Golfing With Frank

You know how there is that fine line with alcohol and playing pool?  You play well buzzed up to a point, but if you cross that line you start to suck?  When I shoot pool I like to have a couple of beers, but I have to nurse them along if I want to play well.  I play more relaxed and much better with a slight buzz…up to a point…but if I cross the line and have too many beers my play suffers noticeably.  Well golf is the same way for me.  A few beers are fine, but if I get too buzzed I begin losing care and concentration and start slicing the hell out of the ball into the adjoining fairway or I top it and watch it limp up to the ladies tee.  It was a slight problem when I first started playing, but now I have a system.  I just keep the beers to one every 5 holes…1^st, 5^th, 10^th and 15^th tees.  I’m relaxed, I’m playing up to my abilities, and I’m having fun. 

I have a friend who does not have a system.  Or maybe his system is flawed.  Or maybe his system is perfect if his goal is to get trashed and play horrible golf.  My buddy Frank ‘The Tank’ Hoffman loves golf but his love of beer usually trumps the golf.  Let me quickly describe Frank.  He is a large man who gets into the gym a couple of times per year whether he needs it or not.  He has a passion for tacos, chocolate, shots, and German beer.  Sometimes his passions get the best of him, like the time we went to see Robert Plant on Frank’s birthday.  We met up for pre-show drinks, which turned into numerous shots and soon he was hammered.  We eventually get to the theatre, but Frank did not have enough left in the tank as he was fast asleep in his seat a couple of songs into the concert.  Frank LOVES Led Zeppelin, but Plant proved to be too mellow for him that night as he nodded in and out the whole show, not fully awake until the encore.  I asked him, “WTF Frank?!  How could you pay $125 to sleep through an entire Robert Plant concert??”  He replied, “Well I didn’t know he was going to be playing lullabies all night.”  Frank is actually a pretty smart guy, but he makes mistakes like the rest of us.  Here is a good example:

One time at work he had been emailing his wife Sarah back and forth…nice husband-and-wife emails that as you know can sometimes get a little bit saucy.  While emailing Sarah however, Frank had also been emailing back and forth on a work issue with another workmate…a woman from the other side of the building in another department that he knew only through work emails.  Intending to wrap up her conversation with Frank, this other woman writes him:  “Is there anything else I can help you with?”  Getting confused by the two email conversations that he is simultaneously engaged in, and thinking that he is responding to his wife, Frank responds to this woman’s final email with a simple one-word answer:  “P*ssy.”  And then Frank logged off and went home.  This was on a Friday afternoon.  Not only was this email out there for the rest of that day and then the whole weekend, Frank also happened to have Monday and Tuesday off.  He comes back to work on Wednesday and was going through his old emails and deleting them when he happened upon this one.  (OH MY GOD!!)  He calls me and says, “Sneaks, I think I'm in real trouble this time.”  This woman does not get an apology email from Frank on Friday…not on Monday…not on Tuesday.  It is now Wednesday and the “P*ssy” email been out there since Friday!  The poor woman must have thought he meant it.  Holy crap!  Frank quickly emailed her an apology that Wednesday morning and she said she'd let it go, but he spent an entire tense day at his desk anyways, expecting every phone call or email to be from his boss with word of his firing. 

So anyways, when we golf Frank likes to play the front nine with a new beer on every hole.  Soon his already questionable swing degenerates into complete hopelessness.  It looks like the swing of an axe-murderer who has set his sights on killing the ball.  Here is a typical scenario for him teeing off on the par three 8^th hole:  Slam the rest of his beer from the 7^th hole.  Crack open a new beer and take a huge swig.  Grab his driver, ball, tee and slowly approach the tee box.  (The driver is his favorite club and he uses it on almost every hole, including the par 3’s.)  So using his driver as a crutch he leans down and puts his tee into the ground on a 45 degree angle.  Because he too is bent over on a 45 degree angle the tee looks perfectly straight up and down to him.  Then he stands up, retrieves the ball from his pocket, and bends down again to place the ball on the tee.  Of course the ball just rolls off the tee, over and over and over, until eventually I go and straighten it out for him. 

