The Case Of The Flyaway File

A few days ago I came across an envelope which was buried beneath a short stack of papers in our den.  I had used the envelope to stash credit card receipts until I received an actual monthly statement from the card issuer showing those charges.  My practice was to make sure the dollar amounts on the statement matched my receipts.  Then I would shred the receipts.  For some reason, I never shredded a particular receipt which now remained in the envelope.

The receipt in question is in the amount of $37.97 from the 212 Motel in Olivia, Minnesota.  The fading yellow paper bears the date July 28, 2006, exactly twelve years ago today.  I may not be able to remember what I ate for lunch yesterday, but I vividly recall the details of that evening.  It is a story I have never told anyone -- and I mean anyone -- but to mark the occasion of this twelfth anniversary, I am posting it today.

****

July 28, 2006 fell on a Friday.  Momma Cuandito was spending the entire week at our Northwoods cabin, while I stayed home to toil at my job at Wells Fargo, drafting loan agreements, promissory notes, mortgages, subordination agreements, manure easements and other exciting documents.  Momma Cuan had asked me to switch cars before she left, because my Lap Of Luxury, a 2005 Toyota Corolla, had more trunk space than her Mellow Yellow, a 2004 Volkswagon bug convertible.  She needed the extra room to haul some odds and ends, most certainly including several bottles of wine, to the cabin.

I usually use the time Momma Cuan is away to attend movies and sometimes concerts which I know she would not enjoy.  For example, my favorite genre of music is classic rock, which would not be on her top five list.  Such an opportunity presented itself that Friday night at Jackpot Junction, a casino in Morton, Minnesota with a fairly big outdoor arena.  The headliners were REO Speedwagon and Styx, two Illinois bands which gained national fame and are among my favorites in the geezer rock category.  Opening for them was Mickey Thomas who at that time was a solo artist but who had gained fame as the voice of several well known bands such as Jefferson Starship and Elvin Bishop.  (If you listen to oldies radio stations, you have undoubtedly heard Fooled Around And Fell In Love several dozen times.  Although the credited artist is Elvin Bishop, the lead vocals are by Mickey who played in Elvin's band when that # 3 hit was recorded in 1975.)

Buying a single ticket for the concert was no problem, but the asking price for the cheapest room at the casino's hotel was over $125.  In those days I would have opted to drive back to Minneapolis after the show rather than spend that kind of money on a room.  But there was a better alternative.  A mere sixteen miles north of Morton was the little burg of Olivia, home of the 212 Motel with rates less than one-third of the casino's.  Thus, my plan was hatched: attend the show, then make the twenty minute drive to the 212.

I looked forward to the concert experience all week.  I ducked out of work at noon that Friday, which in itself was something to relish.  I figured I'd drive all the way to southwestern Minnesota with the top down on Momma Cuan's bug, but I only made it to Eden Prairie when I eighty-sixed that notion.  It was too windy, and the skies looked threatening.  I settled for driving the remaining route with the top up, listening to Styx and REO CDs with the volume turned up to "11."  (Thank you for the thought, Rob Reiner!)  By the time I got to Jackpot Junction, roughly one hundred miles from home, I was totally pumped for the show.

Mickey Thomas was one of the best concert openers I have ever seen, not just an undercard filler but a bona fide rocker whose voice I'd put up against anybody's.  My faves, besides the aforementioned Elvin Bishop song, were Sara and Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, two Starship songs with Thomas as lead vocalist, both having hit # 1 on the Billboard chart in the mid-eighties.

Styx and REO alternated top billing on their joint national tour.  For the Jackpot Junction gig it was REO's turn to close.  Both bands have been around since the seventies, and claim repertoires which enable them each to play their own songs over ninety minutes without once having to resort to a cover or a song the fans had never heard before.  For the record, Styx has released sixteen singles which have cracked the Billboard Top 40; for REO, the number is thirteen.  REO's masterpiece album released in 1980, High Infidelity, is one of the most commercially successful LPs in the history of rock, with virtually every song, not just those released as singles, getting substantial radio air play.

