Halibut Flipping Part II

By John S Mickman

In Part I of Halibut Flipping, I have arrived on Kodiak Is., Alaska and met a number of fishermen. I was living in a house with my new buddy Paul and his girl friend Sam.

Paul and his girlfriend 'Sam' lived with Sam's four year old son named Adrian in a pretty cool little house on a grassy knoll just above town. Looking south the view overlooked the an original Greek Orthodox Church and the fishing harbor. In the evening, after Paul arrived home from work, we would sit outside on lawn chairs, smoke a cigarette, have a beer and tell stories. We got to be great buddies in Kodiak.

Some day's I would babysit for Sam; Adrian and I got along famously. We'd walk down to my favorite haunts, say hi to all the guys and throw rocks in the bay. I didn't have any money to help with food and rent but Paul and Sam both had jobs and we just added my expenses to the tab; I was going to get a job as a fisherman, I would often remind them, make a pile of money, and pay it all back.

However, after six weeks, this arrangement was getting a little stale. I met an old couple down the road from Paul that needed some painting done inside their house. "Are you a painter?" the old man asked me. "Yes, I am a painter" I said. "Anything you need painted, I will paint if for you.” I painted much of their small house a horrible orange color that they loved. Years later, my buddy Tony and his wife Annie bought that house on Kodiak Channel and had to repaint the whole works. The old couple didn't pay me much, but I did have a job and made some 'pin' money – all of which went to Sam to help with the groceries.

One of the fishermen I had met was Leon, a Halibut Fisherman from Vancouver. I had invited him to stay over at Paul and Sam's house his first night in town so he didn't have to waste any money renting a hotel room. Although Leon was very appreciative, Sam reminded me that her house wasn't really my house and I wasn't supposed to be invited strangers to sleep over. We had a young child in the house and she just wouldn’t allow it. Ouch! She was right and I apologized. 

Anyway, Leon was looking for a boat too, but had lots of experience and he was sure he would get a berth soon. One night shortly after we met, I ran into Leon at Sollies Bar. He waved me over to the bar and asked if I'd like to make some money the next day, unloading The Western Girl, a Halibut schooner that had just come in with a full load. "Well sure", I said. What are we going to do?", I asked.

"We have to unload the boat. The crewmen are those seven guys at that table getting drunk," he said, pointing at a table in the corner. "They've out to sea for 21 days and won't be able to work in the morning. That guy sitting over there at the end of the bar is the skipper and I've worked for him in the past. He wants me to line up a couple guys to unload his boat. We'll get paid a dollar a thousand. How does that sound?" he asked.

 I had no idea what ‘a dollar a thousand’ meant, but said it sounded fair to me. "OK then", Leon said. "Meet me at B&B Fisheries tomorrow morning at 6:30. I'll show you what to do." This was awesome; I was virtually out of money and I had gotten a job on a fish boat - even though it was just for a day even though and it was only unloading.

(Note: One of the first rules in a fishing town is that if you want to ever work on a fish boat, don't get a job in a cannery. It is the kiss of death for a fishing career.)

The next morning I was at B&B by 6:15 waiting for Leon. He arrived shortly afterward with big guy named Bob; the three of us were going to unload the boat.

 "OK", Leon said. "Bob and I will be down in the 'hold' and we'll use our gaffs to pull the halibut into these landing nets” he explained. “When the net is full, the cannery worker operating the crane will lift the net by its corners up to this big stainless steel table here on the dock". He was pointing at all this stuff as he talked; the ‘table’ was about 40 feet long and 20 feet wide. It was obvious he knew what he was talking about, and it was obvious to me that I didn't! 

Leon continued, "You'll be up here standing on the table to receive the net. The first thing you do John, is to unhook two corners of the net and let the halibut spill onto the table when the canner guy lifts the net up in the air. Then you have to flip all the halibut over that have the brown side up; the white side has to be up before the fish go through the guillotine over there. To do that, all you do is to take this gaff here, hook it into the halibut's head right about here and flip him over. Easy enough, huh?" he asked a little to casually. "Then the cannery guy will then lower the net down to us and we'll do it all over again."

Well, it did sound pretty easy - right until the first net of halibut were lowered onto the table. I unhooked the net and the halibut all spilled out around me. They were HUGE! The smallest was 50 pounds and the largest were pushing 300 pounds. Halibut are 'flat fish', with one side brown (or grey) and the other side white. Half the halibut were brown side up. I weighed about 150 pounds, soaking wet, and for the life of me could not turn over the larger fish. After about 100 pounds, I was not able flip the halibut with the gaff, so I put it down and tried to flip them over by hand.  

I rolled up my hip boots so my pants wouldn’t get all full of fish slime, got on my hands and knees and reached under these monster fish with my hands and arms and tried to flip over the slippery, monster fish. I was covered with slime, blood and salt water. This wasn't going to work. Geez, what a disaster!

New Plan: The tail fins of these monster fish were still attached, so I grabbed a big one by the tail and lifted it up as high as I could, then with one of my legs, tried to spin the halibut around. With all my might I thrust the fish up, but when I kicked over, my other foot slipped on all the fish slim and down I went into the pile of halibut. The 200 pound fish I had by the tail landed square on top of me and I was kind of pinned down under one fish and in the crack of a bunch of other ones.

Well, I just laid there for a second or two trying to catch my breath when Leon leaned over the table and looked at me. "What are you trying to do, get that fish pregnant!?", he laughed out loud to me. "You know that fish is already dead right???", he asked, and couldn't stop laughing.

I struggled from beneath the pile of halibut; I wasn't laughing. I knew I had to get this right, and fast. , "I just can't figure out how to flip these monsters over Leon. These fish weight twice as much as me and no matter what I do I can't get them turned over.

"Well John you're holding up the crew. You've got to get those halibut flipped over!" Leon said as he jumped up onto the halibut table and grabbed my gaff. "Here's how you do it", he said as he picked out the 200 pound halibut I had just been wrestling. "You gaff them right here behind their cheek, grab the gaff with both arms straightened out stiff and use your shoulders and back muscles and FLIP!" he said as the huge fish flipped over. "Just like that."

Just like any other trade, there was a trick to it. "Gimme that gaff Leon", I said as I slid over the slimy table to the next halibut.

