes To Midnight, but day tripping verison. But then it might be “bumped” up to CE 301. Bummer, and it is pass/fail if you know what I mean …

<<But do I pass or fail: Hey maybe I’ll get it totally right the second time!>>
— 15 — But not quite as bad off as your stomach and indeed your soul will be if you ignore the rest of the story on these long-ballyhooed 15 tips on the ways to get by in virus land, and fail to put them into play. So finally now, you gotta Give Me Three Steps plus a dozen, with the first category of that 15 being what I just hit on already, with the later addition of plenty of specifics to offer your pallete and its Appetite For Destruction; then keeping up via the next paragraph, 14; and now 13, (and that’s a baker’s dozen in this countdown, of the different ways you can save even more than the equivalent of a postage stamp, for that Easter Day is the main subject of the feared family letter in which your kid took and ate the last jelly bean after ripping it out of the dog’s mouth, which in turn made Uncle Sid so nauseous that he bolted carrying a Wal-Mart bag with him for, you know … Won’t see him again until all that’s left of the ham is that part which is wings; but wait a minute …) And didn’t Reagan do the same thing, when Nancy couldn’t convince him that the dog drool, some of it was already caked on the Red Button, is not the same as turkey gravy?
<Anyway, and this is a long overdue anyway>
— 14 — What all the hospitality industry dine-in or drink-in closures really mean for the dozens of categories of venues that had the main part of their business shut down, as there are noteable exceptions (lapses?) in the close-to-Big-Brother executive orders that could be unintended loopholes used to keep your business running, and how it would seem that the very number of workers involved in these occupations would bring political attention, (read as voters). But I will tell you about how these volumes of people, and in which job categories they roll, now form an undesired new underclass severely impacted by the Still Runnin’ lawmakers-on-steroids and the magnitude on which they have wrought their powerful decisions. Seen especially at the gubernatorial level of our two states, they have done very well on a no-sleep-till-Brooklyn Park type of demanding schedule, with the multi-layered hand they were dealt, and needed to respond to almost overnight, in what makes my early-morning deadlines seem like a piece of cake, or at least hard to handle in an economic market that for most all communications businesses literally died on the vine in 2001. And who was it that tried to move into his Washington Office at about that time, but was betwixted and between on just what an Oval was? If he or Trump would have been at the helm from that year on; my God there would be no underclass or even middle class existing, unless the Dems stepped in like a seasonal Messiah all over again and paid down the hideous beast that’s our now-by-far-highest-and-growing national decifit, you know the one where Trump basically bolstered his popularity by simply printing more money with nothing to back it, (said reportedly, by his printer/dungeon master who is Overlording the migrants under his thumb, and getting them to man the presses well before sunrise, or even moonrise, so they can produce In What Only Trump Would Consider An Essential Service). Much better to be designated by the likes of Walz and Evers, who have simply done a bang-up job. Did I say that? I will say this, I had been confident for a time now that when I dropped my five dollar bill and one dollar bill at the bank”s teller counter, they would not bounce. After all, I’d just printed them up that morning in the downstairs of my one room flat, but the bank wasn’t open its regular hours, and there was no counter to be found anyway in the drive-through. Biting humor? Well of course. Sometimes satire is the best teacher. A tough job but somebody’s got to do it, and hope it will start an open exchange of ideas that goes far beyond the hopelessly vague We Will Make America Great Again. So back to the state level, here’s an example of what oversights, (or are they, as money breeds power and influence?), do exist in greater Minnesconsin, as determined by a thorough reading of Executive Orders and what jobs and activities are singled out for stay-at-home and travel exclusions, (or leave silence because they are not specifically listed, where others in the same scope are. The only difference I can see is why such choices, except for the sheer light speed at which they needed to be made, which limits a long examination, are impacted mainly by socio-economic status). Are you ready? If you want to go anywhere across town to be babysitter for pay, you are simply out, as far as being able to legally travel. A single mom working her way through college? Don’t care. Unless you have a hefty student loan you want to refinance, and then our people will be calling your people, if they haven’t already. The flip-side as an exclusion from bans, is the St. Croix River effect. You want to buy a great big cruiser of a ship, not too much smaller than the deck where that annoying hip-hop video, “I’m On A Boat,” was filmed, “And Come Over Here, Dear Boy Have A Cigar, You’re Gonna Go Far,” you might even be set up with a cushy Small Business Loan. And you can house your brand new toy at the local marina or boat launch, and pay to drive it to the other side of town to be serviced. All these water sports are Essentially Services? I’ll let you figure that one out.
— 13 — A point by point synopsis of how we got to this juncture with all the viral rules weighed in on and voiced, starting on St. Patrick’s Day itself, as I’ll fork over the hour by hour breakdown on how decisions to cancel the three main local parades were made, and then chime in like dominos about even the the rockers being left out in the cold about The Day The Music Died, as one entity waited to see what others that included those in The Cities would do, then act in a clump in what became a wierd but very understandable game of chicken that ended up effecting virtually all activities. But these things green were kept in view and continued to unfold into the following days, and lime shadings were everywhere you looked, with again a key exception, the week-or-so long observance (as shown by the Sunday paper inserts on the immediately following weekend), of What I’ll Call German Week.
— 12 — The spiritual end is still being valued, even by lawmakers, as a Near-Essential Service, (I’m thinking it’s termed something like therapeutic enhancement), placing it in a same odd category as part of a Chosen Few types of venues, which are adapting the communion end of their services to conform to Social Distancing, “I’m Gonna Drink That Wine Because It’s Right There In Front Of Me.” We know the theology you’re getting at, Brother Cain, but its hard to get any wine-in during these days of only delivery and take-out, even for a church, and we might need to get even more Rock Steady and echo the local Catholic Diocese as it reaches up north and often needs to run a priest around a big circuit of clustered, small parishes to pre-consecrate communion hosts. Not ideal, but better than not having any type of Eucharistic celebration at all, some state Catholics think. But there are many more ways to get what you need as far as religious worship, if you are willing to again, adapt a bit as far as format, delivery method and hours of operation available for prayer, which these days is not always with the whole community, but maybe that’s an opportunity, on various fronts that include making virus spread very unlikely. Why could you not meet the requirements by having your flock seat themselves in only one to a pew, and every other pew. Or check in with various other faith communities that are relatively new, but all are within a block or two of each other, so see what makes them different enough to not only stay in business so to speak, but even thrive. (I know there is a certain amount of penance involved with worship, but if your belief system holds that there need be such a type of self-reflection in the immediate forecast, hey, if you have to walk a block in the cold, rainy weather of this two-state area, rather than brave in the cold and wet for Another Mile, I think God would understand. Doesn’t he see this as yet another form of being One with his Congregation(s), and at the same time lead the way in not spreading the virus? I have scoped out for you the best ways, although admittedly obscure at times, to find the spiritual in these days where it was hard enough to access already. I will list as many dates and times of options as I can.
— 11 — How the various workplaces and management styles are dealing with the crisis. And yes, this web site is after all about music, entertainment and nightlife broadly, and these businesses and their workers cumulatively are some of the hardest hit. All the hours they are open, and coming and going almost by the day, with how they are coping and indeed just trying to survive week to week, are taking new form almost hour to hour. I will describe all the manners of making their way in a time that our forefathers, and even the local Chambers of Commerce, could not even have dreamt about. Hours in this end are changing (being shortened, especially when the evening comes) the most of any industry than possibly in retail and fast food.
— 10 — How the businesses in the Hudson area fell apart, literally overnight, following the governor’s midweek decree. And what the local business scene was like that day at the 5 p.m. cutoff and immediately following. Why did a burgeoning city heading toward medium-size fall prey to the virus and its ramifications just like that, at a speed basically unheard of anywhere else in the country? We here are enslaved to the fickle leanings of one dominant industry, which when considering its few separate branches as offshoots, impacts almost every business in town. The effect was not unlike putting all your 401K money into one very risky stock and not diversifying, so it all crashed down. I’ll explore this factor at length later on down, and what’s being done right now and building on month’s past, and pieced together very fast, by successful management that can adjust on the fly and right the ship. That’s a hint about the unwitted culprit that became horrific everywhere, but in a special way the Hudson horror, (from as The White Stripes with such symbolic purity of color sang and somehow knew well in advance how the virus does not respect money and powerful positions, no matter how much of those you have. To wit: “From The Queen Of England To The Hounds Of Hell).
Hey, all this and the real meat of it, in the form of my virtual (or literal) top 10, is still hanging on the vine, so to speak: A hint, some of the best and most creative, and at the same time most obscure and nether-reaching, sources in low places are still to come with a chime in:

<The scribe will now school you, and we are not talking cafeteria food; but we may once more get into a tease or two, while at the same time chiming in with a cheap joke (would I do that?)>

