El Salvador: Chapter 1 – Night Flight

“The war is still going on there isn’t it?”

This is the first and most commonly asked question I got when I told people I was bound for El Salvador. The funniest one I got was “Isn’t that where Salvador Dali is from?” While still burnt into people’s minds from its dark days during the ‘80s, El Salvador has been fairly peaceful, in the political sense, for more than a decade. It’s traded civil war for gang warfare that results in some 3,000 homicides a year.

But I’m out of coffee, so…

This trip came to be, like most of mine delightfully do, by chance. I hadn’t planned on going to El Salvador, placing it far below El Capitan and even lower than Chicago’s El on my “things to do” list. But a friend from high school, Tracy Townsend, had crossed my path earlier this year on Facebook. She recently began teaching in San Salvador and sent me a message saying “I have volcanoes for you to climb and an extra hammock with your name on it. When are you coming for a visit?”

As most of you have already come to know, only ask that question if you’re ready for a scruffy redhead with a backpack and goofy smile to show up at your doorstep, tent flap or foxhole.

That’s how I found myself heading to El Salvador. Republic of the Savior. The Rhode Island of Central America (actually it’s about the size of New Jersey). At a mere 150 miles end-to-end it can’t even hold its name on a globe.

With a 5am flight, I gave up on sleep and just rode out the Sunday Vikings victory buzz through the night and chased it with the adrenaline of frantic last minute packing. Yet, when I arrived at the airport two hours early, like a good little international traveler, there was no one there to compliment me on my promptness. The place was totally deserted. In my drowsy haze it was easy to envision it as some sort of Twilight Zone episode with the lone workman clanking away metallically on the scaffolding being some kind of ghost or alien or representation of one of mankind’s maladies. I drifted off into a brief nap before I could figure it out.

I was bounced awake when a husky guy in flip-flops and a pair of those shorts with the strings hanging out the legs that no one ever actually uses for anything hurled his bulk into the end of the row of chairs, nearly catapulting me into the light fixtures. His wife, of a similar build, apparently thought it was a competition and cannonballed her behind into the next seat, but only flung me high enough to get to my feet. Rubbing my eyes, I saw the place had started to come to life a bit. In fact, I was surrounded by young couples in vaguely tropical gear taking pictures of every little detail. Turns out several of them had gotten married in the past week (including a couple who tied the knot just the day before in Grand Forks) and were on their way to honeymoon at a Mexican Sandals resort.

On the plane I tumbled down the spine of sleep while the world heated up from below, sunrise turning the clouds into a glowing orange Bunsen burner. By that time, we were already tenderly tapping our wheels down in Atlanta. The stewardess from Delta went into a five-minute spiel about how they’re committed to service and so happy to be serving us and so glad we’re flying with Delta. It went on so long it began to sound like an apology. I looked around to see if she had accidentally fed us poisoned Spinzers or flew us to Baghdad by mistake.

With under an hour to make my connection I was a tad nervous to discover Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International airport is the largest and busiest in the world. To top it off, my landing gate and departure gate were at two of the terminal’s farthest flung tentacles. But the crowds moved and flowed like we were in a rehearsed music video and I found myself with enough time to get a McGriddle breakfast burrito. I even had enough time to regret getting a McGriddle breakfast burrito.

It was a sparse flight into San Salvador (though not as sparse at the 10:30 to Liberia appeared) and I managed to get a row to myself. Now, let’s kill some of the 45 minutes I spent waiting on the runway with a few fun facts about El Salvador: Let’s see…it has 5.7 million people. It dumped the colón and adopted the U.S. dollar in 2001. The main export used to be indigo, but switched to coffee at the beginning of the 20th century. Over 75,000 people were killed in the 1980-1992 Civil War. You remember the Cold War too, don’t you? That’s even more than the 20-30,000 peasants the military massacred in 1932 to quash a rebellion. Being on the Pacific Ring of Fire, it is chockfull of volcanoes. An eruption in 2001 left 20% of the nation’s housing damaged. That same summer a drought killed off 80% of the crops. 90% of the country is mesitzo (mix of Native American and Spanish origin). If it wasn’t for money sent back from the 3.5 million El Salvadorans living abroad, it’s estimated 37% of the country would be living in extreme poverty. And they have one of the highest homicide rates in the country. Yes, this little country has had some big troubles.

Oh, I see we’ve taken off and the in-flight movie has started. It’s Grey Gardens with Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore. Ummm, okay. Why not?

We followed the dangle of Florida’s underside, crossed the cloud fluffed frothing waters of the Caribbean, politely brushed past Belize, and stopped short at El Salvador’s Custacatlan airport.

