The Severed Cortex

As usual, I'm about a month behind in Robert updates.

Combine Derby

You probably read those two words together and you're not sure what to think. Combine. NFL Combine? Combine two or more things together? And what about derby? Hat, race, town in England? You might be thinking too highbrow. Reach for something lower. Something more redneck. That's right. Farm implements crashing into each other. When you put it that way, and think to yourself that Drew is involved, you realize it should have been obvious to you.
Last year we attended the Madison County Fair in Highland and watched the demolition derby. It was pretty darn cool. Some of the cars caught on fire and a good number of them put out an inordinate amount of smoke. And while the action inside the ring was friggin' stupendous, there was one thing outside the ring that caught my attention. A demolished combine. Wha?, I said to myself. Hold your 'chaw, Jed. Don't swallow it. There is a also a combine derby as part of the fair's festivities. I am so there.
And so was my friend Nancy. When I mentioned it to her, she said she was aware of it and had always wanted to go. The original plan was for her to bring her little sister Celeste. Unfortunately Celeste's availability has been spotty at best lately, (not Celeste's or Nancy's fault), and instead of an event that the good folks down at Big Brothers Big Sisters would have perceived of as a bit of an abomination, it turned into an event with Nancy's niece Kate and Nancy's friend's daughter Mel. Both Kate and Mel are much older than Robert. I don't mean to imply that they are really old. Kate's probably 17 or 18 and Mel is probably 15. Roughly. I could be wrong. However old they are, the amount of time they have spent with Nancy has rubbed off on them, Kate especially, and together we had a really fun time.
The place was packed. Almost every seat was taken and we had to wade through a lot of people standing in the back to find spots on the very end of the grandstand. The part that isn't covered. Luckily it only sprinkled a little. We still had a pretty good view and we didn't have to wait long for the first event. Seven combines, in various stages of decay were introduced into the arena, and after some lining up, the first heat was off at the gun. Over the din of the combines banging away at each other, the announcer explained that they would continue until there were only three working combines left. It took about 30 minutes. The second heat involved eight combines, each as decrepit as the next, except the combines in this heat seemed to be painted up a little cooler. Not professional mind you, but with more creativity. It took about the same 30 minutes or so to whittle the field down to three. Heat three was basically the same with eight combines involved in the fracas, or melee, or humdoodle.
Up to this point I'd have to say that the combines bashing into each other was cool, but I think the cars last year were much, much cooler. The cars smoked and caught fire. Combines, despite my anecdotal boyhood farm experience which showed combines to be particularly fragile despite the extravagant price tag, are suprisingly resilient when it comes to crashing them into each other. Maybe it's because a combine's top speed of 15 miles per hour means you can't inflict much damage on yourself or your opponent. Several of them continued to be able to run despite having no rear steering wheels. Farm implements typically have separate brakes for each of the wheels on the powertrain, so simply mashing the brake on one wheel allows for almost turn on a dime steering. I imagine it's not the ultimate in handling control when you are dragging the ass end around, but it's certainly good enough for a demolition derby.
For the final heat you would have thought that the winners, or remainders if you will, of the previous three heats would have squared off against each other. Instead, they had a battle royal of all the combines together at once. Well, at least all the combines that could manage to start and get back to the arena. Twenty one of them did. And when they hit the starting gun and began crashing into each other, it was unbelievably awesome. Way more awesome than the cars. There was so much action that you would be watching one group of them crash into each other and you'd hear the roar of the crowd on the other side of the grandstand and know you missed something cool. After about 45 minutes of action, they cleared the arena for the final eight. Or so. I don't remember. What I do remember is that these last ones were damn near invincible. The last four definitely were. After watching these last couple beat the crap out of each other for what seemed like an hour, we bailed on it. I still had to drive 40 miles to get Robert home and another 20 back to my house and it was already pretty late.
In between the combine heats, various teams of firefighters throughout the county battled each other in competition. Basically they had to pick up a hose and hit a barrel on a wire suspended above them, using the force of the water to make it slide along the wire. At the same time your opponent is trying to do the same thing in the opposite direction. Much mirth is generated. Also much soaking of firefighters and crowd. If you go to the combine derby next year, don't sit right up in front.
During the combine derby Robert bet me $5 that he wouldn't fall asleep on the way home. As we were walking back to the truck he asked if we really still had to bet. I let him off the hook. We got some fries for the ride home and after he consumed the last of them, he promptly fell asleep.

