Objects in the Future are Closer Than They Appear: Way Out West part three

I ate at McDonalds. I forgot to mention that. The day of the wake, after my mother and I returned to the hotel to pick up my dad, we grapped food at the golden arches. I had a Quarter Pounder, a spicy chicken sandwich, a large fries and a coke. I had gotten up at 4 am that morning and had very little to eat (an egg sandwich at LaGuardia). I like McDonalds, I only eat there when traveling so it always feels like a special privilege. But that meal, with the addition of the tidbits at the church, explains why at the end of the wake service I was absolutely stuffed. We went back to the hotel, me in my Brother's rental car, met up with my second cousin Chase and cousin Dierdre and went out for dinner and drinks. We found a rather good spot on main street. It was a hundred year old restaurant that, despite its age, looked alot like a generic American bar and grill that nonetheless was stylish enough to fit in in Manhattan. Like many airport bars in the midwest, they like to serve beer in extremely large glasses, a pint and a half or more. I have no problem with this. They had ten kinds of cheeseburger and hamburger on the menu, yet when Chase asked for a bleu cheese burger they looked at him like he was a space alien. Not that Chase is really that far from actually being a space alien, but when he finally got them to serve him a burger with bleu cheese, they didn't realize they were supposed to melt it on there.

That's where we were in the country.

We were met there by my cousins (and siblings) Travis, Tyler, and Tanya. Those three are the children of my Aunt Joe. Dierdre is the daughter of my Aunt Sheri. Chase is actually my first cousin once removed as his mom is my great aunt (my grandmother's sister) Lucille. My brother Mike and sister Jodi were not in town yet, their plane wouldn't land until after ten o'clock. Here's a snapshot from the joint.

Excepting Chase, everyone in the photo is within five years of each other (Dierdre and Travis [pictured on the left] and I were born within a month of each other in 1971.

It was when we left the above establishment that the real fun began. We found another bar on main street (it's name really wasn't main street but I forget the exact apellation) called the Sportsman Inn...or something like that. I should not here that all the businesses were on main street, there were no businesses anywhere else. Considering that Wahpeton Breckenridge has only 8500 people, the main street was still more than a mile long. This particular bar had a pool table, darts, an outdoor volleyball court with with a "beach volleyball" league and a blackjack table. The bar tender looked somewhat like Harry Knowles, or like any overweight, bearded, computer nerd or comic geek. They sold five types of bottled Malibu, pickled eggs and pickled turkey gizzards. Some of the regulars looked like truck stop prostitutes (that may be a little harsh) and the rest looked like twenty year old college kids. But it was a Tuesday night so we had the pool table and darts all to ourselves. Most of us limited ourselves to Corona for the evening as the most palatable beverage in the joint.

We drank alot, and smoked alot as it was most definitely legal to smoke indoors. Chase is a dangerous man to drink with as he will gladly buy you beers to keep the evening going. And when someone else is buying, I stop counting. Most of the conversation was simply catching up with each other. There was only one cousin missing, Trevor, Sheri's son; the rest of us hadn't been all together in over twenty years, most likely since my deceased Uncle's wedding. Chase and others had cameras so there was a lot of picture snapping. We drank a toast to Gene. We drank a toast to each other. Chase and Dierdre, at the urging of the locals, began drinking mugshots of Jaegermeister and Red Bull. We closed the place at two am. More pictures below. A description of my extended family to follow in another posting.

~A