A Wisconsin Yankee in Walt Disney's Court

One of the great injustices of being born in the mid 1960s, in my mind, is missing out on the whole McDonald’s playland experience. I didn’t even get to go inside a McDonald’s until I was in my teens; we’d have to sit in the car with full ashtrays where you’d have cupholders these days while my mom went in for the food we’d eat in the parking lot. I have no idea why, except that they might have thought of it as a drive in from an even earlier age. But we still had drive-ins around and went to them occasionally so who knows.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m grateful for my vague memories of the original six-limbed Grimace and the talking hamburger-headed public servants that have been replaced for today’s youth with a gay clown that eats raw apple slices. They fried apples into pies in my day. DEEP fried them. Probably in lard.

But when those brightly colored habitrails appeared in every high-traffic McDonald’s and I was far too old for them, I was more than a little ticked. A youth spent on ice-cold metal monkey bars and molten-hot metal slides seemed dismal compared to what was virtually a pre-pubescent wet dream of molded plastic tube-crawling joy. I couldn’t have imagined such a thing outside of a space station, and then, surely, no sooner then the impossibly far-off year 2000. And indoors, out of the elements! With deep-fried pies within sniffing distance!

As it turns out, the only thing that seemed farther off to young me than space stations was having a daughter, but unlike flying cars and cheap sub-orbital travel some things actually come to pass. And just like Walt Disney’s bourbon-fueled Epcot visions of the future taught us, you never really know what tomorrow will bring.

It brought me to a McDonald’s near the park we like to visit with a sunstroke-reducing awning over their equally mind-numbing play fortress with rubber coated parts and a recycled tire rubbery surface beneath it. If nothing else, McDonald’s is usually your bathroom away from home, just because they always keep the place clean and have all the amenities. You learn to appreciate this kind of thing even more with a baby, because a clean place to change a diaper is like striking gold.

I should say they usually keep the place in order, because this particular McDonald’s, even in a nice area with gated communities, a thriving shopping center, and the nicest park in town across the street, was pretty screwed up. The bathroom was disorderly, and worse didn’t have a changing table on the wall. So I headed back out with the wet squirrelly two-year-old, and noticed that there’s a “family” bathroom inside the biodome that encloses one of the biggest playlands I’ve ever seen (the supposed largest anywhere is in the touristy section of Orlando). So we trekked back in and around, but this one has a padlock on the door for some reason, so back out again.

By this point the 2-year-old has taken extreme interest in the giant series of tubes (not the Internet) and there’s no going to the park until she gets a shot at them. So after a blazing hot diaper change in the car, the nice air-conditioned McDonald’s sounded like a nice place to spend her exercise time and get something to eat.

The clues should have been adding up by now that this wasn’t the choicest franchise going. I noticed that one guy who’d been waiting for his food during our first quest for a bathroom was still waiting, along with a small throng at the lunchtime rush. There was no real line, but it took nearly 20 minutes to get our order with a near-frantic two-year-old urging me over to the playland area.

But finally it came, so we headed to a table in the playland. Another bad sign going in was the door propped open with a chair, which didn’t make sense, until I realized that the giant biodome was actually a greenhouse with 2000 square feet of southern-facing glass and no air conditioning. The open door was slight relief so we sat next to it. Or, rather, I sat, because the little one had no interest in food and beelined straight into the tubes and disappeared.

My kid is pretty fearless and will climb anything. She might ask for help getting down, but doesn’t flip out or cry and scream. And of course, a few minutes into the habitrail she started calling for help. A few other older kids were going in and out of the tubes, so I thought she’d follow one of them out, but no luck, so I had to go poke my head in. She was at the top of the first tube, a slight ramp with little rubber grips for steps, that seemed pretty tame, but she wouldn’t come down. I thought she might be claustrophobic or something, so with no real options I headed up the ramp to get her.

Of course I barely fit, and it’s about 120 degrees and smells like melted polyurethane inside these things. None of this would have bothered me when I was five, but now it’s pretty uncomfortable and hard on the knees. A little coaxing got the kid out, though, and I brought her back to the table to her fruit salad. She’s cured of all tube aspirations, for now, if not forever, I figured. But of course not; she bolted up the ramp again like it was the greatest thing ever. Well, she sees how to get down now, I thought, so resigned myself to eating my hamburger and waiting her out.

The next thing I heard was “Help, Daddy,” from above me, and I looked up to see her peering down from a plastic bubble 20 feet in the air. Oh, great. There’s no way I’m climbing all the way up there, so she’s going to have to figure it out. She disappeared from the bubble but the “help” cries moved all over the top level, not panicky or scared, just like “hey come and get me.”