Then with eyes narrowed to slits and murder in his heart he backs up and eyes the ball as his mortal enemy.  He steps up, raising the club high above him in anticipation of crushing the offensive little white globe, and releases down in a murderous axe-swing of death.  If he happens to make contact with the ball, it occasionally will go screaming down the center of the fairway low and hard.  “Holy sh*t, nice shot Frank!” we all say.  But usually he tops it and it goes maybe 20 feet, or skips off to the right and hits the golf cart or the adjoining lake, or the ball just gets pounded into the ground and bounces straight back up.  After a few mulligans I’ll just tell him to drop his ball next to wherever mine landed and we move on.

It is important to note that every single shot by Frank is immediately followed by a volley of cursing…an extremely loud string of swear words that would make any sailor proud is a typical response to almost any swing while smashing his club repeatedly into the ground.  Or sometimes when the mood is right he just goes with a simple:  “Fuuuuuuck!” followed by 3 seconds of silence and then a:  "Goddammit!"  Besides the curious stares from adjoining tee boxes or fairways, there of course have been a few incidents.

One time we were on the 17^th tee, golfing with Mitch Manson and Ernie Hagen in one cart, and me and Frank in the other cart.  Frank, Ernie and I had already teed off and we were waiting on Mitch.  Ernie was sitting in the front cart, Frank was sitting in the cart behind him, and I was standing next to the carts as we all watched Mitch getting ready to tee off with his slow approach and numerous waggles.  Frank was of course wasted by now, out of beer, and getting impatient as he sensed the clubhouse full of beer was near.  Mitch was still waggling on the tee box when all of a sudden Frank lost it.  He couldn’t take it any more and yelled out, “Hurry up g*ddammit!” as he stomped down on the accelerator of our cart, mashing the pedal all the way to the floor.  Well the cart jumps up like a rocket and the front right tire is somehow propelled up and over the back left tire of Ernie’s cart and onto the actual cart itself!   “Whoa ho hey!” shouts a startled Ernie as the two carts were now one.  “Frank’s trying to kill Ernie!” I yelled out while Mitch and I ran over to help Ernie lift Frank’s cart off of his cart.  I am not sure Frank was even aware of what he had done as he just sat there waiting impatiently while tapping his toes.

Another time we were golfing with Mitch and Ernie again and we were heading to the 16^th hole to tee off.  Frank was pretty loaded by now, even for his standards.  When we pulled up to the tee box in our cart Frank mumbled that he had to pee.  We got out of the cart, I pointed to a port-a-pottie about 20 feet away, and I gave Frank a little push to send him in the right direction.  Me, Mitch and Ernie all teed off and then it was Frank’s turn.  “Where’s Frank?” said Mitch.  I motioned behind us to the port-a-pottie and then we all turned around to see what was keeping him.  Frank was not in the port-a-pottie.  He never quite made it.  Right next to the port-a-pottie was a large tree and Frank was standing next to the tree, leaning forward, balancing himself with the top of his head on the side of the tree, penis in hand, sleeping.  He must not have seen the port-a-pottie and decided to use the tree instead, and then fell asleep before he could put his friend away.  Of course there was a foursome at the adjoining tee box and one of the ladies had come over to use the port-a-pottie but was unsure about it with Frank standing there.  “Frank!”  we all yelled.  He awoke with a start, leaned back, put it away and walked back to tee up like nothing had happened while we were all rolling with laughter.

Why would you even want to golf with Frank you may be asking.  Well in my circle of friends who golf, none of us take ‘golf’ too seriously.  We are just out there to have fun with our friends, swill a couple of beers and get away from the real world for awhile.  Golfing with Frank can be frustrating at times as he staggers across your lie on the green, or he’s standing over a divot pounding it over and over deep into the fairway with his 5 iron while cursing violently and the group behind us watching in disbelief…but it is never boring golfing with him.  Plus Frank is a good guy, a good friend and a good father.  Despite his complaints you can tell that he has almost as much fun raising his numerous kids as he had making them.  And at least once a round he will actually make a great shot…then he’ll look up at you with a huge smile and say, “Isn’t this fun!”  That makes it all worthwhile.