OK now, me being the useless scribe on the other end of the communications system, and in the back row of the Target Center waiting for THE NAME band to come on, and,with notebook readily at hand and the pencil, for some reason — even with all these info possibilities remains tucked well behind the ear to the point of wax buildup (see a reference on that well-connected, namesake New Richmond Irish band of yore in a previous post), here is how you can find JUST WHAT YOU NEED for food and drink — read beer — but especially if you are in a quasi-suburban, enclave well to the south and north of Interstate 94 along THE RIVER, and in these cases, YOU NOW HAVE NO OPTION for the stuff you really want, but New Richmond in good ‘ol Wisconsin, the fast growing city in the country because of the new Stillwater bridge. WHY is this, among the many options in the driveable parts of the Beer Capital Of The World (U.S. dollars) and the NEXT NEAREST PLACE OVER? I have simply said, none of this is a sound byte, but with that mentioned, here goes: The only places still remaining, for all practical purposes, where you can get-whatever-you-need-short-of-brain-surgery, for Walmart type goods, is well, Walmart. So, big deal, there are Wal-Marts everywhere, but Wait A Minute, Wait A Minute, not everywhere has a Super-Walmart. They are not quite as prevalent as rats in the Black Plague, (I retract that comparison), but these are truly special, if only via The Church Lady who removes the bubble gum from one end of the napkin, then stows the rest in her 40-degrees-and-above jacket pocket, where she forgets about it until sneezing the next Sunday, (involuntarily?), when the sermon on the mount exceeded Everest in length/height, and her jaw finally dropped in what was a massive yawn. So, it has been said that in a rush to Hudson, via County Market next door, you can get certain food items you simply can’t find elsewhere, including the Master of Food Monopoly, Cub, (collectively gasp?) So you go to the nextdoor Walmart and they might not have your hot-pepper-spiced-banana-(pepper?)-parsley-eggplant dish either, so what to do? (It needs to be pointed out that, as says a friend of mine who is now with Walmart after jumping ship from Kwik Trip, even Target with its produce of the week and not much more pricewise, may not be immune to possible eventual closure as per the definition of essential business, as the rub is are you a “grocery store” or a “store that sells groceries?” We will let you know, as there is an appeals process, that as you are well aware may reach well beyond the court of the ying-yang-Righty Superemacy that might as well be on the Trump Post-Stormy-Daniels payroll, if only in-kind if you know what I mean about great nachos, (blatantly self-serving Cinco De Mayo reference), and possibly includes the Interplantary Justice System, (it was tie 50-50, with Mars opting out because of “size issues,” again if you know what I mean, but as a man with a plan, I can subpeona that tenth planet, wait more size issues, and I was trying to raise (From the Dead?), its publicist but he was busy weighing Hollywood scripts, two or three of which were from the Star Wars people, with a sequel or two already promised, but Don’t Call Us Yoda, We’ll Call You. There are more of these “people” around, I swear, then those governing the local Smilin’ Moose.
OK, Hudson is for the first time since-the-Pre-Dick’s-Bar-era, defunct so where to go now? Head northeast to New Richmond. And what will you find there? The mecca of the all things consumer, a Super Walmart, and where did this special bit of info come from? None other then a friend who goes to the grocery store and uses coupons to actually get paid to shop, if you know what I mean, but I can only give her intials, JM, for fear of exposing her cover to the WalMart Secret Shopper Police? Hey, alright, they might not actually exist, but maybe they should, but that would Take The Smile Right From The Face of VM, her husband, who can beemingly and with a certain pride announce that she paid else than a dime for T-Bone!
So why the New Richmond SuperWalMart, over all else, in Badger, Gopher and yes even Prairie Dog Country? TAKE HEED AND BE THIRSTY MY FRIENDS! Here’s Joe trying to do his version of a GPS analysis, and pack away the women and children. Oh, we’ve already done that. There is the Woodbury WalMart, but take away the aisles and aisles of snacks, there is barely one beer shelf and not much more, was probably 60 percent NA and 40 percent low-grade 3-2. Wisconsinites scoff forever! The few Beer and Beer is, and Beer and Beer is, repetition from withdrawl? And forcing run-on sentences? The handful of legitimate 12 packs still available were so scattered around the nearly barely dozen-or-so spaces, you couldn’t tell by the assigned pricing tags on the front plastic thingee that excuses me while I kiss the shelf (thank you for the borrowed referennce Jimi), if any of them were under, say 12 bucks. So the only draw is the food that may or may not be available in coming days and even hours, can you say eggs and salads, and can’t be gotten basically this side of St. Paul, if even then? Falling prey to diversity sucks.
To wit or should I say witness: BEER VAULT. Pack all the kids in the car and give them their sugar so that stay occupied in the employee lounge and beyond, bothering people on their 4.5 minute break, and maybe snag some classic Italian homemade grub of hot peppers and such if you are Badger enough to stand it and to wash down the, did I say it, Beer? Hundreds and hundreds of varieties to pick from in the way cool Coors-type temps hawked on so many Big Brew commercials, much better prices, and yeah, all the comfort food you want too — do the brat people hold a lein on the property? I don’t know firsthand, but according to my buddy a couple of stools down, who remains planted there as a virus vigil until the rest of the regulars come back, its a frothing brew too come back to, if he ever left …
Again, why? To badly quote the big box food stores anywhere on this side of St. Paul, don’t offer it and they will not show up. Sunday used to be the have to run day across the border, now its close to 365, virus withstanding.
So now what young grasshopper, or maybe not so young, or with wings clipped Buffalo style for serving in the modern economy: You can venture all the way toward the warehouse District you love to hate, and it would be shorter, maybe even far shorter, then the folks living — FINALLY now that the guitar solo ran on like Free Bird, bikers close your ears, WE ADD THE DRUM KIT KERNAL OF CLASSIC COUNTRY and beyond: If you are unfortunate enough to live up by extreme-west-end Scandia, or down by Afton and want to combine margarita mix and Smirnoff vodka to go with your bloody, and all the fruit and vegies that are so cooold drenched with that 80-or-so proof clearinghouse of clear booze, will save close to a gallon of gas to go a few miles across the border, and encounter more extremes. These include, under better then Minnesota highway conditions, to New Richmond rather than St. Paul, get all your groceries too that include everything from corned beef to what my dad would call real beef, (both with the obligatory seasoned or much better yet mashed potato and quarts of gravy, which is why most German men never live beyond the full maturity age of 30). But then there is my dad dispensing the wisdom of such red meat and more while gleaning nothing more than watching his bottom-of-the-TV-laden stocks scroll by, but that’s for another full-fledged father patriarch story. But the bloody Mary’s, as people slog off the wide river to local “restaurants,” often are in the form of a big burger sitting on top of the big glass of tomato — juice and vegetable versions and maybe even ketchup and the like — with Woody’s in Bayport leading the way for a long haul, and also Mallory’s with a more expensive but even more loaded making-a-meal. And there’s more to be had in the ol’ NR, as this and the favorites from nowhere but here will still abound, virus or no virus, as this is the beer capital of the known world, (give or take parts unknown from Germany). Can you think of an option that is better than this Beer Central, although we admittedly are in the Gopher-going-gang per where Hudson is, A PLUS YOU GET THE OL’ OLD MILWAUKEE AND MORE CRAFT BEERS FOR SALE, THEN THE NOW-SHUT-DOWN CHURCHES. You might even encounter Old School and see John Madden gang-tackling Adrian Peterson, as John is of a pound per poundage total that rivals a full offensive line and even then had trouble making weight. But while I Do Indeed Take Them To The River and beyond, where you yence can quaff Legitimate and Bountiful Millers, not to mention enough (LEAN?) brats to kill all the Budweiser horses, as they come from — gasp — St. Louis … You get the point that crossing the border that’s only a stone’s throw away, even if only on RARE occasion, can leave you a little fatter and MUCH MORE jovial, and you don’t have to step on a scale until next-time. So indulge a bit my friends, and don’t forget a quick run to the bathroom when it is 2:28 a.m., although you may have to give both the bartender and bouncer a bit more of a tip then your usual 50 cents. ‘Nuf said.

