A Baseball Game
(part 7 of Galilee hitchhiker)
Baudelaire went
to a baseball game
and bought a hot dog
and lit up a pipe
of opium.
The New York Yankees
were playing
the Detroit Tigers.
In the fourth inning
an angel committed
suicide by jumping
off a low cloud.
The angel landed
on second base,
causing the
whole infield
to crack like
a huge mirror.
The game was
called on
account of
fear.
been about 1984. My lovely wife and I were at the annual summer art show at St. Kate's (we rarely missed it when we lived in Minneapolis). I bought a mug from Maurene Brockway. It is still, over 25 years later, my favorite coffee mug. A few years later, we bought a table setting from her. It was featured in a show at the Scandinavian Design Center, then in the warehouse district. We bought what they had at the show, then supplemented it by visiting her studio and choosing a few more pieces. She was very gracious. We still use those dishes, mostly on special occasions to show off for guests, but sometimes just because we want to. They are beautiful and functional.
The good folks at the Spoetzl brewery describe this as a dark lager with some extra hops. That it is. Shiner Bock is one of my favorites, and I aim to try all the Shiner variations. I first encountered Shiner back in the 70's when traveling to Texas periodically for work. We went to Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Hunstville. Never made it to Austin or San Antonio or Galveston or Corpus Christi. Shiner was, I'm pretty sure, a regional beer. I, for one, am glad it has gone national.The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth's Beer Bottles
When we were children after the war
we lived for a year in a house next
to a large highway. There were many
sawmills and log ponds on the other side
of the highway. The sound of the saws could
be heard most of the time and when there
was darkness trash burners glowed red
against the sky. We did not have a father
and our mother had to work very hard.
My sister and I got our spending money
by gathering beer bottles that had been
thrown along the highway or left around
the sawmills. At first we carried the
bottles in gunny sacks and cardboard boxes
but later we found an old baby buggy
and we used that to carry our bottles in.
We took the bottles to a grocery store
and were paid a penny for small beer bottles
and two cents for large ones. On almost
any day we could be seen pushing our baby
buggy along the highway looking
for beer bottles.
The Ranchero Supper Club is an institution in Webster, MN; by which I mean that it's been there forever. Webster is a very small town on the border between Rice and Scott counties, southwest of the Twin Cities. There isn't much in Webster except the Ranchero. I'd guess you could easily fit half the population of Webster into the Ranchero. People come, as they say, from miles around. We've been there a few times and enjoyed it. Tried it again last Friday evening. The place celebrates its German heritage* by serving German beers and a few German dishes like schnitzel and kraut. The dining room is decorated with elaborate Bavarian steins.
My advice: stick with the beer. I had the Paulaner Oktoberfest** and it was excellent. The food, however, was ordinary. Dull. Uninspired. And overpriced.
* How did a German restaurant come to be called The Ranchero?So a litre is 2.82 bottles of beer. Now, I do like beer, but it is exceedingly rare for me to consume three bottles in an evening, much less in the course of one meal. I really only wanted a pint. Really.
But, as it turned out, the meal I had was so bad that I viewed the extra beer*** as my just dessert.
*** I wasn't driving.
The Decline of the Colorado
At Yuma, a retired accountant with prostate trouble
could piss across the Colorado.
"Used to be in the canyon business,"
the river whispers, squishing
along between cottonwoods,
"before I moved to California
to grow organic lettuce."
What does a man say to a river
that couldn't flood a ballpark after
a hundred thunderstorms?
Old geezer, it doesn't help --
my weeping for you.
