First of all, nothing bad happened to us. Everything turned out just fine. Even had a good time. At least that's what I told my mom when I got home. Somethings are best kept quiet. On the other hand we sure could have been in a world of hurt. Even dead. And Uncle Emil would have shouldered the blame. No doubt about that. Certainly my Mom would've been perturbed if Emil had brought her boy home in a box. Better if he'd died up north along with his nephew than at the hands of his sister.
Arriving home with nothing more than a few scratches and a half million mosquito bites was due to Emil's savvy. As was his suggestion I remain silent about some of the things that happened. Or where we went. Or what we did. Looking back on it after more than fifty years, I can't say one way or the other whether he was a fool, a wise old man or just lucky. Probably all three but I'd rather remember him as being a man who knew what he was doing and listened to his heart.
Over the years I've grown to be older than the old geezer - Emil was only in his mid-fifties - who took us off the map in northwest Manitoba. That I'm pushing seventy has me wondering about how many years I have left. Won't be long and my life'll soon be forgotten as though it was the figment of someone's imagination. You decide whose imagination that might be. Here my thought train is supposed to chug down the track of 'woe is me I'll never again be the man I once was.' Part and parcel with growing old. Whining is easier than doing. But since this is still a free country I'll travel elsewhere with my words.
The other day while pruning the junipers flanking the front of the house, I drifted off to find myself on a long ago campsite on the shore of an unnamed lake. Not the first time that's happened. I get a whiff of sunlight on evergreen and I'm off to the wilds. Been on many a wilderness site over the years but those first ones with my uncle stand head and shoulders above them all. And I've never found another quite like the next to last we sat upon and fished from in '61. Truth is there's only a few bests in a person's lifetime and I hit one of mine at age fourteen.
Grandchildren, got five of them these days, four boys and a girl. No doubt in a decade or two I'll be nothing more than a wisp of fog to them. Can't say that bothers me a whole lot, that's just the way of life. But now and then they might wish they knew more of their Grandpa Archie. That he was a real person who was once a punk kid caught between childhood and being a man. And happened to have an Uncle Emil. As for Emil, he'll be nothing more than a name of someone they were in some way or other related. To me, their never having known Emil will be the real tragedy. Yeah, he was a character. More importantly, was a man cut of old, handwoven cloth, the kind they don't make anymore.
Yeah, my Uncle Emil. Our trip wouldn't have happened without him and for sure wouldn't have been near as entertaining. Every so often he'd go off on a rant about events he'd just made up and polished a bit before letting me in on the fun. The world was his oyster and he was more than willing to share the pearls. And an occasional unpolished grit of sand. No doubt about it, Emil was my favorite adult.
Put those elements together and it's time to sketch out our trip to the woods before I get any older and can't think straight enough to peck out words on a laptop keyboard. So that's the intention, for better or worse, grammar be damned. If you're looking for literature, seek elsewhere. This isn't but a small adventure in which an ordinary young man and his extraordinary uncle do something normally considered stupid and manage to get away with it. And, should you get the notion, this reads better aloud, maybe to a young man or lady.
Truth Through A Glass Eye
Life was different in 1961. Way different than today. The far edge of civilization was much closer to town and city. Driving to the end of the road wasn't near as much of a trip. The roads heading north weren't paved as far and cars didn't go as fast. Baseball players still wore wool uniforms and no one had yet tuned in, turned on and dropped out. We were still pretty much an innocent society. Hope was in the air. A new, young president and a hot space race. Racial strife, assassinations, drugs and a pointless war were a couple of years away. Unsupervised kids still played outdoors after sundown. A kid like me could climb aboard a train, tell the conductor where he wanted to get off, and it was as good as done. That's how my first fishing trip with my Uncle Emil came to be. My mom said not to worry, everything would be okay on the train ride up to Alexandria.
Then she mumbled something like, "Until Emil picks you up. Turning you loose with that loon is just begging for trouble."