Joe, put your money where your mouth is, and were not talking about the Friday fish fry that will simply not die down. These are the 15-or-so different categories as promised, of dozens and dozens of consumer tips that run the gamut, as only I have deciphered, and the best may be the last. When formerly under-employed, by my 60-hours-a-week once rigid standard, Joe could only watch so much of Everyone Loves Raymond reruns, (and I’ll give you many more such options that you probably haven’t thought of yet), when twiddling his thumbs through entire well-plopped-in-front-of-the-TV commercials no longer counts for exercise, so exercise your brain! How, your brain asks, and if you can hear he or she, you have greater problems then where to find a good but cheap treadmill, but I’ll cover that too. But in these stay-at-home times that should allow for leisure-while-respecting-kiddie-disinfecting, Joe is otherwise wired, and he starts to think and rethink, and analyze re-and analyze, and then gruevel and re-gruevel, (can you tell I’m 100 percent German?) and what does he come up with? Such brainstorming can be good or very bad, much like tricky brain surgery, and you don’t even want to hear my beloved, long-suffering wife chime in.
Thus without further ado, I go where no one has gone before and at length, listed in order of priority, much like the logic Mr. Spock would apply, but the following is a mere summary of what’s coming in each of this web site’s categories in the next weeks and days:
— If you look, there are still good deals on meals around, and not just rabbit food, and even steak for less than the price of hamburger. You can reduce your grocery costs to pennies on the dollar, like I have, if you follow some simple but also separate rules. I’ll let you in on what they are! One to watch is the special hour-or-so offered by many grocers and Big Box stores have first thing in the morning when they open, specifically for people who have disabilities, are elderly, (they often are early risers if retired), are in a high-risk group of those who could contract the virus, and who serve as EMTs or fire-fighters, etc. To the best of my ability, I’ll tell you where to find these places, what the hours are, as they change frequently, usually for the cut-cutting measure of closing earlier at night, and what specifically are the criteria for what jobs and life status qualify, as it is different by location, although I doubt they would kick you to the curb while asking for curbside, or to go inside, if your status is reasonably close to any of those criteria. One thing to add up, some diners will offer 20 percent off the entire bill, even for the take-out option that has taken over, and this beats the heck out of even something like $5 off a $20 purchase, or 50 percent off an entree with purchase of one of equal value. How so? That bill also includes beverages, (even Coke and Pepsi aren’t cheap in many of these venues, although you can sometimes get these “comped” if not using another discount, or if they know you well), and tax and tip, which are not included in the latter example, and therefore are extra cost.
— And for dining, too, there are newer deals, as places still open are competing for a smaller dollar. Yes we all know all about the beauty of coupons and hunting through flyers, watch the expiration dates, but that can be tedious not to mention time consuming, (I’ll look for you in an ongoing way while having an eye for holiday specials). There are places that have always been overlooked who have killer prices, even before the outbreak, but still good food, if only downhome. A key: Get a food co-op of sorts that can include couponing going in your neighborhood, church or business, or more than one such grouping. As much as can be allowed by stay-at-home rules that make it dicey to even cross the neighbor’s threshold, so try to choose one that’s closeby and without the huge lot sizes, and the way this is enforced might vary from city to city, county to county, so be extra sure these days to look both ways when crossing the street … you never know who might come around the bend and lurk your way. And I have to add, just because its silly and so easy a joke, you might give such an officer one of your doughnuts, as things always seem to be about bakery. Come on, didn’t you at least think of such a thing a few months ago on Halloween, with all your excess candy, when the various PDs were making runs that lasted for hours around neighborhoods to ensure the safety of trick-or-treaters until they were at home dreaming of sugar plums dancing in their heads, (holidays mix together these days, more of that later), spreading good will and even better PR by giving out glow sticks, not so much citations and tickets, as key ambassadors for their departments. The extra time on this one night, is worth more than a month of manning the speed traps. I challenge them while on patrol across various jurisdictions, and it seems the units scratch each other’s back like this anyway while late at night, to supplement each others need. We’ve all noticed that, but now there is no bartime scene to babysit, so wouldn’t that free up time for more of this “glow stick” kind of service, much like the proverbial cat who was stuck in a tree, as the very definition of community based policing, to hopefully be done on other holidays too, where the festive nature can make this type of monitoring necessary; think Cinco De Mayo if the partying comes back, the three-in-number Memorial Day weekend, or big gasp, even the ma and pa days if the old folks act up for the first time in … nevermind …
— Conserve and creatively utilize what’s in your refrigerator right now. Even if you’re already a whiz at that, and if you’re only an item or two away from making a killer casserole, I will show you how to use a number of logical substitites for each recipe, using only basic ingredients almost everyone has around, and do what I’ve long done, that’s reducing your food waste to almost zero. That can almost pay the rent, and the more times you wrap your own head around it, you’ll find it becomes second nature, an easy win, and the entree you’ve invented cannot only cut waste because the family helped choose what favorite stuff is in it, but by trial and error, be quite tasty too. Monitor the freshness of perishable items in your fridge with a quick check each day, plan a bit ahead for a time the produce or meat likely be too far gone, and use this as a primer to nip it in the bud, whipping together the aformentioned casserole now. Keep lids on and label them by a date to make, and group various food types into one shelf or half of a shelf, for an easy check on what to make first then second concerning freshness, what date you want to make it, and what search you still need to create a fab entree or appetizer that will rock your dinner party … and yes, you can still have a small one if you follow a group of guidelines, and you might require these double-down tips for a gathering that’s in any way bigger — again see more tips on this from me in coming days. Most styles of ethnic foods have use-by tips that are much in the same mode, for easy monitoring and efficiency in selections that make useful the moving of your favorites, as the first choices to cook, to the front of the shelves or door compartments in the fridge, so they are the first your eyes see. Again, group the ingredients of the same style next to each other, side by side, so logical substitutions are quickly evaluated, and seeing all the possibilities lined up Right In The Front Row might stir the create process and open the door to a whole new type of redacted recipe. Also, place the taller items in a second row, and those medium size on top of any in the front that are short or could be laid on their side.
— Make the final meal prep a family affair. Notice I said final. Whip up the things you know are best for them, but aren’t always a clear choice the kids usually make, and get that in the hopper first, so its set. Then depending on the age of the children, bring them into the process with say, the final three or four ingredients that aren’t expensive, and let them choose their fave(s), and maybe lick the bowl if its their first try. Or if the stuff is really gooey, there might even be a bit of a food fight, but you might have time now more than ever to cleanup after the kids are left to be kids. Staying strictly at home while working and living makes homemakers into home business operators. And maybe dad will be drawn to the clamor, get out of his easy chair, and throw in as a marinade JUST A BIT of the beer, wine or liquor he might be holding — and then be spurred to get out the grill, but check with the public health department first to see if its kosher these days, and that assessment might change by the day — and all the while keeping an eye the game on TV, (hey, dad could find a sport that’s Still Running, to name a local country and rock band he might find classic, all being basically on furlough. However, contests are likely be on an amateur level, but these athletes are prized by man for putting their whole effort and soul into it, playing for the love of the game, not excessive glory). That goes double for the Badger marching band that stops by the village annually at Kozy Korner. The strength of this kind of character is especially needed, and valued, in today’s world. Remembering back, how many rock icons from decades ago were “just ordinary, average guys?” I met, interviewed and even photographed some of these top guns when they played Hudson — yeah you right that right — back in the day, and was surprised to find that many were just your regular, blue-color-like workers, doing a job for a paycheck, and humble to the core. They know their audience is built by person-to-person off-the-cuff introductions and bits of conversation. But there are some on the flip side, who are not necessarily evil, as all those old stereotypes would suggest, but quite quirky in their own slight-bit-of-charming way, if only dealing with one facet of their work and social life. I will tell their names, on both sides of the fence, and specifically what their quirk is, which I gathered while they were here in Hudson of all places to play their instruments, or to play out in the audience, and I’ll throw in the experiences other local people have had while stars border hopped then partied on by, living after midnight, rocking to the door, loving to the morning … Most important, we can learn from their lyrics in this crisis time and beyond, even if some don’t agree with their lifestyles, ditto for my old boss Doug. All in all, teachable moments among chaos, and productive family bonding.
— Along the lines of where to find what, and at the cheapest price, you would need days to sort it all out, especially for people who are from Minnesota and unlike myself don’t have the lay of the local land, so I’m doing it for you, drawing on decades of experience as a reporter, local consumer and food and drink junkie of all aspects — I come from a meat and potatoes family, but still love my salad and stir fry, and even those last two unlock a bounty of different possibilities, so once a base that takes up all of the bottom of a dish and thus is substantial is chosen, or more than one, the combinations of ingredients that can be piled on top of it is endless. More on that soon. Hey, experiment yourself, that’s how the French got crepes and soufles. I don’t know that firsthand, but I wouldn’t doubt it.

This just in, or call it breaking news. Can someone please give me a break, and not put the brakes on, if trying to locate these activities themselves, as the Easter week is well upon us. As far as holiday church services, the few that are still “open” to the public because of virus concerns, the following is how you can have your religion Fixx and eat it too — if just using a little creativity in finding it — to dole out the jelly beans and chocolate bunnies and perhaps via the band by that name, So One Thing (or should I say Thong) Leads to Another, so to Place Your Bid In, that came within an Irish lasses blink of an eye from playing a concert at the Hudson half-outdoors Band Shell — these contingencies just might end up being your ticket to one of the few remaining live music options that could still be available, if certain strict rules are complied with. It’s just a stone’s throw away from the beautiful St. Croix River on the north end of Lakefront Park. Did I mention lass? In the post-St. Patrick Day download, the Irish Eyes aren’t quite smilin’ as they feel the sting of now having their own holiday, in its various forms and done in their way, taken away from them as fast as other viruses turn your corned beef and cabbage into mush, literally overnight; the time it took Hudson’s economy to tank then float down the St. Croix before anyone knew what hit them. So what do all things Erin do when they truly get their Irish up? They just extend the holiday — go for it Guinness — maybe all through the official 40 days of Easter, as counted by the Irish Catholics who love and live their religion, so both holidays can Come Together, Right Now. Items pulled from various local menus show that Irishness prevails, one of the few times in its history, and all things green, St. Paddie’s Day, Easter and then even Earth Day, take command of the kitchen and what ends up on your plate. Mix and match this type of this food with the Easter favorite goodies that now abound, and you can still double-down and have a two-for-one, or more, although possibly only via the Facebook offerings.
So this entry point for allowing you to max-out on today’s holiday happenings, and really place Saturday night llve, (OK, maybe not “live” in all cases), is the Easter Vigil as practiced by Catholics and most Episcopals. Especially, if revelers have the means to look beyond virus considerations and icy snow now falling and elect to travel, (hey, I know this isn’t really OK), thus taking advantage of the ever-falling gas prices. and stop by for a quick but very filling, in-and-out big meal made by, say, both your grandma in Forest Lake and your mom in Woodbury. Shepard’s Pie versus apple pie?
Now the stage is set for a description for the first-viewing Easter observance of 2020, as done locally, with others still hanging on to get the bugs out of their audio-visual technology, now needed more than ever by them. That can cost money, especially in a smaller-sized, tight-knit church building and possibly more seriously, a potentially big financial hit because of lack of money in the collection basket

<<Ahead of the curve concerning the rest of the Village, and their ‘great big neon broadway sign’ from above>>

With the flood of messages that have been put out as eatery ads, and we won’t even include the remnant of those old once-a-mile, small-cardboard scrims, Village Inn has been way ahead of the curve in what they are putting on, what’s essentially their “great big neon broadway sign,” to reference Bon Jovi. It even had offered, mostly-earlier-than-any, customers the service of a go-to special is for the time-being out; hey must taste fantastic to be that well purchased, in what has not been the case for so many other places. Everyone has a new twist on what they offer these days, why they are different from all the rest. I was schooled a few weeks earlier on this, by two guys out in the enhanced, give-them-what-they-now-want-and-need and partly enclosed patio. When talking to these vintage village people, who actually are Minnesotans who thus now accompany the old school Italians, and are only the start of people who kept coming and lotsa loving such things as the especially caring-for-cars drive-through line, for great fried and broasted chicken (called Californian as well as southern fried and even on to Chicago, to team with themes above and below). It’s almost within a waddle of the place you pulled in, where there in addition have been the No Quarter of 25 for $25 wings, or 25 and Six to Four, with change. The Village led others by being open 15 or then 17 or then 19 hours. There of course is the Triple Threat of Walleye, Walleye, Walleye, quite well marketed when considering that the other go-to-place for such food closed a few months back, Tuesday tacos and max mex, and other fantastic items that include many burger choices that go far behind just a paddy, and will no doubt create consumer traffic well into 2021.

Also in place st St. Patrick’s Church on Saturday around 8 p.m. All the Mass times, as they have always been in place throughout Sunday mornings, call be live-streamed on Facebook, or use something such as an On Demand function later Sunday and so on. Big Catholic churches in River Falls to the southeast, and New Richmond to the northeast, are doing much the same thing, and the two in Stillwater that form the end of the triangle also have vigils.
— Likewise, in my typical walks around scenic North Hudson, (I’m nearing 60, so better make that number singular, and only once around the block, or I might end up Meeting My Maker prematurely. This came to mind, as I made the swing out in the Boonies as part of Phase Two, “When I Came Across a Young Man, With a Fiddle, Playing It Hard,” and I know Charlie Daniels is more than just some ol’ country preacher). The church I encountered halfway in Phase Two is called Bible Baptist, smack dab in the middle of the village. and they also have set up a similar option, to access the service via Facebook and beyond, starting at 10:30 a.m.