The older kids went in and out some more, duly reporting to me which section of the tubing she was in and repeatedly letting me know she was stuck. Their parents or grandparents were wise to the fact that this side room was a sauna and ate in the actual restaurant, so I was the only adult in there. One grandmother did come in to get her grandson and noted that “she doesn’t seem very scared, at least.” Thanks grandma. None of the kids were willing to give her a hand getting down, so as soon as the room cleared out and I finished my food I realized that I had to climb up there.

I went past the little sign that said “Ages 3 and up” and “No shoes—socks only” (the 2-year-old was in sandals) so I figured we’d already broken a couple of rules and the lackadaisical management wouldn’t bother me even if they noticed. I was soaking from sweat a few feet into the middle level, and still had to twist around a few turns to get to the last bubble I saw her in. Thankfully, she came back to the top of the ladder on the second level so my trip wasn’t as long as it could’ve been. She just didn’t like coming down the ramps alone, so a little coaxing and a cramped u-turn and we were on our way out.

No shift manager was waiting outside the last tube for us so I packed up our stuff and held on to the kid as tightly as I could because she was gung ho to climb back up the thing again. A quick sneak out the side door and by the time I had her strapped in the car seat she’d forgotten about it, and was back on some crazy demand for Dora the Explorer fruit snacks that she rejected as soon as we got out of the grocery store.

Ah, fatherhood.

Of course, my real reason for moving to Florida was to search for the infamous Skunk Ape, the most plausible of the American Bigfoot variants. While my trailcam mounted on the patio has failed to get a hairy apeman picture for me yet, I haven’t given up hope and plan to spend the winter wading through the Everglades tracking him down.

I don’t know how mainstream this has gone, but you may have heard that some yahoos in Georgia claim to have a Bigfoot body in a freezer and are, as of this writing, planning a press conference for Friday. Of course it’s all a scam, with a continually changing story and at least one principal who’s been involved in the past with false claims of a Bigfoot body in a freezer that he used to bilk people $14.95 a month to view his monster-cam on the web. The bigfoot itself looks remarkably like a costume you can buy through the mail, and varies from what they initially described as an almost-human hairy guy.

Still, you’d be amazed at the believers who haven’t given up hope. The cryptozoology forums are rife with folks seeing things in the picture that aren’t there, and using any rationale imaginable to justify the incoherent story behind the whole thing. Some people just won’t question anything. And when the body is hauled away mysterious;y by the Men in Black or some malarky, they’ll continue to scream conspiracy and lament the scientific proof that might have been.

Myself, I have to hand it to the guys who pulled this off, getting as far as an interview on FOX News last night, and mentions on every talk radio show in the country. They did it with the expense of a California PR firm, but mainly built up their notoriety with a simple website and a few props. Their story wasn’t very good, or even consistent, but a certain group ate it up anyway. What a world this web thing has made.

Here are some links explaining the whole tale:

Cyptomundo is the web’s best clearing house for your weird animal news, and has crashed the last couple of days as a result of the publicity. Host Loren Coleman was off the bandwagon, briefly on, but I think back off again.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Orginization doesn’t have much of a sense of humor and doesn’t buy any of it. And they’ve bought some questionable tales in the past. I think they’re jealous of the publicty they aren’t getting, and I think, like Loren Coleman, upset that they weren’t invited to be in on the story.

This Bigfoot discussion board has a nice rundown, followed by various belivers and debunkers. See the conspiracy theories starting early.

This guy did some nice work to show how closely the Bigfoot looks like a readily available costume. And here’s where you can buy it.

The Anomalist has more, including the FOX footage, and has a good assortment of weird news links every day.

Funny, funny stuff, and until I find the real thing down here, as close as we’ve got…

I’m not much of a sports fan anymore; I was as a kid, somewhat, going to baseball and football games and watching enough of them on TV that I remember hearing the news of John Lennon’s murder from Howard Cosell.

Later, I just got sick of it, I guess, and would rather go out and do something or read than follow sports. Mainly, I hated the fanatical “Our lives depend on the Packers’ win-loss record!” attitude that possessed my family and most of the rest of the state. My brother still misses work the Monday after a Packers loss, and openly started bawling during the first quarter of their 3rd Super Bowl win when they fell behind early. He and my dad, and my mom for that matter, spend an entire game screaming and berating their team, even if they’re winning, for any perceived lack of effort or athletic failure. My brother stood up and screamed at the TV during the aforementioned Super Bowl after it was all but wrapped up, ranting that certain players on the sidelines shouldn’t be given Super Bowl rings for sitting on their asses. In reality, it was a couple of 350-pound linemen who’d been forced and/or drugged into basically running wind sprints for two hours and were nearly suffocating on diesel fumes from an elaborate halftime show. My parents in later years had come to the conclusion that it was all fixed, which makes me wonder why they bothered at all. Other relatives came up to during that Super Bowl party in reverent tones saying “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” as if the accomplishment was theirs, or the birth of their children was as meaningful as a trip to the bait shop. My mother called them all posuers for not being born in time or old enough to recall the ’60s chamionship teams.