The humidity was a hot wet blanket that wrapped you in a welcome embrace the moment you stepped from the plane. I mean like 300% humidity. As in, how can this be the rainy season when there is no more room in the air for anymore liquid? And why is it, the hotter the climate, the more well-dressed the people like to be. The El Salvadoran men were all in long-sleeve dress shirts tucked into well-pressed trousers and nice shoes. It wasn’t as if I was blending in anyways, so I was going to stick with my shorts. Stick to them would be more accurate.

Tracy had arranged for a driver to meet me at the airport and after getting a fresh stamp in the passport, I spotted an El Salvadoran man with my name scrawled on a scrap of paper.

My tiredness and Sesame Street level of Spanish made for a quiet drive for the 50km from the airport to the Escuela Americana Complejo where Tracy lived. It gave me a chance to sit back and take in some initial sites. Some of it felt similar to other places I’d been, but it was still its own unique place. Telephone poles, trees, and street barriers were painted in red, white, and blue bands from the FMLN party that had won the recent election. Old men in beaten baggy pants, raised their straw hats and wiped sweat from their foreheads as they sat next to pyramids of coconuts waiting to be macheted open to share their sweet nectar. Rusty rumbling trucks coughed up hills loaded with pallets held down by shirtless teens.

This is a poor country, but it looked clean. It had a bright fresh colorful feel to it. White teeth flashed from dark skin. Skirts swayed among roadside stands. Flowers fell from roadside cliffs. Volcanoes slept tucked under ample blankets of lush green.

Tracy and her 12-year old daughter, Aimee, lived at the school in a quiet walled complex with most of the teachers. She had a tidy two-story concrete house with a red tiled roof and a backyard shaded by a prodigious lime tree. The hammock I’d been promised waved ‘hola’ to me in a much appreciated breeze. We’d get acquainted in a few hours as I napped off my jet lag.

Right now, Tracy took me on a tour of the school. It was a sprawling 35-acre campus with wide open breezeways embracing lovely green courtyards filled with hidden sculptures or zen beautiful landscaping or both. The school has about 1,300 students ranging from Pre-K to 12th grade. Classes were firing up in a few days, so the quiet pad of our sandals would soon be drowned out by the universal decibel-defying energy of students excitement and complaints at being educated.

Later that night, after dinner at a nearby restaurant, Tracy and I sat by the pool watching a bat loop over the water, skimming its surface for dinner. We filled in the years and the twisting turns that stretched from us meeting in high school on the debate team to sharing a beer at a school in San Salvador.

I pictured geography and time spinning their distance away simultaneously in my head until it reached here and now. I raised my sweating can of Suprema to her Corona. “To old friends in new places.”

In our next episode…Who Knows What Evil Waits Aboard the Microbus?!!!!

What Lies Beyond Hope?

First off, I was honestly impressed with John McCain’s concession speech last night. If the man who gave that speech had been the man running for President, this election would have been a lot closer. The only point I have to contend with is his praise of Palin’, which is a perfunctory nicety, but shouldn’t she get back to Alaska to keep an eye on Russia now?

Obama’s speech will be heard around the world. But more importantly, it will be felt. The entire Nordeast bar I was in sat silent as he spoke. It will become a staple among high school speech students for decades to come for sure. But the physical impact those words had was immediate. I liked his nod our country’s great history even as he stood making it. But it was his recognition of the challenges ahead that I took to heart. Despite his oratory skills, this wasn’t a fantasy world he laid out, we need to get to work. All of us. Remove the demographics and pigeon-holes that we’ve been shoved in for the past two years. All of us.

For those of us, who aren’t in Congress or have massive amounts of wealth, what can we do? How do we turn those words into action? To be blunt, listening to Obama last night made me want to be a better person. There are traits in our new President I want to emulate, that I want to teach to my nephews: intelligence, inclusiveness, reasoning, unflappability, positivity, in allowing your roots to let you become one of the branches. It can come out in little ways. Use your turn signal. Look a stranger in the eye and smile. Don’t see a businessman, a black person, a wheelchair, a bum, see an American. You share that in common. Realize that everything isn’t a contest. Learn about someplace where you don’t live. Give up your seat to an older person. These sound simplistic and silly compared to the issues we face, but try them, they’re free. They won’t add to the national debt. They’re totally non-partisan. And when you multiply them by millions, it suddenly becomes an everyday reality. We begin to see what is good about this country.

And it generates hope. Hope that draws possibility within reach. Hope that will be turned into action and solutions. We’re America. We’re better than what we’ve shown each other and the world the last eight years. We’ve grown fat, lazy, apathetic, and whiny. No longer can we be number one by default. We have to earn it. Just like many generations in the past have.