With very few entertainment options currently, read a book? Or a cookbook? During times when docs say even your local, low-grade newsprint daily, after being handled by dozens of people before it gets to you, can carry a virus much worse than an annoying stomach bug?
So what to do? Always wanted to unlock your true culinary self, and get healthy to boot? Whip through a Fresh and Natural store flyer, ready for your taking right when you walk in the door of what is a spacious foyer for social dining considerations, that cuts to the chase and doesn’t give you loads of of unnecessary verbage to sift through. After all, these days we seem to be having more and more contraints on our time, and at Fresh and Natural there’s a store design that smacks of functionality, not being a monument for some architects to themselves. The aisles are well arranged, little wasted space, although social distancing will always be respected here, and unlike the big box stores you don’t have to cover an area the size of a football field to pick up what you need. And the food is healthy for all sorts of reasons, and today more than ever we all need to be watchguards of that for ourselves on various fronts, and its great to get a little help to steer you the right way.
So when did all this extra need get going?
Just a bit ago on St. Patricks’ Day, and quickly into the early evening, reams of stores of all types were told they must shut down pronto, as in the usual start of places having half-price appetizers. So why not get much healthier food to boot, and at the same time take an absolute, total pass for that day on the chance to unveil your Irish? As go home and go to bed before any of the those cool Irish musicians even start setting up their stages. Your full 24 hours of Erin simply have to wait for another day and might be quite off into the future. So how does the green go forward from here and triumph?
It thus starts with food, and enter the picture the Fresh and Natural locations in Hudson and Shoreview. Like birthday parties that become lengthy observances, like a virtual fulltime job, and I know this from some friends who seriously do want it to be all that, things extend with regular ongoing celebrations in what becomes an — official they’ll tell you — bonafide birthday month. The Irish emulate that when their favorite holiday is on a Monday and thus into Tuesday morning, and St. Patrick’s Day actually starts for them with corned beef and cabbage — or a host of lesser hyped meals that I myself will hype in a minute via Fresh and Natural — on the previous Thursday or early Friday for sure, with dinner, lunch or even breakfast, (and yes Virginia, of the dozens of intriguing Irish eats you can easily make yourself, there are even quite a few for when you rise in the morning and need a boost to hit the very ground running as to dodge all those newly enabled leprechauns who don’t ever seem to be more than knee-high. Plenty more such yarns of leprechauns acting up in future posts).
Local nightclubs have followed suit with their St. Patrick’s Day revisited drink specials, hardly any need to dig into your pockets for anything but a wee bit of change — and each and every O’Donnell loves that — where even the most stout beer cost is slashed on the 17th of each and every month. So everyone is Irish an additional 12 days a year. And add another such food date when Paddy Ryan’s, not far down the highway from Fresh and Natural, pulls out all the stops not only in March, but also exactly six months later for a half-St. Patrick’s Day. And the food is bountiful, never a “half patty.”
<<And if you can’t make it then, and now to finally cut to the chase, here’s how that Fresh and Natural flyer saved that day, through extending the window to be by all means Irish.>>
— Colcannon is a long-back traditional dish made with mashed potatoes and cabbage, milk and butter, and sometimes with leeks and bacon added for flavor and just for fun, or a primer for cooks who shop then chop for a veganized version. It is called just as delicious as the meatier version above, including the middle two items of the six, which is expected to be central to cooking plans for June Dairy Month. And come that time, you can even find a whole boatload of filed-card recipes range of things, some of which I had not heard of before, and smack dab in the middle of that in a veritable laundry list of how you can use the aforementioned leeks. But as far as the colcannon, the whole recipe is featured in the March version of the Fresh and Natural newsletter. It is said to make great comfort food, now and later. Options are to use tempeh bacon, and coconut butter for a creamy consistency, according to Fresh and Natural, for a great plant based dish.
— Now is the time for homemade saurkraut with garlic dill, as the Irish meet the Germans — they just had their food week too — as my family used to say and ponder. Not only is it called nice and easy, it is filled with probiotics, which are vital to keeping everyone’s bodies healthy, as the immune system is in our gut, and healthy bacteria from those probiotics is an aid to keep the good flora of bacteria in the stomach area at a good count. Uhm, probiotics in the form of pills? It’s also beneficial to add them to diet in the form of fermented foods. Homemade sauerkraut keeps well in the fridge for a few months. Add it to salads as a tangy topper, (and then can do without too much cheese, or heavy sauces), or use it in various sandwiches (don’t rely, again, too heavily on cold cuts).

One, two, three, four, Cellar’s as a liquor store has all the numbers and sheer size to be your sum-total of each and every holiday revelry. The local “Cellars” is intruigally named since it is “up “on The Hill instead of being “down” at at your friend’s basement man cave. And unlike that place and its few couches, Cellar’s has a showroom the size of full basketball courts, and not Down There at your guys limited bar. But we all have changed our habits because of virus impact, so all to be viewed at his home is King James footage from back in the day when he got started, and Cellar’s at that time was already open, then known as Hudson Liquor. But hey, we need more than dribbling, sorry about the pun, and this is when you go to Cellar’s and can get bottles of wine for as little as $3.99! So we draw from all of these spots, their celebrations and more, as virus considerations mean things like St. Patrick’s Day revelry are compromised and have to be regaged and rescheduled for later, even much later. Which of course — and yes I am finally getting around to a point — is where the selection and pricing at Cellar’s comes to the rescue as the summer holidays continue to unfold, had already been a prime seller at their store of all things that started Irish, think enough different whiskey brands from that isle to fill a space equal to that huge freezer in your buddy’s man cave, then also Easter. (And I’ve thus went to “edit” and added this part of the content on a holiday theme for Cinco, mom and pop day and believe you me their faves are very different and cross a gender gap beyond which flavor of champagne they should sip as dad, sorry to say, slinks to the end of the counter and orders all those ingredients for a Bloody from a hottie). Then Cellar’s redacted these and other offerings to fit a patriotic festival from below the Rio Grande, led by well, Rio herself and Duran Duran? And hey, tit for tat, that will carry forward to later on the Independence Day of another sort, ours. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, possibly the first time since Washington’s presidency that HudsonWiNightlife has been not only on time but before it … To that end, you can get a bottle of wine for just $3.99, for that post-Easter toast, or later for a hot summer night on the river. And to be kosher in this huge facility, there is Mogan David to boot. The people at this store have teamed up with Hop and Barrell on a far-afield trek to taste their own special brews, and pick the ones out for sale especially at their places business. And they have had the drinks of Cinco de Mayo covered too with cupboards full of brews.
— The “Casanova” himself as part of the Hudson Historic Liquors name would love it, so Irish as to be traditional or even rare for St. Paddie’s or redacted to make it American for the Fourth, as in American Irish? Shelves and shelves of many brands of Irish whiskey, some with often long names I can’t even pronounce — and adding choices well beyond the Jamison everybody knows about, although to be clear there are a few of these varieties that sport flavorings and subtle color tints — and fill shelves by the dozens in a dedicated area toward the back, and having been there for months, to extend the window for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations that were cut short, to the length of a potato growing season, regardless of the weather. Irish whiskey is usually batched in a truly original way as far as number of steps, and the window to try them in the U.S. and all over predates the days of colonization, so when the time comes, use and indulge them with patriotism in mind (that’s convenient). And as far as things go, no immigration no Irish whiskey here. Things to be grateful for. The recipes go back almost 700 years. So get you and your taste “buds” going …
— The Northern Liquors store along Crest View Drive has been doing great business, and even though its not quite going viral per se, has a big beer and liquor vault to offer that in a rectangular sense rivals the size of the entire rest of their facility. One whole side of shelving going up front near the cash register is devoted to the dozens of very dynamic varieties of different tomato-juice infused ingredients, that are brewed, distilled and yes even grown and harvested, to welcome in a Cinco summer and meaningful Bloody Mary mantra and indeed keep it going through July Fourth and further, aided by little four-packs of themed drinks, some bottled and all quaint as can be, for far less then the fingers on your hand. Again, the numbers game, and if Johnnie is not careful with the fireworks and his fingers, then they’d be fewer and symbolize even more of a discount … OK we won’t go there.

This just in, or call it breaking news. Can someone please give me a break, and not put the brakes on, if trying to locate these activities themselves, as the Easter week is well upon us. As far as holiday church services, the few that are still “open” to the public because of virus concerns, the following is how you can have your religion Fixx and eat it too — if just using a little creativity in finding it — to dole out the jelly beans and chocolate bunnies and perhaps via the band by that name, that came within an Irish lasses blink of an eye from playing a concert at the Hudson half-outdoors Band Shell, But One Thing Leads to Another — these contingencies just might end up being your ticket to one of the few remaining live music options that could still be available, if certain strict rules are complied with. It’s just a stone’s throw away from the beautiful St. Croix River on the north end of Lakefront Park. Did I mention lass? In the post-St. Patrick Day download, the Irish Eyes aren’t quite smilin’ as they feel the sting of now having their own holiday, in its various forms and done in their way, taken away from them as fast as other viruses turn your corned beef and cabbage into mush, literally overnight; the time it took Hudson’s economy to tank then float down the St. Croix before anyone knew what hit them. So what do all things Erin do when they truly get their Irish up? They just extend the holiday — go for it Guinness — maybe all through the official 40 days of Easter, as counted by the Irish Catholics who love and live their religion, so both holidays can Come Together, Right Now. Items pulled from various local menus show that Irish-ness prevails, one of the few times in its history, and all things green, St. Paddie’s Day, Easter, Passover and then even Earth Day, take command of the kitchen and what ends up on your plate. Mix and match this type of this food with the Easter favorite goodies that now abound, and you can still double-down and have a two-for-one, or more, although possibly only via the Facebook offerings.
So this entry point for allowing you to max-out on today’s holiday happenings, and really place Saturday night llve, (OK, maybe not “live” in all cases), is the Easter Vigil as practiced by Catholics and most Episcopals. Especially, if revelers have the means to look beyond virus considerations and icy snow now falling and elect to travel, (hey, I know this isn’t really OK), thus taking advantage of the ever-falling gas prices. and stop by for a quick but very filling, in-and-out big meal made by, say, both your grandma in Forest Lake and your mom in Woodbury. Shepard’s Pie versus apple pie?
So now the stage is set for a description for the first-viewing Easter observance of 2020, as conducted locally, with others in their support team, as whole industries are still hanging on to get the bugs out of their audio-visual technology, or rolling it out anyway to essentially make a product that sells and brings in revenue before its ready for market, and the consumer loses either way. But wait a minute, way a minute! Give their design, production and marketing crews, and yes also sales and management, some leeway to do those final fixes toward efficiency, now needed more than ever before. That can cost money, especially in a smaller-sized, tight-knit congregation and possibly more seriously, a potentially big financial hit because of lack of money in the collection basket. Parishioners vote with their wallets, and this might be a unique opportunity for spiritual growth from the bottom down, but it will take the role of a lifetime to dig down and make this work. So this long homily is ended, go in peace and joy, and the Lord  is with you as you  praise and serve him …
<Here is the first stop locally on the Jesus, Resurrection World Tour>
— The Easter Vigil is being held, to kick things off, (or accurately, can be viewed), at St. Patrick’s Church in Hudson on Saturday around 8 p.m. All the Mass times, as they have always been in place throughout Sunday mornings, call be live-streamed on Facebook, or use something such as an On Demand function later Sunday and so on. Big Catholic churches in River Falls to the southeast, and New Richmond to the northeast, are doing much the same thing, and like the two in Stillwater that form the end of a Trinity-like triangle also have vigils.
— Likewise, in my typical walks around scenic North Hudson, (I’m nearing 60, so better make that number singular, and only once around the block, or I might end up Meeting My Maker prematurely. This came to mind, as I made the swing out in the Boonies as part of Phase Two of There, “When I Came Across a Young Man, With a Fiddle’, Playing It Hard,” and I know Charlie Daniels is more than just some ol’ country preacher). The church I encountered halfway in Phase Two is called Bible Baptist, smack dab in the middle of the village. and they also have set up a similar option, to access the service via Facebook and beyond, starting at 10:30 a.m.

