No More Chat Rooms for this Guy

I met him in an online chat room for people who like to sit in the dark and talk about Jesus. His screen name was Balthazar the Enlightened and supposedly he lived in Milwaukee and he had three pigs he called “breakfast, lunch and dinner”. I told him that’s pretty funny, but I had to go because I believed I was in the wrong chat room. I was looking for the room for people who like to drink beer and talk about Leroy Butler - totally different. “You don’t want to go to that chat room,” Balthazar told me. “It’s for sissy Packer fans who hate their lives. Stay here...with me.”

“Well, believe it or not, I actually like my life, Balthazar,” I told him. “And I think that’s extremely RUDE to suggest conversing on the merits of one of the greatest strong safeties in NFL history is for sissies. Did you know Butler was a five-time All Pro or that he invented the Lambeau Leap? No, you probably didn’t. I could go on and on, but I don’t think a MORON like YOU would understand,” I told him. It was OK to get a little cocky in the chat rooms, I thought. Per my chatroom protocol, I had turned on private browsing so he couldn’t track me down and harm me if I happened to strike that particular nerve in Balthazar the Enlightened’s body that would motivate him to do so. Of course, that would never happen, but you have to be careful. You never know with these Internet freaks.

I waited for his response. Nothing. Then, finally, he sent me a message. It was a series of numbers: 66.195.141.3. What the hell? Some coded Bible verse? Wait, was that my ISP address!? Before I could check, I received another message – this time a shortened link. I clicked on it and a new Internet page opened. Here I expected some profane picture but instead it redirected me toward a Google page...and wait a minute, it was a Google map…of my house!!! This pyscho had tracked me down!!

"10… 9… 8….” He wrote. It was at this point I ripped my computer and any attached cords out of the wall. I quickly shut off all the lights and then sat by my front door with a baseball bat for the next 12 hours.

And that was the story of my last chat room experience.

Uncle Dale: Traveling Man

I’ve known my uncle Dale for a good 10 years now. He was MIA from the family following his divorce to the “she-beast” in the early 80s. He only communicated to Grandma a few times during that period and his letters all had different return addresses. Turns out Dale was felt he got married too early and wanted to find – and possibly reinvent – himself somewhere nobody knew him. There were unverified rumors ranging from him as a stage actor in Canada to searching for the elusive skunk ape in the Everglades.

After twenty years of soul-searching, Dale finally returned to Green Bay the night of January 26, 1997… the night of the Packers Super Bowl win. I’ll never forget because the whole family was doing the Beer Barrel Polka in Grandma’s living room and yipping like hyenas gone mad in celebration. I was hopped up on Mad Dog 20/20 and Voodoos (Vodka + Mountain Dew) and was showing off my classic breakdance moves like the robot and the worm (aka “the dolphin” aka “the caterpillar") to everyone’s delight. As I was coming back for a second pass across the carpet, I heard Grandma exclaim, “It’s Dale!”. Sure enough in the doorway stood a skinny little weathered man vaguely reminiscent of a picture I had seen somewhere in the house. Dale shrugged off the attention (“yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s Dale”) and tolerated some of the inevitable hugs.

As we fed him a million questions as to his whereabouts and doings as well as many libations, Dale finally admitted that he worked random jobs such as a roofer and vacuum salesman here and there and everywhere. His stories all came back to a diamond-in-the-rough Packer bar he frequented. There was Howie’s Sports Page in Albuquerque, where the owner was originally from Fond du Lac, Town Hall in North Dakota where the bar was literally split down the middle – half watched the Packers, the others the Queens.

Dale’s favorite place of all was Rum Runner’s Tavern in Houston. Apparently it was as close to Green Bay as you can imagine. People dressed up in green and gold, bratwurst was served, and they even performed Lambeau Leaps. I looked it up and this Texas mecca of Packer Pride actually exists – check it out. Turns out the only criteria Dale had in choosing his next place to call home was that it had a Packer bar. Now that’s having your priorities straight. See you Sunday, Dale? Thought so.