Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 19:17:06 -0600 From: "Rich Limacher" THE UNLIKELY ADVENTURE OF KITSCHME SIOUXME AT THE SUPERIOR TRAIL 100 Part 20 Your Basic Above-Average Plus-Size Hare Piece "And if you go chasing rabbits and you know you're going to fall Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar Has given you the call Call Alice, when she was just small... "When logic and proportion Have fallen sloppy dead And the White Knight Is talking backwards And the Red Queen's Off her head Remember, what the Dormouse said, 'Feed your head! Feed your head! Feed your head!'" --Jefferson Airplane "White Rabbit" (1967) Maybe I'm hallucinating. You think? (These are thoughts I'm beginning to think as I thunder down the Superior Hiking Trail past a trailside sign telling me to be "quiet" which--believe me [I've since checked]--NOBODY ELSE SEEMS TO REMEMBER!) What's a "down area"? Is this a part of the vast Minnetonka candyland forest where Quaaludes are permitted? Encouraged? Freely distributed? (Am I the only one left out here on this trail from the '60s? Or, more to the point, am I the only relic from the '60s who can't remember if Quaaludes are uppers or downers? Are amphetamines uppers? White crosses? Mesck? Brown acid? Karl? You out there, buddy?) I comfort myself, as I run along this trail through the woods overlooking Lake Superior, that I really WASN'T a very sincere hippie, after all. I never did do any really "bad" drugs--aside from nicotine and some major alcohol abuse at frat house "garbage can" parties. So I missed a lot. Generally between the hours of two A.M. and noon. Another thing I seem to have missed was "the sexual revolution." I remember thinking even at the time all that "revolting" activity was first taking place, "What's so revolutionary about a five-dollar pizza date without so much as a good-night kiss?" Yep. I remember thinking those kinds of thoughts A LOT. But a "down area"? In the middle of the forest? In the middle of Minnesota? I make a mental note: I WILL ask somebody--anybody--later about that sign. It can't possibly be just my imagination. If it is, why, I might even start to see "Harvey." Or, maybe Jimmy Stewart out here alongside this here trailside. [Speaking of "old movies" on this List. And, by the way, Bruce Dern makes a lousy hippie.] What I am doing, of course, without actually realizing it [hence, the advantage of writing these things long afterward--rather than lugging along a PC and doing it *during*--you get the advantage of RESEARCH, trail maps, and HINDSIGHT] is running alongside "Alfred's Pond." [I see it here on my map.] In fact, the trail cuts RIGHTNEXTTOIT, but I honestly can't remember noticing any pond, at this point in the race, because my feet aren't wet yet and the ducks are all gone. So, I merely continue loping along my merry way, not suspecting a thing, not realizing how close I am to the water's edge, not remembering much of my youth, and--if you'd press me on this--not all that much about my old age either. But, honest-to-God, when I burst through the trees at the next paved road crossing (County Road 1), there was another aid station, and THERE... ...was Harvey!!!! This great big, huge, white, six-foot-tall (at least) smiling RABBIT!!!!! Standing right there at that aid station!!!!! I SWEAR TO GOD!!!! WITH A RAILROAD ENGINEER'S CAP ON HIS HEAD BETWEEN HIS EARS!!! "RABBIT!" I holler. "What are YOU doing here????" Everybody looks at me. And, I think, their eyebrows are raising. "I'm just volunteering," he says. HONEST TO GOD, I SWEAR HE SAYS THIS!!! Everybody continues to look at me. "Gosh," I say. "I really, really and truly, NEVER expected to see YOU here!" Everybody keeps watching me out of the corner of their eyes. "I'm just glad to help out." HE SAYS THAT, TOO!!! Now the people are all starting to move away from me, a little. I begin to wonder just how bad, maybe, I smell. "Well, gosh! It really, really IS good to see you, my friend. Could you fill my bottle here with Gatorade?" At this point, my imagination kicks into overdrive. I begin to believe that what I'm witnessing is a water bottle flying through the air under it's own power, twist its own lid off, and position itself under a big orange five-gallon jug while some invisible thumb presses the pour button. Juice mysteriously flows into the bottle. It fills to the brim. The button pops back out by itself. The bottle flies. The cap comes off the card table and twists itself back onto the bottle and then... (OH MY GOD I'M STARTING TO FREAK OUT)... it spins like a six-shooter and flips itself right back into my holster. Everyone is simply agog. Jaws drop open. No one moves. This, I swear, is my ultimate defining moment as an ultrarunner. And then suddenly... "Are you all right, sir?" It was one of the lady volunteers at the aid station. "Uh... I, uh, I think so," I stammer. And then I gulp twice and ask: "Please, tell me, where is my water bottle?" "Oh, she says, Rabbit's got it over there." "WOW! YOU SEE HIM TOO!!!" "Of course!" "THEN I AM NOT GOING OUT OF MY MIND???" "No, I don't think so." "THANKS! I LOVE YOU! I'LL GIVE YOU ALL A GREAT BIG KISS AT THE FINISH LINE!" "Rabbit" hands me back my bottle, I grab a fistful of M&Ms, and I'm off. "Thanks, everyone! Godbless!!" It is very important, I've been told time and again, to feed your brain. And sugar and chocolate, during a long ultra, are your best ways to do that. It's why the aid stations all have such things as M&Ms and cookies. And, trust me on this, these things are much, much better for your head than booze, smoke, and "brown acid." Welp, that's the Cramer Road Aid Station [I just rechecked my map] and I'm now 38.7 miles into this race and, furshure furshure, I--and EVERYBODY ELSE who's doing this race--have just been treated to the volunteered vision of a great big, huge, six-foot-tall (at least) smiling white Rabbit! And, yes, he's wearing his patented engineer's cap on top of it, er, him. And so, Alice, we're not in Wonderland after all. Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll... Right now, you're not too sure of that, are you, sports fans? As we've said before, now that our hero's passed the 38.7 mile mark, FOR SURE(!) he's lost his marbles. Whoever heard of a "Rabbit" at an aid station? ESPECIALLY one with a railroad cap stuck between his ears? But! That volunteer lady saw the vision, too! What can THIS mean, movie buffs? Well, you all may just have to wait till next time to find all this out. It may well be that, by then, our hero will be "starring" in his own weird, old-fashioned, black-and-white movie featuring an aging hippie trying to engineer a run-back. And whattaya know about that? We'll call it far-out, groovy, and just... "Marvey." And it'll be about this huge invisible six-foot-TWO alligator, see, from "Trapper John's Gator Farm" near Laurel, Mississippi. And, believe me, he does have teeth, and he will be smiling. _ _ O O ^ \_/ [Back after another hot flash, with Part 21.] Kitsch Limacher TheTroubadour@prodigy.net