— I soon will list all kinds of last minute Easter buys, boy I know that one, that be made easy and fun enough for your entire family to enjoy, and find yourself being the minder of the keys, seven I think that is, swimming pools, movie stars. OK, we’re much more simple than that, and far less of that money the shifty leprechaun stole, took while exiting up the chimney. which uses a backup heater that keeps on going and going and going, so he and his bottle gained the pricey freedom found in the roof. But his smokin’ butt won’t heal until, well, the real cooler Christmas, 2020 comes, (Santa had to go on the DL, or AA, or on furlough, take your pick, and had to yield on this dry run to that little green man, who rolled at a 45 degree angle and picked up speed to angle past the rood gutters, giving a poor squirrel more of a fright than eating those nasty, sometimes moldy acorns. Better to get to the Dollar Tree, in Plaza 94 in Hudson, before the Dollar General in Roberts buys it up in a hostile takeover to purge western Wisconsin of all pennies. Oh you get it, all this is an April Fools Day prank, but my lawyers said the joke could be taken too far. I think I should cease on it. But no, there was Santa in my sleep, then stepping in front of him was a member of the Anti-Irish-Short-People Disability Corp. who read an official decree that negated the transaction … Anyway, dollar for dollar, you can get every last trinket, thick laces and beads, and don’t forget big hats that would remind you of the color of a Guinness  you would need as a true leprechaun, as long as they’re decidedly Futball-turf-green. And all these things are now repeated in white for Easter, but whole the Dollar Store is on the verge of closing for the night (there is always the competition more than a mile away even under no-travel rules, with their own hours and little twist of Emerald to the Shamrock, and much more pure then off-white, as observances come and go, but there will always be on shelves, and ourselves, here of the key color in question, representing the whole of every holiday.

Hey I know, all this is overwhelming, whether vanquishing the virus or other types of related content, so if you are getting overtaken with data, may I suggest skipping over the next three long paragraphs telling you how you can best use my tips and observations to beat the Super Bug, and hunt around the various departments of his web site that take the data farther. Give this wordsmith an inch and he will take a mile as far as a license to tell it all, even if its pages worth, and that might be fine for right now, as I’m learning fast that that every detail will be found useful by at least someone or two. If it trips your trigger, return to this site later., if its too much volume for the moment, as I’ll bet you have learned as a music lover, and I’m sure you are or you wouldn’t be reading these pages; playing your speakers at full throttle at 11 while cranking The Who at concert-decibel-level on your stereo, hey I know as a child of the ’70s, can be fantastic but at some juncture you and your ears and mind have to take a set break — and if you make it all the way to an encore, these times might offer an opportunity for you while holed up in your room. (Along those lines, later during what I am afraid will be weeks of such coverage, of all musical measures of everything including Copperdale, crooning and keyboard, by HudsonWiNightlife coverage, “all will be revealed.” To wit: I think this extra detail, its various forms, adds to the fullness of understanding, and I have what seems to be a very literate audience that will gather it all in. Do you agree? Chime in …
Thus, the following is only a brief summary of what you can expect to see, broken into catagories by exact content, from HudsonWiNightlife in the next few days and weeks. We at this website will bring to you the updates on the many virus related subjects locally, as they compare to around the two-state area and country, which are changing by the hour and having a major impact on what’s being done and what is left to do, but are working double shifts, seven days to do provide needed information and still can’t quite keep up. But we will give it our best, because every bit of info we can give you may make or break not just staying in your comfort zone, but indeed your ability to stay alive as this crisis plays out. Each day brings additional facets of life affected, and I’ll get those things to you as soon as I become aware of them, that are make or break for people on the margin As we have noted before to the point of repetition, you’ll only find it here, tips by the dozens and dozens that only come about through scouting out the details, and maybe I’m the only one with that curiousity, but it makes for an fantastic job. In J school that was called a “plum.”
We thought this background was important to readers because many of them have found themselves fascinated by this journalistic process that has needed to be tweaked on the fly more today then ever before. It first now is rolling out data that’s getting more and more out there each day, but hey, I get my info by sometimes odd-ball sources, which I will convey to you when at all possible, and sometimes just the process used can make for the best of comic fodder, and at the least a very good read. It makes a difference in getting that data only I seem to be able to ferret out — and to which people in the trenches can relate, as if they are actually part of the editorial process, not just sources, and this means that via them, more data comes my way, and the process builds on itself. Isn’t that what journalism is all about? Hey, we are throrough about unearthing new topics to the point of being OCD and at the same time being loving and passionate in serving our readers, (don’t read to much into that statement), although it means for reams of story column inches, (yet another old school J term). What’s coming now by reading down, is that promised breakdown by topic, going roughly from most important to least important so you know when to look for the topic that resonates most with you, and if you don’t see it right anyway, chime in and I’ll see if it can be moved up the pecking order a bit, or I can at least address your topic with a concise blog message under a new heading, because we know you might need data fast, and I can followup with “the rest of the story soon.”
The interesting takes I have uncovered may mean that routine coverage, such as that of holiday happenings, even though timely, will just have to wait a bit with a second day angle as I (hopefully) can indulge on your patience and more things green continue to surface — unless a particular day’s specially festive nature means they have a tie-in with all things virus, and boy I am good at finding these things, to something like St. Patrick’s Day. I have waiting in the vault plenty of cool stuff with detail going way beyond who has the best corned beef and cabbage, although we have advice that is on-going through the time, soon, for Easter to take over and that will provide yet another layer of fodder. Yet the offerings may be much alike, as everyone is competing for a smaller and still shrinking dollar.

— Two other reasons to hang in there: (1) All the details about my immediate home base of Hudson and many of its readers, and how it becoming Bigfoot Central, with multiple sightings that include intimate interactions that go way beyond a blurry picture … Why here? (2) Then the wrap-up of that signature killer karaoke contest at the Bungalow Inn, one that was the last man standing among those that died off, earlier this year, and will as soon as the virus is tamed be resurrected as a musical offering for better or worse, but obviously not before Easter, although rock never dies.

But for right now, I’ll ferret out the consummate consumer tips for you to stretch your pocketbook but not your palate. This is killer coverage that although virtually done, has not yet found a home because of space (even HudsonWiNightife has its limits) and simply time factors … Gotta go now, election results that I need to get to AP, and that has become yet another part of the story(s). Upon returning, I’ll wrap up this post with its summation that breaks it down to about 15 distinct categories, followed by some of the really meaty stuff I have been promising and setting the stage for all week, and I should be able to get you a bunch by first thing tomorrow, and thus reward you for your patience. A memo to the other such sites, “you can’t can’t touch this.” Hammertime, as for you and he, time waits for no man, and if you dally it marches on:

<It goes on and on and on and on, its Heaven or Hell, oh well, or so says Sabbath. Already traumatized people are starting to think that way, as their thoughts go go round and round. More on how this vamp of a virus can seep into our brains and effect our thinking and actions in a subconscious way, in a post that will run after the newsy stuff has been done away with, but placed in a different department of this web page. More and more, in each edition, updates will appear in any of the department headings that scroll across the top of this page>

Ok, there is a lot to cover here, as my long buildup of music portion of the music, and by the time I’m finished, it will literally take up dozens and dozens of computer screens such as mine. If nothing else, it can give the faithful a look inside the brain and see how us journalists think, in my quasi-gonzo case maybe too much, and God knows it is not a model of conciseness. But I dare say that’s not what you want, even though the time is short, as underscored by the worsening situation of the past few days, as shortenings have made their mark and slammed it home with an exclamation point that’s burst as big as a bomb, and will continue to crawl forward for at least a few weeks here and across the St. Croix, but the damage may be already done, draining the economy of my home base that’s the city of Hudson and almost shutting down its economy overnight, in what’s no doubt the quickest such crippling seen from the virus to date. These pieces of observation, specific examples of how it plays out with scores of different entities and individuals, and even more finely crafted and detailed analysis, followed by pages of key consumer and business tips. These nuggets supply practical advice and are spelled out with more instructions and contingencies than in many user manuals. These take on tons of totally different topics that steer far from the usual subject matter — on facets that rarely are even touched upon by other media. And oh yeah, the topic we’re talking about is that versatile and very invincible — I know that is substandard usage, but it also enables alliteration, and is even present when I explain its use — villian that is the ultimate vile virus. (See I can even use some of my trademark carefully placed humor, although I have to be more careful with each passing day so not to offend, but I will make every attempt to insert it whenever applicable — while it still can be done, although even in these days we are Hungry for Heaven). Not to toot my own horn any more than necessary, but after some study, I conservatively estimate that a good half of my content sources — small groups of heroes just hanging around their houses are unique to this website, and that number is pushed to this level by a treatment and style that many readers and advertisers say is one-of-a -kind. It calls for plenty of detail and with a topic this complex is necessary, even though some people find it mentally taxing to read in one sitting, so go chill for a bit with a brew, while you still can do it, then get back to the business at hand, and since you presumably are doing the activity at home — good luck if any luck at all to find an open library — its one of few that still can be lawfully conducted, as is indicated by executive orders. (However, this is much more than a long primer on what you’d expect to find in this facet of the writing business, which may be seen as having similarities to gonzo journalism practiced by the revered Hunter Thompson, a household name for even any first year J student — but now since schools are shut down, you’d have to explore his unique style at home on your iPad, a method that surely would make Thompson cringe. So you might have to get some vicarious tutorting through this website, although to this day nobody does it better than Hunter. I just hope that I, and this just is the vision that comes to my mind and I am only one man, can untie his tattered hemp shoelaces). IN all these things I am not out to please the government, rather my readers, and above all — thus the extreme caution with any words that could hurt as even a gutbuster for one person is not worth even slight harm to another, as gallows humor can provide great catharsis but also a poisonous pen — rather concentrate more on serving the unique and critical needs of the many the victims, their family and friends — and that takes in virtually all of us and even various other creatures, minus of course the virus). But there is an exception to my err-on-the-side-of-caution civility, as even though in these days of being much more accommodating then ever before and being selfless and helping whomever and however, and trying to be compassionate to virtually everyone. Who gets treatment from HudsonWiNightlife that is a tad bit harsher than others? That segment of bureaucrats and others in power who dropped the ball and let this thing get far worse than it had to. Sometimes biting satire, with well chosen words, is the best teacher, but it also is vital for the writer to be not just a critic, that is easy, but suggest alternatives. Whew, got all that analysis of my methodology behind us.