I gaffed the fish in the same spot as Leon had instructed, stiffened my arms, braced my legs and with my shoulders and torso twisted on the gaff and miraculously the fish flipped over. I was amazed! "OK, I've got it Leon. Give me a couple of minutes and I'll have all these guys flipper over, right side up." Leon hopped off the table, scrambled down the dock latter to the deck of the Western Girl and lowered himself by sliding down the net's wench line.

I was having fun now. It became a contest to see how fast I could flip the halibut over, and with my 'extra' time, I helped the cannery workers slide the fish over to the guillotine. I couple of times I jumped down to the deck of the Western Girl and yelled to Leon that he and Bob were holding up the crew; we were waiting for fish up on the table! Leon looked up at me and smiled. He and I were to getting to be pretty good buddies.

Leon bought me lunch at Sollies and we each had a French Dip Sandwich, their specialty. Boy did my sandwich ever slide down easy; I was hungry. After lunch, we returned to the Western girl and finished unloading by about 2 o'clock. Although we didn't have to wash off the table, the three of us had to wash the hold and swab off all the bin boards that separate sections of the hold. With all the slime, this job took a lot of effort, but Leon, Bob and I had the same taste in music and we started singing our favorite rock 'n roll songs. An hour later, the deck and hold were spic 'n span. Leon nodded his approval and told Bob and me to wait up on the dock; he was going to meet with the skipper and get paid.

Bob and I climbed up the dock latter, folded down my hip boots, and lit a well earned cigarette. A couple of cannery workers came up to us and wanted to talk about the Halibut Fishery. Obviously I didn't have a clue, but Bob had a couple of good stories to tell. When Leon joined us on the dock, he handed me 5 - $20 bills. "OK", he said. "The catch weighed out at just over 100,000 pounds of halibut. The deal was $1 per thousand, so here you go John." I looked at the $100 in my hand and replied, "Well I can't split this 3 ways; I only have $20 bills."

Leon looked at me quizzically, smiled and said, "No John. We EACH get $100." He then handed $100 over to Bob.

"Do you mean I just made $100 Leon, and it isn't even 3 o'clock yet." I was amazed.

"Yup, that's right John. It's all yours", Leon said. "Let's go up to Sollies and get a beer." I wasn't really much of a drinker and begged off.

"Thanks a lot for thinking of me Leon; I really appreciate this job", I said.

"No, thank you for giving me a place to sleep the other night", Leon replied. "I needed a friend, and you turned out to be the guy. See ya later", he said as he ambled across the cannery dock toward town with Bob.

In next weeks, Part III, find out what they mean when they say, “being in the right place at the right time”

John Mickman

Professional Halibut Flipper!

Halibut Flipping

by John S. Mickman

Deck Hand

In 1972, during my final quarter at the U of M, I caught a bad case of Spring Fever and I had some personal problems that needed to be sorted out. Much to the disappointment of my folks, I quit school and hitchhiked to Alaska. This is a tale about my arrival in Kodiak, and my first job in the commercial fishing industry.

(My wife Wendy says I need to add that I returned to MN that fall and completed my Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration.)

The first time I hitchhiked to Alaska was in 1972, and I arrived on Kodiak Island with about $60 in my pocket out of the original $145 that I had when I left Minnsota. While some of this money was the last of my life savings to that point in my life, $100 of it was reimbursed to me from my Spring Quarter tuition – which in 1972 was about $300 per quarter!

My plan was to stay in a guy’s house that I had met on campus at a party one time; he didn't know I was coming. That part worked out OK, and Paul Anderson became one of my best buddies - even to this day.

The plan had been to hitchhike as far as I could, and where ever my money ran out, I would stop there and get a job. It was good fortune that I made it all the way to Kodiak, and on the final leg of my journey, as my current 'ride' drove past the commercial fishing harbor in Kodiak, I was in awe. "What are all those boats for?" I asked the guy.

 "That's the fishing harbor", he said. "All those boats go out fishing for various kinds of fish." Only having seen the ocean one time in Boston and New York, I really didn't have the concept of commercial fishing yet. "Boy those guys must really like to fish", I commented, thinking of the many camping trips Up North our family took to catch Northern’ s, Bass and the odd Walleye. "What kind of fish do they catch?", I asked in an innocent, Minnesota kind of way.

The guy looked back at me with a grin and told me that this was the commercial fishing harbor. There were different fleets of boats that would fish Salmon, Shrimp, Halibut, King Crab, Tanner Crab and Dungeness Crab, among others.

I was amazed; "Do you mean these guys go out, catch fish and get paid for it?" I asked. "Yeah", he replied. "And they make pretty good money too. This is a big commercial fishing port and the biggest industry on the Island."

Well, we talked for a few more minutes, and just before I got out of his pickup truck he asked me what kind of job I was going to look for while I was in Kodiak for the Summer. "I'm going to get a job on one of those boats down there and be a fisherman" I told him with all the confidence in the world.

The guy was very skeptical and wished me good luck, but said there were a hundred young guys with experience trying to get a job on one of those boats and not to get my hopes up too much. "Oh, I'll get on a boat", I told him. "It might take awhile but I'm going to be a commercial fisherman." He wished me good luck again and drove off; I never saw him again.

It took four hours in a heavy drizzle to finally find where Paul lived. Kodiak is a small town, but without an address it was hard to narrow down the exact house he lived in.   However, after finding his house, I become reacquainted with Paul and convinced his girlfriend Sam that I would make a fabulous roommate (even though I didn't have any money or a job). And then finally, after 7 days on the road, I rolled out my sleeping bag in my new room - a large walk-in closet. It was perfect, and nice to have a warm, dry, safe place to sleep in. This was going to work out OK; I was sure of it.

The next morning I went down to the harbor and started looking at boats and talking to fishermen. There was a lot to learn including a whole new lingo of terms; galley, wheelhouse, port & starboard, diesel engines, skates of halibut gear, gannon's, etc. These were hard working men all, and proud of what they did for a living. It was also dangerous work and everyone had to work as a team to maximize their catch and to preserve their well being. Even so, over a dozen fishermen lost their lives each year to the North Pacific and Bering Seas. This was really interesting stuff and these guys had some awesome stories! Of course as a 21 year old kid, I could never get hurt and certainly never die. No way...

