Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 22:08:08 -0600 From: "Rich Limacher" THE UNLIKELY ADVENTURE OF KITSCHME SIOUXME AT THE SUPERIOR TRAIL 100 Part 22 Sweet Home, Chicago "I really have a yen To go back once again, Back to the place where no one wears a frown, To see once more those super-special just plain folks In my home town. "No fellow could ignore The little girl next door, She sure looked sweet in her first evening gown. Now there's a charge for what she used to give for free In my home town.... "I remember Sam, he was the village idiot, And though it seems a pity, it Was so. He loved to burn down houses just to watch the glow, And nothing could be done, 'Cause he was the mayor's son. "The guy that took a knife And monogrammed his wife, Then dropped her in the pond and watched her drown. Oh, yes indeed, the people there are just plain folks In my home town." --Tom Lehrer "My Home Town" (1958) I decide, on my ascent up and out of the Temperance River aid station, that maybe I'd better step on it. (Not the river. Temperance.) My newly imagined nemesis is RIGHTBEHINDME. On the gradual switchback-like climb up from the river on the other side, I am reminded of another lyric, pertaining of course to "Temperance," which I'd originally heard sung in concert by Tom Chapin, Harry's brother, who also sang at one of the very last concerts Harry ever gave, and I had been privileged to attend. (Harry Chapin. There's another fab song writer you might possibly be hearing from as these endless chapters roll on.) Anyway, Tom sang: "One mornin' in a fit of pique, Sing rickety-tickety-tin, One mornin' in a fit of pique, She drowned her father in the creek. The water tasted bad for a week, And we had to make do with gin, with gin, We had to make do with gin." [Author's note: As it turns out, of course, Tom Chapin didn't write that "Irish Ballad." Tom Lehrer did. But, I'm throwin' it at ye enna wey. In honour of Good Ol' Saint Paddy's Day. And in hopes, natch, that Erin Go Braghless.] And I wonder if either Hardrock or Coco is Jo's dad. But I decide then and there that, even if they are only doing the 50-miler, they are NOT gonna pass me! A kooque has his dignity, after all, and, after all, everybody in the great state of Minnesota has ALREADY passed me. I'm convinced I'm almost dead last. But I'm also convinced that, if I can only keep THEM behind me, I WON'T be dead last. Unless, of course, Hardrock and Coco and Jo are only doing the 50. In which case, I may not ever see them again, because, as I learned when I left, the Temperance River aid station is plunked right down in the canyon at mile 45.7. So, what we have now is a 4.3 mile race to the cutoff. But, of course, I'm game. I could use a little "competition" right about now. I've been thundering along creekbeds and riverside trails all by myself for what seems like hours. All I've have for company has been pyromanic juvenile delinquents and their aging alcoholic ancestors and, naturally, all the rocks and boulders I could count--if, that is, I cared to count any. Instead, I contented myself with passing them all like they were standing still. The climb out of the Temperance River canyon is, quite mercifully, gradual with good trail and good footing and a couple of good vistas overlooking the river, as well as, sure, all angling grandparents with their beer and gin. I waved again, but they didn't see me. I don't see anyone further on down there to wave at, so I decided to just puy my head down and run. Creeping along as I was, I suppose, with the blinding speed of a herd of turtles. I wonder if there are any snakes in the Temperance River. Or, for that matter, any revivalists preachers handling same. Naw, I think, too many firecrackers. Pretty soon I'm back deep in the forest again, away from any big flowing water, intemperate elders, or snake-handling preachers. Once again, I seem to be all by myself. I look at my watch. Hmmm, I think. Gettin' near suppertime. Imagine my surprise then, when, quite suddenly, I find myself being overtakin by other thundering feet. In a jerking backwards motion worthy of "The Exorcist," I immediatelly whip around to see if it's those same three runners who I think it is. Nope. Wrong. It's just another dude also running all by himself. And he even slows up a little when he closes the gap, I suppose, so we can "talk." "This your first time here?" I go, "Yeah." "You're doin' the hundred, aren't you?" I go, "Yeah." "We're almost--but not quite--half way." I go, "Yeah." "Where ya from?" I go, "Uh, Chicago." "I'm from Morton Grove." "NO!" I holler. "Illinois???" He goes, "Yeah." "You've