I will follow soon with a quite detailed listing of the 15 or more main how-we-deal-with-the-virus, important categories that I will hit on, at length, in the following weeks. The metro dailies can dwell on only about half of those and miss almost all of the flavor that can be the result of hanging out here and its bars and-know-it-all bartenders who invariably can be the best sources to be your ears on the street, especially if you don’t have the No Doze, time or ability and describe and analyze how they take different views on which stories to choose among the dozen or more local possibilities each day, and you might be surprised about what I found and how it can be framed as part of the explanation if you trek like this intrepid reporter and make the trip (through bleary eyes but it never gets old, and like the next produce stays fresh, after some Joe) to Kwik Trip every day at 3 a.m., just like Motley Crue, and gain the insight to make comparisons by having worked as a colleague with both of them. These primers likely will be tacked on the bottom of this post, if not elsewhere in the first three departments listed across the top of screen, along with tips on how to use and quickly locate them and become a dictionary on more than music for the reader, take that Jeff Loven and your loud guitar since I won’t see you for a while to tell you in person or via the microphone when I grab it so your hands are freed up to focus on its frets. But hey, hey, hey, viewer might be the proper term to use now that were in a new millennium and a this PC age, and not my old PC I’m banging on, aided and abetted by a virus that could lay waste to our race and its lingo and its yes its very soul, to paraphrase Mick Jagger and his very wisdom that I’ll now co-opt decades from the summer of love, as time is not on our side and marches on and waits for no man, and unfortunately that includes the best of rock icons, before we die and/or fade away or possibly see or hear an end to our civilization in a new millennium and time, as both may soon be gone. Lord could we use Mick and his lyrics and lessons for life right now. Wanna bolt London — is it safer to carry on as a wayward son and forego the now rotting Big Apple, like people do the Warehouse District and head east for the border to Hudson, and keep truckin’ here to hit the the studio? Time will tell, we hope. Until later. Joe and his blog.

This long, long post, expanded on by the hour, of all the great things to do still today right here and now, and only right now, and I originally thought we had much more of a window than that and it shut hard on St. Patrick’s Day afternoon, just when we thought we were besting even The Cities in most things Irish, and revelry events were just getting going and making fodder for the start of several pages of posts that would ASAP in detail virtually everything to do, see, eat, drink and hear, and all the different  forms of greenery and quirky doings that decorate the unique holiday. When done just a wee bit from now, it will be by far the most comprehensive report and events guide in the guise of all things Irish in any way, anywhere, anyhow, in the whole region, even Irish enclaves itself, I gloated on Monday. There also will be, shortly,  a detailed account of the many closings and the varied effects they are having right away, on parades all over the area and otherwise, with a by-the-hour, play-by-play rundown of how the decisions played out and were finalized within hours of each other as each waited to see what the other was doing, for the three city parades that are all within 20 miles of Hudson, which oddly enough even though is bigger than the rest by thousands of people has nothing of this type, but hey as I’ve said, quirky in a charming way is the nature of most things Irish. But this slamming of a door on Erin’s Irish and many others was only the start, There was much more woe to come and quickly. I wrote shortly beforehand that you get the picture, and if I listed it all you’d see that this is the only place you find such varied and detailed content in my manner and writing style that advertisers say is all my own. I guess it was I was the one who didn’t have the picture soon to be even more right in front of me in focus, — SO I HAD TO SPEND HOURS LATE ON MY HOLIDAY AND REDACT AND REVISE AND REPLACE AND MOVE SENTENCES AND PUT IN A BOATLOAD OF TENSE CLARIFICATIONS, BUT THAT’S OK AND MAYBE EVEN MADE THE WHOLE THING BETTER. — Was I focusing too much on all the gold I would get from all the ad support, which shortly down the road to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow would morph into even more readership than already gained by this package, and they surely would keep piggy-backing with luctativeness, (is that a word or even that used in banker-speak?), enough to please even a hog farmer (and that’s a tough sell, especially when it come to farmers, considering these types of concerns they have faced for a long time). After all, why do you think they take out ads, which they value enough to pay for them rather then expecting freebies, enough not only to tell what about what they doing and what makes them different then the other guy,  but log on once in a while to read just for their own entertainment and you can be sure they’ll be online today. That’s readership. And it and the ad money from it is still pretty darn good, as a fairy princess.

One last thing, and this is vital to complete your holiday. which has crucial and significant changes cropping up almost by the minute, especially from the realm of politicians rather than royalty as you might find in the parades, so I ask you — in fact plead with you for both our purposes — to tune in once in a while quite late to get updates and any more cancellations, done on a dime, for a bit of cool flavor from earlier in the day, I wrote at midday. Also readers will get a report of the changes or endings of events along with their rationale and how they will invariably effect people’s plans, and if any are made last minute, I added, as hey, you’ll read it first here — and if after diving too deep into the copy, you find my writing style gets too cumbersome, and I understand that view, take a break. Get out a green beer to gulp, or sip, as here I go again, then come back and log in again, as I will not stop plugging in new happenings, as sometimes the late things are better, and put the final of many updates to bed until after the witching hour, which after all is kinda an Irish thing. Enough. Enjoy both these posts and the parties they tell about, and most of all thanks much for reading, even if it takes some fighting through. Blogger Joe Winter).    .

<Shoop, here it finally is on the events, needed to be done before the cows come home, even in Irish time zones>

Johnnies Bar in River Falls is truly Irish, maybe more than most any, as we presume is everyone there, both staff and patrons, and it will show all day today, or most. The inexpensive beer not only on this holiday but every day is priced far beyond the green variety, and can beat almost everything in River Falls and indeed everything elsewhere around in any cities of size in the region. Things get underway shortly before noon with a veritable Irish band, and there was to be more music that evening with a country group, music of different styles but often similar tone and instruments played, but originating in two different continents, and even with that both seem to sound somewhat like folk, as the orientation of all these musical orchestrations have roots that started in earlier years. Ask your grandma, and speaking of early, you might want to get to Johnnie’s before the big rush might hit even more than usual (see why in the next sentence or two) and get a late or extended noon-hour meal, all the food of this day is available later too, of great grub in the style of small pubs that can still crank out exceptional often down-home food at lower prices then any fancy restaurant in any area.
But like so many of the events all through the day they start early and go late, or in some cases or so we thought, especially in hard-hit RF, so yourself hit as many as you can when you get your Irish up, and don’t dally. Get on over. As is more the case now, the sooner you start the more you can squeeze in, but you can’t wait until much into the evening, although in many bars the off-sale hours have been extended up to a few hours. The other options that may prove to be ongoing, and dominate at least for a while, such as pick and delivery, are detailed in another post that will be current not long from now when published on these pages. With it, as will be justified, is this sage advice: There is always tomorrow to indulge in your Irish-ish entrees of interest. And especially for food, it might be best to put off your celebration dinner until Wednesday, when all the late-arriving, virus-wrought ruckus seen yesterday that brought Rock crashing down locally before bands could get off their tour buses — as this was the day the music died — fully settles in. To shift to other ways to get the food to consumer’s plates, and some don’t really have much of it they can find a use for unless donating it to charitable groups such as those that run food pantries everyone thought would deplete fast, bar and grill staff and management and patrons need to adjust to the major changes that caught them off-guard and without a backup plan, as the virus slammed Minnesota first and still foremost, so some eateries quickly started prepping for this, but a few others eastward didn’t quite find themselves ready to pivot on a dime to a large scale, whole-hog system based on only delivery taking over, they just had to shut even that down until Wednesday. But don’t expect most of them to get going early, and also those who don’t open until near noon might push that back and hour or two, logic would dictate, to buy more time to put in place newer and heavily tweaked dinner distribution plans. To conclude, there are still some places where you can eat something tasty and may have many menu choices — and we give a partial list of their names, hey these are not small towns if serving things with more “proof” than food, most all are more grill than bar, and new conditions created concerning consumption of food items, and condiments are a key cause of concern — so we at HudsonWiNightlife will spill the beans on whatever we know, including the few spots where you can get drinks too, likely to be largely on the light side, such as beer that you can bet your hops on will not be poured from taps, and mixed drinks in glasses you touch to your lips, and put back for rinse, are a definite no-no.  But people have been asked to in their stay home long before, and those is certain risk groups are especially advised to do this, and there are not many places to go anyway, so why not try your hand at cooking up some of the quality grub of the holiday yourself on Wednesday, and try to get some of the inexpensive Erin-ish eats sold to make Irish recipes that come in all the forms and colors of the rainbow, so to speak, at all grocery stores around Hudson and virtually all in River Falls as they are expected to stay open for obvious reasons to provide food and supplement eateries — although you’d surmise patrons are expected to only go when they need to, get as much as is practical in one trip, and even then not stay long — but the Super Savior Stores might not be legislatively able to chip in and help fill the need. There are two that are part of a regional chain that are now rolling out an elaborate, thorough, all-encompassing delivery program by truck in both their cities, something you might only expect to see in The Cities per se.  There are also some time-honored recipes with prior-century art adorning the walls at a few grill and bars, such as the upscale Mallory’s restaurant with rooftop patio, ready for your reference. If these are open.

ALL THE IRISH FOOD, for the most part, is still being sold at those big immediate- area grocery stores and an unknown number of the smaller mom and pop shops to varying degrees of size, more fit to be eaten than some in the Old Country, and is available to be purchased, taken home, prepared and eaten, and the supermarkets that have it discounted, and they are detailed under their own sub-heading further down in this post.