One of the guys I met was Tony Jones who was crewing on an old wooden shrimp trawler named The Pacific Pearl. Tony was about my age and knew almost everyone in the fleet. We became good buddies and he introduced me around to many of the crewmen and some of the skippers in the that had boats tied up in the harbor.

One of the first things I learned was that it was too early in the year to fish salmon, too late to catch King orTanner Crab and the entire shrimp fleet was tied up waiting out a strike. The canneries were only offering 3½ cents/pound and the fishermen wanted 7 cents/pound - twice as much! It turned out to be a long strike. The only boats working were the Halibut boats, and this was the smallest fishery in Kodiak. Bummer!

But no matter, every single day I walked the docks, walked Cannery Row, hung around Sutliff's (the marine hardware store), went into the bars the fishermen frequented and met everyone I could. One problem I identified almost immediately was that I looked like a college student, not like a fisherman. Many of the guys wore hip boots turned down at the knee to the effect of looking kind of like wide bell-bottoms; cool. On a boat named The Robbie I befriended a deckhand named Marshall who was from Australia. He was tall good looking guy who introduced me to many new things including how shrimp trawls work and how to eat kiwi's and avocado's (two things I had never eaten in Minnesota) .

 Laying on the after deck atop a pile of refuse on The Robbie was an old pair of hip boots that looked pretty beat up. "What are you guys going to do with those old boots?", I asked Marshall. "I'm going to throw them in the dumpster along with all that other stuff when I get up the energy", he said.

Just as I thought! "How about this Marshall? I'll throw all that stuff in the dumpster for you if I can have those hip boots. Deal?"

 He laughed and said, "They're yours, but they won't do you any good; they have holes at the knee's. That's why I'm throwing them away." I really didn't care if they had holes or not, I just needed them to look more like a fisherman.

"That's OK Marshall. I don't need them to keep the water out", I replied. He gave me a funny look and told me to help myself. Those hip boots fit perfectly and I wore them every day for months. I put some tire patches on the rips at the fold in the knees and that fixed the leaks.

In next week’s, Part II, find out if I ever figured out if the patched pair of old hip boots were any help in getting me a job on a fish boat!

Parking Tickets: Part II

By John Mickman

In last week’s Part I of ‘Parking Tickets, I was stopped by a police officer named Robert for a broken tail light lens. When he did the license check, he found that I had some warrants because I hadn’t paid some parking tickets…

Upon our arrival at Apache Plaza in the squad car, Robert and I both spotted the big, dark paddy wagon sitting in the shadows beneath a dim, overhead parking lot light. The scene was pretty ominous as I looked out the window of the squad car. Robert pulled up and met the two awaiting cops who were smoking while leaning against their paddy wagon. “Now John, I need you to sit still in the car while I talk to these guys”, Robert instructed. “I’m going to see if I can make this a little easier for you.”

Because we had parked so close to the paddy wagon, I could hear what was being said. Robert explained to the other two cops about the parking tickets, and told them they were not going to have any problem with me. At that point, one of the other cops took out some handcuffs and started walking toward Roberts’s squad car. “You won’t need those cuff’s”, Robert said. “You aren’t going to have any trouble with this kid.”

“Well you know the policy”, the cop said. “All prisoners that go into our paddy wagons have to be cuffed. That’s it”, and he stopped talking. At that point, Robert walked up real close to the cop with the cuff’s and said, “I’m not taking this kid out of my squad if you don’t put those cuff’s away. He doesn’t need to be cuffed. He won’t be a problem. Put the cuff’s away”, Robert directed in a way that I thought was just about right – not necessarily confrontational, but in a way that meant there would be no compromise. The three cops discussed this issue for what seemed to be five minutes or so. It was a lively discussion, but Robert flatly stated that at this time I was his prisoner, not theirs, and he simply would not turn me over to them until they promised not to handcuff me.

Robert won.

When Robert finally opened the door of his squad car I got out and was told by the two other cops that “if I don’t make any trouble”, they won’t put the cuffs on me. I agreed in as amiable a tone as I could muster, and stepped into the paddy wagon, smiling to myself that maybe this wouldn’t be too bad after all. “Thanks for all your help officer”, I said to Robert before the cops closed the paddy wagon doors. “You’re welcome John, and good luck”, Robert said with a big grin on his face. I thought I could hear him softly laughing to himself as he walked back to his squad car.

I was locked in the back of the paddy wagon by myself and was transported to the Minneapolis Police Station; the Big House. After arriving, each of the cops held me by my arms and led me into the cold, stone building. ‘My’ two cops stayed with me through all the processing and I never had handcuffs put on me, although all the other prisoners were cuffed. I was fingerprinted and had mug shots taken; front and side. Was this really necessary for Parking Tickets? I guess so.

After being processed, I was put in a holding cell with a bunch of drunk guys, some of whom were passed out. I just sat there on the wooden bench; no one had really explained what was going to happen next, or when. After three or four Marlboro’s, an hour or so, one of the jail keepers came to our cell and announced my name. “That’s me, John Mickman”, I responded as I jumped up and headed for the cell door. As he unlocked the door he said, “You’ve made bail son. Come on out of the cell”.

Wow, I made bail; I wonder how that happened. And by whom?

After signing some paperwork which included a court date a month down the line, I was brought into another room where my dad was waiting. ‘Oh man, this is going to be unpleasant’, was my first thought. But, dad didn’t say a word. He just opened the door and gestured for me to go through it. I did, and then followed him to his pickup truck. He hadn’t said anything to me yet.

After we had ridden for a minute or so I said, “I’m sorry this happened dad. It’s all my fault for not paying some parking tickets”. Nothin’; he didn’t say anything. He was REALLY mad. But, I wasn’t too worried because I knew he needed me to go pine cone picking and eventually I knew I would get on his good side again. But he didn’t say anything for most of the ride back home.

Not far from our house he finally spoke up. “I suppose you’re wondering where I got the $200 cash to bail my son out of jail”, he asked. Actually, I wasn’t wondering about that at all. I was thinking about how tired I was and if he was going to want me to leave for the Black Hills at 6 o’clock in the morning – just a couple of hours away.