Peeing Downtown

A few months ago on a Friday evening after work I headed over to The Loon Cafe in downtown Minneapolis to meet up with my buddies Mitch Manson, Ted Booker and Mike Spicoli.  We were having pre-show drinks before the ‘Golden Smog’ concert, which was down the block at The Fine Line Music Cafe.  So we were there for an hour or two and eventually it’s time to head over to the Fine Line for the show.  I figure I'd better pee at the Loon before we go, as it will be a lot easier going there than at the concert.  I head down the stairs to the bathrooms, but about halfway down I hear gales and gales of laughter coming up from the Men’s bathroom.

I get to the bottom of the stairs with the Men’s room on the right, and there are like 4 or 5 guys down there just laughing their asses off.  They are practically crying as they’re pointing into the bathroom and saying stuff like:  “That’s my guy!”  “Oh my god!”  “No way!”  I’m wondering if I should even go in there, but I am curious, plus I had to pee.  It’s a small bathroom, but I push my way through the guys and past the only stall to the two urinals.  The far urinal is taken so I stop at the first one, but as I am whipping it out I suddenly noticed that the guy next to me is standing there peeing with his pants down to his ankles!  Now I see why everybody is laughing!  He’s just standing there with his bare legs and ass hanging out and peeing like nothing is the matter.  What?!  The dudes behind us are still laughing hard and I assume he is with them and he’s trying to be funny, so I start laughing too. 

But then he says to me:  “What?  What’s so funny?” like he has no idea why everyone is laughing.  Huh?  Seriously?  Then I think, am I being punked?  Are there hidden cameras?  This has to be a gag.  Nobody in the world pees that way with their pants around their ankles, especially in public unless they’re under 4 years of age.  I am speechless and just shrug my shoulders,  trying not to look at him.  Then he says:  “I don’t know what’s so funny…this way I don’t dribble on myself.”  And then I think, oh crap, he must be mentally handicapped or just slow or something.  Then I realize that all of the other dudes have left because the laughter has stopped and it’s just me and him now.  Then while I’m still going and he’s washing his hands he says:  “Does it always snow here in April?  Is that not uncommon?” and he sounded completely normal as we talked about the goofy weather and the late snow we’d been having that spring.

So now I am completely stumped.  Was he with the other dudes and just being funny?  I think not since they never referred to him by name, and they all left.  Was I being punked?  I think not because nobody ever jumped out and pointed out the hidden cameras to me.  Was he mentally handicapped?  I think not because he sounded completely normal when he talked.  Was he a foreigner from a weird country where all the dudes pee with their pants around their ankles?  I think not because he did not have any accent and I am not aware of any such countries.  Was he like Tom Hanks in the movie ‘Big’ where a small boy gets trapped in a man’s body?  I think not because that is just a movie and cannot happen in real life.  

By process of elimination, all that leaves me with is that he was just an ever-so-slightly weird dude who has always peed that way since he was a kid and never changed when he grew up.  But that doesn’t make sense either because I cannot believe that somewhere along the line somebody didn’t pulled him aside and said:  “Dude, guys aged 4 and older do not do that on this planet.  There’s a better way.  Keep your pants up.”  He simply MUST have had a friend along the way to straighten him out right?  I don’t know…I really wish I had said something along those lines to him, because now I fear I will never know the mystery of the man-boy ankle-pants pee-er.  If anybody knows him, or knows somebody like him, please comment below and help clear up the mystery.

Busted In Trempealeau - Part IV (The Aftermath)

The Aftermath

Well after getting arrested, a failed attempt at going to court for possession of marijuana in Trempealeau County, and then me hitchhiking through a blizzard that long day in the spring of 1986, Mark and I had to call and get new court dates.  Mark got his for a month or two later, in May, right at the end of the school year.  Being young, dumb and adventerous, he decided that he would ride his 10-speed to court.  Huh?  Yep...he informed me that it would be really cool and shouldn’t be much trouble at all.  Nevermind that fact that his bike was old and crappy, or the fact that he had never ridden it more than a mile or two, like from the dorms to his classes at the University of Minnesota...he thought it would be a snap to jump on his bike and pedal the 125 miles or so each way to court and back, camping along the way.

He got a map, figured out the side roads, and calculated it would take him 2 days to get there.  So he loaded up a backpack with some shorts, tee-shirts, a nice shirt for court, a water bottle and a blanket.  Well it did not take him 2 days, it took him 4 days.  I do not remember all of the details of his horrible adventure and that may be on another blog, but he called me from the town in Trempealeau where court was and basically said it was the worst 4 days of his life.  It rained most of the way so he was constantly cold and wet...he did not have much money so he was starving...he tried to sleep in a barn one night and got chased out...and worst of all, his ass was hurting so bad that he could not sit down anymore.