Don’t let the echo of those words fade. Let them reverberate in your own lives years from now. Carry an ember of that fire you felt to warm your heart when things grow cold.

Yes, we can. But will we? That’s up to all of us. And I, for one, am ready to get to work.

PS – Good to be back.

Hump Helper #9

Also known as love potion #9 because this mid-week push comes thrusting from the naughty bits what with Valentine’s Day just over the sensuous swelling summit of this, the tantalizing halfway point at February’s bare midriff.

Let’s start off with One Cold Hand. A website in NYC that photos and posts lost mittens in hopes of reuniting them with their partners. And really, haven’t we all lost a loved one that we want to be reunited with? If they open up franchises, I’m building one here in Minneapolis, where mitten mating season lasts nearly a full eight months.

And I leave you this Wednesday with a list of words that describe, mostly, odd sexual behavior. Now you know what to call that creepy guy watching his pet hamsters go at it. Hopefully you’ll have cause to whip out one or two of these terms come the ‘morrow:

Faunoiphilia (FAW-nay-FIL-ee-uh) – An abnormal desire to watch animals copulate.

Brassirothesauriast (bruh-zeer-oh-thuh-SAW-ree-ast) – A person who collects brassieres or pictures of women wearing them.

Eunoterpsia (YOO-noh-TURP-see-uh) – The doctrine that pursuing sexual pleasure is the goal of life.

Typhlobasia (TIF-luh-BAY-zee-uh) – Kissing with the eyes closed.

Amychesis (AM-i-KEE-sis) – The involuntary act of scratching or clawing your partner in the heat of passion.

Mammaquatia (MAM-uh-KWAY-shee-uh) – The bobbing or jiggling of a woman’s breasts when she walks, dances, or exercises.

Ozoamblyrosis (OH-zoh-AM-bli-ROH-sis) – Loss of sexual appetite because your partner has wicked B.O.

Amomaxia (AM-uh-MAX-see-uh) – Love-making in a parked car.

Colpocoquette (KAHL-puh-koh-KET) – A woman who knows she has an attractive bosom, and who makes good use of its allure.

Melolagnia (MEL-uh-LAG-nee-uh) – Amorous feelings inspired by music.

The Tallest Man in the World

It goes without saying that a site called Base Camp needs to pay tribute the passing of Sir Edmund Hillary. An adequate beekeeper and a legendary explorer, he died last Friday at the age of 88.

Mr. Hillary is best known for making the first summit of Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1953. They did it without Gore-Tex, without satellite phones and without someone going ahead and planning out routes. At the time, doctors weren’t even sure people could survive at that altitude. But, in Hillary’s words, they “knocked the bastard off”.

Afterwards, he went to the South Pole, explored the Ganges from mouth to source, and served as New Zealand’s High Commissioner to India, Nepal and Bangladesh. He later went to the North Pole becoming the first man to stand atop Everest and the two poles. His heart seemed to stay in the Himalayas, though, and they became a focal point of his philanthropic work for the rest of his life.

I’ve been lucky enough to have followed in some of his footsteps around the globe. Albeit with very tiny strides and shallow impressions compared to his history-making impact. He was exploring and discovering, not just for himself, but for the rest of the world. Whether it was in the Himalayas, or on an African river or in an Irish pub, everyone spoke highly of the man behind the accomplishments as well. It would be hard to think of a life better lived.

Having conquered the highest point in existence, he now looks down from a much higher vista.

Hump Helper #8: Olio Buffet

The last few weeks have been festooned with festivities (including an actual Festivus party), tinsel-tousled shenanigans, laughing at the darkness and dancing ‘til dawn. Here’s hoping your holiday hoo-hah was filled with all things merry and bright. I wore a fez, discussed squirrel wrangling in Argentina and compared Irish hiking trails with an actual Ms. Butterworth. So I was sure you weren’t in any need of any help getting through the abbreviated workweek; the mid-week humps seeming more like a sledding hill that would send you screaming into another long weekend of Irish coffees, quilt-covered cuddles and a big stack of DVDs.

But this being the first full week back in the trenches, cubes and anti-aircraft turrents of Corporachia, I figured we could use a little somethin’ somethin’ to help ease the transition and put a stop to your post-partyin’ depression.

Remember taking magazine photos and making them match up to your face? What? I still find it funny. But these snaps give it a much more musical bent. It’s called ‘sleevefacing’. If it isn’t, it is now.

Think that’s a larf? Then you’re probably a dude. British scientists have found proof that humor (or humour) apparently comes from testosterone. See? Farts are funny.

And speaking of farts. Which we were. Scientists are trying to make cows fart more like kangaroos in an attempt to save Minnesota from becoming oceanfront property. Call it An Inconvenient Toot.

