Breakfast With Smokey At the Rathskeller

[ScottH]

I wake up with no idea where I am and find myself on my back in a half-circle booth, staring at an old ceiling fan. The kind of fan you must reach up with a stick to turn on and off. Barely in motion, the fan resembles a broken-down windmill on a calm day. I feel much like that old windmill. There is music coming from somewhere. As I look around it hits me…The Rathskeller…”Smokey.”
Peeling something off my left cheek I notice it is a Hamm’s Beer coaster. The scene on it is from an old commercial I recall watching on tv decades ago. The Hamm’s bear mascot is playing baseball. Trying to remember that song…

From the land of Sky Blue Waters
(echo) Waters
Hamm’s the beer refreshing.
Hamm’s the beer refreshing.
Hamm’s

Who in their right mind drinks Hamm’s?

But that is not the song that is pounding my eardrums. Then I see him through the server’s window. Wearing a red bandana around his head, no shirt, cigarette dangling from his mouth with ashes about a half-inch long barely holding on. It’s “Smokey.” What the #@!* is he doing in the kitchen?

I work my way around a couple tables that have the chairs resting upside down on top of them. Entering the kitchen I hear him at the top of his voice, “I’m gonna hire a whino, to decorate our home.” I know that song. It was on the radio 20 years before “Smokey” was born.

There he is…No pants…boxers with…”Smokey, is that the face of Taylor Swift on the back of your boxers?”
Completely ignoring my question, “Hey, Ace.” Smokey likes calling people “Ace” because it reminds him of his grandfather, the old fighter pilot. “Ready for some breakfast?” As I reply “Yes”, Smokey looks at me out of the side of his head and the cigarette ashes fall into the frying pan. He pays little attention, just says “A little extra spice.” I don’t even care myself as I remember the time my college buddy was working at a deli and made me a sausage and egg biscuit. When I bit into the biscuit, I could taste the Berry Blend chewing tobacco that my friend had just put into his mouth. I figure I could handle the cigarette ashes.
“It’s gonna be a great day today, Ace.”

“Smokey, where are we?”
“You don’t remember? Too much Maker’s Mark last night huh. Here throw this down. A little ‘hair of the dog’ so to speak.” And he poors me six ounces of beer from a can I vaguely recognize, and I see a raw egg in with the beer. Smokey stirs the concoction and sprinkles something on top.
“What’s this red stuff on top?” It looks to me like paprika.
Smokey adds more eggs to the skillet, turns over the sausages and fires back with, “God, no wonder we can’t get any free agents to sign. You ask too many questions. Just throw it down.”
I’m hesitant. A little pissed. But my head hurts too much to argue. As I drink it down…”I’m gonna hire a whino, to decorate our home…”

Finishing…three second pause…”*&%$ Sakes Smokey. Is that ghost pepper?”
“Wooeee!! Welcome to the morning, Ace. That’ll straighten out your stinger for sure.”
I’m looking around for some water. “No water, that’ll dilute the cure. Chase it with this.” He hands me what’s left of the can he poured me earlier…Hamm’s.
“Smokey, I…”
“You can’t drink it if you keep talking. Throw it all down. You’ll feel better.” As I drink the remaining 6 ounces…”From the Land of Sky Blue Water.”
“Smokey, where did you find the Hamm’s?”
“Bought ‘em.”
“I didn’t even know they still sold that stuff.”

Smokey looks at me as he lifts the eggs off the burner, “No, I bought ‘em. I bought the company a month ago from MolsonCoors, the suckers. They have no idea what they had there. I wanna use the bear for marketing purposes.”
“Marketing? Marketing what? The beer?”
Dividing the eggs onto two plates, adding the sausage. “Of course the beer. And the team. Did you know in the year you were born, 1964, Hamm’s beer was the biggest sports radio and tv sponsor in the country. And they only marketed in 31 states. At least 16 professional sports teams from coast to coast, Ace. Founded right here in Minnesota. St Paul in 1865, end of the civil war. Minnesotans love that bear. In 2000 the St. Paul Pioneer Press named the Hamm’s Bear as one of the 150 most influential Minnesotans in the last 150 years. When the government cracked down on Joe Camel and their cigarettes, the bear got put away too. Scared they might get accused of marketing beer to children. Like the kids in Minnesota need help deciding to drink beer. They play hockey and ice fish for f*&% sakes. That David Frizzell song I was singing has a line about Hamm’s beer. There’s a 6-foot statue of that bear somewhere in St. Paul. Let’s go find it. I want it.”
I find myself helping him with breakfast now, putting hash browns on the plates. Finding some butter. Smokey puts out his cigarette, grabs the pack of Camel’s and puts on a shirt that says, “I Have No Idea What’s Going On.”