Apparently when he realized he was not going to make it to court on time he found a phone, called the courthouse, and they must have felt sorry for him because they said that they would hold court for him whenever he got there.  Luckily his assigned public defender also felt so sorry for him that when court was done he took Mark home, gave him a hot meal with his family, a shower, and best of all -- packed his stupid 10-speed up in a box and paid to have the bike and Mark shipped home on a Greyhound bus.  He literally saved Mark's ass.

Mark got a $350 fine and 4 months probation.  Me?  I just kept delaying court.  Eventually it was summer break and then I was back at my parent's home in Waukesha...but still with no resolution.  Finally they said they would just take care of it over the phone...$350 fine and 4 months probation, same as Mark...minus the horrible bike ride and broken butt.

The three lessons I learned from all of this:  1) Hide the weed better.  2) When a truck driver offers to set you up with a ride at a truck-stop, you take him up on that offer.  3) When the wheels of justice grind slowly it is often to your advantage.  Delay court for as long as possible.

Busted In Trempealeau - Part III (The Long Hard Journey Home)

The Long Hard Journey Home

So after getting arrested and then our failed attempt at going to court a couple of months later on a Friday morning, Mark and I drive the 18 country miles from the courthouse back to the town of Osseo at I-94.  It is now early afternoon and Mark has to bring the car back to Mindy in Minneapolis.  I decided I would see if I could hitchhike east to Waukesha and see my girlfriend Lona there for the weekend, and then take a Greyhound back to Minneapolis on Sunday night.  I told Mark to sit at the gas station where he could see me standing on the east-bound ramp.  Give me a half hour and if I didn't get picked up I would just ride back to Minneapolis with him.

Well he drops me off at the ramp and is prepared to turn around and go wait at the gas station, but the 18-wheeler literally right behind us sees me get out and he stops to pick me up.  Cool!  So I wave Mark off and he heads west and I head east with the trucker.  I am stoked.  It was a nice sunny spring day, but the temperature was probably only in the 50's...I just had a jean jacket on and was hoping I would not have to wait too long for a ride.  So I get a quick ride and I am off to see my girlfriend for the weekend!

We head down the freeway and I quickly find out this guy is the epitome of cool.  He had been bored and welcomed the company, and he had millions of stories to share.  Stories about life on the road, seeing UFO's late at night, all kinds of characters he had met around the country, and the various situations as well as chicks he had gotten into over the years.  Plus he had one of those new-fangled 'radar-detectors' on board so he could drive "As fast as my rig will go!"  So we were trading stories, laughing, cranking tunes, and making good time…I'll be in my girlfriend's arms soon but in the meantime I’m having a blast!

Eventually we get close to Madison, WI and he tells me that although I want to continue straight down I-94 east an hour past Madison to Waukesha, he has to turn off in Madison onto I-90 southeast as he his heading to Chicago.  I hadn't much noticed what was going on outside as I was having such a good time inside the truck, but as I looked out I realized the skies had darkened considerably and there were actually a few snowflakes coming down.  The closer and closer we got to Madison, the darker and thicker were the skies and snow.  My nice spring day in Minneapolis had turned back into harsh winter down here in Madison. 

He tells me there is a truck-stop a few miles before Madison where he could stop and arrange a ride for me if I wanted, but I knew he had not planned on stopping and was just going to do it for me to be nice.  I did not want to trouble him, and encouraged by my earlier success with him picking me up right away I said no, just drop me off at the I-94/I-90 split and I will thumb a ride from there.  He looks reluctant, but he says okay and pulls over on the side of the freeway.  I jump down to the snow-covered shoulder, forced a huge smile and waved him off. 