And just because you’ve been so good this year, he’s a bonus Hump Helper. If your parents are having trouble understanding the hip hop, perhaps they just need to see it represented as a PowerPoint presentation. Hmmm, pimpin’ is 8.3% easier this year than in ’07.

Happy New Year all!

Dreams of Green

A Walk Through Ireland With Me Da
Chapter 2: To Anascaul and Antarctica

The morning came with a little leprechaun riding around inside my head like Eamon Morrissey’s character in Eat the Peach, banging away with his shillelagh. But I’m still warm throughout with the memories our first night in Ireland. And the last drams of Paddy whiskey distilling its way through my system.

My dad had already risen and was watching the local news in the lounge with a confused look on his face. I could hear John clanking around in the kitchen.

“I’m having a hard time understanding what anybody is saying with their accents.” My dad whispered to me.

I whispered back. “That’s because they’re reading the news in Gaelic.” A language that is only remotely understood after a minimum of four years of schooling or an equal number of pints. Actually, even with the busty blonde beauty of a newscaster reading the headlines, it still sounded a bit like the Swedish Chef after smoking a fatty.

“Look what everyone at the bar did.” He handed me a birthday card signed by the townsfolk at the Junction Pub last night. Today was, in fact, my dad’s birthday. He mentioned it last night in the hopes of getting a peck on the cheek from one of the barmaids. I looked up from the dozen or so signatures of strangers that had now become friends at my dad’s grin. I couldn’t have planned a better kick-off to his 64th year.

We sat down at a small table near the picture window that gave us an early morning gander at the entire peninsula. Green rolling hills. Diamond sparkled waves. Even the sun came out to check the scene. Ahhh, the Dingle Peninsula. It could also be called the Dangle Peninsula since its wee phallocentric land mass flashes out into the vast Atlantic Ocean like Gary Coleman trying to mount Bridgette Nielsen.

“And what would you boys be wanting for breakfast?” asked John, wiping his hands on a towel he had tucked into his dress pants as a makeshift apron. His blue-striped silk tie was flipped over his shoulder.

“Give us the full fry up.” I said. I glanced at my dad who wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but found it hard to argue with anything that had the word ‘fry’ in it.

We chatted with the other occupant’s of the cottage—an elderly Englishman and his even more elderly mother. Although she seemed to have been topped off with enough piss and vinegar to outlive us all. They had driven from London and come across on the ferry for a driving tour of Ireland.

John came out and put down our proper Irish breakfast; plates laden with eggs, bangers, Irish bacon, black and white pudding, fried tomatoes and soda bread to soak up all the grease. For once in his life, my dad’s jaw fell open and words didn’t come out. But I could tell he was wishing he didn’t load up on all that fruit and cereal and yogurt beforehand.

After John had retreated to the kitchen to make breakfast for the English couple, my dad leaned over the toast rack in the middle of the table and whispered. “How much does breakfast cost?”

“It’s included.”

“Really?”

“Dad, this is a B & B. The first ‘B’ stands for ‘bed’. And this,” I said pointing at the glistening goodness of cardiovascular disaster on the plate before me, “is the second B. What did you think it stood for? Boobs? Actually, that’s a great idea. Part country cottage, part brothel.”

After polishing our plates, we loaded up our daypacks and made ready to go. The tab for the night was 75 euros. My dad was shocked; he thought it was that per person. Even after doing the euro to dollar calculation in his head, he thought it was a steal. This alleviated one of my worries because my dad has always, shall we say, kept a firm grip on his money. I think he got it from his mother, who would drive forty miles out of her way because she had a coupon for thirty-five cents off of vacuum cleaner bags. Dad stopped short of making us use both sides of the toilet paper growing up, but it wasn’t far off.

John told us how to find Adrinane House B&B in Anascaul and then told us how to get on the Dingle Trail from here. I was thrilled that the directions included guideposts such as “left at that big tree over yonder” and “past the break in the hedge”. We thanked him profusely for his hospitality and we were off. We followed his directions, wandering up a small road into the heart of the hill behind the B&B and finally found a signpost with the ‘yellow hiking man’ that was to become our silent guiding star for the next week. We were finally hiking the Dingle Trail.

We kept climbing up a gentle slope in between two massive hedgerows that blocked our view. But the leafy barriers were little worlds unto their own. There were massive holly bushes; trees by any definition. Their waxy leaves and siren red clusters of berries reflected the sun, giving them a fake plastic look. The hedges also burst out with runs of tiny white bells, cascades of waving red heart-shaped lanterns and scatterings of purple horns. All held together with dew-drenched Spiro-graph spider webs stretching between them.

