Date: Friday, June 12, 2009 11:49 PM
Subject: Re: Yada yada yada
Q: "When will the next RAVEN come out? Any progress there? If you get on a somewhat regular basis I'd like to subscribe. What is your current rate? Still $20 ?"
A: The other night I had a dream, the location of which was the alley behind the yard of the house I grew up in in Des Moines. It was dusk, not dark, not light really. It was about the time when old city neighborhood shadows have a bluish quality about them, as I recall. I stood along the alley opposite the yard where my dog, the one I currently have in real time, was tied up. I couldn't see her plainly as she is a black dog, a medium to large size Labrador/Chesapeake cross. She was wildly barking at something beyond her chain and from where I was, with two fences between us, I couldn't get to her readily nor see what it was she was barking at.
Straining to look between the shrubbery and looking for a foothold into which I could stick my boot and climb over this chest-high obstacle, I saw a large sturdily built animal with short legs, coarse light brown hair and a short dark mane and ears burst past the dog who by that time had pivoted around at the very end of her chain, all the hair on her back and her tail standing up as though she wanted to kill it. She was foaming at the mouth and her fangs gleaming, barking and barking and barking...
Then another one of these animals burst by her, and another. What the?????
Cubby (not quite the name for a serious canine) was lunging at the end of her chain, leaping furiously as another and another of these beasts ran past her--just out of reach. Frustrated by my own confinement and inability to remedy the situation, I turn around to dash around the hedge--to stop, stock-still (Say that fast six times) in my tracks. I'm speechless...
There laying directly in front of me, sleeping, was this cow-size wild pig, his halved ears pointed down over its closed eyes, its huge snout resting upon its bristly-haired legs, its hooves tucked delicately beneath its mountainous undercarriage. Its tail, a loose dangle above the painful looking protrusion of a double capacity pigskin bowling bag.
How peaceful, it slept. I was afraid to disturb its slumber. More of these intimidating beasts kept coming and laying down all over the yard, so thickly that there was no room for me to step and not touch one of them. The dog had stopped barking. I wondered if she was dead or had simply fallen to sleep after all the excitement... What to do, what to do?
Then I woke up.
After long last, I think this sleeping wild pig is THE RAVEN. It creates a lot of attention, stirs things up, multiplies--then falls into a deep sleep until it decides to wake up, repeating the cycle. It gets bigger as time progresses, seemingly immovable, intimidating and reticent.
I am so bored with this impending issue, I cannot express exactly. There's no escaping it. Even last Thursday night, it haunted me faraway in Thief River Falls, where Jackie was singing with her old musician buddies '"The Fugitives" at the band-shell in the city park. Joe, Teresa, and Carole Wilson came to see the show.
And Carole asked, "When is the next RAVEN coming out? Isn't it about Wannaska hockey???" And added that her late husband, Jim, played hockey there as a kid--and he had had scars above his eye from where a puck hit him, etc, etc.
I told her, "It's day by day."At twenty-four pages, it's the biggest RAVEN we've ever published, and when she gets it -- she'll get her money's worth and then some.
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| Kenny Eggen was a renowned Wannaska Hockey coach. |
Two weeks ago, I was putting up posters for the RAAA-sponsored musical Jackie was singing in Roseau, "A. My Name is Alice," I was taking down RAVEN posters that requested information about Wannaska hockey. I took one down that was in Lees's Store and one down that was at Cafe 89, in the doorway. I never bothered asking for the one I left at Riverfront because I think it went into the garbage the day I asked to put it up-- I never saw it again after that.
Although some locals participated in Wannaska hockey, coaching, and playing, a few declined to talk to us or share their memories about it; I called them twice, even wrote them a letter outlining our request. No reply.
I don't have enough patience or time to keep seeking their stories. I know that once we publish, the stories will come out of the woodwork and people will lament that we didn't tell the whole story. Oh well. Let someone else do it--and do it better. I want to get back to fun fictional stories, travel memoirs, history, road trips with Sven & Ula: The High Point Boys.
Meanwhile I've got a bunch of cow-size wild pigs sleeping in my yard. What to do, what to do...
This little piggy went writing.
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