At some point I realized that I could appreciate the drama of sports without being an obsessed mullethead; the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, that was enough, as Jim McKay used to say. Along with my obsession for games in general, that got me watching football again. I don’t own a jersey, and I’m annoyed at a loss but it doesn’t stick with me long. Just don’t bring up 4th-and-38 again in my lifetime.

The era before Brett Favre came along may have been another factor in my disillusionment, actually. Years of following the Packers barely got me a winning season, let alone a playoff berth, during my childhood; I was 2 and 3 when the first Super Bowls took place, and don’t recall those (Posuer!) I remember my dad lamenting during an early ’90s NFL Films special that they had to go back 3 decades for a Packers clip worth highlighting.

You have to take that into account when you consider Favre’s impending sainthood in Wisconsin (forget Hall of Fame eligibility in five years– wait 50 years, when they’ll dig his uncorrupted corpse from the ground and display it in a glass case inside Lambeau Field where old women will wail over it with the same fervor that they floss the gap in the Vince Lombardi statue’s teeth with rosary beads while they pray to beat the Bears twice this year). Titletown USA was the league doormat and the butt of sportscaster jokes everywere until Favre came along. In a country, state, and city obsessed with football, what more could you want? And not only a Superbowl, but a trip to the playoffs more years than not. And for more icing, just about every quarterback record in the books?

And the drama! Last-minute drives and impossible throws are afterthoughts. What about drug addiction, a wife with breast cancer, or his father dying 2 days before a Monday night game where his receivers managed to catch anything he tossed out there for the most dramatic win in NFL history? How could Green Bay let this guy go? They have a street named after him without being a president and/or assassinated, a tough deal these days, usually reserved for enticing a corporation to build a factory in your state (I lived near Jelly Belly Drive when I was a cheesehead).

I haven’t heard from my family back home to gauge the reaction up there, and maybe it’s not so bad. Listening to sports radio after any loss the last few years, you heard caller after caller demand his head in a basket, or at least a trade. They’re a fickle bunch, like most sports fans, really, who don’t recall the Lynn Dickey years or the quarterback before him nobody can name. Or the 10 seasons straight they couldn’t beat the Bears.

My wife credits me with calling the unretirement months ago, but even I had given up on it. We all should’ve seen it coming, especially the Packers. He kept them hanging the last two off-seasons, so of course he’ll change his mind again. Offer him the 20 million dollar “marketing” deal on the way home from the tearful press conference, morons, and maybe it won’t come back to haunt you.

In the Pack’s defense, he did keep them waiting 3 years, this time more than humanly allowable. In Favre’s defense, he’s probably been holding a grudge since they let Holmgren leave and seethed with each inept draft and ill-thought free agent aquisition, capped by last year’s pass on Randy Moss and brilliant 3rd round pick of a receiver with a broken arm. If he was ticked at Green Bay last year and still played his heart out, the Jets made the deal of the century if they can keep him happy in New York.

Favre broke yet another record this week, selling more Jerseys in one day than the rest of the NFL this century combined. I’m guessing most of those went to Wisconsin, and hoping Lambeau Field is filled with green and white on opening day in protest. And I hope the Jets out-perform the Packers this season, and for the next 25 years. The Packers are due another quarter century of sub-mediocrity.

One more Scrabble item– me with John Williams, the guy who runs the National Scrabble Association, at the awards ceremony. On top of, or in spite of, dealing with some major nutballs, he keeps these big events running smoothly. He’s had players whining and crying that their beloved swear words were going to be taken out of the official dictionary, and the “pros” complaining that there should be as much money involved as in, say, professional poker. Reasonable folks, all.

But that’s it for Scrabble for a while– no tournaments until next year, more than likely. Until then, I’ll work on memorizing all the four-letter words (I’ve pretty much got all the threes down)…

Five and two again on the final day of the tournament was good enough for 6th place in the division and a piece of the prize money. I also had a small prize for high game in one of the early rounds, so all in all it was a pretty good tournament for me. My buddy Art, who seemed to have a better shot at the top than me, won our match but ended up in 8th place with the same record but a smaller point spread.

I keep kicking myself over the game with the missing tiles, and an earlier game that I totally blew by giving up a bingo spot on the last move. Either mistake cost me 3rd place, or fixing both may have been good for 2nd. But those, and every other mistake or missed bingo, will make me be a little more careful next time.

Here’s one bingo I missed: I had two blanks, and CCFIU on my rack. There’s one fairly common word there, but my compatriots agreed that it would’ve been pretty tough find for anyone. I’ll tack the answer on next time.