Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 20:09:46 -0600 From: "Rich Limacher" THE UNLIKELY ADVENTURE OF KITSCHME SIOUXME AT THE SUPERIOR TRAIL 100 Part 15 Oh, So the Continuous Trail to Canada Isn't Continuous? (Does Customs Know About This?) "Baby, take off your dress Yes, yes, yes Baby, you can take off your shoes You can take off your shoes But you can leave your hat on You can leave your hat on You can leave your hat on" --Randy Newman (from a popular song of a couple years back and a hit from the movie "9 and 1/2 Weeks") Ha! Another aid station. Just that quick and completely unexpected. And almost completely unremembered! (Heck, I forgot about it even while I was "stationed" there, getting "aid.") We come out of a clump of trees and there, suddenly, is a highway. Or, maybe it's a parking lot. Cars are all lined up and down the--paved!--road, and on the near side is about ten thousand people. Well, all right. Maybe a couple dozen. And they administer unto my needs. They perform the corporal works of mercy. They stick a sponge on a spear and shove it in my mouth. I thank them in Greek, or maybe Latin. They call to me the Thing of the Juice. They take my alms and ask if I'd like them redeemed with "All God's Creatures Great and Small" spray. They top off my bottles with goodness and grace and Gatorade. They touch my very sole. "Hey, you're the guy that won the shoes!" they proclaim. "Yea, verily verily," I say unto them. "Just in time, too," they bow their heads in stare. "Those are about shot!" The faithful continue to intercede on my behalf. They forgive me my trespasses and stuff me full of my daily bread (maybe even toasted and smeared with a little jelly and margarine). They give succor to my salvation. They toss me a lollypop and kick my ass across the road. "My father remembers you in heaven," I say, "or, at least Joliet." (For sure, if the old man knew I was doing this, I'D BE IN JOLIET! He'd have me imprisoned!! Or, at least committed.) (It's why I never tell them. I just say, "Ah, I'm just going up to Minnesota to do the famous, uh, Littlemorethan Marathon. Ever heard of it? I guess it didn't exist in your day." That's usually good enough for ma and pa.) Well, I can't take any more clothes off (I'm already down to my boxers and singlet) and I'm still wearing my hat, so I decide I'd better heed the ass-kick. I leave the aid station just brimming with excitement and fluids. "Thanks, everyone!" I say as I disappear into the clump of trees on the other side of the road. For the next, oh, beaucoup miles, I'm clomping up and over hill and dale, all the while being run down and passed by guys named Hill and gals named Dale. Yes, this is *the* moment. It's rush hour in the morning in Minnesota. EVERYBODY in the 50-mile race is catching up to me. "Toot-toot!" "Beep-beep!" "Passing on your left!" "Otta mah way, yoo somblybeech! Whuddayatink? Ya own da trail?" (That's a little exaggerated. I'm sure the accent wasn't that severe. Or unrecognizable!) I mean, just hundreds and hundreds (thousands even!) of runners must've been passing me. There were big ones and small ones and old ones and young ones. And one ol' dude about my age was keeping pace with two or three (really beautiful) young girls. I'm thinking, Hmmm. Must be his daughters. (He's thinking, Hmmm. Good thing I hired these babes. Imagine how I'm impressing THIS old fart we're passing.) (Meanwhile, the girls are thinking, Hmmm. THIS guy's doing the hundred. HE must be a reeeeeeeal man.) (And you're thinking, Oh, give me a break!) It's about seven more miles to the next aid station and, no kidding, I end up playing leapfrog most of the way there with Muhammad Dad, here, and His Harem. One of them would walk a little too long after climbing a hill, and I'd pass them all. Or, they'd chicken out of running "kamikaze" down a hill, and I'd catch 'em whenever I felt brave enough to be Japanese. Once, no kidding, I came upon them and they were ALL taking leaks! Pops over on the left side, and three bobbing little non-gray heads over on the right side in the weeds. "'Scuze us!" one of them hollers. "Not a problem!" I holler back. "You'll catch me when