But, at least he was talking. “Yeah dad, I was wondering where you got that money. Where did you get it?” I asked in a sincere way, anxious to break the ice and start a conversation. My grandma and grandpa were complete tea-totalers, and my dad very rarely ever had a drink. When he did, it was a small glass of Mogen David wine at Christmas or Thanksgiving or some other big occasion. He did not drink, and as far as I knew, had never seen the inside of a bar.

“I had to go to a bar and cash a check. A bar! I never thought I would have to go to a bar to get money to bail any son of mine out of jail.” He was really disappointed in me. I apologized again and that was the end of that conversation. He never brought this incident up again. Ever. Neither did I.

When we arrived home, dad said I was still leaving at 6 o’clock, on schedule, and I should get some sleep. At 6:00 AM, I left for the Black Hills with my brothers, Jimmy and Chris and sister Jody. Over the next three weeks in the Black Hills we picked all the pine cones dad would need for the upcoming Wreath Season. We, Mickman kids, were some of the foremost Pine Cone Pickers in the country, and although young, we were an integral part of the family Christmas Wreath Business.

Actually, we had picked more than one load of pine cones and dad brought our mom and my girlfriend Helen out when he arrived at our campsite at the Hart Ranch. Dad then returned to the Twin Cities with everyone except Jimmy and Helen because we needed to pick just a few more gunny sacks of cones before our load was (over) full. One night as we laid on some big stacks of field hay, the three of us watched the Perseids Meteor Shower. The night was crystal clear as hundreds of ‘falling stars’ were streaking across the night sky for hours. Pretty cool.

After finishing the pine cone picking project, I decided to go to the Minneapolis Court House and see if I couldn’t take care of the ‘Parking Ticket Problem’ before going back the University; school was starting in a few weeks and my court date was going to interfere with some of my classes.

So, with my tail light repaired and everything else on my MGB working pretty close to 100%, I drove down to the Minneapolis Court House, and after explaining my situation with two or three police officers, I finally convinced the last one to let me talk to a judge. This was not an easy sell, but I was finally led upstairs to the office of a judge. After being handed a bunch of paperwork by the officer, the judge asked me to sit down opposite him at his desk while he looked through my file.

After he got himself up so speed with my situation, the judge looked up at me. “So tell me Mr. Mickman, how does a person get 32 Parking Tickets and end up with 32 warrants for his arrest? You understand if you had paid these tickets, it would have cost you $3.00 each or $96.00. But now with these Warrants, these tickets will cost you $30.00 each. You now have to pay $960.00.”

With that, I began the tale beginning with my volunteer work at The Whole Coffeehouse, putting myself through the University and picking pine cones for the family wreath business. I also told him about Officer Robert and his fine treatment of me, along with the story about the handcuffs and the other two cops that accompanied me through my booking at the jail. The judge seemed to be quite interested, so I told the story with lots of detail. He was amazed. I concluded by telling him that I was here at the courthouse hoping to get resolution to the problem so I wouldn’t miss any of my upcoming classes at the University.

After finishing the story, the judge looked at me for some time then asked if I had money to pay the complete fine, $960. “Well, no sir, I don’t have that much, but I did make some money picking pine cones and I could pay some of it”, I explained.

“It doesn’t work like that Mr. Mickman”, the judge said. “You have to pay the entire amount of the court’s levy. $960.00”.   

“Well Your Honor, I don’t have that much and I don’t know how I could pay it all now. Could I make some payments over time?” I asked.

“No you can’t make installment payments. It doesn’t work that way”, the judge said. Then after thinking for a few moments he asked, “Did you earn enough picking pine cones to pay the original amount of the Parking Tickets; $96.00?”

So that was it; I ended up paying $96.00 and walked out of the Court House five minutes later, a free man.

I believe that to this day, my fingerprints and mug shots are locked away in the bowels of the Minneapolis Police Station somewhere, probably with a footnote stating that I didn’t pay my parking tickets.

I also began putting money into the parking meters behind Coffman Union. 

Parking Tickets

By John Mickman

It had been a great summer evening with my girlfriend Helen. We had hung out with a bunch of our friends from the University - listening to our favorite music, telling stories and discussing current events, including the Viet Nam war which was raging. But I had to run off early; the next morning at 6 o’clock I was leaving for the Black Hills to pick pine cones with my brothers and sister. At 20 years old and being the senior brother, I would be the driver and in charge of the three week expedition from the Twin Cities to the Black Hills. I had been picking cones since I was a little kid, and was looking forward to the trip.

So, Helen and I left the group and I dropped her off at her folk’s house in Highland Park. The drive home to Fridley was a well worn trail my bright red MGB and I had made many, many times. On this beautiful warm evening, the top was down, the radio was tuned into KQRS and the ride was easy. I love to drive and my MGB was one of my all time favorite cars.

As I drove the last two blocks to my folks’ home, I noticed a car following closely which was kind of unusual, as I usually drove faster than the posted speed limit. The mystery was solved when, just as I pulled into my folk’s driveway, a police car turned on its red, bubble beacon and the landscape was filled with the swirling red strobe of the patrol car.

Bummer!

My first thought was focused on the question of just how fast over the speed limit I had been driving – and for how long. Being in residential streets for over 2 miles, I surmised that I hadn’t been going way to fast; just a little too fast. Hmmm.

Back in those days I use to get out the car and meet the policemen at the rear of the vehicle I happen to be driving when being stopped. Not an uncommon experience at this time in my life. This night was no different, and I met the policeman at the rear of the MGB. “Good evening officer”, I chirped in as amiable a manner as possible. This usually worked to set a good tone right off the bat.

“Well, good evening to you”, responded the officer. “Do you know why I stopped you?”

I had a couple of options here, but the one that usually worked the best was to admit that I had been going over the speed limit, ‘a little bit’. “Well, you know I might have been going a little too fast, being in a neighborhood and all, but one of my favorite songs was on the radio and I may have been a little distracted. Is that it?” I asked in a tone that reflected grave concern.