Most of the trail consists of abandoned country roads called ‘boreens’ and narrow farming trails. When the view opened up, it looked similar to some areas I’d been in England and Scotland, but different. Greens shifted to darker shades as the hills dove down into the valleys. There were open fields where black-faced sheep looked up with mouthfuls of grass following us with thoroughly bored expressions. Maybe they were inwardly amused at watching us try to jig around the droppings they’d carpet-bombed the path with.

“They’re called ‘smart pills’.” my dad said, referring to the droppings. “Why do they call them that?” he continued, playing his own straight man. “Try some. Okay. They taste like shit. See? You’re getting smarter already.” He would repeat the joke every day for the next week. But I laughed at it every time because, well, I don’t know. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was his way of saying he was already having a good time.

Even though we stopped often to admire the views the day progressed quickly, mainly because everything was so new to us. I spent almost as much time admiring the countryside as looking at the “Holy shit. I’m here.” look on my dad’s face.

We wandered in between tight hills for awhile, admiring the stone fences that snaked up like spines to their summits, before emerging above a bay. We were looking down at Inch. A wee village that claims to be the only place “where an inch is actually three miles”. (Well, ask most guys about their junk and they’ll tell you the same thing.) Our elevated position gave us a great view of a stunning beach bracketed on both sides by crashing waves that scalloped the golden sand. It dissolved (or evolved perhaps) into wetlands on its far side. Reeds stuck out at all angles like the unkempt hair of a five-year old. While it once served as the site of Iron Age forts, it was keep and castle these days for many species of ducks and wading birds. It was also used in such movies as Ryan’s Daughter and Playboy of the Western World. So apparently if you’re a charming rogue coming to town, there’s a great chance of you scoring if you take an Irish barmaid for a horseback ride along the strand.

Having forgotten our riding clothes and being unable to discern a way down through the maze of hedges and fences, we continued on, rounding the far side of another hill and coming up on a farm. We passed through a number of them during the day, strolling by the houses and out buildings before disappearing into the rows of stone fences dividing their fields. At this particular one, a scruffy dog came bounding out after us gleefully hopping from front to back legs like furred rocking horse. He decided to follow us; even though we had to tread across a literal river of cow poo emanating from under a nearby metal shed. Had it been any deeper it could have been the inspiration for the phrase ‘Up shit creek without a paddle’.

On the far (and upwind) bank of the River Crap we stopped for a lunch of trail mix and crackers along a section of fence that had stones that seemed to approximate the shapes of our backsides. While we sat, a herd of curious cows came over mistakenly thinking it was their feeding time. The dog yapped at them, making them flinch back momentarily. You could tell by the way his mouth curled up, leaving his tongue flapping out, that he was showing off.

Towards early afternoon, we crested a hill and found ourselves staring at a Roman straight road arrowing its way through the middle of Anascaul village. Even though it was downhill, my dad was slowing down, saying his feet were hurting. He had flat feet and he was a cop. Did I mention that? I always think that’s funny.

Coming into the village, I began eyeballing buildings and muttering directions out loud. “Okay, there’s Herlihy’s pub. So we go past it and our place will be on the left.”

“That’s not right.” said my dad.

“No, John said to go past the pub…”

“That’s what I mean. Why are we going past a pub.” He turned and headed for the door.

“Good lad!” I shouted. I have an attraction to old pubs that must extend from a past life and I’ll be glad to discuss it at length (over pints, of course). But this was a good sign to see my dad already catching on to the camaraderie found within their cozy confines.

After a quick Guinness and a couple packets of salt n’ vinegar crisps we wandered past a little park and saw our B & B tucked into a tidy yard surrounded on all sides by high hedges nearly as tall as the house itself.

A burly middle-aged man answered the door. He had a bit of mutton-fed heft to him, but you could tell there was strength in there still. He would have made a good extra in a Guy Ritchie gangster movie. Put him in a leather jacket and some trainer pants and let him just glower in the background muttering about stuff going ‘pear-shaped’. But what is it with guys running B&Bs, I thought? Where are the little old ladies with aprons and homemade jams? Mr. O’Donnell told us we had arrived a bit early and our bags were still being delivered. If we wanted, he said, we could grab a pint at the South Pole Inn right across the street.

Sounded like a good idea to us.

The South Pole Inn got its name because it was once owned by the most unfamous famous Arctic explorer Tom Crean. He was a local boy who undertook two expeditions with Robert Scott and Shackelton’s immortal journey aboard the Endurance. While waiting for my pint to settle I wandered around the few tiny rooms looking at all the historic photos on the walls. There were a couple of Sir Edmund Hillary, who had visited here to honor him. His giant red face filled the foreground, standing at the bar, surrounded by admirers right where my pint was waiting.

