When you're flying along at a mile a minute there's not much to see on the eastern edge of North Dakota, except maybe the eastern edge of Montana should you stand tippy-toed. If a man gets his jollies from a billion acres of wheat and a red roofed barn every ten minutes, then it's as good as a Laurel and Hardy short. However, for me the big deal was coming up ahead at the border. I'd never been to a foreign country before. Or out of the state of Minnesota for that matter. Back in '61 kids my age rarely went farther than they could walk or bike. It was a big deal to get a small cone at a Dairy Queen.
We hit the crossing in the middle of one of Emil's rambles. Believe me I was one scared puppy he wasn't going to interrupt his tale even when we stopped to talk with the border guard. He'd end up in a padded cell and I'd be stowed away in a Canadian orphanage where they'd force me to use vinegar on my french fries. Thankfully he did stop.
A couple of miles south of the border somehow or other Uncle Emil had wandered off into a fairy tale rant. Seemed he wanted to straighten me out about what was real about them and what was pure fantasy. Emil said his takes on those old stories were the God's truth as opposed to the Grimm boys who didn't know shinola. Even spit in his palm and rubbed the gob into my butch haircut to show his sincerity. Boy did he laugh when he did that.
Before I go any farther and you get the wrong idea, I have to let you know even though my uncle was weird, he wasn't that kind of weird, the kind of weird you remember thirty years later then spill your guts out in court. No, Emil just had a strange sense of humor and figured most everyone else would love it when he went off on a tangent. Even better if they just got confused. Nothing seemed to please him as much as telling a joke that only he found funny.
Who knew where his ideas came from? I sure didn't. And the truth was I'd never given much thought to Rapunzel. In fact, as far as fairy tales went I thought it was pretty lame. What a guy saw in a woman with an eighty foot pony tail was beyond me.
Emil started in, "I've got to tell you Archie me lad, the truth behind Rapunzel. You see there's this young woman. I forget exactly what her background was before the story began and I don't much give a rat's patoot considering where it's gonna end up but for sure she was one good looking lady. No doubt about it. And somehow or other she got some witch's goat, could be it was a queen or maybe her high school English teacher and I'm not even sure if there was a goat. Now that's not a smart thing to do 'cause when you kick the broom out from under a witch you're just begging for the oven. So figure this Rapunzel isn't too smart. Maybe it was just that the kid was such a doll and witches don't like pretty unless it's for Sunday brunch."
"Anyhow, the old hag, I figure she was an old hag 'cause it makes the story so much more believable. On the other hand there's some ladies who are knockouts with a touch of the witch about them like that wicked queen in Snow White, the one in the Disney cartoon. Oof dah, that kind of witchy is even scarier than the ones with warts on their noses, scary in the sense like one of those wasps or maybe it's spiders, that kill their suitors after two seconds of heaven and the guy figures it was worth it but you probably don't know exactly what I'm talking about yet. But if it just so happens you do then I figure it's good for you kid. Where was I?"
By that time we were pulling up to the guard shack. Car window rolls down. Emil says "Hi Pete." The man with the badge says, "Hi Emil." And they're off and running about fishing, kids and the merits of decent whiskey.
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