Holy sh*t it was cold out.  All I had on were jeans, a t-shirt, my jean jacket and tennis shoes.  I was so looking forward to seeing my girlfriend, but I was now a bit worried as I watched the friendly 18-wheeler slowly chug off into the evening's growing dusk and the gloom of what was turning into a blizzard.  I did not have a watch but the minutes felt like hours as I stood on the side of the freeway with my thumb stuck out in the dark howling winds, snow swirling all around and falling hard.  I had mistakenly thought the entrance from I-90 to I-94 would be like a ramp, but it actually was just a gradual turning continuation of the freeway and people were flying by me at 70 mph.  As an occasional hitchhiker I had it stuck in my head that if I was on a 'ramp' hitchhiking was legal or at the very least the cops wouldn't hassle you, but on the freeway it was not legal and they would nab you.  But now I was not even on a ramp...should I just start walking down the freeway?  I knew the next exit with a gas station was another 20 miles away. 

I figured anything was better than standing there slowly freezing to death while cars and trucks were whizzing by me and occasionally honking at me.  So I started walking and thumbing...still nothing.  I was wearing dark clothing and nobody could see me until they got right up on me, and nobody wanted to stop in the darkness of the nasty spring blizzard.  After awhile my hand and thumb were frozen solid and I was getting desperate.  No civilization of any kind ahead of me, but on the north side of the freeway off in the distance I saw a light.  I thought maybe I could head for it and see if I could find a phone and call Lona to come get me, as I was only about an hour from Waukesha.

The light looked to be at least a half-mile away.  I carefully crossed all 4 lanes of the freeway, but when I got to the other side I reached a cornfield full of snow.  My heart sank when I saw the snow was about knee deep.  Another decision...do I tromp across this huge snow-covered cornfield in my tennis shoes on the chance that there was someone at this light off in distance?  I looked back at the trucks whizzing by on the freeway kicking up snow in my face and decided to chance it with the light.

It was not easy going...large step with the right, foot sink down, left foot up and out of what was it's latest hole, repeat, repeat, repeat...my sneakers, socks and pant legs were now full of snow and my toes were completely numb.  The field seemed endless as I keep trudging along with my head bowed down into the wind.  Every once in awhile I would take a quick glance up at my target but the light did not seem like it was getting any closer.  There had better be someone there I kept worrying, as the thought of coming all the way back across that field to the damn freeway was completely demoralizing and seemed out of the question.  Eventually the light got bigger and the building it was coming from slowly began to come into focus. 

It was a business of some sort, but it looked closed.  When I got within a 100 feet I realized it was a garden center...not a huge chain place, but a small-town garden center that was definitely closed as the sign in the parking lot was turned off.  There were no other buildings around, just a dark country road leading to this building.  Maybe I could find a way in to the building and get warm and find a phone?  Could I really do something like that?  Fortunately I did not have to make that decision.  The light was on the backside of the building facing the corn field and as I got right up to it I heard voices.  Yes!  There were people inside!

I ran the last few feet up the short hill to the building, looked through the window on the door, and there was 3 or 4 people sitting around a table in the back break-room having a few beers after closing time on a Friday night.  I pounded on the door and one of the guys yelled:  "We're closed!"  I pressed my face up to the window and gave the most pitiful look I could muster up, which was not hard.  A lady got up and came over and unlocked the door. 

I craved the warmth and practically fell into the room as the door opened.  They regarded me cautiously as one of them inquired what the hell I was doing there.  While trying to warm up my frozen ears with my frozen hands, I started to tell them the abbreviated version of my story...that I was stuck on the freeway hitchhiking from Minneapolis and could not catch a ride.  I was so close to Waukesha, and yet so far.  One of them got me a blanket, and then a beer, and then a phone.  I called Lona, the lady gave her directions, and then the garden center people and I chatted for an hour and a half while I slowly warmed up with the heat and the beers.  When Lona got there I thanked them profusely for saving me, and then we finally made it back to her house to end what was a very long day.

Part IV - 'The Aftermath' is next...

Busted In Trempealeau - Part II (Our Day In Court)

Our Day In Court

So Mark and I got arrested, charged with possession of marijuana, and spent a night in jail.  It is now a couple of months later in early spring of 1986, and it is time for our big day in court in Trempealeau County, WI.  We get up and nervously walk the several blocks over to my car parked in the student ramp, dreading the 2 hour car ride and then who-knows-what in court.  We get in and turn the key and...nothing.  My '72 Dodge Charger will not start.  We frantically mess around with it for awhile before giving up and running back to our dorm-room to hurridly make some phone calls and find another car.  We eventually get ahold of Mark's girlfriend Mindy...she's busy, but she said if we can make our way over to her apartment in Dinkytown we can use her car. 