Neither of the headliners disappointed that evening.  They gave everything they had for the Minnesota fans, even though they had probably grown tired of playing mostly the same songs at every show from year to year.  The only gripe I have, attributable to both bands, is that they are posers.  Think of every rock concert cliche, and those guys are guilty of all of them.  Windmill guitar strumming, a la Pete Townshend; jumping on top of an amp to get a silhouette in the spotlight; racing across the stage from side to side for no apparent reason; asking the fans to fill in with vocals on a chorus or two.  Still, I forgave them.  It's their music that mattered most, and these guys rocked the house.

What would a concert be without a brew or two to enjoy with the rest of the audience?  I was proud of myself for abstaining during Thomas' set, but made sure I had a pint for each of the following two.  The skies had cleared and the outdoor air was warm, perfect beer drinking weather.  At one point I wished I'd been extravagant enough to stay at the casino hotel; I could have pounded down a couple more cold ones and walked to my room instead of driving to Olivia. 

When the concert ended around 11:00 there was the expected log jam of hundreds of cars all trying to leave via the sole exit driveway.  Either the audience had been comprised of a lot of locals, or else there were plenty of cheapskates like me who were unwilling to pay the casino's exorbitant hotel rates.  I made the executive decision to drive to Olivia with the top down.  The weather wasn't bad, and I wanted to experience the bliss one gets from riding in an open convertible through the countryside on a starlit summer night.  I owed it to myself, especially after aborting my open air westward drive earlier in the day.  What good was it to have a convertible at your disposal and not put the roof down?  It would only be for sixteen miles.  What could possibly go wrong?

I found out the answer to that question within seconds after leaving the casino grounds and turning north onto U.S. Highway 71.  Although I had checked my bag at the 212 on my way down to Morton, I had left a small manilla file filled with papers in the back seat of the bug.  I had purposely put the file there so that I could look over its contents -- a combination of work-related documents and a few newspaper articles -- during an anticipated coffee break on my way home Saturday morning.  But being unaccustomed to driving a convertible, I failed to take into account that the file and its contents would blow around once I gathered speed on the highway.

I wasn't more than fifty yards beyond the Jackpot Junction exit when the file and papers did, in fact, start blowing all over.  I thought for sure they would escape the car, which at that moment was probably traveling only twenty miles an hour.  I foolishly tried to gather the papers by reaching back with my right hand while simultaneously steering with my left.  The first result was a swerve or two.  The second result was a red flashing light in my rear view mirror.  The Renville County Sheriff was lying in the weeds.

When you think about it, it makes sense.  What better place for the cops to set up shop for DWI suspects than at the exit of an outdoor venue which had just hosted a rock concert?  On most nights, it would be easy pickings or, if you prefer, low hanging fruit.

I immediately pulled over, then waited for what seemed forever for the fuzzy wuzzy -- thank you for the term, Detective Kojak -- to approach.  I had my drivers' license and proof of insurance ready to present.  He merely glanced at it, then asked me to step out of the car.  He took me to the space between my car and his, where an extremely bright flood light from the squad was pointing.

Kojak: Have you been drinking?

I had only a second or two to think about how I would answer, if in fact I decided to answer at all.  I had consumed only two pints, and I was confident that even having three would not have put me over the limit.  Nevertheless, I decided to lie.  "I had one beer," I replied.

He ordered me to stand on one foot and count to 30 by threes (three, six, nine, etc.).  Luckily I was wearing tennis shoes which afford much more balance than almost any other style of footwear.  I passed the test, no problem.  But wait... there was another part to the test.

Kojak: Now stand on the other foot and count backwards from 30 by threes (thirty, twenty-seven, twenty-four, etc.).  

I considered informing him that I taught eighth grade math for eight years, so he should really come up with something more challenging, maybe an algebraic equation.  That consideration was quickly abandoned.  No one else thinks my jokes are funny.  Why should he?  I did as told.

