I had the pleasure of attending my brother-in-law’s funeral last week. The pleasure was not in seeing Bucky dead, but in having the chance to see family. Also, this was in a small town in western Wisconsin, and I’m a sucker for small towns.
The first time I met Bucky was thirty-one years ago. Without hesitation, he took me to the bar and included me in his happy hour with friends.
I was from Cleveland which is something of an amalgam. It’s located between Appalachia and the Midwest, but founded on Yankee/New England principles. All that is to say I don’t think we have an accent.
My wife is from north-central Wisconsin and definitely has an accent. But it didn’t prepare me for the accent I heard at happy hour in the bar in that small town in rural Wisconsin. Bucky and his friends spoke with the articulation of Boomhauer from King of the Hill and the nasal twang of Charlie Beren. That is to say, I couldn’t understand a goddam thing anybody said.
But I got drunk on fifty-cent beers and we were able to walk back home for supper.
The point is that Bucky made me feel welcome in the family, he always had a supply of cold beer, and he was generous with that beer. He will be missed.
My small town roots are on my father’s side where his grandparents homesteaded in Bramble, Minnesota. That’s up in Koochiching county, which is also the home of Bullwinkle Moose. Of course, I know Rocky and Bullwinkle are from Frostbite Falls, but it’s modeled after International Falls, which is in Koochiching County. Also, in the episode “Buried Treasure,” Rocky is taken to Koochiching County Hospital.
And now I’ve gotten to say “Koochiching” four times, and most of you had probably never heard it before in your life.
We made the pilgrimage from Cleveland to Bramble a few times when I was a kid. It was kind of a rough trip. That’s over 900 miles, and my father was not known for his luxurious cars or for being a patient man. But we didn’t have to wear a seat belt, so it was kind of an even trade.
It was on one of those trips that we spent a night in a campground, sleeping in a tent, when a tornado tore through the area. The ranger came around to warn us, and my parents considered abandoning the camp and driving to safety, but in the end my father decided it’d be better for us to die together in his canvas Coleman tent, rather than risk losing the sweet camping sight we’d set up.
It was on one of those trips that I saw a woman’s breasts for the second time in my life. We had stopped in some town for lunch, and went into a drugstore for something or other. There was a restored, frontier-era saloon in town, as well, and my parents wanted to check out the saloon and have a drink.
As my father tossed back a whiskey, he revealed that he’d bought a porno magazine at the drugstore for “some reason.” He flipped through the magazine, scandalizing my mother, and I stole glances at the naked ladies. Of course, the reason my father bought the magazine was because he was horny.
I didn’t know that then. I was ten. I just wanted to look at the breasts.
In case you’re wondering, the first time I saw a woman’s breasts was my grandmother when I walked into the bathroom moments after she’d gotten out of the shower. I was nine.
For what it’s worth, I can still picture both sets of those breasts. I’m not saying they’re healthy memories. There are things you don’t want to forget, and things you can’t unsee.
As you get older, you accumulate more of both types of memories, and you have to deal with it.
After my grandmother died (yes, that grandmother), we made another family trip to Bramble to revisit the place she’d been born and lived until she was married. My father had been connecting with the locals during all of these visits, and we made a visit to a woman who in the area who had grown up with my grandmother.
The point of these personal visits, beyond being friendly, was to put names and dates to the various photos my father had collected from his parents. Photos such as this one:
But when we saw this woman we were all stunned. She appeared to be an identical twin of my late grandmother. Same face, height, build. Same quick wit and dominant personality. Same bra size: 36D.
The similarity was uncanny. After the visit, my father formulated a theory.
Bramble is part of northern Minnesota’s iron range. Although folks homesteaded there, it was a miserably place to try to farm. The ground held water, was often swampy, and growing food crops was tough. The best most could do was put in some hay and raise cattle.
To survive, the men folk would take work in the iron mines during winter. They’d walk for up to five days, probably going from homestead to homestead along the way, taking meals, spending the night, as they made their way to a mine.
Despite being spread out across this vast, northern forest, the families were connected, having emigrated from the same region in Ukraine’s Carpathian mountains. They were still a community. They knew each other. And maybe some knew each other a little too much, if you know what I mean.
Once at a mine, they’d grab a pick, ride a trolley into the earth, and pretty much stay there for the next six months.
The theory was that my father’s grandfather had visited a homestead where the man of the house had already departed for the winter work. Maybe that was by design or by chance, but somehow he had fathered this other girl who happened to end up looking exactly like his own daughter. (Welp, I guess we know how he fathered that child.)
Theory aside, I can still picture this doppelganger of my grandmother because, of course, she looked exactly like my grandmother.
No, I never saw that woman’s breasts. But I’m pretty sure I know what they looked like.
Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…
Ashley Undone, a crime story and family drama, is available for pre-order. Set in Ann Arbor, it’s a Cinderella story pitting love of family against the evil of greed.
Reviews and early sales help a book more than anything. If you enjoy my stories here, you’ll love Ashley Undone.
For those of you here on the Picayune, if you let me know you bought the pre-order of Ashley Undone, I’ll send you a collection of Mickey Picayunes covering 2019-2024.
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This week, I’ve joined a group of authors for a sci-fi and “hard magic” fantasy (if you know, you know…) giveaway:
https://storyoriginapp.com/to/zBJJulR
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Thanks for reading the Mickey Picayune. I’ll be back in two weeks with more fun stuff.
All the best,
Mickey
P.S. Preorder my book!