So we jump on our bicycles and get to her place as fast as we could, as we are now facing the possibility of being late for court.  She's got an old rusty Buick with no gas, but it works so we gas up and hit the highway...me driving as fast as the thing would go while Mark looks out for cops.

Well Mark apparently was not looking good enough because before long I see the cherries flashing in my mirrors and it's a Minnesota State Trooper pulling us over for speeding on I-94 about 5 miles before we hit the Wisconsin border.  Dammit!  Now we're really going to be late...also...as the trooper is making the walk from his squad up to our car, I remembered that Mark had grabbed his bag of weed before we left and threw it in back.  When will we learn?!  I look behind me and yep there's the bag just sitting on the seat waiting for that cop.  I quickly reached back and grabbed a t-shirt laying next to it and threw it over the bag.  Had the cop seen that?  Are we going to get busted for possession of marijuana on the way to our court-date for possession of marijuana??

The cop walked up, looked at us, took a quick look through the window at the back seat, and then thankfully turned his attention back to us.  He asked why we were going so fast.  I thought about telling him we were late for court, but then I was sure he would ask what for and I did not want to get into that, especially with a quarter ounce of weed sitting 3 feet behind me.  So I said I didn't know why we were driving so fast, that we were stupid college kids who like to drive fast...he dutifully wrote me out a nice fat $100+ speeding ticket and sent us on our way. 

We are now seriously in danger of being late for court.  Do we speed and risk getting pulled over again, or go the limit and risk missing court?  First of all I smacked Mark upside the head and told him to hide his damn weed better.  Then we decided to speed more carefully.  We raced down I-94 as fast as we could go with our heads on swivels...me watching in front and Mark looking in back.  Also, whenever we would see a turn-around in an upcoming median I would mash on the breaks in case there was a cop lurking there, and then floor it as soon as we were safely past.

Before long we made it to the Osseo turn-off 88 miles into Wisconsin, but it's going to be close.  We fly the 18 remaining miles south down the country roads to the courthouse, nervous as hell as we get closer and closer to the place we had spent that night in jail a couple of months ago.  We get to the courthouse, park, run into the strangely quiet building and there is nobody around?  Was court over?  Where we that late?  A quick look at the clock on the wall showed that we were only 10 minutes late.  We walked around for about another 10 minutes until we finally found a clerk-type person coming out of a room at the end of a hall.  We ran up and told her we have a court date but are not sure where to go and cannot find anybody. 

She informs us that Ol' Joe Patterson had died a few days ago and everyone was at the funeral today.  Huh?  Everyone?  Yep, everyone but her...she still had to work.  This was a very small town and apparently when somebody dies just about everybody drops what they are doing and goes to the funeral.  Court was cancelled.  Well thanks for letting us know that.  This was before the internet and cell phones and all that, but still a call to our dorm-room would have been nice to save us from busting our asses to get down there for nothing.  This was a Friday.  She said to call on Monday and get a new court date.  Okay...so we get back in the car and make the 18 mile trip back up to I-94.

Part III - 'The Long Hard Journey Home' is next...

Busted In Trempealeau - Part I (The Arrest)

I have driven past there a thousand times, but I get a little uneasy every single time I am on I-94 going through Osseo, WI, which is on the northern tip of the long and narrow county of Trempealeau in western Wisconsin.  Sometimes I tempt fate and stop and get a Blizzard at the DQ there, but usually I just drive past Exit 88 and be thankful that it is in my rearview mirror.  This next story has 4 parts that will be spread out over a week of posts:  The Arrest, Our Day In Court, The Long Hard Journey Home, and The Aftermath.

The Arrest

This was in the winter of 1985/86.  Me and my best friend at the time Mark Smith were in my '72 Dodge Charger and were heading back up to college at the University of Minnesota.  We had been home for the weekend at our parents' house in Waukesha, WI, and were now making the 5 hour trip back up to Minneapolis on a Sunday night.  Mark and I were roommates at the dorm in what was my 2nd year and his 1st year of school at the University of Minnesota, and we could never seem to stay out of trouble for very long.

