“Well, I drive my snowmobile when *I’m* drunk!”
I won’t tell the details of this old kinda-family story. It really isn’t web-able. Suffice it to say that a bunch of Fins and other assorted Beach Folk attended a township-type meeting. Or some governmental entity. (I wasn’t there. The Comm told me admist much gnoffing.) The thing they thought was gonna be a hot topic actually never came up, so one of the group *brought* it up after the agenda was finished. Bad idea? Probably. This person didn’t stop with the topic but started to rant and rave about “those snowmobilers” driving their snowmobiles while they were drunk. Another neighbor — a not always all that friendly neighbor — took that rant as his cue to get up and walk out, loudly proclaiming “Well, I drive my snowmobile when *I’m* drunk!” as his parting shot. Indeed. Both of these people are long dead and Our Northern Correspondent now owns the drunk snowmo guy’s property. An improvement in neighbors in my not-so-humble opinion.
I do not drive snowmobiles at all. I have only one memory of ever driving a snowmobile and it was not a very successful ride. Some Shermans were visiting our little old Yooper bungalow on Superior Street. In the *winter*. Why? I do not remember. But they had their son Nick with them. I didn’t know Nick as well as the Sherman boys in the other Sherman family, the one who used to park in the moomincabin trailer spot and share our outhouse with us for a couple weeks every summer. But he was kinda cute and I was between boyfriends and… I asked if he wanted to go for a snowmo ride. We actually owned a snowmobile at that time. It was The Engineer’s idea and I think he was about the only person in the family who ever rode it. My old coot never showed much of an interest. So I took Nick for a ride on that snowmobile and I don’t think anything particularly bad happened except that I had no idea how to steer the damn thing. Fortunately we didn’t take a very long trip, like maybe across the schoolyard and back. They left and went back to their home in New Jersey or wherever and I don’t think I’ve seen Nick since. Oh, not because of the snowmobile incident.
When I first started hanging around with the CFam, there were multiple snowmobiles here at the Group Home. I think the CFam had fun with those but by that time, the GG had kind of switched over to XC skiing as his preferred winter sport and that matched *my* preferred winter sport and we really didn’t ride the CFam snowmos around. Eventually the Gumper sold them (or maybe it was the Uncly Uncle?). Anyway, no more snowmos here.
It is kind of fun to see a bunch of snowmobiles in a barrrooom parking lot, like we did tonight when we went to grab dinner at the North Shore Barrrooom (where they had NO red whine tonight!!!). And it is fun to see snowmo helmets all over the place *inside* the barrrooom. When I was a kid in Sault Ste. Siberia, there were always snowmobiles all over the place in the winter and they were always parked en masse outside various barroooms. Once I was in the lavatory at the Stable down on Portage (burned down ages ago) and, in the stall next to me, a woman pulled down her snowmobile suit and the hood went into the terlet bowl. Fun times.
You guys, when I make offhand statements like, “I was between boyfriends”, etc., please know that when I was a teenager, I was just about the most awkward young woman on earth. Yes, I did have a couple of boyfriends through those years. They were good people, even Bad Boyfriend in his own way, but I was not a popular kid by any stretch of the imagination and my dance card was never anywhere near filled.
Not the best drive up to the Group Home that I’ve ever experienced but we got here and it is like a heat wave compared to the Planet Ann Arbor. It was 18 degrees last I looked.
January 24th, 2014 at 10:51 pm
So, you’ve got the cold weather!! It was 48 and sunny today, with blue sky. I worry about not enough rain though. We need that for the summer. (and the skiers and snowboarders aren’t getting much fun at the mountains) I’ve never been on a snowmobile; I’m sure it would terrify me!
January 25th, 2014 at 12:46 am
My husband introduced me to snowmobiling and for quite a long time (and especially in certain circumstances) I really enjoyed it. Here in the Washington mountains, in Montana, West Yellowstone (but not the park), eastern Oregon mountains. It was beautiful and fun and exhilarating (and while NEVER, EVER drunk! Never even a beer until the day was done! An unwritten law among ethical sledders). It’s different out here with the mountains/hills, and it required a whole lot of effort to maneuver around trees while plowing down steep slopes, etc. My favorites were the wide-open spaces, which were not that common. Poker runs were a LOT of fun! But it all became rather “competitive” with the guys and their “high-marking” and “side-hilling” and being airborne over jumps — that just didn’t appeal to me (and downright scared me). Give me a fun trail with beautiful scenery or one of those rare (around here) wide-open spaces and I was in fat city. But otherwise, it was dealing with getting stuck a lot in deep wet snow way up in high altitudes (with lots of dangerous tree wells and sneaky creeks hidden in snow drifts). PLUS, I had a couple too many major crashes, one that knocked me out for several minutes with a concussion (thank goodness for that helmet, but BOY was it ever dented!) We finally sold our sleds and stopped snowmobiling, but there are times I do really miss it. (Especially in those rare wide-open spaces!) ;o)
January 25th, 2014 at 8:52 am
I always love seeing the “mini-Mac” bridge on the snowmobile trail near Bay Mills. When we ride to the lighthouse and/or the Dancing Crane, it always look to boggy to approach the bridge on a bike.