“That is part of it” he responded. “But the main problem is that you have only a half of a tail light lens on your right rear tail light. Where you aware of that?” the officer asked in a way that was gathering a positive tenor. Things were going well for the kid; at worst I would probably get a ‘fixit-it’ ticket, and at best I would get off with a warning and instructions to get my tail light repaired.

“Geez officer, I didn’t know that”, I said as I looked down to my left at the shattered tail light lens. “What a bummer. I wonder when that happened?” Fix-it tickets were easy ones, and I could easily put a new tail light lens on my car. I would usually just promise to take care of whatever problem the car had, e.g. headlights out, blinkers not working, etc. without actually getting a ticket.

“Yeah, that sometimes  happens with broken tail lights”, the officer said. “It’s hard to tell if a rear light isn’t working or not”. I heartily agreed with that statement and promised to get it fixed right away.

“That will probably be fine”, the officer replied. “I think I’ll let you go on that one with a warning, but I should do a license check. Can I please have your driver’s license?” So I pulled out my wallet and handed over my license and assured him there wouldn’t be any problem. After asking me to stay by my car, he went back into the squad car and I saw him pick up the microphone and start talking.

It was now about midnight in our quiet suburban neighborhood. But now, with the red flashing police car beacon turning around and around, I noticed lights being turned on in homes of the tightly packed houses around our block. Then a couple of the dads, all of whom had known me since I was in grade school, started coming out onto their front steps to see what was going on. Another bummer! I was hoping my folks wouldn’t wake up, but sure enough, the lights in our house started coming on, and then HE came out; my dad.

At just about that time, the officer came out of his car with a concerned look on his face. As he approached me, he saw my dad walking across the lawn toward us. My dad asked, “What’s going on here?”

“Sir, please go back up to your house. We have a problem and I need you to back away!” Geez, this was an unexpected turn of events. I wonder what the problem is. My dad wasn’t about to back down from the officer that easy. “This is my son and I want to know what the problem is”, my dad replied to the officer.

The police officer didn’t like my dad’s tone and obviously wanted him to move away immediately. “Sir, I’m not going to ask you again. Go back up to your house!”, he demanded. ‘Holy Smokes, this is really getting serious’ I thought to myself as my dad retreated up to our front steps. Just then my friend Judy came home from a date and parked her car in her folks’ driveway next to our house. “Hey Johnny, what’s going on?” she asked in a joking manner. But by that time, the officer was right in front of me and the whole tone of the event had changed. I didn’t respond to Judy.

“Well John, we have a pretty big problem here. Did you know you have some warrants out for your arrest?” I quickly thought about the possibilities and asked him, “Does it have anything to do with Parking Tickets officer?”

“It does John. Do you know how many warrants we’re talking about here?” he asked.

This was a loaded question for me and I had to answer in just the right way if I had any hope of getting out of this. “Well officer, I know it’s more than a couple. Maybe 10 – or 12 – or something like that?”

“No, it’s 32. You have 32 warrants out for your arrest by the Minneapolis Police Department. Tell me John, how is that possible. I’m really interested to hear how anyone could have that many unpaid Parking Tickets”. And he really did seem interested. So I told him.

“Well it isn’t that mysterious really, officer”, I began. “I’m a student at the University and I volunteer at The Whole Coffeehouse. As a matter of fact, I’m the Manager. Even though I work most of the nights we are open, some nights I just need to check in for a few minutes to make sure everyone is doing their jobs and we’re all set for the evening’s performance. So I park behind Coffman Union where there are some parking meters, but sometimes don’t have any change. But really, I’m usually down there for only 15 minutes or so, and the odds are that I won’t get a ticket. But sometimes I do.”

“Ah-ha, but when you get the tickets, why don’t you pay them? They are only $3.00?” the officer asked.

“I’m a student, putting myself through college and I really don’t have any extra money to pay these tickets. And you know, $3.00 is more than I make per hour”, I explained.

“And what was your plan John? You knew you are going to have to pay these tickets didn’t you?” he asked.

“Well, to tell you the truth officer, my plan was to gather all these tickets together pretty soon, and then go down to the police station and pay them off all at once. Maybe even get a discount ‘cause there are so many of them. I think I have almost all of them right here in my glove compartment. Do you want to see them?” I asked.

“No, that won’t be necessary, but I have to tell you that I have never heard of a volume discount on parking tickets. Anyway, now you have 32 warrants out for your arrest and I am going to have to take you to jail”, the officer stated in no uncertain terms.

This was an astounding bit of information for me; going to jail because of parking tickets. Really? I expressed my surprise to the officer and asked if there wasn’t another alternative that didn’t include going to jail. “Nope, there is not. I called in to headquarters when I did your license check and the Minneapolis Police Department is sending a Paddy Wagon to pick you up right now. You’ll have to get into my squad car John. Come on”, he said as he stepped back and pointed to his car.

Now I was really concerned. “Officer, I have to leave at 6:00 in the morning to pick pine cones in the Black Hills with my brothers. Without me, they won’t be able to get the cones; I can’t go to jail”, I implored.

“I’m sorry John, but I have no choice in the matter. This is my job. Come on, let’s get into the squad car”, he said.

“Well, can I at least tell my dad what’s going on please? He is counting on me and this is really going to be a problem for everyone. He’s just up there on the steps. Please. It’s really important. My dad is counting on me”, I asked in as sincere a tone as I could muster under the circumstances.

“Picking pine cones. What is that all about?” he asked.

So I explained: “My dad has a Christmas Wreath business and we put 9 cones on every wreath. We make about 15,000 wreaths so we need almost 50,000 pine cones – and my brothers and sister I are the ones that need to do all the pine cone picking. We are supposed to leave in the morning. Everything is all set to go, except now it sounds like I’ll be in jail”.

“Well John I know this is going to be a problem, however, you wouldn’t have this problem if you had just put a dime into those parking meters. But, I will explain to your dad what is going on. OK?”, he said. Then he yelled up to my dad, “Sir, can you come down here to the squad car?” Dad immediately walked toward us as Judy, Mr. Archibald, Micky Smith, Mr. Carlson and the rest of the neighbors looked on. Boy, this was embarrassing!