As we were working the bottom half of our glasses, a couple walked in. We recognized them as the Aussies who had passed us on the final descent into town. We struck up a conversation and soon learned that Murray and Deb were also hiking the Dingle Way.

At our Mr. O’Donnell’s suggestion, we supped at the Randy Leprechaun further up the road. On the way, we counted about six pubs to two other businesses. The Leprechaun had decent food, but it was clear it was the college student party backpacker hostel-staying crowd.

Betwixt the pints, the hike and the remnants of jet lag, my dad was pretty beat. I trusted him to find his way across the road and into our room. I took a right turn and headed back into the South Pole Inn. I ran into Murray and Deb who were just finishing up what looked like some amazing burgers. Irish beef is supposedly the bomb. We stayed for a few more rounds of the ‘dark stuff’ and got to know each other a little more. He was a psychologist and she was a nurse. Their kids were back home looking after their place while he was here for a conference and she came to join him.

Debs admitted something she asked me not to repeat to my dad. They had seen us at The Ashes the night before and Murray bet her we were also hiking the Way. But she saw my dad and said he looked too out of shape to be doing it. I laughed, but had to admit that despite my dad’s still prominent beer belly, he kept up on the hike. Granted, we had gone slower and stopped more often, but he did it. And I was impressed.

I stayed for one more after they had gone before making my own way across the street. Instead of heading into the hedge that hid the B&B, I veered left (voluntarily if I remember) into the little park that had a life-size statue of Mr. Crean. I just stood in the moonlight staring at his legacy forged in copper that had grown a verdigris the color of the surrounding hills. He had joined the British Navy at 15, lying about his age to get in. He’d hiked hundreds of miles in attempts to get to the South Pole. He had been on board the Endurance for god’s sake. He has a glacier and a mountain named after him. And all this was before he served in World War I. And came back home to open a pub. He was a lot of man for a man. After all that, it was a burst appendix that did him.

All I could do was stand there on a small part of land that he had put his boots on and, out loud to the dark, proclaim him a bad ass. I was a mere traveler in the presence of a true adventurer. I raised an invisible pint to his honor and wobbled my way back to our room. Where my dad was already snoring like a walrus in heat.

[In Our Next Episode: “Now this is a hardware store!”]

Hump Helper #7: Rumors at Rest and the Spirit of the Radio

Don’t fret if you haven’t scored a Wii for your wee ones yet. No need to worry if your pickle ham roll-ups gave the entire office salmonella. You still better not pout, you better not cry. Your weekly Wednesday Hump Helper will tell you why.

First let’s put some rumors to bed with visions of libel suits dancing in their heads:

Despite many inquiries, I didn’t buy this bottle of scotch.

But I’m not saying someone didn’t buy it for me. I have been good this year. Very good.

Per my lawyers’ requests, I’m not commenting on Jessica Alba’s pregnancy until the DNA tests come back. The fact I was recently in Baby Gap with a sunglasses wearing brunette is purely coincidental.

Now let’s dial in some non-holiday tuneage.

Topping the charts is Jon Lajoie busting out a rap for every everyday normal guy out there.

Secondly, the Onion has conveniently compiled a list of the worst band names of 2007. Many of them stink worse than Britney’s last comeback tour. Why they didn’t name themselves something cool like Crunchy By Mistake or Smells Like Birthday is beyond me. But a free pint to the first person to correctly point out the Minnesota-bred band(s) on the list.

What are you waiting for? It’ll be Thursday before you know it.

Hump Helper #6: Do you still giggle when someone says ‘yule log’?

Then you’ll love how cartoonist Mauricio Ricardo creates an amazing variety of characters built around drawings of naughty bits. You’ll never look at The Wizard of Id the same way again. Actually, shame on you for reading the Wizard of Id at all.

Still feeling like a corporate Sisyphus in the face of Wednesday? Here’s a few ways to help your hump while you’re sitting around stringing popcorn paperclip chains for your cube:

At 3pm CST, check out Base Camp Buddy Sean on Jeopardy. I’m not sure how he did, but Alex Trebek was hospitalized yesterday, so I take that at a good sign. Sean is wicked smart and he could have helped team ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ at Keegan’s pub trivia last night. (At least the craic was good.)

And if your music bone needs a new beat to get it bouncing again, check out the lovely (and intriguing) Lily as she hosts the hell out of the Power of Local Music Hour on Cities Live! Radio at 7pm CST. Local band Hazel Strange rocks your socks for a full sixty.