Here's some awful, awful pics of the derby I took with my phone. Ten minutes into the first heat the battery died.

Family Reunion

We had the reunion just two days after the combine derby. Mel, who I mentioned above, said this when I said we were having a family reunion. I didn't even know white people had family reunions. I thought only black families had reunions. I guess I should mention that Mel is black, in case you might think she was saying something marginally racist. I guess that might be reverse racism a little bit, but it was funny so it was all cool.
The family reunion, surprisingly enough, was more about the Verkamman family and less about Robert. While I consider Robert to be part of my family, and so does Nancy, the family reunion was a chance for the five Verkamman siblings and their children (and their children) to get together. It was a lovely time and we had family members show up from locales like North Carolina, New York City, Chicago, Southern Illinois, Florida, and Arizona.
We had the picnic at Pere Marquette State Park and since Alton is on the way there, I thought it would be nice to take Robert with us. The timing worked out just about perfect, but not exactly perfect. I had to meet my friend Brian first so I could get the barbeque and beans. Brian is a coworker of mine and he and one of his buddies have their own barbeque cooking team called Big Chief barbeque. They have competed in a lot of places across the midwest and consistently finish in the top 10 in a variety of categories. They did a fantastic job for us and if you're looking for someone to cater some barbeque for you, I highly recommend Brian and his team. Plus, he's a hell of a nice guy and is a bit of a fantasy football savant.
I met Brian at Fast Eddies where they had cheap shrimp and Big Elwood on a stick on their minds. Plus cold beer I assume. After picking up the meat and getting some serving directions, I called Robert's mom to find out where they were. They were at Alton Square Mall getting Robert's school physical. The plan was supposed to work out so that I picked up the meat, then grabbed Robert, then headed to Pere Marquette, and while that did happen in that order, we had to wait about an hour for Robert to get through with his physical. Luckily by the time we got to the pavilion everyone wasn't too god awful hungry. They were hungry mind you, but not dying yet. The brisket got devoured pretty quickly, as did the ribs, and so did the turkey I smoked. By the time we left there was nothing more than a turkey carcass remaining. I seem to have a knack for turkey.
Robert seemed to be a bit of a fish out of water, since there were no kids his age, and he was obviously bored a one point, but I kept trying to get him interested by talking him into playing some games. Eventually I got him involved and by the end of it he said he had a fun time. We pitched washers for awhile and played giant frisbee. We also played a game called ladder golf, or hillbilly golf, that turned out to be pretty darn fun. I would have never guessed you'd ever be able to get one of those things to land on the 'ladder', but it was easier than one might think. In fact it was easy to land one. It was way more difficult to get one to stick.
Nancy's cousin Zeke is a professional sports photographer and he took a lot of pics of the reunion, including several group photos. We took family photos as a group for each Verkamman child, and then several as a whole group. The pics turned out fantastic. Robert said this:

R: I'm in three pictures.
Me: You're in way more than three pictures.
R: What?
Me: You see all these old ladies walking around here with cameras. You're probably in a thousand pictures.

He was.
The pics can be found here.

Rams Preseason Game

Beverly, our BBBS rep, called me a couple weeks ago to see if I was interested in some preseason Rams tickets. Of course I was. The original plan, since she gave me three tickets, was for Robert to invite one of his friends to go with us. And then I got sick. So the plan was for Nancy to drive us and help both of us at the game. When yesterday morning rolled around it was obvious there was no way it was going to work for me. It pained me to let a little boy down, and it pained me some to know I wasn't going to get to watch Ladanian Tomlinson run in person. We managed to get the tickets back to BBBS and Beverly found someone to take them. The back up plan now was for Robert to come over and watch movies, eat pizza, and play Playstation, but 30 minutes before Nancy was to pick him up, Robert's mother called and said he didn't get his room clean. He knew the rules.