THE NORTHERN MICHIGAN ROAD KILL RODEO

I just got back from the first ever road kill rodeo. It is exclusively held here in Northern Michigan and boy is it great fun for singles like me or for people who have families. It doesn’t matter if you are five years old and full of vinegar or eighty five years old and on an oxygen tank, you can find something fun to do at the road kill rodeo. Of course those people with oxygen tanks should stand a ways back from the barbeques.

The food is great and Mrs. Maggie Vitals won the Macramé Chefs Award for her road kill Michigan chicken in fondue sauce There was some questions brought up as to whether Mrs. Vitals found her Michigan chicken along the road or if she found it floating out on the bay. The rules for the Macramé Award are quite specific in that any deceased flesh must be taken strictly from along the roadside and not from bodies of water or alongside bodies of water such as beaches or riverbanks. Most deceased Michigan chickens (also known as seagulls) are usually found near bodies of water or near restaurant dumpsters. In the end, the judges believed Maggie especially since her fondue sauce made the Michigan Chicken (seagull) taste like a Road Island Red. Maggie was happy to take home the top prize of $3.33. The runner-up received $1.00 and the third prize was 67 cents. There was a total of $5.00 in the kitty. There would have been more but, the sponsor of the rodeo, Mr. Jerrod of Jerrod’s Junk-O-Roma, had the sale of his kidney fall through because of his excessive drinking. With the failure of his kidney deal his whole business was now in jeopardy of being confiscated by the bank.

There were several recipes for road kill possum, raccoon, deer and, squirrel but, the judges picked more exotic dishes. The runner up was MS Denise Roadscrape for her rattlesnake pecan turnovers and, the third prize winner was Mrs. Fowler’s Peking Crow. There was some protest over the crow dish since Mrs. Vitals swore that the dressed out crow looked a lot like her missing little Chihuahua named Russell.

Besides great food there were rides, games and, various venders at the rodeo. The only thing is that there was never any rodeo. It seems that chasseing down dead animals is not much of a challenge. Maybe next year this little detail can be ironed out. Of course whether or not there is a rodeo next year comes down to whether or not Mr. Jerrod can find some organ to sell that has not been affected by thirty years of hammering down 40 oz malt liquors.

ICE FISHING CARNIVAL

By Tim Colin
Ice Fishing Carnival is an event held each year in Michigan. The event takes place out on the ice covering Lake Birdie. This event has been going on for decades and has always been exciting for participants and spectators alike. Many people participate in the sanctioned fishing and snowmobiling events. These events are very safe and great for family entertainment but, I don’t go to watch these events.

Instead, I like to watch the unsanctioned, showoff your snowmobile driving skills event. These people crank up their snow machines for exciting slides across sometimes treacherous ice. Watching people fly across the ice at 100 mph on their snowmobiles is really exciting. I especially like it when someone is going too fast and they are heading directly for someone’s cabin up on the shoreline. Watching the machines flip over and over as the drivers try to swerve out of a certainly fatal skull on cabin siding collision, can really give you a thrill. It is so much better than auto racing. Snow machine riders have almost no protection against frost bite let alone crashing into objects like cabins and ice shanties. Of course if there is an explosion, their clothing is usually highly flammable. Luckily they can roll around in the snow.

Another unsanctioned event that will give an onlooker a cheep but, no less exciting thrill, is the annual “Who is the stupidest person in Michigan?” event. In order to participate in this event you need to own a late model pickup truck with a blue book value of $50,000 or more. Each year there are at least a dozen people who participate in this event. The goal is to see how many of these trucks can park next to each other before the ice gives out underneath them and the vehicles become aquatic habitats for fish and other lake plants and creatures. Boy when that ice gives way those trucks really go down fast. You don’t dare make a trip to the port-a-potty or you might miss the whole show.

I get even greater thrills when the conservation and sheriffs officers start showing up and issuing citations to the truck owners. In addition to loosing their expensive trucks, these dim wits also get a nice hefty fine for polluting the lake. But, wait, there’s more. They also have to pay to have their sunken big trucks hauled out of the lake. For someone who likes to watch really dumb people loose lots of money doing something really stupid well, life does not get any better than a day out on the ice during Ice Carnival.

Of course you don’t have to go to a sanctioned event like on Lake Birdie to watch people do really crazy things out on the ice in Michigan. They do the same thing on every lake and river in the state as soon a there is a thin layer of ice on the water. The only thing is that during Ice Carnival you can get a hot dog and use a port-a-potty while you are waiting for someone to do something really stupid.