The EMB Church in the Bach had a youth choir called “His Light” which took a couple of buses to perform in the United States south of the border.
First stop was Bemidji, MN.
I vaguely recall a concrete Paul Bunyan standing beside Babe, the big blue ox. And there was a log-cabin souvenir shop! I bought a Star Trek magazine there, which I read many times and blog about here.
This must have been in the mid-’70s because Star Wars ('77) changed everything. I was fixated on cowboy boots (across the border even kids seemed to have 'em) so I hadn’t yet got my own (on sale locally for $12 at Casper’s Pick ‘n’ Pay Shoes).
We spent our last night in the Holiday Inn at Fargo ND. I don’t remember the swimming pool but there must have been one involved. Instead my friend Duke and I stayed put in our hotel room and watched Cable TV, which was not yet available in the 'Bach. We grew up on on four channels, one of them French. We saw Star Trek (“The Devil In The Dark” — in living color!) and The Twilight Zone (“A Stop At Willoughby” — in glorious black and white!). In between we caught flashes of Mr. Majestyk. “Ooo, Chuck Bronson,” said our roommate from the doorway, pausing briefly in his nighttime journeys. “Don’t mess with Chuck!” For the next five years I’d leap into the back of a pickup, kick open the tailgate and blow away the bad guys with a shotgun. Reading the Elmore Leonard novel some years later was actually a disappointment.
I later asked our youth pastor if we’d stop at Fargo or some other Holiday Inn. He snorted. “We’re never doing that again.”
Oh well. Once was enough.
I remember that trip and the magazine we both pored over. I also remember being hassled by some of the older guys for our interest in sci-fi. Such was the life of a young geek.
ReplyDeleteWe were eventually old enough to push-start Kaz's snot-green Pinto in the middle of winter -- man, it was cold! But a car was a car and Kaz was offering a ride to the city. We used the Eaton's Parkade that day and you kept Kaz's Pinto alive.
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