Hump Helper #5: Head Rice

By now you’ve cleared the recesses of your fridge from the last tinfoiled and Tupperwared (Tupperworn?) remnants of the Thanksgiving feast. So you should be hankerin’ for a hunka Hump Helper. This week’s mid-week delight does deal with food though.

Click yourself on over to freerice.com. They’ll give you an ongoing list of words and for every one you guess the right definition of, the site’s sponsors will donate ten grains of rice to hungry children around the world. Unless they’re on the Atkins Plan. Then the starving kids get a free egg white. Or a Slim Jim.

The thing is, if your corpus collosum is truly colossal, you could do what the U.N., UNICEF, Bono and McDonald’s combined haven’t been able to do: eliminate Third World hunger. Don’t think ten grains per word is a lot? Pick up your copy of the OED (You are down with OED aren’t you?).

Now make like full-grown Jesus and start making that stuff multiply.

Bonus Link:

Yeti footprint found in Everest region. I knew I felt watched on the hike. Feast your squinties on the latest here.

Dreams of Green

A Walk in Ireland With Me Da

Chapter 1: Reverse Immigration

If you’ve been a long-term reader of Base Camp, you’ll know how I tend to seek out omens when I travel. Those little Jesus-in-a-burrito moments where Fate puts its finger to its and nose and either picks it or taps the side and winks at you.

So it was as my dad and I entered Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport to begin our trip to Ireland. And by all accounts things were going well. The bartender at Rock Bottom carded me and, upon seeing my name, said she remembered me from my last flight. We were nearly rundown by a golf cart carrying Dog the Bounty Hunter and his wife. “Go with God!” he called after people who had dove out of the way. (I’m not sure what type of omen this was, but I’m sure it held some meaning.). There was a huge heart-shaped cloud appropriately hovering over the Midwest when we leveled off. On our arrival at JFK in NYC we passed an Irish pub called Shannon’s. Which was our destination in Ireland.

I apparently had eaten my Lucky Charms this morning.

Then we noticed we couldn’t find our connecting flight on any of the monitors, so we had no idea where to be. And our boarding time was fast approaching.

We had to traverse the entire length of the terminal before finding some type of airport employee who wasn’t involved with janitorial services. We were told we needed to get to terminal three. “Just up the stairs, go left, get on the AirTran shuttle.” we were instructed.

Joined by a young college woman named Gillian on her way to study in Dublin, who was also confused, we set out on a journey that, if one of us was a talking animal, would have made a good Disney film. We trooped upstairs, headed across the hall of check-in counters that was so big it reminded me of the scene from the Matrix when Neo says “We need guns. Lots of guns” and all those infinite shelves come flying at you. Then down an escalator, through a maze of halls, past a confused minotaur and boarded a train to the next terminal. Then we got off, walked across a skyway, sped across a moving walkway, took an elevator down to street level, crossed two lanes of traffic, walked past three closed doors and finally strolled into the Delta area. Only to come upon the tail end of a security check line that snaked along the entire wall of the building before disappearing around the corner.

When we got close they added another person to make sure the names on tickets and passports matched up. (Ha! Take that Al Qaeda!) But they still had only one metal detector going, so you ended up taking an orderly line and turning it into a growing blob of restless commuters.

After getting a half-Ashcroft, it was a mere two-mile stroll to the very end of the terminal’s colon where we at last found our flight actually existed.

Boarded and on the tarmac, the pilot cockpit-teased up every ten minutes by saying it would be another 10-15 minutes before we’d be able to take off. This went on for so long I had the in-flight magazine’s crossword finished before we were airborne. We idled on the runway for over two hours. I think there needs to be some kind of frequent flier multiplier that takes effect in situations like this.

Adding to our chagrin, was the fact we were packed like sausage meat into the single-aisle tube of a 747. This was the first time they’d used a plane this small for an international flight, so the crew had no idea how to run their service. They scurried up and down the aisle so many times I thought they were getting paid by the lap. One stewardess who bore a striking resemblance to the Majorie Dawes character from Little Britain parked her cart even with my aisle seat, so I was treated to a polyester sheathed slap of hip fat every time she came by. Plus, we were in the back by the only bathroom, so there was always someone coming by. I had more ass shoved in my face than a proctologist. Or a party at George Michaels’ flat. I’ll let you choose whichever one is funnier.

As I said, I was on the aisle and my dad was in the window seat. Riding in the bitch seat was an older gentleman in a suit who must have been at least 6’3”. And he was not happy about being there. He’d huff loudly in aggravation, folding his arms and tapping his foot like an Idaho senator in an airport bathroom. My dad tried to chat him up on numerous occasions, but he just grunted in reply. It was like we had a pouty Mount Rushmore between us.