She'd walked me to the bus stop on a Saturday morning, the day after school let out for the summer. The ride downtown was something I was used to. Yup, people took the bus back in those days, even tall, near gawky, bespectacled ones like me. Getting off on Sixth Street, I strolled down the sun warmed, cracked concrete of Hennepin Avenue to the Great Northern Depot on the Mississippi accompanied by a brown paper bag filled with ham and cheese sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, an apple, and four homemade chocolate chip cookies. By homemade I mean my mom made them from scratch with chocolate chips made from real chocolate. Throw in a beat up paperback of "Treasure Island, a couple of Mad magazines, the new one and a jumbo. My comic book days were behind me. Gave the whole stack away a year ago. But Mad was a different animal altogether. Just the right dose of sarcasm and satire to warp a young man's mind. Not all of it was quality humor and sarcasm. No sir, some wasn't even sophisticated enough for a fourteen year old's mind. But most every issue had enough gems to justify the two bits (cheap). As it turned out my adventure with Emil proved a nice balance of Jim, Long John Silver and Alfred E. Newman.
Didn't know what my mom was worried about. I'd never found Uncle Emil all that odd. Well, no odder than any man who'd nearly died twice. Yes, it usually took me a minute to get used to his glass eye but once I did, I never gave it a second thought. 'Til he popped in a new one I'd never seen or expected to ever see. Like the one he greeted me with. I suppose it should have been a clue as to our game when I looked into his eyes, the left one with a blue-green pupil, the right, a northern pike. Turned out he had quite a collection, one for most every occasion. His right could be any color or thing and usually told the tale of what was on his mind.
But he rarely said a word about his choice. And if you didn't bring it up, he'd wouldn't mention the one he'd put in on any particular day. His idea being, "I know why I chose it. See if you can figure it out. If you can't, so much the better." 'Course, me being a kid and all, he went easy on me the first day.
You see, my uncle was a man with a twinkle in his eye. Not an easy thing to have since he'd survived an explosion and had a Japanese bullet pass through his shoulder and out his neck during the recapture of the Philippine Islands. Yeah, that gleam was dulled a bit but still sparkling even after his wife, my aunt Lena, passed away the summer before.
Emil wasn't a big man. Half a forehead taller than average, slim but solid as a red oak. Just this side of raw-boned. Long fingered hands that'd seen their share of sunshine, hammers and wind, protruded from his soft green, Pendleton shirt sleeves he was wearing when I stepped off the train. Corded hands that said he could single-handedly bend framing nails should the notion strike him. His good eye was yet lens free and his butch-cut, silvering hair sparsely populated. What remained orbited a circle of scalp to the rear, burnt the color of a well-oiled fielder's mitt. His khaki pants were knife-edge creased and atop the man sat a western style, brown fedora by Stetson. Looked ready to party in the great outdoors wherever that might be.
Back in those days his red and white Chevy Nomad wagon was only a few years from the dealer's lot. Still looked new from bumper to gleaming bumper. But to me a station wagon was a station wagon even if it only had two doors and a handful of chrome strips jazzing up its tailgate.
Emil gave me a firm handshake, grabbed my suitcase and we marched to the car like we were on a mission. One and a half men on the move. Midway he paused, reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a silver dollar. Handed it over with a conspiratorial look and said, "Keep your mouth shut about what we're commencing to do and there's more where that came from." Followed it with a deep throated, sinister laugh. Couldn't help but feeling good being with the man.
Honestly, I had no idea what he was talking about or what his intentions were but what the heck, a buck was a buck. So I figured to keep my mouth shut unless something off the chart happened.
Seeing as how there was only one car in the lot and it was a red and white wagon trailering a red, aluminum boat, I supposed it his. On the boat's side in graceful cursive letters read the words Silent but Deadly. Interesting.
"I'll stow your gear in the back. When we're on the highway I'll give you the lowdown. Long road ahead and plenty of time to talk."