Before we left Waukesha, I went over to his parent's house to pick him up and he told me he was all ready to go except for one thing...he had a single pot plant that he had grown for fun that fall out in his back yard that he had moved to his room when it got cold.  It was just a little plant with probably no way of getting anybody high, but it had sentimental value to him and he wanted to bring it back up to Minneapolis.  So I distracted his parents with small talk about school while he grabbed the plant from his basement bedroom and threw it in the back seat of my car...then we headed out.

Several hours later we pulled into exit 88 at Osseo to get gas, about 9 pm and dark out now.  I was pulling into the gas station parking lot when suddenly the cherries go on behind me and there's a cop right there.  Huh, why?!  Mark and I had had a few scrapes with the law in high school and it was never good, so I was instantly paralzyed with fear and felt like I was going to puke as I stopped the car and awaited our fate.  The spotlight was on us and he walked up with flashlight in hand, shining it in the car as he approached the driver window.  But he stopped before he got to my window and was staring through the back window with his flashlight beam on (oh crap, we forgot all about the plant!).  Yep, Mark's skinny little 2 foot pot plant was laying on the back seat in full view.

I guess he pulled us over for a broken taillight, but the cop did not care about that now as he excitely called for backup thinking we were drug runners or something.  He asked us who the plant belonged to.  I looked at Mark and he looked like he was going to puke too.  I thought about it...if they just take him in, what am I gonna do?  I didn't have money for a hotel....I didn't want to sleep in the car...I didn't want to drive home alone and have to come back and pick him up.  In a moronic show of solidarity, I told the cop it was both of ours.  "Huh?"  Yep, both of ours I kept insisting.  The dismayed cop told us that we didn't both have to go to jail, just one of us has to own up to it.  I was stuck on the stupid idea of sticking with Mark no matter what so I just flat out said again and again that it was both of ours.

Okay...so he searched us, searched the car, cuffed us, threw us in the back of the squad car, called off the backup, and informed us that he was charging us both with possession of marijuana.  So while the I-94 freeway runs through the northern tip of Trempealeau County, the jail/courthouse is on the southern half, 18 miles away.  The whole way there he kept asking us if we had any money.  No...we're poor college students.  We had a little gas money and that was it.  He told us he would let us go for $400.  Then he lowered it to $300.  Was this bribe money?  Or was he saying that's what the bail was?  It didn't matter...we had about $10 between the two of us so that was not going to work.

We finally get to the jail, pull into the garage, and he parks the squad car right next to a huge pile of weed about the size of a pick-up truck.  The cop pulls us out of the back of his car and leads us past the enormous pile of nice looking buds while carrying our sad, crappy little plant in his hand.  Jesus, couldn't he just throw our one little plant on this big pile of plants and call it a night?  Maybe if we'd had $300.

So he brings us in and we go through the whole drill:  another search, fingerprints, pictures...then into adjoining cells for an overnight stay in the crowbar hotel.  Wait, I know my rights...I get one phone call!  I called my girlfriend Lona collect in Waukesha.  I am not sure what she can do, but I just wanted to hear her comforting voice.  It's late now though and she is sound asleep.  She gets on the phone and I tell her I'm in jail.  "That's nice, I'm glad you made it safely." she mumbles.  "No no, I am in JAIL!" I yelled.  "Okay then, sleep tight, I love you...call me tomorrow." and she hangs up.  Sheesh, that was a waste.  That was not comforting at all.  I layed down on the thin metal cot and tried to get some sleep, which was almost impossible with the harsh bright lights they kept on all night long and the nauseating country music blaring from seemingly all around me.

Early the next morning after a few restless hours of sleep I am awaked by grunting from the next cell over.  It's Mark...he's bored and doing push ups.  Whenever we had tried talking to each other they yelled at us and told us 'no talking'.  I felt like we were in 3rd grade.  The night before we had tried tapping messages to each other like in the prison movies we'd seen, but neither of us knew morse code and had no idea what we were tapping so we gave that up after awhile.  The hours dragged on.  Then I hear him turning pages.  He's got magazines?!  The only thing I had found in my stupid cell was an instruction manual under my bed for I want to say a toaster or some small appliance like that.  I read the 4 page document over and over and over again till I had it memorized and wanted to cry.  This was inhumane.  Bright lights, country music, tall ceilings with no windows and absolutely nothing to do except try and pretend that all of the disgusting boogers on the wall next to my bed were not really there...that I was not really there.