The final indignity was that the movie was Georgia Rules. “Starring” (in the ‘loosest‘ sense of the word (in every sense of the word)) America’s favorite felon Lindsay Lohan and Jane Fonda, who I took to be a female version of the Crypt Keeper.

Eventually descending below a thick cloudbank, we were rewarded with our first peek of Ireland. An overcast sky bruised dark blue over a deep green patchwork stitched together with stone fences. I could tell by my dad’s expression it was just how he had pictured it. He giggled and gave me a ‘high five’. His excitement only served to multiply mine.

We collected our luggage and caught a Bus Eiren coach for Tralee. We had to transfer in Limerick, which gave us a few hours to hang out. It was still to early for the pubs to be open, so we wandered the town. Limerick was a bit rough around the edges and seemed to be lacking in overall spit and polish. But the Celtic Tiger was rearing its head here, with construction cranes towering over shiny new buildings along the banks of the River Shannon.

I treated my dad to a Cornish pasty from a small takeaway shop. Or should I say ’subjected to’? It was filled with scant chunks of rutabaga, a few sinewy strands of meat and what appeared to be silken lard that would surely harden to caulk inside our arteries. It was like biting into some kind of organ from an alien being. We made a rule not to buy food within a three-block radius of a bus station again.

Our days’ end destination was the village of Camp. Which I pictured either being filled with rugged outdoorsmen or gay men singing musicals. Or gay rugged outdoorsmen singing musicals.

It turned out to be none of the above. But no less entertaining. We were dropped outside the nice and new Junction House B & B perched atop a hill that let you see the entire length of the Dingle Peninsula. Our host, John Doyle, worked mainly as a wine distributor and he packed enough energy for three hosts.

I’ll admit to worrying how my dad would like everything being, well, different. Travel can throw some shit at your from weird angels and you need to be ready to lean into the wind every now and then.

But we couldn’t have asked for a better first evening on the Emerald Isle.

Mr. Doyle walked with us down to the Junction Pub (so called because of the railroad tracks that once passed right by it) and pointed us to the sea. He then summoned up an aging golden lab that accompanied us down to the kelp-laden shore. It was good to stretch the legs and smell the brine in the air and look back at the jumble of hills we’d soon find ourselves in.

Back at the pub, John introduced us to the owners and the regulars in between placing bets on some local horse races. But most importantly, we were able to partake in our first pint. Which had to be Guinness. Surely there is no beer that looks as graphically pleasing. From the sinuous lusty boil of the settle, to the calmness of the finished pint looking like a pious preacher in his white collar.

“To Mrs. Hamm.” I muttered before touching my lips to the pillow of form and letting the dark nectar part those clouds like sweet and smoky rain. It was worth the wait. Not just the five minutes for the pint. The thirty-nine years it took me to get here for it. (By the way, first Guinness of the night is always ‘to Mrs. Hamm’. Buy me one and I’ll tell you the story.)

When we inquired about food, he took us into the village to an ancient stone pub called The Ashes. It was one of those old boozers where you have to duck to get inside and none of the corners seem to meet at the same angle. Of course, we had to have the fish and chips.

We told our waitress we were staying with John Doyle and she called him and within a few minutes he was waiting for us outside. He told us he’d already called ahead and arranged a room at a B&B in Annascaul; which is where we’d be hiking. They’d also come pick up our luggage and have it waiting for us when we arrived.

I looked in the rear view mirror and saw an incredulous look on my dad’s face. He couldn’t believe the hospitality we were receiving and I knew he was pleasantly surprised. Then the look turned to extreme uneasiness and I saw him white-knuckling the armrest as John zipped along the winding shoulder-width roads on what my dad was envisioning to be the wrong side. I saw him catch a shriek in his throat a few times as we came around a corner to find a lorry barreling at us in the right lane.

We had a few more pints at the Junction Pub. Dad left after just one, but I hung out talking with John and a local musician and watching some World Cup Rugby.

I was feeling really pleased and really enjoying the free pints I was receiving (but I always stood my round) when suddenly it felt like someone had slipped some Nyquil in my stout. I did a little narcoleptic head bob over my pint and knew it was time to go and wrestle with jet lag in my dreams. I said my good-nights and walked out into the chill dark.

At the top of the hill, I turned to look at the lights of a ship finding its way home in Tralee Bay. The edges of the Junction Pub were lit with dim light and I heard sounds of laughter escape when someone stepped outside for a smoke. Through my heavy vision I tried to imagine it being a hundred years ago. Ahhhh, Ireland.

Dad was already snoring when I came in the room. But I swore I could see a little smile on his face.

[In Our Next Episode: Sir Edmund Hillary Drank Here]