Then he gave me a breathalyzer test which involved blowing into some kind of apparatus which he took back into his car while I stood there in the flood light. Meanwhile, dozens of cars were exiting Jackpot Junction and slowly passing me by.  Gawkers!  What if someone recognized me?  What an embarrassment!  What if the whole ordeal was being filmed by a dash cam and would appear later on Spike TV?  What if I registered over the limit?  "No way," I convinced myself.  Still, I thought about the five grand an acquaintance of mine had to pay a well known Minneapolis lawyer to defend him in a DWI case.  I felt guilty even though I was not.

A few minutes later he came out of his squad.  "You are under the limit, although I think you did have more than one beer."  How did he know?  I was pretty impressed with the accuracy of his equipment.  As he returned to his car he called over his shoulder, "Drive safely."

Before I got back behind the wheel I gathered up the wind blown papers, stuck them back in the manilla file and threw it all in the trunk.  Crawling along the highway at 35 mph, it took me at least a half hour to reach Olivia.

Discovering the faded yellow receipt from twelve years ago has brought back memories, both good and bad.  It has also caused me to add something to my To Do List:  I've got to put the Uber app on my phone.  

Quarterly Cinema Scan - Volume XXXII

I distinctly remember when the Civil War story Shenandoah came out in the summer of 1965, friends who witnessed it first held a unanimous opinion: it was one of the saddest movies they'd ever seen.  I eventually saw it a few months after its release, and as much as I wanted to be impervious to the sorrow, reminding myself that it was only a film, it was impossible not to share my friends' evaluation.  Fifty-three years later, a long enough period for me to have forgotten the plot details, I recently had an opportunity to see it for the second time.  I guess old age has not desensitized me because the story's grief factor still registers high.

Jimmy Stewart plays a widowed farmer, Charlie Anderson, who owns hundreds of acres of prime real estate in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  The year is 1863.  Virginia is a key Confederate state and the scene of several important battlegrounds.  The war is of no concern to Anderson for so long as neither side upsets his crop and cattle operation.  Although he opposes slavery he certainly is not going to aid the Union, nor is he willing to direct any of his five adult sons, all of whom live on the farm, to join the Grays.  Some of his fellow Virginians question his loyalty for failing to answer the cry of battle, but that does not faze Charlie in the least.  When a Confederate platoon attempts to commandeer some of the Andersons' horses, Charlie and his sons run them off their land.

The big household includes two women, daughter Jennie (Rosemary Forsyth), the best tracker and sharpshooter of the bunch, and daughter-in-law Ann (Katharine Ross), who becomes a new mother.  Forsyth and Ross make their film debuts here, with Ross going on to fame two years later as Elaine in the blockbuster, The Graduate.  Charlie also has a younger son whom everyone refers to as "the Boy."  He is played by sixteen year old Philip Alford, better known to audiences as Jem, the son of Atticus Finch in 1962's To Kill A Mockingbird.  Finally we have Sam (Doug McClure), the gentlemanly new husband of Jennie.  Unlike Jennie's five adult brothers, Sam is proud to serve his native state as an officer in the Confederate army.

I was very impressed by the cinematography of William Clothier, who convincingly makes western Oregon, the actual shooting locale, appear as Virginia.  On the flip side, the work of director Andrew McLaglen falls short.  There are too many scenes which are simply too hokey, and the last scene was pure Hollywood.  Shenandoah was the first and most commercially successful of four movies directed by McLaglen starring Stewart.  Although I generally like him as an actor, Jimmy's performance in this film employs the same mannerisms and voice inflections that he'd been using for the previous thirty years of his career.  I found it to be a little stale.  For a taste of what I'm writing about, check out a Youtube video of comedian Rich Little's impersonation of the famous leading man.    

Shenandoah addresses some issues which were germane not only to the Civil War but also to the United States' involvement in the Viet Nam War, which involvement was relatively new at the time of the film's release.  Some of those issues are the senseless human cost of war, the disparity in treatment of the wealthy and the poor, and the inexplicable reluctance of one army to surrender or at least bargain for a conditional peace once it becomes obvious there remains no hope of winning.

Viewers who can't resist predicting outcomes of certain stories will probably figure that not all of the huge Anderson clan are going to survive to the bitter end.  They would be right, although most remain unscathed until the final half-hour or so.