Lord knows the St. Paulites know most of this as it concerns their end, and with every bar and grill in that town, and indeed the rest of Minnesota and beyond, ordered to be shut down because of virus concerns at 5 p.m. pronto, you can bet that all those hoards of people will stream on over to this and other places that surround it, but they will have to look around and do their research to find the relatively few that remain open, and especially when you head back south that’s practically nothing, as that gives mud ducks plenty of time to get here on a wide but crowded freeway. But don’t drink too much as is the typical style of St. Paul on St. Pat’s Day — stick to only a wee, wee bit — as the cops will be out in force on places like I-94 in light of the weekend announcement of closures, which put a damper on Sunday and maybe prompted having an extra beer or two (green in advance?) to drown their sorrows, but hopefully only briefly, or go to church if they are not shutting down services due to dispensations, but don’t stay long. They’ll feel much better toasting St. Patrick’s Day on its arrival, even if the time limit tainted like water that’s gone a wee bit stale (pre-virus). So they’ll get on going well before Bloody Mary time to guzzle as much as they can, as best they can, and as fast as they can. That could keep people away in Minnesota bars come the mid-afternoon, if in a slightly paradoxical way quaff a few beers bring them a sense of clarity and they are no longer green about the dangers and might bolt early, and if they can avoid that very real fear and lead in the way to the bar door and cause more crowding that could increase yet again and spill even bigger onto the sidewalks — have you ever seen even spacious bars like Alary’s packed so tight shoulder-to-shoulder virtually all day that you can’t squeeze in their hallowed doors? — but I don’t know how you cure this dichotomy in this day of social distancing in bars, and even moreo there then is typical. But the cops know all this too, and as people rush to the border in possibly even bigger numbers then usual, whether it be late or even later, (I guess I’ll redact or even retract that original forecast), St. Paulites and other nearby Minnesotans can be thankful for an eastern option and move on the Wisconsin. Hey take the crowding late to the Badger State, we appreciate your money and will accept anyone’s and even their occasional upped Irish, but please do remember to put on extra deodorant early in the day, and yes cologne might help as this is big day and, hey, its OK if you need to borrow a bit of the spray from your wife, girlfriend, mistress or sister — because you know how well people remember what they forgot in the morning and try to make up for it later after pounding a few beers, and then might even digress, like I just did here, to the person on the next bar stool. But don’t do that, travel to places likes Johnnie’s, in River Falls, and also such spots in Hudson, Somerset, New Richmond, Roberts and even extend the road trip a bit more to Hammond, to see what you can find. But back in the Gopher State, you see what can happen when potent Irish whiskey gets involved, not just Wisconsin beer, but crossing the St. Croix River, at the Stillwater Crossing or Hudson, which is far enough south to get murkier, can also yield a much similar consistency than the water that still flows, if just a bit more slowly, in brewing their weaker 3/2 for the odd more weak stomached of Erin? Here’s the proof …

I knew the closing of all restaurants and bars such other places in Minnesota was on, announced by its governor just two days ago amidst a flurry of political attempts to contain virus by executive order, but when combing through the details it was clear it would already take effect on St. Patrick’s Day itself, the busiest bar day of all. But in addition, I just caught wind of the potent proviso the ban would begin at 5 p.m. with the strictness seen at bar time. But it is 5 O’Clock somewhere for Happy Hour, like in certain night spots over here in Wisconsin. By contrast, when we’re travelling the other direction and heading due west like many of us had planned, to get our corned beef and cabbage or cool but tart Irish drinks, and read this right away, you have to rush over there will all the haste of a Twin Citian going the other direction to get our Sunday off-sale. and choose a place on this end of that foreign land. And on the way back make continued haste and head to New Richmond and take in the end of the Irish performance by Hare’s Ear at Mc Cabe’s Shamrock Club, on the near east side, and also get your St. Pat’s button for cheap entry to all the events still standing. The band at that point boards a very intimate stage as it concerns the crowd of lovers of Irish, folk and covers, as even the virus can’t keep this kind of music in a small setting down, starting late afternoon. After all, they are much more entertaining then a reverse name of Ear Hairs would be, and furthermore those hair pieces make it harder to hear, and some in the crowd are old folk and the tunes they are listening to are not that loud anyway — so I guess gotta be a hair band. Just seeing fax on button light up, so rest assured this reviewer will review the bio just coming in quickly, then add some additional info on the band’s direct connection to the McCabe family.

We a bit ago invoked the timeline marker Its Got To Be 5 O’Clock Somewhere, and that’s when people start gathering to get a beer or two before those who crawl in a bit later to the Kozy Korner Pizzeria and Pub, (I tweaked the name a bit just for today), in North Hudson to trek a full mile or two on the notorious and long-running St. Patrick’s Day North Hudson Pub Crawl, a name that when made to crawl off the tongue is almost as exhausting as walking when tipsy. The march will take them to six different bars up and down across the village, at each stop doing what comes naturally to people here in this enclave almost as old as the Old Country, OK that’s an exaggeration worthy of being part of an Irish tale. In that vein, you could also say this from the bartenders, that this event is has as  little of a chance off being cancelled as a leprechaun is tall, unlike all those such crawls in St. Paul, and even the band at McCabe’s Shamrock Club, although you know as they say, Ear Hairs last forever, or maybe they don’t  as I got that name backwards again. You don’t say. Well now I do, as the elf has grown rapidly toward the wee hours of the day. to prove those Kozy bartenders were way wrong around suppertime, sending them home quite early, as well as the crawl’s drinkers all.

Hudson Tap in downtown Hudson is fairly new, but its format has been honed to a tee by those in the industry who have set it up and run it, because they have experience that goes back years. Uhm, just one thing — they have all kinds of great and varied stuff, volumes of it, and the St. Pat’s Day specials add to that, and they have been running since the weekend, but wait, they took down the sign that listed all the things a day or two ago. Can these bar people see ahead into time? To fill that gap now that it is or was needed, they offer things you don’t often find that include $5 cards yielding credits to play their games that you can win if you’re lucky and get there early and I guess it turned out that was needed, and also holiday drinks that you don’t always find. Some bar comfort food, too, if you lose at gaming, or from just getting the virus and fade fast to find your grip on the console’s gun handle and even on reality loosening, and even worse if Your Favorite Bar is closing hours early. Best to leave faster then the Pinball Wizard’s fingers so you don’t infect anyone since you arrived — but the zombies roaming the screen you just shot.

Paddy Ryan’s in the town of North Hudson is more recent but has always allowed itself to remain traditional Irish though open to the new, thus their signature corned beef and cabbage, thin-sliced but still with body, more tender and almost melting in your mouth then the vast majority, is prized by many. So what can you expect on St. Patrick’s Day for that type of entree that makes it go beyond the holiday and still be available, but in a tweaked manner of the offering on Tuesday, which makes for ad campaign material many a PR man would appreciate, but the format of the food plate is basic enough so you can nod your head knowing the idea is carried out so creatively, and not so fancy to require a bunch suits several meetings to come up with. So it could be the ultimate Irish food form of a combo, or trio? Anyway, the CBC teams up with a succulent full fillet of fish that’s a local favorite, and a side dish befitting the Irish. That’s a creative mix of food that’s  all- entree-oriented, and the Big Three Bonanza is something you just don’t see, so we will have to see if Paddy Ryan’s menu brings it back, or tweaks it to yet another format. But to be sure, all three  delicacies listed are certainly available separately every day, and this way can be ordered with a yet different side dish of even more Irish fare, of which there are many that vary, to make it possible to use the term Four Horseman, if I can say so, and I do. Even they would be satisfied by the the cool and also hot mixture of a dish that has many different shapes, colors and sizes among its ingredients, as shown on one of their ads.

<You can still have all you can eat of great Irish dishes, but now its best to buy it at stores such as these, then bake it yourself, and later scout harder for some liquor too, but it  will>

First, what we found quite late when compiling the listings gleaned while making the rounds to skim signs that enable inclusiveness and as much detailed as possible, and this will be updated almost each hour, scoured quickly to add more data as businesses with different niches within the food and beverage industry open up shop at times that range throughout the morning or more, as there is a need to supplement what could not be found out on short notice late last night, and I will try to get it up as soon as I can, as fast as some of the applicable delivery services of stores who do bought food, my Local Heroes, (more on that running joke some other time, invented by one of the main managers at San Pedro on Main Street, not the Caribbean, which also shuttered quite early on Tuesday night, who I have known since he was an eighth grader when he began bunking at our house for a several-year period and I must say that under partially Irish upbringing he blossomed, although he would probably use a more manly term. So couldn’t get rid of him, and now he’s showing me up —  bloggers don’t get any respect, maybe because of long rants like this and since I still such trivia to the boot now, such tricks are for kids).  I will try to view of the markets that have the best prices for you and your wallet on the best post-St. Patrick’s Day-food, mostly in Hudson and also touching on River Falls mostly, and New Richmond:

— Family Fresh Market in both RF and NR is unveiling an extensive grocery delivery program at just the time most needed, with a block of substantial membership time to be low-priced for each period (annually that is) of usage and billed at just under $50. A reasonable separate fee is charged for each delivery/miles, and the truck will only take the goods so far, that being the case in New Richmond too. Much bigger Hudson has lost out, way too far away from both cities, sitting in the middle between them and also sliding a wee way westward, and has no comparable in-house service from a grocer — except maybe its very own Jimmy Johns and a few other such fast-food-ish faves that followed their lead in mastering the business of delivering more than pronto — but to call them real grocers is quite a stretch. Their Hudson store is somewhat centrally located in this much bigger and also a quite sprawling city, but has hours far too short to appease any Night Owl — as such a trek would take too much time to get there anyway in order to meet stringent delivery timetables, especially for the actual grocers that are the only other option. To wit: The service they provide gets food you order to the front door fast, almost in real time and fully freaky fast? But this is not Jimmy Johns, as in the fantasy realm its drivers go knocking on the front door before the delivery-request call is even made, but might as well have been. The Jimmy Johns in River Falls is just across the main drag from Family Fresh, and there could quickly become a healthy and spirited battle for your burger buck, and all the other favorite foods for which you are willing to pay, Irish thus included and other greenish options are whole bins of dozens of odd-looking and exotic fruits, most but not all from the tropics, and of all colors, shapes and sizes, just for a change of pace in taste, which I found to be different and delicious based on the few I tried to not only eat but pronounce. A point: Hey, they have to them to your fridge quickly to remain fresh, using delivery that needs to fast and not far and nearly furious as they are you know mostly tropical in nature, but not too fast that pieces of the at times narly fruit that can be almost charming misshapen, and flip out of the back when there’s hole in the road or speed bump that needs to be traveled to get to places like Buffalo Wild Wings, its loading dock or even just the parking lot, and cause the cops to raise up an eyebrow or two, and just as important the food is trashed and we cannot waste it like we have almost always done. Sound like a few far-fetched scenarios from a sci- fi  studio that places more value that’s over-bloated as a fish dead from the virus, truly as health risk, in studiousness over packing action– did I say that about my prose? — but a failure to change practices just might mean too few Classic Buffalo Wings available to fashion many of their two-fers each Tuesday, and on the one just past, that was offered up again, this time as a spicy alternative to mild corned beef, and same game plan was used to pull of another Taco Tuesday, and in the latter case they got the bulk of their time actually put in, but not at BWW, which normally goes to midnight, but in this case again it was indeed the witching hour, a term that again has partial Irish Old Country origin, at least in part due the various forms of pagan presence that were there in the past. Got the keep the law even in a Virus World, and maybe be even more adamant about it then.

