Wannaskan Almanac for May 10, 2018 by WannaskaWriter

Ula performing the ceremonial
Edward Bottlehand Shadow Dance

Today is Bottle Run Day, the traditional once-a-month (or so) glass recycling road trip to Thief River Falls, Minnesota, (also known as Tuff Rubber Balls, in some less sophisticated circles.)

Conducted unceremoniously, (we used to do it ceremoniously (See image), but decided against it as it implied cultish behavior), a bottle run's starting point is either of two homes in Palmville Township, one in eastern Palmville, the other in western Palmville, decided by:
1.) Turn/order to drive.
2.) Supplies required on return from TRF.
3.) Cash on hand.
4.) Wannabes with cash on hand.

Originating in mid-March of 2013, a long-time friend named Ula (Oo-lah) and I (Sven) invented this activity for its superb year-around mental health quotient, although our wives think it began as just an excuse for a road trip to recycle numerous glass bottle and jar accumulations suddenly discovered taking up too much room in our homes and garages after extended periods of time, or periodic or personal holiday festivities. We say "Pshaw," to that suspicious notion maintaining we are merely concerned about developing new neural pathways and have discovered that Bottle Run Days restore and maintain brain function to an appreciable degree in us older men.

Friends, upon learning of our trips, have also taken advantage of our clandestine services and donated their glass containers for recycling too, as Roseau County no longer recycles glass, preferring to recycle magazines instead, when just a few short years ago an official told me there was no money in recycling magazines. Now, they say, the glass is sorted from the common trash and recycled that way---Right ...

However, Pennington County does recycle glass and so we recycle our glass there and some of our money too, at TRF/TRB businesses.

Serediptiously, Bottle Run Day does, in fact, serve as a perfect reason to get out of Palmville once a month (or so) and take a 100-mile round trip journey to the big city. Now please note, (look it up on your devices) there are no freeways between Thief River Falls/Tuff Rubber Balls (TRF/TRB) and Palmville Township, only two-lane blacktop/asphalt or blue highways and various gravel and/or dirt roads latitudinally or longitudinally available on any map or on-line visual examples, so our routes can vary given weather and road conditions, as well as time allowed for play. We used to leave home between 7:30 and 8:30 AM in order to get back in time for me to take a wee nap and go to work at a toy factory for an afternoon/evening shift. Now that we’re both retired (although Ula is often the more restricted one now) we have more time to see some different country (and let’s face it--it’s all country up here in NW Minnesota.)

Conducted throughout the year, Bottle Run Days must go through for the pure adventure of them, if only as just exercises from the mundane. Our wives argue we could easily throw our glass bottles in the trash! We would save gasoline, wear and tear on our vehicles, extend our life expectancy, nullify their tendencies to think these trips totally stupid boyish behaviors and instead spend quality time with our families i.e., ‘wives’ (as all the kids have long ago left the nest) and stay home with them reading good books, playing cards and/or board games, gardening or vacuuming.

Nah. Besides we have begun accepting applications from ride-alongs willing to sometimes drive their own vehicles or buy fuel for ours and experience this once-in-a lifetime day-trip adventure. For example, because Ula is such an outstanding grandparent he invited his two pre-teen grandsons, Bjalmer and Thoralf, living with their parents in Lindstrom, Minnesota at the time, to accompany us knowing the boys would glean important road trip knowledge from their experience with their beloved Farfar. (Ha! These Swedes! Hoohah! You gotta love them!) And so it was, when at Johnnie’s Cafe in TRF/TRB, the waitress took their photo and put it on the wall along with the dozens of other local celebrities. The boys couldn’t stop talking about their trip the rest of their vacation to Palmville.

“Uffda, vår farfar är en så stor man och så klok, en sådan lärare. Vi är så stolta, så glada att vi har gått på denna vägresa med honom. Tack till Gud! Sven är inte heller en dålig kille!”

If only we could generate that kind of excitement with everyone, but perhaps it is not to be ...

Our second ride-along was Ula’s wife, who not only graciously purchased the gasoline but also cheerfully donated the use of her car. Rumor has it that her charity was incited because, years ago, she had unfortunately encountered a live and energetic mouse in her husband’s usually unkempt car when she had to use it during an unplanned service trip of her own vehicle. Because mice are her kyrptonite, her experience left an indelible mark on her psyche, so she eagerly opted to use her car instead of his, regardless of the route that was planned. I could’ve offered the use of my van but I realized she may not feel comfortable in it either, as she knew of the Elk River, sudden, “OMG, there’s a live-snake-on-the-dash!” incident of 2008. Ula’s wife survived our day together but has declined any oft-repeated invitations.