I was getting claustraphobic and worried that they would never let us out of there, but finally they came for us a little before noon and led us to the courtroom.  The judge said we had to come back for another court date and he set a date and that was that.  We could go!

I assumed they would drive us back to Osseo but they said no way, they were too busy.  But our car...it was 18 miles away.  Tough sh*t they said.  So we walked down the courthouse steps, got to the road and started walking.  As soon as we got out of sight of the jail we stuck out our thumbs and started hitchhiking.  Before long a cop we had not seen before pulls up and tries to arrest us for hitchhiking.  We explained that we just got out of his jail and were trying to get back to our car.  He stared at us for awhile...contemplating...trying to decide what to do with us...finally we get a break as he grudgingly says he will give us a ride back to the freeway, but only after he takes care of an errand.  He leaves and we were not sure what to do so we started walking and hitching again.  After about 20 minutes he returns, yells at us again for hitchhiking, and then says to jump in.  We nervously get in the back of his car, but thankfully uncuffed this time, and finally get back to our car and finish our road-trip back to the dorms.

Part II - 'Our Day In Court' is next...

Air Mishap #2

Okay, this is a fun one.  One summer afternoon back in maybe 1994 or so, me and my buddy Chris Galanos took off out of Madison, WI in a 2-seat Cessna 152 and headed west to Devil's Lake in the Wisconsin Dells to check out the scenery, fly through the canyons and cruise around.  Well it was fairly windy out so the plane is bouncing around pretty good, especially when we got to Devil's Lake where the winds were swirling through the canyon.

So we dip into the canyon and are flying pretty low over the lake with the canyon walls on either side of us and people swimming on the beach and fishing offshore and probably staring up at us (it’s a very small lake surrounded on all 4 sides by canyon walls with a beach on one end).  I’m smoking a cigarette (I used to smoke but quit 5 years ago) and Chris is smoking a bowl and having a couple of beers.  Well I go to tap my ash into Chris’s empty beer can and suddenly we hit a gust of wind and my lit cig hits the side of the can and goes flying.

Where did it go?!  F*ck!  Of course I start to smell smoke, but it was acrid smoke like the chemical smell of burning carpet so I realized it’s under one of our seats.  The damn plane is burning up for all we know.

Chris is tall and a 2-seater is tiny…2 adults are basically shoulder-to-shoulder.  We try reaching forward under out seats to feel it but come up with nothing.  I tell him to look in back…the luggage compartment behind our seats is a small narrow little space just large enough to cram a small suitcase or two into.  So I'm in the left pilot seat and he’s leaning over his seat on the right with half his body in the luggage space and his legs bouncing around in the space above his seat.  Well he can’t find the cig and he gets stuck, wedged between the seat and the side of the plane with more of him in the back than in the front.  In addition, the plane has dual controls with a steering wheel on either side so as he’s struggling to free himself and get back into his seat his feet keep smacking into his steering wheel and pitching the plane violently down further into the canyon.  The whole time I’m trying to fly the plane in the gusty winds and keep it from going down any further or hitting the canyon walls...plus the end of the canyon is coming up soon so we have to ascend out of there.  Also, the cig is still burning.

Chris cannot make it back to his seat so I ask if he can keep going forward into the luggage compartment.  He makes it, but it’s almost comical seeing this 6’2” guy who weighs at least 200 lbs curled up back there with this stoned/worried look on his face.  Also, now he is weighing down the back of the plane so it’s pitched nose-up dangerously and I have to push the throttle full forward to keep from stalling and to be able to ascend out of the canyon.  Well we clear the canyon wall and make it out of there, so I grab the map to find the nearest airport because we need to land asap and find the lit cig before we have a full blown fire on our hands.

I see a little non-tower 1-runway airport on the map about 10 miles away so I gun it for there.  Unfortunately the wind is blowing strong and perpindicular to the runway, so I have a dangerously overloaded/tail-heavy plane landing in a strong crosswind that is blowing the plane sideways…it was a crazy tricky landing but we got her on the ground and I immediately shut it off and jumped out and found the cig had rolled way under my seat and burned down completely and left a long black burn-hole in the carpet, but then luckily it had just gone out.  Lesson learned…no more cigs in the planes.