The officer explained the situation to my dad and told him where I was going to end up, in downtown Minneapolis at the police headquarters. Of course my dad expressed his massive disappointment in me while giving me one of his ‘looks’, an expression of disappointment that he had mastered over the years. Then the officer and I got into his squad car, him in the front and me behind the metal grid screen in the back seat. The door locks snapped shut. I was locked in.

After he backed out of our driveway, the officer explained that we were going to meet the Minneapolis Paddy Wagon halfway there, at the junction between the two cities. “My name is Robert”, the officer said. “Have you ever been in jail before John?” he asked me in a conversational tone.

I had a good story in answer to this question. “Well I was in prison one time in Boston, but just that once”, I responded.

“What!” Robert asked, as he twisted around in his seat to look at me. “What did you do to get into prison?” He was genuinely surprised. So I told him the story of the hitchhiking trip a couple of years before with my buddy Don. He asked a lot of questions as I related the story and we had a good laugh when I got to the part about when Don and I spent the night in prison, guests of the Boston Correctional Facility so we didn’t have to sleep in a cold rain that night in the city park. I ended the story by telling him about Joyce, the wonderful red haired girl I fell in love with in Boston – after Don and I got out of prison the next morning.

Not far from where the prisoner exchange was going to take place, I asked Robert if there wasn’t some way he could take me to the Minneapolis police station. I didn’t know these other policemen and I would feel better if he could just take me down there.

“I’m sorry John, but it doesn’t work like that”, Robert said. “This is their jurisdiction and you’ll have to go with them when we meet at Apache Plaza. But, I’ll tell you what. Before I turn you over to them, I’ll talk to these guys and explain that this is only about the Parking Tickets, and some other things. You’ll be fine. Don’t worry”.

I felt a little better, but I really was concerned about what was going to happen next. I knew that after I left Robert’s car, I would be swept up into some kind of system that I would not be able to control. At all.

End of Part I.

Check back next week for Part II of ‘Parking Tickets’

Without a Clue

When we were little kids, my dad purchased a number of large parcels of land on which to grow Christmas Trees. In hindsight, it wasn't for the money, he did it so us boys would have work to do - with him. We had a great time and learned to love what we did - together.

Early one fine Sunday morning back in 1962 when I was 12, dad told my brother Mark and me to drive our small Massey Ferguson tractor from one farm to the other. I couldn't believe my ears; we were going to get to drive all the way to the other farm, about 10 miles, all by ourselves! Actually, I was the oldest brother, so I knew I'd get to drive the whole way...

Well, the battered old tractor had no muffler, no lights or signals. In addition, the whole idea was to get the disc implement, which was wider than the tractor by about 4 feet on each side, to the other farm. Although there were a lot of turns, Mark and I both knew how to get where we were going, and away we went. I drove while my brother stood on the clutch platform and leaned against the starboard fender.

We had to yell to hear each other over the din of the un-muffled engine and the clanking of the old tractor as we bounced along down the road. We were laughing and giggling the whole way and everything was going great. Some of the farm dogs along the way chased the tractor, barking all the while; about what, we didn't know. The sun was shining on our young bronzed faces and we were in charge; life was good.

Then, a mile or so before we arrived at the other farm, I looked back at the disc (which stuck out 4 feet!) as we passed by someone's mailbox that was kinda close to the road. At the last second, I jerked the tractor to the left and the disc barely missed the mailbox. Whew! Mark saw it too, and we looked at each other with a sigh of relief. After the abrupt turn, we were OK, but I was thinking about all the other mailboxes we had passed over the course of the past 9 miles. Mark was thinking the same thing, and we whispered to each other about the possible horror of it all several times during the rest of the day.

When it was finally time to go home, we piled into dad's old brown '59 Chevrolet Apache Panel Truck and headed back the same way as we had come that morning. Mark and I were absolutely petrified to see many, many men along the route fixing their mailboxes. After a few miles, dad commented on what a coincidence it was that all those guys chose that particular day to fix-up their mailboxes. Mark and I looked at each other and were both too scared to say anything to hem. Even to this day we confessed to him that we had damaged those mailboxes.

After all these years, I still feel bad about it.

So, if you were one of the dads that had to fix-up your mailbox along Co. Rd. 5, near Isanti, on a fine June Sunday afternoon back in 1962, I apologize. We didn't do it on purpose; we were just a couple of kids driving an old tractor up the road on a sunny day - without a clue.

John Mickman

President

Mickman Brothers, Inc.

http://www.mickman.com/

The Easter Lambs

So, having developed a successful part time business selling Christmas Wreaths to the Christians, our dad thought that maybe he could develop another enterprise around the Holy Easter Season.

Not having a great amount of background in the trappings surrounding Easter, this was a tough challenge for The Old Man. After a certain amount of careful research it was determined that lambs were an integral part of the Easter experience, and he didn’t see anyone else taking advantage of the opportunity. Why not rent out lambs to families to be enjoyed, cuddled and quite possibly prayed upon by the thousands of Christian families in the city? He would have a virtual lock on the market and his cash outlay would be minimal because he could rent the lambs himself from the farmers. Certainly the farmers wouldn’t really need the lambs back until, at the latest, fall slaughter.

As luck would have it, back in those days there were a number of farms in our area and a nearby farmer raised sheep. Things were beginning to fall into place. After working out some minor details with the farmer, The Old Man was through step #1 of his Business Plan.

After lining up the raw materials, he began development of his marketing strategy. Diane Archibald, the cute little girl that lived across the street, would make a perfect ‘Little Bo Peep’. As a 12 year old, she worked cheap and didn’t seem to mind too much dressing up like a little shepherdess, complete with a hooked staff, fluffy white dress and Easter Bonnet. Unfortunately, Diane found it was one thing to dress up and show off her outfit in her kitchen, and a totally different experience going downtown to the Channel 4 TV studio’s to appear live on The Casey Jones Show. She was mortified that anyone she knew would actually see her on TV dressed up as Little Bo Peep.

The ride down to the studio in The Old Man’s panel truck with the lamb in the back wasn’t as bad as Diane thought it would be. She was able to keep most of the dirt off of her outfit as they bounced down the road. And the lamb, for the most part, stayed in the back of the truck. She found that if she just nudged the lamb with her staff a little bit, she could keep it from eating away at her dress while avoiding any obvious discomfort to the lamb.