***

Here are the movies I watched on the small screen during the second quarter of 2018.  There's only one clunker out of the eight, so not a bad run.

1. The Big Chill (1983 dramedy; When one of their former college friends commits suicide, a group of five forty-somethings reunite to pay their respects, then spend the rest of the weekend hanging out as guests of married classmates Kevin Kline and Glenn Close, getting reacquainted, listening to the soundtrack of their lives, and wondering what went wrong.) A-

2. Breakthrough (1950 war drama; Lieutenant John Agar, with help from Sergeant Frank Lovejoy and under the command of Captain David Brian, leads an infantry platoon across France in World War II.)  B

3. George Harrison: Living In The Material World (2011 documentary which chronicles the life of the Beatles' lead guitarist, with a concentration on how Eastern culture influenced his song writing and musicianship.) B+

4. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942 drama; As a young man Joseph Cotton's marriage proposal is rejected by Dolores Costello, but after a twenty year gap their relationship rekindles over the objections of her son, Tim Holt.) C-

5. Molly's Game (2017 drama; Jessica Chastain is a sexy, shrewd and smart young woman who postpones law school so she can learn the craft of running extremely high stakes poker games, invitation only, for multi-millionaires on both coasts.) A-

6. Platoon (1986 war drama; Charlie Sheen is a private who dropped out of college and volunteered for combat, now assigned to a platoon in Viet Nam with internal conflicting allegiances between two sergeants, Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe.)  A-

7. Shenandoah (1965 war drama; Jimmy Stewart, a Virginia farmer, wants no part of the Civil War until it directly affects his large family.) B+

8. Two For The Road (1967 comedy; Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn have a relationship which, over a dozen years, does not have the same pizzaz as when they were crossing France as young lovers on an extended road trip.)  C+  

Kernels In The Cornfields

Would you consider driving over 550 miles round trip to see a minor league baseball game?  I did it a couple of years ago, and I liked it so much I did it again late last month.  The lowest level of minor league ball, other than the rookie leagues, is Class A.  The Minnesota Twins franchise owns two minor league teams which play at the Class A (usually called "single A") level, the Fort Myers Miracle and the Cedar Rapids Kernels.  Cedar Rapids, the second largest city in Iowa, is an easy drive, a shade over four hours from Minneapolis.  The Kernels play in Perfect Game Field at Veterans' Memorial Stadium.

The first thing you'll notice at Veterans' Memorial is that the large parking lot adjacent to the stadium is free.  Of course that would be unheard of at any MLB venue.  The second surprise is the price of tickets.  Thirteen dollars gets you the best seat in the house, but if that's too rich for your blood, nine bucks puts you barely past the dugouts on the lower level.  Even cheaper is the popular lawn seating area along the left field line.  The stadium also features a faux "green monster," Fenway Park-style, with a few dozen seats perched above.  

While we're on the subject of costs, you'd be hard pressed to find a meal over six dollars or a beer over five.  Proud of myself for recognizing a good meal deal when I saw one, I ate two: a juicy hot dog upon arrival, and a tasty burrito in the top of the fifth.  I had to save funnel cakes and barbeque for another time.

I never found Iowans to be a particularly congenial bunch at sporting events involving the Gophers, but here it was a different story.  The staff at Veterans' Memorial was extraordinarily friendly.  Maybe they were Minnesota expats(?).  From the ticket sellers to the vendors to the ushers and other security, every one was either a genuinely welcoming host or else a good thespian.  A tip of the hat to the Kernels' personnel honchos for hiring those folks.

Minnesota prides itself on its craft beer, but you'd hardly know it at Target Field where a thirsty fan has to look high and low to find a decent brew.  The Twins beverage operations managers could (and should) take a lesson from the Cedar Rapidians.  There were at least three separate draught beer stands offering first class options behind the infield seats.  That's pretty good when you consider the stadium only holds 5300 fans.  The vendor closest to the main gate carried Laguinitas IPA, New Belgium Brewing Fat Tire, Odell's 90 Shilling, Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA, Fresh Squeezed by Deschutes, and Bell's Oberon.  Another directly behind the plate had many of the same pours, plus Burnout Brown from Firetrucker Brewery in Ankeny.  Down the first base line was Craft Beer Cabin where two of Iowa's favorite micro breweries were represented, Millstone Brewery from Amana, and Big Grove Brewery of Iowa City.  Vets' Memorial was a veritable beer drinkers' paradise.

