GUD-RIDGE! MAYBE THIS YEAR, BABY!

   Late April renders up another fine Joe tradition hereabouts, the Gud-drudge’ (Goodridge) Lions Annual Smelt Fry, in Gud-drudge’ (Goodridge), Minnesota, seventeen miles east and a mile north of Tuff Rubber Balls (Thief River Falls), Minnesota. ‘Gud-drudge’ is the local vernacular for ‘Goodridge,’ and its proper annunciation, is the separation between towners and tourists. 

   A small rural town, with a population of about 150 people, is an agricultural community residing within and well beyond the city limits. Often several miles apart, resident farmsteads dot the remote flatland topography of northwestern Minnesota, whose inhabitants often share the lifelong experiences of church, school, employment, and/or family relation.

   The smelt fry is a community event that brings people home from across the region. Beginning in the morning, and in combination with area garage sales, auctions begin around town selling consignment items from boats to barrettes, wood stoves, ductwork, framed artwork, automobiles, grain trucks, farm tractors and equipment, pickups, snowmobiles, motorcycles, campers -- almost everything under the northwest Minnesota sun. About four o’clock people begin gathering at the back door of a long quonset building where the smelt fry is taking place; the doors opening at four-thirty.

   Standing forty-feet from the door, in line with a man whom I used to work at the toy factory and whom Joe and I have known for years, we became reacquainted with his family. A half hour later, the line stretched about 100 feet and was adding people by the minute. The fragrance of food wafted over the die-hard bidders and auctioneers, as our part of the line entered the building, and the fun began.

   The smelt fry has become one of those traditions that Joe has religiously instilled upon us, even though the last time we attended was five years ago, and the year beyond that, our first foray into the truly ‘wunnerful’ event. Ever since, we have implored others to enjoy with us, even if they won’t consent to being our ‘designated driver.’ 

   The first year, Jerry S., from Palmville joined us; the next time Pete K., (Joe’s brother-in-law) from Fargo, North Dakota. Both fine, able-bodied individuals with constitutions made of iron (Jerry’s for sure; Pete’s is maybe plastic) did fine jobs getting us home safely without undue giddiness or hallucination for smelt can do that to you if you don’t limit your intake. 

   Now I know some of you readers were thinking Joe and meself were too intoxicated to drive because of alcohol, but it’s simply not true; They only serve keg beer at the smelt fry and that’s merely water with yellow food coloring in it to men who ‘ave Scotland and Ireland coursing through their veins. 

   Fortunately, for the sake of our immediate families, we are two mature adult men who know to limit our intakes of crisp deep-fried smelt, tartar sauce, baked potato and coleslaw -- as well as endless 22-ounce cups of cold keg beer served promptly by jovial Goodridge Lions members, some of whom carry about huge slabs of shrink-wrapped, smoked side pork (bacon) over their forearms and heartily attempt to sell three-for-five dollars raffle tickets to it, looped about their necks.  

   “NUMBA TREE ATEY TREE! NUMBA TREE ATEY TREE!” someone hollers over the din of talkers sitting at the many rows of folding tables. “NUMBA TREE ATEY TREE!”

   Someone behind us stands up from his folding chair and shoots his hairy muscled arm toward the ceiling,

   “I GOT NUMBA TREE ATEY TREE! I GOT NUMBA TREE ATEY TREE!”

   So I didn’t win that time either. “Yah, more beer. Tuk!”

   “Hey Joe,” I said, looking at a rather sizable man, standing talking to some people at another table. Motioning toward him, with my wheat bun, I continued “Doesn’t that guy look like ... Ed ... Ed...”

   “McMahon?” Joe answered, attempting to look over his shoulder and through the herd of people in a long line, standing in the lee of the quonset’s curved wall between the cash register and the serving counter.

   “No!” I said, busily masticating my delicious coleslaw. “You named a Cafe 89 two egg and hashbrowns conglomeration after him, “‘The Ed something Special...”

   “Haugen? Ed Haugen?” Joe said, finishing his 100th smelt, with a lick of his lips and a swipe of his napkin. “Ed ‘You poop, we’ll pump' Haugen? That Ed?”

   “That’s the guy!” I said. “You poop, we pump,” that’s right! Fun-nee!”

   The late Ed Haugen was a local legend around Palmville. A congenial happy man he lived just south of Wannaska and could often be seen visiting with people at the cafe in town. Besides other employment, he operated a septic tank cleaning service and used his signature sales statement with a great sense of glee.

   With live polka music played by a father and small son duo, two thirty-something women visit amicably along the wall waiting their turn at the serving counter. Several young men and women too, dressed in Under Armour caps and camouflage-in-vogue jackets, shirts and bib coveralls, seated and standing, stare intently at their smartphones, casually eat food from their plates without talking to one another, as older couples, friends and neighbors share a raucous laugh as stories are retold, only over-shadowed by the contagious chant of those pesky Lions Club members hawking their bacon,

   “NUMBA NINE NINETY TREE! NINE NINETY TREE! NINE NINETY TREE! NINE NINETY TREE!

   A teenage woman in a grain elevator cap and sports jacket, erupted from her place at a table along the opposite wall,

   “I GOTSCHER NUMBA NINE NINETY TREE! OVER HERE! NINE NINETY TREE! ” she hollered back, causing everyone in the place to look her way, their necks twisting out of joint so fast it sounded like distant gunfire. Even the boys looked up from their cellphones, “What tha?”

   “NINE NINETY TREE? YOU GOT NUMBA NINE NINETY TREE??” the Lions guy amazingly queried as if he didn’t hear her as though the popping-spitting sound of the deep-fryers from the kitchen had drowned her out for him to hear accurately over the din of conversations and laughter around him. 

   I was surprised he didn’t shout “SHUT UP ALL YOUSE! I CAN’T HEAR THIS YOUNG LADY FER SHIT!”

   “I GOTSCHER NUMBA NINE NINETY TREE!” she thundered back, waving her blue ticket stub. “I GOTSCHER NINE NINETY TREE!”

   And so it was. She had the winning number. Yeah, baby... 

   We’ll win this year, maybe.