The mortification factor began to engage when Diane, the old man and the lamb walked through downtown and into the TV studio office. She thought about walking behind my dad and the lamb, but realized her costume automatically made her part of the parade.

The receptionist cut her phone call short when she saw the lamb coming through the door. The farmland trio was rapidly escorted to the back studio where they were greeted by none other than Casey Jones himself. Diane had never met a real movie star before and she began to feel a little better about the her role when he introduced himself and explained what she was supposed to do – right up to the point that the lamb decided to relieve himself.

Afterward, Diane asked The Old Man not to ask her to do the show again. And unfortunately, all of Diane’s friends watched Casey Jones that day.

Meanwhile, back at the corporate headquarters, dad had come up with an interesting twist on the newly blooming enterprise: Why not offer the clients their choice of a female or male lamb. The lambs could be dyed either pink our blue to identify their gender, and this color configuration would make his product truly unique. What a fantastic enhancement! Certainly many families would like to have a pink or blue lamb at their house in celebration of the Holy Easter Season?

With the full strategy now in place, it was time to have the orders start rolling in. We ended up with 21 clients; a new business was borne.

Of course my 8 year old brother Mark and I weren’t aware of any of these planning strategies, as we were more on the operations side of our dad’s business enterprises. The day arrived when Mark and I went with him to pick up the lambs. We drove over to the sheep farm towing our home made 11 foot wooden trailer behind the old Chevy panel truck. On the way over, I called shotgun so I sat by the window. Life was good.

By the time we arrived, the farmer had rounded up all the lambs and Mark and I were told to load them up the plywood tailgate into the trailer. The first problem was that it was cold and icy, and the lambs’ little hoofs kept slipping on the tailgate. “OK boys, don’t play around there; get those sheep into that trailer”, came the command from The Old Man. He always assumed that we would know how to do these things, so most of the time we had to figure out the best way to get the job done ourselves. Dad retired into the house with the farmer to seal the deal.

Mark and I soon discovered the second problem: Once we got a couple of lambs in the trailer, they tried to escape as we attempted to herd the next covey of lambs in. There were several unsuccessful attempts until we developed the process of Mark closing the tailgate while I gathered more lambs together for a run up the tailgate.

When we started the loading process, catching the lambs was pretty easy because they were all kind of bunched up together. But as the pickings got slimmer, the remaining bleating, kicking, pooping lambs ran all over the corral and it was a real job to capture the last few. We decided to latch the tailgate between lambs so Mark and I could corner them together. This team effort really paid off, and we finally got all the lambs loaded. We dutifully loaded six bales of hay into the back of the truck. We weren’t cold anymore.

The Old Man came out of the farmers’ house and counted the lambs in the trailer, “Yup, 21. Good job. Do you boys want to ride in the trailer?” Now this was one of the high point of traveling around with our dad; riding in back of the open trailer was always an adventure; riding with 21 lambs in the back of the trailer was going to be an extra treat. We climbed up on top of the wheel wells, hopped over the top of the 6 foot walls and slide down onto the trailer bed. It was cold outside, but the ride wasn’t far and we found that if we huddled down amongst the lambs, we would stay warmer. This was great. Mark and I each cuddled up with a couple of lambs and we settled in for the ride home in the nose of the trailer. Two little kids huddled against the cold, rushing down the road in an open top trailer surrounded by a sea of oscillating lambs. Boy, we’re having fun now!

When we arrived home, our new tasks were delegated to us; “Take those lambs one at a time with a piece of twine tied around their necks and bring them down the basement. Make sure they don’t get away!”

Well, we didn’t have an overly nice basement, and there was a door leading directly into it from the outside so we didn’t need to bring the lambs through the kitchen and down the steep narrow basement staircase. Compared to loading them into the trailer, bringing them into the basement was fairly easy, although there was a certain amount of pulling and pushing involved. We agreed that these were some pretty lucky lambs to be able to spend some time in our warm basement instead of outside in the covered shed back at the farm. Lucky lambs indeed!

This was about the time that mom came into the picture and didn’t like the idea of having sheep in the basement. There was quite a lively discussion regarding the ins and outs of having livestock living in the same house as the people, but I really didn’t think it was all that bad an idea. After all, they weren’t going to live there forever, and Mark and I had already agreed that we were doing a good deed of sorts by helping the lambs stay warm.

Well, this time The Old Man prevailed; the sheep stayed. Mark and I hauled the bales of hay inside, as per the instructions, “You boys break open 3 of those bales so the sheep can sleep on them”. This was when I started to wonder about the strength of mom’s argument, as the basement had begun to look surprisingly like the inside of a barn. Mark was waffling on the idea too.

The next phase of the business came as a complete surprise to us: The lamb dyeing was about to begin. Dad came down the basement and filled both sides of our big cast iron wash tub with water. Of course we didn’t want to waste electricity by using warm water, so he used our cold well water.

As dad poured package after package of Rit Dye into the wash tubs, he explained that the customers wanted the lambs to be one of two colors, blue for boys, pink for girls. We were going to dye the lambs. Of course The Old Man was our dad, and being the dad, ‘we were not to question why. Ours was to do or die’. Although surprised, we didn’t know that this idea was a revolutionary concept to the world. As far as we knew people were dying lambs all over the place.

Now for this job, we did need some training. Dad picked up the first lamb by his feet and carried the bleating, squirming creature upside down over to the laundry tub and dunked him in (we knew it must be a ‘him’ because he was in the blue side of the tub) and held him under the cold, very blue water. He told us to come close so we could see how the whole lamb was under the water so all of him would be blue; there were to be no white spots left.

As we stared into to blue slurry, there were many bubbles coming up, and some of them had little bleating sounds in them. I was sure the lamb didn’t like it. As dad was explaining the process to us, Mark and I looked in amazement at each other: I think dad wants us to dye the lambs.

Finally, mercifully, The Old Man took the now blue lamb out of the laundry tub and put him on the concrete floor. The lamb was so shaken by the experience that he fell over once or twice on the slippery wet floor before he got traction and scurried away to the shelter of the hay, not to come out in public for quite some time.