come all the way here to Minnesota to run this sucker from Morton Grove, Illinos???" He goes, "Yeah." I go, "You gotta be crazier'n I am!" He goes, "I've been here before." "You're doin' the hundred, too?" He goes, "Yeah." "You're lookin' for a PR." "He goes, "Yeah." I go, "On this course? Good luck." Then he goes, "Hey, haven't I seen you at CARA races?" I'm thinking, Oh great. I drive five hundred miles to get AWAY from those damn overcrowded city races, only to be running along in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere talking about those same damn overcrowded city races. "Yeah," I say. "I've been to a few of 'em." [Author's note: CARA stands for Chicago Area Runners Association. I used to think of it as a kind of urban running congress and myself as a representative from the South Side. But now I think of it as the overcrowded sponsor of a billion little 5Ks and 10Ks where every runner in Chicago somehow knows my name. It's why I've fled to the backwoods of Minnesota. For the anonymity!] "You look familiar," he says. "Well, my name's Kitsch," I tell him. "No kidding?" he says. "Mine too!" "KITSCH IS YOUR NAME, TOO???" "That's right!" "You're puttin' me on!" "Nope. What age group are you in?" "Now you're gonna ask me how I finished on the 'CARA Circuit' last year?" "Well, how did you?" "I didn't. I was never fast enough to make the top fifteen." "I thought you won a prize one year." "Right. The caboose award." "No, really." "Yeah well, in the early days, they set up a Clydesdale circuit. You know, for all the truly American people who aren't built like Kenyans. So I finished in third place one year--before it caught on. Now everybody's a Clydesdale." "I know what you mean," he says. "Are you a Clydesdale?" "I was fourth that year you won third." Uh-oh, I think. I could be in trouble. In my entire lifetime as a runner--in Chicago or elsewhere--I have come away from the races with exactly one trophy. So here, miles from anyone--sheriff included--I finally meet up in a dark woods with the very guy I took it from. What do you suppose are the odds against THAT? I can't believe what he's telling me! Is there nowhere I can go where I won't be recognized? No way to hide this mug of mine? This, uh, trophy--the ONLY trophy I've ever won in my life! What? Was it illegal? Did I steal it? Am I now and forever 'a hunted man' because the fourth-place guy STILL wants the thing! And now he has the perfect opportunity... to kill me for it!!! I feel immediately like "Small Sad Irving." (Who remembers this? A long, long time ago there was this rash of Jimmy Dean songs all about big bad heroes like "Big Bad John." And right along with it came a rash of Weird Al-like parodies, and one of them was called "Small Sad Irving, the hundred-forty-second fastest gun in the West." He lived his life far away from number one hundred forty-one, and in mortal fear of the challenge from number one hundred forty-three.) Guess what: This guy running with me now--all by ourselves in the middle of nowhere in the middle of mooseville with the next lawman some 54.3 miles away and nobody but nobody available to hear gunshots ring out or me screaming bloody murder--THIS GUY just happens to be number four on the all-Chicago CARA Clydesdale CIRCUIT!!! Oh my God in heaven. And that guy, right now, IS RIGHT BEHIND ME!!! Welllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll... Who could have predicted THIS, sports fans? That the simple rivalry of a city-wide competition could have such deep-seeded and far-reaching effects as to pervade the surrounding countryside for five hundred miles? That CARA could be so callous as to foster such intense rivalry in the first place? That the friggin' porcelain trophy for third place should be so valuable that it could, in fact, be coveted for perpetuity? (What are we talking here, the Maltese Falcon?) That THIS guy REMEMBERS the chump who finished THIRD in 1995??? And is Small Sad Irving, the hundred-forty-second fastest "horse" in the West, now in fact going to be stopped dead in his tracks by number one hundred forty-three? Better stay glued to your deskchairs! Don't touch that mouse! (Eat a TV Dinner!) Be with us again next time when the thrilling adventures of yesteryear return again to thunder on hooves through your computer rooms and light up your monitors with big tales of wild imagination from the restless days of the Old West...or, well, at least from September of 1999 in upstate Minnesota...when The Lone Stranger writes again!!! Or, well, at least stays on his feet long enough to rustle up Part 23. Kitsch Limacher TheTroubadour@prodigy.net