sludgo’s Mile Markers: Mile 226

It was a simmering-hot late Friday evening at the end of August in the summer of ’79, the year I’d graduated high school. I’d driven the Gremlin out to the new Hardee’s by the four-lane to meet Dean and Dave and Jeff and Steve and Kent and Robbie. We’d all arrived just before closing time and the counter people and cooks moaned and groaned a bit when we walked in but Steve’s second cousin was the Assistant Manager on duty and she said it was cool. I was glad. Not only was I starving but I was also looking forward to another Friday night doing nothing but goofing off with my buddies. It would be our last such night because come Saturday morning we were all leaving sludgoville and going our separate ways. Jeff was scheduled to report to the Army. Steve, the Marines. Dean was off to Arizona in his sweet ’56 Chevy to attend automotive-tech school and Robbie was taking his dad’s old F-100 west to work in the oil fields. Meanwhile, Kent—the most adventurous of us—had packed his microbus to the hilt, ready to embark on his solo trip to Alaska. And me and Dave? We were the college boys—Dave heading to NDSU in Fargo and me heading to UND in Grand Forks. And as we gathered, it was a bittersweet occasion. We all knew it was the end of the line. The end of an era. The end of the Norton Buffalo Fan Club.

Now honestly, and with due respect to Mr. Buffalo, none of us were actually big fans. The idea for the club just stumbled out of a woozy boozy September Friday night almost exactly one year earlier, at the start of our Senior year when were partying at Jeff’s house. His parents had left for the weekend for a wedding in Minneapolis and had forgotten to lock the liquor cabinet and after we’d all slugged down a few triple-shots of expensive cognac none of us were feeling any pain. Somewhere in the mix someone clicked on the big RCA console in the center of the room and it flickered to life, tuned to Prairie Public TV, the NoDak Public Broadcasting channel. Austin City Limits was on and a harmonica-player named Norton Buffalo was its featured guest. A funky-dunky dude sporting a red beret and a purple shirt and fronting a big band, his name caught our tipsy attentions and we began laughing and giggling and chortling and snortling about it like the drunken high-school boys we were. Sooner than later someone else—I think it was Dean—said Norton needed a fan club and there you have it. History in the making. The Norton Buffalo Fan Club was born.

News about the club spread quickly—small school, small town—and when Kent arranged to have fan-club t-shirts made up at Henderson’s Stitch-in-Time where he worked part-time the chatter really took off. They were pretty cool shirts—black with gold lettering—and when we began wearing them every Friday without any explanation, well, buzz buzz buzz. Didn’t take long for other guys, from the nerds and stoners to the preps and jocks, to start asking if they could join, suspiciously questioning us at the same time if there really was such a thing as the NBFC or if it was just a joke we were playing on everyone. I never knew exactly how to answer that question, but early on we’d decided not to accept any new members. It wasn’t a snobbery thing. We simply saw the club as something special, to be shared only by us. After all, we’d known each other since we met in the first grade at St. Marten’s. Had grown up together and become close friends over the years, relying on one another if we ever needed a hand or a sounding board or a punching bag, eventually trusting each other enough to have conversations about things that weren’t always easy to have conversations about, safely discovering along the way that, contrary to popular belief, boys do cry.

I padded up to the counter. Ordered a triple bacon cheeseburger with extra pickles and a double side of onion rings and a large chocolate-strawberry shake, please. Burp. I paid the cute but crabby cashier then strolled out into the orange and yellow and brown dining section and settled in with the rest of the dudes at our favorite booth to wait for our food. I could hear the kitchen crew grumbling away as our burgers sizzled on the grill, filling the air with that deliciously familiar salty-savory smell. KFYR-AM was playing something disco on the sound system and even though I hated disco I tempered any complaint. There were far more important topics on the agenda that evening to be discussed, like whether or not the Vikings were better off now that Tarkenton was gone and if Eddie Van Halen was a greater guitarist than Hendrix. If the rumors were true and the new Star Wars movie would reveal Vader was Luke’s dad. If Bo Derek was hotter than Farrah and if Rocky and Creed would ever fight again. If Camaros were cooler than Trans Ams and if there’d ever be a good electric car and if Subaru BRATs were awesome or dorky. And before we knew it the night had passed and we were standing in the parking lot shaking hands and giving each other bro-hugs, saying our see-ya-laters knowing full well we likely wouldn’t. Then that was that.

Fast-forward almost exactly forty-seven years to this last Saturday morning when I chimed through the glass front door of the Cup ‘o Cheer, a family-owned greasy-spoon that’s been a fixture in New Sludgoville for decades, renowned for serving up some of the best homemade grub in town. I was immediately greeted by Merry Miss Margie with her signature big red bow tied into her signature big red hair. She nodded me over to my regular seat at the extra-large corner table in back and I gave her a wink. Told her I’d have my usual. Black coffee and a couple eggs over-easy, four strips of crispy bacon and hash browns fried just as crispy, with two slices of whole wheat toast and some peanut butter and grape jelly on the side. Said she could just bring me the coffee for now and wait to put in my order until the other guys showed up. My new crew.

There are seven of them. All retired old farts like me. Silvertops and chrome-domes I met through the car scene right after I moved to town five years ago. Can’t remember when it was for sure but a couple-three years back at one of the Saturday morning show ’n shines someone suggested we have a sit-down breakfast the second Saturday of every month. Sounded like a good idea to all of us so we began the tradition and haven’t stopped. It’s always a good time, probably because we agreed from the start never to talk politics. Or religion. Smart.

Happily, that morning’s gathering held true to form. The rest of the guys arrived more or less on time and once all our orders had been placed we settled comfortably in at the table. Ernie kicked things off by offering his opinion that sequential turn signals weren’t that cool anymore now that every new car seemed to have them. Chuck quickly responded, citing that no one in town ever used their turn signals anyway. Rick pitched in that he was seeing more electric cars around than ever before but he’d still never buy one. Then Steve made a snarky comment about BMWs current design direction before sniffing that he couldn’t get his Triumph Bonneville started. Again. Duane groused about how rock ’n roll had died in the ‘80s and would never return while Lars passed around his phone, proudly showing us the nine-hundred forty-seven pictures he’d taken of his new baby grandson. Jarvis picked up on that thread, wistfully detailing his upcoming fishing trip to Yellowstone with his grandkids and Ben rounded out the conversation by bragging how well the power washer he picked up at a garage sale for twenty-bucks worked cleaning the soffits of his house.

Meanwhile, I quietly sipped my steaming hot coffee, watching the proceedings. Then I smiled, thinking that these monthly bull sessions might not be a big deal to anyone else, but they sure were to me. And when Margie at last brought out our orders and we roared our ravenous approval I was reminded of that long-ago hot August night at Hardee’s spent with my buds. How even back then I enjoyed and appreciated the sense of kinship between a closely-knit group of men—my brothers in arms. And it struck me that it was time this new gang of mine had a name. Something catchy but not corny—somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, between “Hell’s Angels” and the “Loyal Order of Moose.” So I put down my coffee and cleared my throat.

“Say, any of you guys ever hear of Norton Buffalo?”