“OK boys. I’m going to put these wooded boxes here so you can climb up when you put the lambs into the tubs. Remember; make sure that the whole lamb is colored, right up to the top of their heads. We need 14 pink lambs and 7 blue lambs. Don’t worry if they are boys or girls. We just need 14 pink and 7 blue. Make sure you get the right number. Any questions?” We were too dumbfounded to say anything.

So, dad went upstairs and Mark and I worked on a plan. Neither of us could handle a wildly squirming lamb by ourselves, so we agreed that we would each take half a lamb, and together we would carry it up the boxes and dunk it in the tub. After watching what happened to their buddy, the remaining lambs were really in a panic, and it was quite a trick to catch one.

We finally captured lamb #2, and carried him (her), kicking and bleating to the laundry tub. Then, after stepping up on the boxes, we threw it into the tub. Now the fight was on, as the lamb didn’t like being thrown into the cold, red slurry, and using its tiny pointed hoofs, tried as hard as it could to escape. Mark and I both pushed it down as best we could, but the little lamb was fighting for its life and wasn’t about to give up easily.

Leaning over at our bellies, we succeeded in pushing the lamb all the way under water and struggled to keep it under. At times, the lambs head would surface and it would bleat like crazy as we pushed its head under yet again. How long do we need to keep it in here? We certainly didn’t want to drown the lamb, but we knew we had to do a good job or we’d have to do it all again. We agreed that a count of ten, once the lamb was totally under the red sludge, would be long enough. We let the lambs head up and made the inspection. She (he) looked very pink to us, maybe even a little on the red side. This must be good enough.

So, we lifted the lamb out of the tub, squeezing him (her) close to use to make sure it didn’t slip and fall, stepped off the boxes and put the lamb on the floor. As the reddish-pink lamb made its hasty retreat, Mark and I inspected our handy work. The lamb was surely a strong pink, and pink all over. We’d done a good job. Dad will be pleased!

Photo credit: dogonews.com

I looked at Mark and started laughing; he was a mess, covered with red dye from head to foot. He pointed at me and started giggling. Even our crew cut heads were pink to the core. The floor was an interesting shade of blue and red, and the wall behind the laundry tub looked like modern art. Mom wasn’t going to like this one bit! Mark and I agreed that when she came downstairs, we were going to be gone.

After the first two or three lambs, we developed a pretty good system and dying the remaining lambs went about as good as it could have gone. When my mom sold the house 25 years later, there was still evidence of this business on the wall behind the old wash tub.

Delivering the lambs went pretty good, but not perfect. After taking a lamb out of the trailer, I held on to each one with the bailing twine as dad did the talking to the lamb client. Most commented that they were surprised at the way the lambs actually looked. A few clients changed their minds and decided they didn’t want a colored lamb for Easter after all.

After Easter, we drove back over our route and picked up all the lambs. At some houses, the little kids would cry when we took the lamb back, and I felt real bad about dragging the bleating lamb away. However, most the time, the grown ups seemed quite happy about having their colored lamb taken away. The Old Man, for his part, explained to us how we must always look for new opportunities, and not be afraid to try new ideas. Mark and I always took his fatherly words of wisdom to heart.

After picking up all the lambs, we made our way back to the farm and backed the trailer up to the corral. This was the easiest part of the whole job.  Mark and I dropped the tailgate and the lambs pushed, shoved, bucked and bleated their way out of the trailer as fast as they could go back to the rest of the flock. It was warmer outside now and the lambs seemed genuinely happy. I was glad the other sheep didn’t shy away from the odd looking, colored lambs. Months later, whenever we would drive by the sheep farm, Mark and I could easily pick out ‘our lambs’ and we sometimes speculated upon what other people thought had happened to this particular flock of sheep. We came up with many variations to this theme.

*     *     *

I don’t think dad made as much money on the Easter Lamb Venture as he had hoped. We only did it that one time. Our dad’s personal variation on ‘Entrepreneurialism’ is one that many would not recognize. However for his sons, all of his endeavors were marvelous training grounds for innovative enterprising, creative problem solving and of calculated risk taking. But above all, he taught us how to love our work and to choose a profession that would enhance not only our lives, but the lives of those around us.

Thanks dad.

John Mickman

President

Mickman Brothers, Inc.

http://www.mickman.com/

Landscaping and Garden Solutions: Keeping it Natural

Every landscape project poses unique and interesting challenges.  This project was no different.  Upon first meeting with the customers, the only elements they knew they wanted were a water feature and a weeping evergreen tree.  The property is located on a beautiful lake in western Wisconsin and is surrounded by nature.  The goal of the project was to create a landscape that was not only functional for the customers busy life style, as they travel quite a bit, but also fit into the natural setting of the property without competing with it.

 
The water feature location was determined based on the space that the home owner used most often.  The deck was a new feature the homeowner recently added and was used quite frequently by the homeowners. 
 

Material selection was also an integral part of the landscape.  Using a stone native to the area was important to both the visual integrity of the design and the project budget.  Dresser Trap boulders were selected.  The boulders were shipped directly from Dresser, WI which is only 20 miles from the job site.

To help transition the landscape from one side of the house to the other, an ornamental planting bed was incorporated in an island in the center of the driveway.  This was an ideal place to incorporate the weeping evergreen trees and include the trap boulders.

The most exciting part of this project is what you can’t see.  Because both of the homeowners traveled very frequently for work, they needed a way to keep on eye on their new landscaping.  During the installation of the irrigation system, outdoor lighting and the water feature automation technology was wired.  The

automation technology allows the homeowner to control the technical portion of their landscape from their smart phone.  The system will allow them to control the irrigation system and make adjustments based on natural precipitation thus conserving water.  They are also notified if a part of the system is not functioning.  The lighting and water feature are also continually monitored.

Contributed by:

Kevin Guanzini

Landscape Designer

Mickman Brothers Landscape Design and Installation

kevin.guanzini@mickman.com

763-413-8286

www.mickman.com

763-434-4047

Mickman Brothers offers Landscape Design and Installation; Lawn Irrigation Design and Installation; Tree and Arbor Services; Landscape Maintenance Services; Lawn Sprinkler Services; Full-Service Garden Center; Delivery and Planting Services; for the Minneapolis and St Paul metro area.