In the back of the wagon lay three huge, leather strapped backpacks, a handful of aluminum rod tubes, and two coolers. Didn't know where we were going but wherever that was, it sure looked like we were ready. Then we were off in a cartoon cloud of nuts, bolts and chicken feathers to God knows where.
Once out of town we passed through rolling farm country. I stared, lost in a fog. The world was out there alright. Clear as a bell. But, c'mon, give me a break, I was fourteen. One of those between years filled with the urgings of manhood and still hanging onto most of my childhood. Farm country was farm country and I was in my own personal land of Nod. Corn, wheat, alfalfa, German barns, Norwegian ones, all were the same to me. I noticed the passing scene but gave it no thought. No meaning out there, just things. Guess the fields needed John Deere's with mounted machine guns, piloted by European mercenaries firing streams of tracers at a cartoon Superduperman soaring above to catch my interest. Or maybe farmer's daughters. Yeah, I was old enough to be aware of young ladies. Not brave enough to speak to one but I knew they were there. That we were on a real adventure hadn't yet sunk in. No palm treed Caribbean islands with buried treasure in sight, only corn sprouting from the bare, tilled earth. Oh well, seemed we were going fishing somewhere and that was pretty neat.
Also, didn't consciously realize it at the time but from the moment he picked me up in Alexandria 'til Emil passed away, he always talked with and treated me like an adult. Of course he never talked like any other adult I'd ever met before or since. Unless you include me in the herd. Been known to have my moments and rants. Blood runs deep, weirdness even deeper.
Emil was excited. Even a punk like me could tell that. Appeared to me adults never got excited so you could tell. But Emil was tingly like an eight year old on Christmas Eve. Made him seem more like a friend than an over-lording adult.
That his radio was welded to WCCO out of Minneapolis was almost secondary. No eight tracks, tapes, CDs or anything but airwaves in those days. Not a real problem though, when he tuned it in I could drift off and tune it out. For those of you who don't know 'CCO it's always been an old fogie's station, never been cutting edge. But they were good on news and followed the Gophers and finally in '61, the Twins and Vikings. Emil didn't have the radio on all the time but when he did… oh well, might as well have all five push buttons set to 830 on the AM dial.
Right off the bat he said, "I figure you'd rather listen to something else, no doubt rock and roll - ever tell you about the time I met Elvis? Nope, don't do rock 'n roll. But it's my radio. Simple as that. Don't worry, we'll be out of 'CCO's range in a couple of hours. Then it's Canadian Polka Party and the farm report forever!" Followed that with a booming guffaw.
"We're off to Canada, you and me. Probably spend the night up in Manitoba somewhere. You may not properly know what a flea bag is or how they say fleabag in French Canadian but by tomorrow morning you may have a general idea. Or maybe we'll sleep right here in the Nomad. That is if you have no objections. The next day on, we're in no radio land. After you hear me sing you'll be prayin' to be back in 'CCO county."
We passed a silent twenty minutes of rolling bare earth, tilled a rainbow of brown tones. All the while Emil'd been doing a lot of finger wiggling on and above the steering wheel. Struck me as kind of odd but not enough to say anything. Finally Emil piped up,
"Archie me lad, seems to me I said something about meeting Elvis. Now don't prejudge me about my feelings towards the man before I finish my story. I wasn't one of those people who thought he was Satan with sideburns. Also wasn't a fan either. When he arrived on the scene Elvis was just somebody you couldn't ignore."
"Believe it was '57 that me and Lena were down in Memphis. Lena's uncle Bobby had passed away from one of those strange southern maladies, forget which one. There are diseases in the dirt and swamps down there that've nothing better to do with their time than wait for a patch of innocent bare skin to come traipsing along. Next thing you know you're being measured for a box. Anyhow, we decided to drive down for the funeral. Kind of make a vacation out of it. Figured Bobby was dead and didn't much care what we did. That and it was a chance for Lena to catch up with family. It'd been one heckuva long winter up in Minnesota and the thought of May in the south was the clincher. The idea of all that good southern cooking might've also had a little to do with it. So we packed up the wagon and headed on down the river."