But back to business on the fate of these few stores, this competition could bring you even more bang for your buck and in the long run benefit, too, the very-similar markets that used to just bag them for you can now simply haul them all your way by placing the load in their back seat or such area. Again the point of this shoot from the hip analysis and that’s all it is, being for likely much more than a year or so this New Normal will stretch out the systems and methods used by all grocers not just the ones named above, as an example of how we get our food, all of it, from the shelf to our home appliances so they can take over the job of managing freshness, all in the steps calculated to effectively and efficiently keep the virus at bay, while keeping the crispness that we semi-spoiled clan of Americans demand and have come accustomed to over time, in indeed virtually everything perishable from fresh fruit and vegetables to fresh ground beef and look like they could have been ravaged by the killer virus like can be done by one of those well noted Midwest tornados, no mulligans. Cannibal sandwiches may, literally fly in Wisconsin, hey the beef was raised here and in most cases “local” is a key to intelligently using things like proximity to win the freshness war, and smart distribution that does not involve trekking food that could be at risk over multiple state lines or God Forbid, and not the now aptly-named-it-would-seem death metal group, a foreign border. This is far more important then your golf score and what’s on that green.

Winning the Battle of the Bug when it comes to keeping it from tainting our food will require all the creativity we are known for here in this country, and around these parts more than most other places, much like the mental acuity that will be needed to develop a vaccine, and both will need money thrown at them, one more than than other. Closer to the start of the food chain on the farm fields will be just as crucial a key, and with Wisconsin and Minnesota’s farmers, researchers, ag agents and experts, even the young farmhands learning ropes concerning all different forms of the trade at UW-River Falls, yes the Falcons, as they’ve even rivaled the Badgers in that kind of thing and competition can breed much success in many more worlds then sports, and maybe having a minor there in how to more quickly and efficiently develop and produce all the virus test kits that are needed. Got milk, you might not without farmers in our two states, and now their responsibilities double down, as you can imagine the microbe-related mess the could result today from a really dirty barn, and if it was drunken by people who got it from America’s Dairyland? That could shut down a village the size of Somerset or Roberts, and conversely, all the farms in St. Croix County, big and even small, fully rural or bordering on bigger Hudson where I’m guessing almost half of the population base in the county is found,  and that’s people in big houses, not cows in barns that are getting better and more sanitary, are all keys to feeding the state, county and even the world that now even more is becoming as one, as every bit of food even if its just a few pounds that would be lost now its made vital by the virus, and every scrap and crumb is valuable.

Way to the east, in Hudson, north on the I-94 frontage road, is a store that methinks considering its focus on all things related to health and fitness and wellness and indeed the environment, maybe should float a storefront a mile further east onto the St. Croix River, when it was in its cleaner days due to the backing at a Major League-level, befitting-Twins-not-Brewers, hard-to-get and therefore prized declaration of National Wild and Scenic River, on the support of a lawmaker from the Gopher State, not the Badger State. Now I will now stop rambling like a stir-crazy Mountain Man, and define my point. That clean water grows great produce and on both ends of this huge planet and having largely taken care of its environment much better than us are the Irish, who seem to be Lucky about at least that facet of their life, to a degree by any means and maybe it is a God-given gift to these very religious to people and their quite matriarchal society to be nurturing of all things including the land and the waters that flow through it. Or what do I know? I do know, or again at least strongly suspect, that this a shared value shared with the stewards of the Old Country and its nature, and the people who manage and staff Fresh at Fresh and Natural Foods, again in Plaza 94, who appear to be using all these facts, and/or opinions, to include in their inventory four or five quite exotic Irish food varieties, the exact number depending on how you define exotic, that cut across many of the major food groups.

The free medical clinic of Pierce and St. Croix Counties might best be known for serving people of quite limited financial means in western Wisconsin — pardon me but you might think about the Irish in the potato famine of older days that afflicted people — but once a year the camaraderie of its laid back staff, which has busy streaks but not always, extends to one of their patrons who is truly Irish to the core.
Jean Conant dons her green garb, clothing, elongated pointy and thin shoes, bright hat and scores of beads and shamrock jewelry and has a tradition with them of singing the best of Irish tunes, much to the pleasure behind the oval front counter of the dozen or more staff, who enjoy service every Tuesday evening run at the Vibrant Health Clinic at River Falls Hospital, but in this case song even more — aided by the fact that St. Patrick’s Day is on a Tuesday; you knew that already.”We would just love it when she would sing for us each year,” several of them said as one. That is why she has been asked to get on all of her nearly single-purpose whole closet full of green, not just the parts most convenient for driving from North Hudson to River Falls like in past years, and regaling them completedly this year. For past costume contests where almost always kicks butt like any good Irishman (or Irish women in this case) would do in a spirited fight like this. And in much the same costume with even more contest although tweaked to become a Halloween witch, she made it a cardinal rule from which she would not budge not to stay in costume that includes gobs of makeup, or put them on for more than one night for each day of what can be an extended holiday weekend, plus one more time around if Halloween falls during the week. Be she will make an exception for the annual RF revelry and stay much longer in costume and in character which includes being in near-constant conversation, which can take fairly exhausting mental effort. Add to the hours the fact that the clinic opens right on the tick of the clock right after 4 p.m. and a lot of the other cool stuff on this particular day goes on until bartime. That will be more than 10 hours, not counting all the hours to get dressed, when all that green paint goes on and can cake and be a wee bit uncomfortable long before she jumps in our old Ford Focus. In another form of focus on what’s truly important and mirthful and only comes once a year and make it count — the workday can most every day and maybe, just maybe, it can wait just a bit — Conant’s clan at the front desk do not get their to be on deck until a bit later, although on this day they might go sooner and meet her at the door when it opens. And the intake staff in that far back door that’s the only one used that early, would certaintly find they getup a hoot also, and that might prompt the ditties to kick in. Not the Celtic women, but quite good, all said.
One of the most favorite of the fans is a nursing volunteer who also is a longtime teacher, who had to retire, so to speak, because of a family situation. She always would do her imitation of a jig, by dancing and shifting back and forth, as the songs played out, and added that she misses these times greatly now that she is not there every Tuesday, but mostly on the one closest to St. Patrick’s Day. Others of the group say that the lively and upbeat style of these classic ditties, by contrast to the somber tones you might expect, is what they enjoy the most, and why she has been extended a chance to do the full performance, in the fullest of garb, this year.
It might be a be a wee bit hard in 2020, though, because her big green pointed shoes, a foot long and much more in girth than her normal size eights, have been broken while in storage the other 364 days — or should we say a full, sort of, 365 this time around due to leap year. That was the full costume that captured a win in a contest a couple of years ago, when she crossed the St. Croix River into Minnesota to hit the American Legion hall in Bayport. The band, it should be noted, was was a full six-some ensemble of all women that included some songs from those Celtic women that have been favorites.
Conant also applied some green face paint a couple of times in Hudson to gain wins in costumes there that were tweaked to show her as an old hag witch, this time for Halloween, at both Dick’s Bar and the Smilin’ Moose, on different years and only a leprachauns sprint away, or one might say two blocks. These got her a total of $200, and that will supply a few rounds of Jameson. People said they liked her as this character in large part because her missing tooth that gleemed in its absense, making for a wry smile none the less.
The tunes lean more to the American-Irish. One of the group’s favorites might not be among the most well known, except to Irish through the through.
Here goes, to the style the truly Irish name, Eileen Augg. “Oh fiddle de diddle dee, eats and pain me quick or I be gone, fiddle de diddle dee, cats and mini me, I’m a leprechaun. When I was a wee lad, about 17, people need to say, and they would always sing …”
The crew got a warmup on a night right before press time for an Irish magazine, for which I write articles that are much like this, as they were not at their stations yet, so for Conant and I though a bit early despite the time I pushed it to meet deadline and could have backed things up quite a bit, it was over to the receptionists, who greeted her with broad smiles. Then it was back to the counter, and the first one their was Lee, who is probably the most over-the-top in her liking of the interaction. “Gee there were 16 people who signed up,” Conant said, to which her friend said “how did you know that befofe I did?” And so it goes between them. And if the shoes cannot be seen, she said, there is always a counter between them anyway. It had been 11 years since the severe electric shock that she had that put her in the situation of coming here, Conant noted, to which Lee said, “has it been that long? We’re all still here.”
Conant added that she to the nextdoor Allina Clinic, for a separate matter, a frostbitten finger, which she might have been playing up a bit like an Irishman telling a tale. Or did see get this on a frosty Irish night? Anyway, it was agreed, adding to the tale that you’ve got to be an MVP to need two clinics on the same wee night.
But it was the performance at the Smilin’ Moose last Halloween, again, like a tweaked leprachaun, that really stole the show, which gives away a total of almost $1,000. Conant, who gave out allegedly poison apples to all comers, was attracting a gentlemen crowd even though she is is disabled and uses a walker, on which she was seated when coyly giving out the fruit. Then, when she was selected as a finalist, to get on stage that was three feet high, a problem presented itself.
With the help of as couple of not so wee lads, Conant was able to take her place on the stage, much to the applause given that was by far the most of the night for any contestant.

After a bit, she upstaged even the best of the beauties. Much like the proverbial Eve, another of the contest winners, reprising an earlier victory, a Medusa all clad in gold like the pot at the end of the rainbow, clapped even moreso for the one in green.
But to the point of the coming St. Patrick’s Day, will all was aware in on a Tuesday, Conant although prized was told not to show until after the busy first half-hour the clinic is open, a tough task for an eager Irishman. So maybe first a Guinness…? All the better to free up time for songs of Erin, so maybe come and listen?