Our recent third ride-along was named Mitch, a busy young professional who had long wished he could go with us given our hale ‘n hearty tales of derring-do along what we call The Bobcat Road, a stretch of muddy-bottom dirt ‘n gravel Marshall County road where several years ago, on another one of our lengthy road trips (1700 miles) we saw a bobcat burst across the road ahead of us--and have never seen another since.

Mitch salivated over Ula’s descriptions of our routine activities, including our traditional stop-over meal at Johnnie’s Cafe in TRF/TRB, for breakfast or lunch, and our visits with the waitress, the cook, and Putzy (put-zee) the cafe owner, whose trail we have crossed a time or two at the ‘Guddridge’ (Goodridge) Smelt Fry. Putzy is known to many as a warm and friendly entrepreneur who also caters big and small social events across the Northland. We enjoy her stories and always have a good time at Johnnie’s. A talkative/good listener guy himself, we knew Mitch would fit right in.

So it was that Mitch actually took time off from work to attend our Bottle Run Day after the first of this year. He drove his own truck, a big quad cab four-wheel drive. It was literally loaded with huge plastic garbage cans and plastic tubs of empty bottles accumulated over the holiday season when his family was there. Me and Ula had never seen a bigger collection other than in the dumpsters where we throw our empties. We were wondrously glad he opted to drive, plus provide the high visual vantage afforded from his truck as we descended the sandridge deer trail past the wheelchair Santa, just off Beito Blvd. The cab was high enough to see the huge snowdrifts ahead of us, where the county snowplow had not been for some time--and, if upon meeting same in our little 4-cylinder cars (even though mine is AWD), we would’ve stopped and turned around--but Mitch bashed his Ford right on through. Boolya! Atta boy!

Strangely, Mitch too, has gracefully declined further invitations of attendance, owing, he says, to varying roles of professional and civic responsibility. Young people these days ...

We can’t be too critical of them. Afterall, it takes a special breed to fully appreciate the Minnesota road trip phenomenon, which, I think, is a slowly disappearing exercise of independence in a rapidly dependent world of device-controlled attention manipulation. (You read it here first.) Turning our communication devices off on purpose, as we leave Palmville, we re-ignite our metaphysical mindsets to on-the-road life experiences. With each passing mile, we reactivate our old school driving techniques as we encounter numerous deer that vault without warning, head-long from roadside ditches on either side and threaten to impale our vehicle, or in winter, when  undetectable ice suddenly covers the roadway totally eliminating tire surface to road adherence, we summon eye-opening adrenaline surges that rocket through our aging bodies as we spiral out of control, the driver spinning the steering wheel, this way, and that, to avoid going in the ditch or slamming through guard rails on river bridges. Yes, it is fun, most of the time, as Ula knows.


If head-strong deer and invisible ice aren’t available, we look for variances to many miles of potential boredom and sometimes take shortcuts down ATV trails should they avail themselves high and dry in spots. Ula likes driving down alleys in towns, whereas, oppositely, I cringe in trepidation fearing suspicion by locals who are likely to call police about strange vehicles going slowly past their homes.
“GET OUT OF THE CAR, SLOWLY, WITH YOUR HANDS ON TOP OF YOUR HEAD!”

We sometimes take shortcuts down ATV trails

The thrill-seekers we are, we know we could doubly increase our risks by texting while driving, but that practice, by other drivers the Nation and world over, has become so routine there’s no real challenge in it anymore--besides, Ula’s new car senses when it gets too close to the centerline, sounds an audible alarm and steers clear of it. Besides, texting while driving is detectable in a device as a result of an accident.

It’s one thing to just employ old fashioned horseplay, such as steering wheel grabbing or the spilling of hot coffee in someone’s lap as you point out something beyond their periphery, but an old road tripper doesn’t employ such antics anymore because they want to get home safely--you know, where the beer and wine is, as there is no imbibing of alcohol enroute during our Bottle Run trips. We may be recycling a few dozen empty beer and wine bottles, but we don’t empty full ones on our way home. It just isn’t done, besides our wives would smell it on our breath and put the kabosh on future voyages. We’ve got it good and we know it. As old guys, we have to keep our wits about us.