I almost forgot the main reason to make the journey was to watch some baseball.  The first thing I check when attending a minor league game is the player roster bios, including age, home town, last year's team, and how the player was acquired by the Twins' franchise.  I did the same for the Kernels' opponent, the Beloit Snappers, an affiliate of the Oakland A's.  Since Class A is professional baseball's lowest level, it stands to reason that a Class A roster would be comprised of very young players.  The Kernels' ten man starting lineup included three teenagers and two other players who were twenty years of age.  The old man of the group was first baseman Robby Rinn, a hoary twenty-five year old.

I am pretty excited for these kids who, just like me, dreamed of playing Major League Baseball some day.  (I saw myself as the heir apparent to the Milwaukee Braves' slugging third baseman, Eddie Mathews.)  The difference, besides the obvious disparity in talent, is that these ballers are actually doing something about it.  They are gambling that they will climb the minor league ladder and rise to The Bigs before their prime years (usually ages 27-32) have come and gone.  Meanwhile, they toil in obscurity, take long bus rides, risk debilitating injury which could delay or even end their career, and hope that they don't suffer through a dreaded slump which could result in other young players passing them by with promotions to higher levels.

Most minor league baseball players turn pro immediately out of high school.  Unlike many college players who have their degrees to fall back on if things don't work out on the diamond, the Kernels and other minor leaguers made one of the most important decisions of their professional lives at age seventeen or eighteen.  They have undoubtedly seen the statistics showing that less than 3% of all minor leaguers and college players will ever play for one of the thirty MLB teams.  I wonder if they ever get discouraged when they see players like Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals or the Cleveland Indians' Francisco Lindor reach the Majors at ages nineteen and twenty-one, respectively.  Those two All Stars are rare exceptions to the rule.

The level of play, even for single A, is way above average.  These guys are definitely not kicking the ball around; for the most part it is a cleanly-played game.  The Kernels' second baseman, Andrew Bechtold, reminded me of Brian Dozier with his slick glove work.  Too bad Andrew is hitting only .214, not nearly enough to be in line for a promotion.  I witnessed power pitching from the Kernels' starter, Edwar Colina.  He is a twenty-one year old Venezuelan who, as an undrafted free agent, played for the Twins' rookie league team in Elizabethton, Tennessee last year.  He threw low to mid-nineties for six frames the night I saw him in person, averaging more than a strikeout per inning.  Sure he was facing Class A batters, but after watching the mediocre Twins' bullpen in action this season, I wonder if Edwar should be given a shot with the big team in the next year or two.

The Kernels player drawing the most fan interest for the first half of this season was shortstop Royce Lewis, the Twins' most recent first round draft choice.  Only nineteen years old, Royce was signed to a $6.7 million contract last year out of high school in San Juan Capistrano, California.  When I saw him in June he was the only Kernel batting above .300, at .303.  The Twins see Royce as a five tool player.  They have him on a fast track as proven by his elevation last week to their higher level Class A farm team, the Fort Myers Miracle.

Lewis is thus following in the footsteps of the Twins' 2016 first round draft selection, outfielder Alex Kiriloff.  Alex, a Plum, Pennsylvania native, was also signed out of high school as the fifteenth overall pick.  His contract was for $2.8 million, not nearly as much as Lewis, but still a little more than I made at the Piggly Wiggly my senior year.  Unfortunately for me, by the time I was able to get down to Cedar Rapids, Alex had already been promoted to the Miracle, where he has hardly missed a beat.  His batting average with the Kernels was .333; so far with the Miracle it's .317. By the year 2021, and maybe 2020, I will not need to travel to Florida to watch Lewis and Kiriloff; they should be six miles away at Target Field.