I have to do that!" It reminds me of one Chicago Marathon I did where, just before the start, I'd ducked around behind this little green building (a restroom, locked) at the edge of Grant Park--right downtown--thinking I'd take a quick leak. WHOA! Here's at least six young women, squatting, already engaged in the very same activity. "Sorry, ladies!" I remember saying. Then, I just went around the corner and did it facing traffic. Let 'em arrest me, I thought. And here, now, in the middle of the Minnesota woods, I think, Hmmm. Must be models for the Adidas ad. So, this is how it's going. They pee, I pass 'em. I pee, they pass me. (They think, Hmmm. This guy CAN'T be an Adidas model. He's not showing anything!) We keep this up, I swear, for almost the whole seven-odd miles. I never did catch up with "The Spy Who Passed Me," and neither did I see any more traces of the Edmund Fitz wreckage when we'd come upon a vista overlooking the Lake. Once, when my hat fell off and I had to stop and retrieve it, the group came up behind me and one of the girls said, "You got it all wrong, mister. You can leave your hat ON!" Hmmm, I think. I wonder what ELSE she's thinking? So I find myself once again trailing the group along the trail, and pretty soon they completely disappear beyond the tree clumps ahead of me. Tree clumps? Are we getting near the NEXT aid station? Already? So soon? Well, there's a guy just standing up ahead there. Looks like a volunteer. Or, maybe it's just some lost hunter pausing to reload. When I finally get up to him, I don't see any guns. That's good. "Turn right on the highway," he says. Badda-bing, badda-boom. I'm out of the clump and my slump. I'm suddenly on (yet another) PAVED road. I'm looking to the right, towards the east and the Lake (but of course I can't see it), and there I see yet another BIG oasis. This time it really does look like there's a thousand people there! There's a ton of folks gathered around the aid station tables all set out along the roadside, and I see just about everybody that's passed me jogging in the distance beyond. And THEN I see... Yep! Papa Muhammad and The All-Peeing Harem! Gosh, they're sticking with the old man even when he pees, poops (probably), and eats. What a cohesive, good little group! Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll... Is THIS the kind of "scenery" our hero has paid his money to see? Does he think he has even the remotest chance in hell of sauntering up to the "bar" and wooing the Angels away from Charlie over there? And is THIS that infamous "break" in the Superior Hiking Trail where all the runners must now take a detour? All these great trail people suddenly forced to be road runners again? But hey! I started out as a road runner! This, as they say, is "old hat!" Which is, I have to say, both then and right now, still on my head! (The dress and shoes, of course, have since been discarded.) [Author's Note No. 1: That's the truth. Wait till I tell you what happened to the shoes!] [Author's Note No. 2. Tch, tch, tch. None of you people are paying attention. Last time, as you may recall, I mistakenly gave the wrong name for the composer of "The James Bond Theme" and immediately "stopped the presses" in order to correct it. Welllllllllllllll... hah! The "correction" was wrong too! And nobody raised hell about it!!!] [Reader's Note No. 1: So who the hell is the composer anyway, and why do you think we should give a sh*t?] [Author's Note No. 3: Monty Norman is the correct composer of "The James Bond Theme." And you need to give a sh*t because there'll be a quiz afterwards.] "Dun-diddil-lun-dun DUN DUN DUN dun-diddil-lun-dun DUN DUN DUN dun-diddil-lun-dun DUN DUN DUN dun-diddil-lun-dun DUN DUN DUN... TWING-TWANG! Bowm-bowm-BOWM!!!" James ("BOOM") Bomb will probably never return again. But Kitsch the Sheik ("the seeker of each non-gray harem") WILL be back--harem scarem--with Part 16. Unless... BBBBB O O O O M M B B O O O O MM MM B B O O O O M M M M B B O O O O M M M BBBBB O O O O M M B B O O O O M M B B O O O O M M B B O O O O M M BBBBB O O O O M M XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Kitsch Limacher TheTroubadour@prodigy.net