Emil paused, thumbed in the dashboard cigarette lighter, drew a Lucky Strike from his shirt pocket and fired up,
"I don't want to jump ahead of myself but before I forget; you probably never saw the picture of Elvis standing in front of his '55 pink Cadillac. Him mugging for the camera while one of Memphis' finest was writing him a ticket. Most people assume Elvis was being cited for speeding. Well, he wasn't. And that's not the only photo of the scene. But it's the only one with just Elvis and the cop."
"So at the funeral lunch I got to talking with a couple of local boys, Bobby's buddies, who it turned out were hot into bass fishing. They gave me a bunch of grief about the bite-sized bass we had up here in Minnesota. Not to be outdone I assured them that it was true our largemouth were smaller than their big ol' bass but ours were also a whole lot smarter. Kind of like the anglers in the northland. That brought on a bunch of hootin' and hollerin' from those boys. Good time."
"As the lunch wore down we worked our way around to the subject of southern cooking. And in Memphis that meant ribs with a side of red beans and rice. And ribs meant a place called The Rendezvous. Said it was up a back alley off to the side of a hotel name of The Peabody. 'Y'all know. The one with the ducks on parade.' Whatever the heck that meant. Bunch of goobers."
"So me and Lena hopped in the Nomad the next day and headed downtown for lunch. We parked. Dumped a fistful of nickels in the meter and started to wander. My plan was if we circled The Peabody and kept our eyes open we'd find the joint for sure. Second trip around, two strangers and a doorman later, we finally saw the sign. Ribs were definitely okay but nothin' to write home about. Me? I kind of like the oven baked ribs with sauerkraut down at Chick's in Melrose a whole lot more. Service wasn't all that hot either. And Grain Belt Premium? Never heard of it."
"I learned a lesson that day about choosing a parking spot when south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Given the choice don't ever park with the rear end of your car butted up close to a crosswalk if there's any chance some duck-tailed halfwit in a pink '55 Caddy is anywhere within ten miles. A spin of tires, a cloud of burnt rubber on a right turn and bingo! Left tail light's spread all over the street. Bad move on his part. That pink Caddy was about the only one in the country or on the planet for that matter. And there was about a half dozen police cars parked down the block in front of a donut shop. Looked like one of those old Keystone Cop movies the way those boys in blue piled onto the sidewalk."
"So, there's Elvis mugging for the camera. White pants, penny loafers, blue striped, short sleeved shirt with the sleeves turned up once. Cop writing a ticket for reckless driving. Me and Lena back by the Nomad keeping, as requested, the heck out of the way. After the photographer from the paper left, the cop tore up the ticket. Life of a big shot in a small potatoes city."
"Then it all turned around. Elvis invited us out to his new house just south of town. Nice spread. Lena and I ended up in the kitchen with Elvis' mom Gladys and his dad Vernon. Salt of the earth people with no pretensions. While we gabbed Elvis wandered off saying he's got a phone call to make. By now it's late afternoon and Gladys asks 'Y'all hungry?' So Lena says, 'If it's no trouble Mrs. Presley, how about the two of us make some sandwiches?'"
"That was the first time I ever had a peanut butter, banana and bacon combo. Better than those ribs any day. Went well with the Pepsi and that's comin' from a died in the wool, as you may well know, Coke man."
"Elvis joined us for the sandwiches. Turned out he'd called the body shop that'd done the pink paint job on his car. They said they'd do whatever it took to make the Nomad look like new and have it ready in the morning."
"Anyhow, that's how me and Lena got to spend the night in Graceland. Next morning after the Nomad was delivered, Elvis said we could come back anytime. He's a little odd in some ways but underneath all that Brylcreem, turned out he was a good kid."
Then it was quiet in the car. Nothing but the whine of tread on pavement as we rolled down onto the near endless flats of the Red River Valley.
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