We take our breakfast and a pot of coffee out to a table. “Smokey, about the bear.”
“Bought the brewery too. The one in St. Paul. There are some other businesses in there. Gave them 6 months to find another location. Some trapeze training group was using part of it. Weird. Did you know one of the Hamm’s heirs was kidnapped by the Barker Gang? You know, Ma Barker, her boys. Ransomed him for $100,000. They figured robbing banks had become too dangerous, so they started kidnapping people. They made a mistake with Hamm’s though. Took him to Chicago and Frank Nitty charged ‘em $50,000 rent for hiding Hamm’s in town. No swear. It happened.”
“So, Hamm’s at Doyle Buhl Stadium this year then.”
“Absolutely! Putting in a new pub out there right now. That’s where I want the original bear statue. We’ll put a replica in a few spots around the stadium for people to take, what do you call those things people used to do with their old iphones. Selfies. We’ll have the Hamm’s song piped through the mouths of the replicas. Awesome! The Hamm’s bear is back.”

“I’m actually feeling quite a bit better. We are at the Rathskeller aren’t we.”
“Wooee!! The ‘Smokey Bong Cure’ has another convert. Hey, you know that Barker gang that kidnapped Willy Hamm. That happened 100 years ago this June 15th. Hope we play at home, we’ll have a centennial celebration. Oh, and one of the founding members of that gang, the Barker-Karpis Gang, Karpis taught guitar lessons while in prison. Guess who one of the inmates was that he taught.”
I can not believe he knows this stuff and just stare at him waiting.
Without looking up he says, “A little, squirrely guy named….Charles *&%$ing Manson. No Swear. True story. It happened. McNeil Island out in Washington state. Alvin Karpis taught Manson who was locked up for forgery.”

I start to realize everything has a purpose with Jason “Smokey” Bong, so I asked him about his nickname.
“Never told anyone this, I like hearing all the stories they come up with about why I’m called ‘Smokey.’ I don’t use the stuff, don’t even smoke cigarettes. Only had that one this morning because I was thinking about Joe Camel and how they just threw him away. Remember about a dozen years ago we had that hologram for a president, his name was Joe and his vice was that gal, Kamela or something. Joe Kamela, Joe Camel. That’s kind of funny. They should have brought Joe Camel back for that. Oh yeah! My nickname. I ate a lot of sausages like this,” he holds one on the end of his fork, “when I was little. My grandpa called them Smokies. I ate so many he started calling me ‘little Smokey’ and the ‘Smokey’ stuck.

“I better get on the phone to the representatives of those free agents. Find out what’s up.”
“Why?”
I’m stunned. “Because we need to sign some players.”
“They will sign. Either with us or some other team. But, they will sign. Quit chasing them.”
“Yeah. We need to get out front and get them.”
“Don’t sweat it. Have you heard from them since the last time you made an offer.”
“No.”
“Ace, a fish won’t chase the bait if the bait is coming towards him. Start taking the offers away by making offers to others. You hold the cookie, Ace. If they want the cookie make them come and get it. You start saying, ‘maybe we don’t want you after all,’ they will start signing.” He slides a piece of paper over to me. “Here. Offer this dude a little more than he got last season. Offer him 3 years. Make the offer publicly so those holdouts know you made the offer. Then don’t answer your phone the next time they call. They’ll sign.”

Everything has a purpose with “Smokey.” The Hamm’s this morning, one Camel cigarette, the bear, the kidnapping story of Willy Hamm. “What about the Rathskeller? Does the owner know we stayed here last night?”
“Yep! Bought it 2 days ago.” Then he stands up in his Taylor Swift boxers and his “I Have No Idea What’s Going On” tee-shirt and says, “Grab that cooler of Hamm’s in the kitchen. We gotta go find that bear.”