Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 16:17:18 -0600 From: "Rich Limacher" THE UNLIKELY ADVENTURE OF KITSCHME SIOUXME AT THE SUPERIOR TRAIL 100 Part 18 "You're Gonna Like This Next Section" (And If It Doesn't Kill You, You're Money Ahead) "Crossin' the highway late last night, He shoulda looked left and he shoulda looked right, He didn't see the station wagon car, The skunk got squashed and there you are! You got your Dead skunk in the middle of the road, Dead skunk in the middle of the road, Dead skunk in the middle of the road, Stinkin' to high heaven! Take a whiff on me--that ain't no rose! Roll up your window and hold your nose, You don't have to look and you don't have to see, 'Cause you can feel it in your olfactory... C'mon stink! You got it, It's dead, it's in the middle, Dead skunk in the middle! Dead skunk in the middle of the road... And it's stinkin' to high, high heaven!" --Loudon Wainwright III, 1972 (Same year as "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" came out) I'm looking at a very, very much alive and highly animated pacer in the middle of the parking lot. And she looks and, of course, smells just heavenly! [And SHE never did say that awful thing I tried to "throw you off with" last time. I did.] Oh-oh, actually what I really said was this: "How [not where] the hell ya been?" To which I now add, rather quickly, "I am soooooooo glad to see you! And Big Chef too!!" OK, time to review. In case you've been running too long, hiding under a rock, flaming other more philosophical writers, not reading your e-mail, or otherwise not paying attention to this, "the longest story ever told," you may not in fact realize just what is happening here. (Which ain't much, believe me.) But this whole "unlikely adventure" got started in the first place because my good friend Hihowarthya was looking for some nighttime company to help her get to the finish this year, and then I volunteered, and then she became injured, and then suddenly I was suckered into doing this thing all by myself. But! Not to worry. She then just as suddenly volunteered to be MY nighttime company--along with her own main brave Heap Big Chef Hatchetman, who I didn't find out till later is in the food processing industry. And! I realize now this sounds a whole lot worse than it was. Once you understand that we'll all be RUNNING--not SLEEPING--together throughout the night, well, this makes it better, doesn't it? So, anyway my job was to mail Hihowarthya and Chef Hatchet a copy of my pre-race booklet, complete with the umpteen pages of maps and diagrams with circles and arrows and paragraphs out to the side of each one explainin' what each one was to be used as crew access points so that THEY could locate ME at various times while I was runnin' alone. This I had done (sent them a xerox, I mean) and Hihowarthya had assured me before I ever left home--home, does anybody remember where the hell THAT is?--that she and Hatch would find me "sometime" during their vacation camping trip along the North Shore of Lake Gitche Gumee. Uh-huh. So up until THIS VERY MOMENT--after seventeen chapters and countless hours of unlikely adventure involving other running Indians, their loaned and owned trucks, wagon trains and unpeed cars, torsion bars and other offsprings, kith and kin, along with yards of duct tape stuck all over motel walls and rented cars, and pre-race banquets where there weren't no food--uh, presto! I had NO IDEA that my pacer and her compadre would ever show up at all. Little did I know they'd been monitoring my progress from the start. "We're fine," Hihowarthya tells me now. "We figured we'd meet you here by how long you were taking." She grins. "Yeah, thanks." "No, really. You're not doing too badly, Kitsch. You might even make Oberg Mountain by midnight." "Gawd, I HOPE so! I figured I'd get there by dark!" "No, dear. You're not going to make it by dark." "Oh." "Is there anything we can get ya?" "Sure." "What's that?" "A good shrink." "Ha ha ha." "But hey, Hi, I do have something for you." "You do? What?" "Something you need to pace me." And I proceeded to unzip, reach in, and pull out from my very own personal private pouch dangling down in front of me that full-size extra full-colored bib number with an identical number to mine with circles and hash marks on the back and four holes in the corners with a safety pin safely stuck in each one, to be used as evidence she's pacing me. "Oh, but I can't pace you now," she says. "OH NOOOOOOO???????" "No, silly. It's still way too early in the race!" "WHAAAAA?????" "I'll see you at Oberg Mountain!" "HUHHHHHH????" "We're going to go get some lunch!" "U-GODDA-BE-KIDDING-ME!!!!!!!!!!!" "No, Kitsch. We gotta get going--and so do you! But you're gonna like this next trail section. I know I did." "Gosh. So this means... you're leaving me?" "Yeah." "So SOON???" "Yeah." "BUT YOU JUST GOT HERE!!!" "No, dear, YOU just got here. We've been waiting for hours!!!" "Oh." "Besides, you gotta get going too. You have to keep ahead of the cut-offs!" "OK, but..." "But what?" "Will ya hang onto that bib number? I don't wanna carry it any more. It's too heavy." "Sure." "OK, well, bye, I guess." "See ya later!" And with that she turned and jogged back towards her Hatchetman and their happy camper. And I became an orphan. Again. I decide I'd better grab some lunch myself from the aid station that was set up there at the Caribou State Wayside (that's the state's term), called the Caribou Creek Aid Station (that's the ST100's term), even though it's already probably close to one in the afternoon. (I suppose I *could* tell you for sure, but my watch is set to elapsed race time, not Central Daylight Time, and it's just too much trouble to switch. Right.) A volunteer offers to top off my Gatorade water bottle, and I thank her. Then I scrounge around for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I find something in four different pieces. So I grab them all. Stuffing my face and swilling a couple cups worth of Coke, I fly out of that aid station like a herd of turtles. Hmmm. Back on the trail again. Creeping swiftly. Chewing, guzzling, scratching, spitting. I pitch the balled-up empties at a wayside bag and hitch up my britches. Wham! I'm otta the park. I start "jogging" again. And, of course, playing underneath my thinking cap. Crossin' his legs just the other night, He shoulda stripped to his shorts and ran otta sight, He couldn't see his gut growing under the bar, Went into cardiac arrest and there you are! You got your Dead shrink in the middle of the room, Dead shrink in the middle of the room, Dead shrink in the middle of the room, Shrinkin' to insignificance! Don't need no appointment for ther-a-pee! Just drop your shorts and set it free, You don't have to sit and you don't have to squirm, Just run with me and you'll get firm! C'mon run! You got it, HE's dead, HE's in the middle, Dead shrink in the middle! Dead shrink in the middle of the room... And he's shrinking to, lo, disappearance!" Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll... Only twenty-eight-point-three miles into this race, and already our hero has lost his marbles? Is he in need of psychiatric help...already??? What do they put in that "Coke" anyway? And, really, why should he enjoy THIS particular section of trail any more ecstatically than he's already enjoyed each and every OTHER horrible rocky section of the Superior Hiking Trail? Is there a surprise in store? Is there a store? Well, folk-and-rock(y) path fans, you'll just have to be surprised. Be sure to tune in next time when you will no doubt witness some REAL "shrinking" accomplished by Caribou Creek! And you don't need a doctor of psychiatry to explain what THAT means to you either! The Further Adventures of Stinkman and Skunkin will return shortly with Part 19. Kitsch Limacher TheTroubadour@prodigy.net