If you have a question for Earl or the Nuggets,
fax us at 739-7687.
ON THE NUGGETS SPECIAL -- I ingured myself again. "Oh, did you now Earl? Gee. And what else
is new?"
How it happened, that's what's new.
Name another person who lost a fight with the floor of
a train station.
The big silver-and-blue iron horse carrying the Dawson
City Nuggets to their date with destiny pulled into Edmonton,
and that was fine.
The players jumped off in their 1905 regalia to a
rousing reception in the station from a mob of fans and
media, and that was fine.
Willie Gordon hit the fiddle, the crowd stomped and
clapped, and that was fine.
But then Diamond Tooth Gertie got into it, and that
wasn't fine.
Gertie, in her floor-length pink satin gown, suddenly
reached out, grabbed me, yanked me to her heaving bosom, and
to Willie flailing out Turkey In The Straw started
swinging me around the slippery tiled floor like I was some
pint-sized rag doll, and the crowd was hootin' and hollerin',
and the next thing I know my feet left earth, I went
basackwards in the air, my glasses took off for Moose Jaw,
and I hit the floor flat on my bass, with a 9.3 on the
Richter scale.
"Wrongway McRae," some no good son of a
prospector yelled, and the rest of them laughed at me,
that's right, they laughed at me, and I looked up
from the floor and Gertie's painted face was leaning into
mine, and she said: "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"
Hurt? Who, me? Hah, hah. You've gotta be
kidding. Ten days on a bouncing, bucking, banging snowmobile
turning my city-bred bum into two lumps of indestructible
granite for the rest of my life, and I get insulted with
"Are you hurt?"
"Not at all, I'm fine, I'm fine," I shouted
staggering to my feet, my bum feeling like it had been kicked
by Godzilla.
Hey, you think I'm gonna let those guys think
I'm hurt? After what I've been through. Me, Earl of the Yukon?
"Buns of steel," I shouted. "Buns of steel."
And hoped they'd think the tears streaming down my face were
because that's what happens to your sightless eyes when your
glasses have flown to Moose Jaw.
"A toast to Wrongway for doin' it again,"
the roar went up later in the bar car and beer cans and
liquour glasses collide, and I faked a loud frontier burp to
embellish my new machismo, and just as I was thinking they'd
forgiven me for all the knots I couldn't tie on the trail,
the tents I didn't know how to erect, the fires I didn't know
how to start; just as I was thinking they'd finally accepted
me as a Real (snort) Man, out came the cribbage board.
"Wrongway gets the honor of shuffling,"
said Budd Docken.
My second planned burp became a gulp.
Not just a gulp, a very large gulp; and I was
seized by terror. I have a terrible confession to make. I do
not play cribbage. I do not play cribbage because I do not
know how> to play cribbage. Not only cribbage, but
poker, gin rummy, bridge, euchre, canasta; I don't know how
to play any Real (snort) Man card games.
The only card game I know how to play is
Concentration where you put all the cards face down on the
floor and you have to pick up a matching pair by memory. My
daughter beats me all the time. My daughter is nine years old.
Somehow, I didn't think the time was appropriate in the bar
car with the Dawson City Nuggets to burp and blurt: "Hey,
fellas, heh, heh, anybody for Concentration instead?"
Okay, fine. So I'm a testosterone-deprived card wimp.
Go ahead. Laugh. Pick on me.
"Oh, gee!" I shouted looking at my watch.
"My column deadline! Yikes! I've gotta go write my
column!" And, I shot like a scalded weasel out of the
bar car.
Two more days. Just two more days before the Nuggets
Special rolls into Ottawa Station. I'm putting my hope in
Harvey Downes. In 1905, the Nuggets picked up an extra player
in Winnipeg when Weldy Young at the last minute couldn't make
the trip. Faithful to the recreation of that odyssey, the
current Nuggets picked up a player in Winnipeg yesterday. His
name is Harvey Downes, 36, an industrial league player. He won
the honor with his winning poem in a Winnipeg radio station
contest.
I still have the passion
A burning desire
To strap on the gear
I'll never retire,
went part of his poem. Good.
I hope his passion and desire are so consuming that Harvey
Downes never had time to learn to play cribbage, poker, or
any other Real (snort) Man card games.
Don't let me down Harvey: You're the key to me
salvaging the last residue of respect.
