WATCHING THE TWINS GAME FROM THE DULUTH HOLIDAY INN - I could not find a quart of beer on a Wednesday night in Duluth.
Oh, well. Coors Light bottles will do in a pinch.
I look out the window and I see this old port city, with these humongous buildings, board of trade, hotels, that you just know used to hold millions of sailors every night, drinking and sh*t. Quart bottles, no doubt. It makes you wish you could go out right this minute and find a boat to go down to the bottom of Lake Superior, and have Gordon Lightfoot feel really bad about it.
Hey.
Wow. What a night.
I visited the Duluth Catholic Worker, Loaves & Fishes. And I am on a Dorothy Day high.
What a group. That was fun.
Michele Naar-Obed was one of those sitting around the living room. She told how hard it had been for her to be away from her family while she served eighteen months in a federal prison in Florida for pounding on a nuclear submarine. Her husband, Greg Boertje-Obed, is due to be released soon from Sandstone prison for pounding on a missile silo in North Dakota.
And there were lots of other interesting people there. I always just sit and listen after I finish my thing. There are always lots smarter people than me around who know lots of stuff. My mission is to shut the eff up and maybe learn something.
And this afternoon I read at the College of St. Scholastica, also in Duluth.
You should have seen the spread they put out there. Beer on ice, wine on ice, cheese on ice, crackers and broccoli and carrots on ice. And I couldn't touch any of it, because I am the honored guest.
So it goes.
Are you like me and everything reminds you of prison or county jail?
Does the play area at McDonald's freak you out because it's hard plastic like county jail chairs and it feels like you're locked in and those workers behind the counter look like county jail guards? And they're laughing and pointing at you ... and.
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