Part 5: Accounts of the Life of Edmund Callipeaux

Contributors:
Edmund Callipeaux – artist, college instructor, lives in St. Louis Park.
LeTigre – Edmund’s wife, televangelist, lives in St. Louis Park.
Guy Cheblo – chef, corn expert, adventurer, lives in Minneapolis.
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Guy Cheblo – 4 February 2009, 12:00 midnight

(From a letter to Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Fifth District)

Dear Congressman Ellison:

My name is Guy Cheblo, and I am writing on behalf of myself and Edmund Callipeaux, and we are both big Steely Dan fans. Edmund and I live in St. Louis Park and Minneapolis, respectively, and as such we are residents of your Congressional district. We like to rock out, but we understand that more pressing matters prevail upon your congressional conscience. As a citizen, I pride myself in my knowledge of current affairs and I pay close attention to the economic and social concerns of our great State. As taxpayers of Minnesota we feel that it is our civic duty to enlighten you as to what we see as a waste of our valuable resources during a time of economic hardships.

For the past two and a half years, we have lived near and enjoyed the Lakes of Minneapolis. Growing up in the Twin Cities, we have always felt that the Lakes represent a great social and environmental resource for Minneapolis and its surrounding communities. However, recently we have learned that "the Lakes" may constitute a case of gross mismanagement of city resources. We have ascertained that the neighborhoods surrounding the lakes have some of the highest property values in the state of Minnesota. Typical houses within a ten-block radius of the Minneapolis Lakes range in value from $400,000 to 4.5 million dollars, with a mean property value for the areas of 1.2 million dollars per home. Given that the total area of Minneapolis occupied currently by water (in the form of lakes) is 1,794 acres, or 8,970 city lots, the tax base for the State of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis could be increased by $10,764,000,000 if these lakes were to be drained, filled, and sold off to honest, God-fearing development companies.

We could save Brownie Lake at the Northwest corner of Minneapolis as a final communal park space and change the name of the city to: Minneapolis, City of Lake.

Best regards,

Guy Cheblo

Brownie Lake with Target Corporate Offices in background.



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LeTigre Callipeaux – 3 February 2009, 10:00am

Cedar Key: Part 2

We stayed three nights in Cedar Key, Florida. To this day, I don’t know why I have such great memories of that trip. Perhaps, I remember the place fondly because the phrase “terrible experience” is often replaced by the word “adventure” in one’s memory. Adventure carries connotations of exploration, bizarre encounters, and heroic behavior. It’s a word that implies a “road less traveled” sort of thing…but let’s face it, a vacation that involves taking the road less traveled usually means that when you get home, you’ll need another vacation to recover from the vacation.

As it turned out, our hotel at Cedar Key was indeed haunted. The owners told us that a woman from the time of the Civil War was still occupying the building. She had been seen several times in the hotel restaurant kitchen and was known to move furniture around at night. Eddie began to ask about the life-like little girl doll that the hotel owners had standing quietly in the parlor next to our guestroom door. But he stopped short before verbalizing the question that was paramount on his mind. In a rare display of restraint, Eddie held his tongue before his fears of what could be were replaced with the terror of knowing what was is indeed a fact. He didn’t ask them if the ghost was capable of possessing this doll.

In the movies, the implication of a specter or demon is always more scary than a detailed view of the monster. Our minds can fabricate a horror that is much more intense and real than anything that can be shown to us on film. However, in real life, thinking that a ghost might possess a doll is scary, but that is nothing compared to knowing, without a doubt in your mind, that the entire time you lay in your bed, there is a 19th century woman in a little girl’s body scampering around the parlor just outside the door to your room. She’s muttering and swearing under her cold breath as she searches for knives or pick-axes or chainsaws. Or worse, she’s in the parlor arranging all the people she’s killed over the past one hundred years on the antique chairs and couches. She then serves them tea and little cakes under the flickering glow of the fireplace and the scratchy sounds of a Joplin ragtime playing on a spooky old phonograph. What if the owners of the hotel had told us that every once in a while she likes to add a few new people to her tea party of the damned? What if these suspicions were confirmed? You only want to imagine that stuff like that is possible, as opposed to knowing that it is imminent that you will play the protagonist in a tragedy that would be acted out entirely for HER pleasure.

The town of Cedar Key had many other adventures in store for us. The hotel had a wonderful covered balcony that wrapped around the entire second floor of the building. There, Eddie and I spent many hours relaxing and reading books above the street and under the warm Florida sunshine. But we were on the Gulf Coast, and being so close to the ocean made us long for a beach to sit on to while away our days in leisure. Unfortunately, the town itself had no sandy beachfront. It was built around a port that sponge fishermen had founded long ago. And since the area was deemed to be a marine wildlife sanctuary, no development of the coast had taken place for years. Inquiring at the hotel, we were told by the manager that we could charter a boat to take us out to one of the countless islands in the bay. There, she said, we would find some of the best beaches anywhere on Earth. Intrigued, we decided to take her up on her recommendation, and we made our way to the harbor that afternoon.

Seeing the harbor and its fleet of fishing boats, I thought, “This will be exciting! Going out to some island on one of these big boats with some salty captain will be grand!” Arriving at the docks, we were greeted by a sea captain who introduced himself as Creek Runner Bill. Creek Runner Bill was salty, but he didn’t quite match the strong, chiseled features I had imagined in my Captain of the Sea. He was more of a sinewy character, with a lean build and medium height. He was wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts, a wide-brimmed hat and flip-flop sandals. His skin was tan, leathery, and tough-looking due to his many years working as a fisherman under the intense Florida sunshine. He had a wide, cheerful smile, and was an instantly likeable fellow. The boat we were to charter was a skiff, or a dingy, with a little outboard motor at one end. It seemed seaworthy enough, I thought. I looked over at Eddie and I could see that we were soon to set sail in this motorboat because he was extending a ten-dollar bill to our salty captain whose grin was assuring us that we were in good hands.

We managed to get into the boat with no difficulty. And as the skiff headed out to sea, I could tell that Creek Runner Bill was at home as he piloted us through the low surf of the harbor waters. I looked out into the bay and saw what seemed like hundreds of small islands peppered about in the distance. Moving beyond the “no wake zone” of the harbor, Creek Runner Bill gunned the motor and we began to zip across the water.

As we reached the center of the bay, I looked back to shore and saw that the town had become a series of little dots on the horizon. Turning back to look off the bow of the boat, a small strip of land, far away in the distance, was pointed out as our destination. “But first,” our captain yelled, as he promptly killed the power to the outboard motor, “let’s stop for a little while here.” The boat slowed to a complete stop as I wondered what he had in mind for us out in the middle of the bay (far, far away from any land). He then said, “Hop out of the boat!”

I looked quickly over at Eddie and then together we looked at Creek Runner Bill. We found him at the helm with a mischievous look in his eye. I thought, “Oh no, this is the part where he throws us out of the boat after taking all or money!” I could just see him and our hotel manager laughing at the stupid greenhorns…laughing and high-fiving each other over their murderous and profitable scheme. The perfect crime! “Them Yankees just keep getting stupider and stupider!”

As I was about to scream, Creek Runner Bill stood up, and with the agility of a gazelle, he leapt out of the boat. He did not, however, disappear into the depths of the water, but rather, he landed on his feet in about two inches of water! He stood there for a moment, and then turning to us, he said, “We’re on a sandbar. It’s just barely covered by the water. Let’s walk around for a while…it’s a great place to find sand dollars.”

Eddie and I proceed to climb excitedly out of the skiff and onto the sandy ocean floor. The water barely covered the tops of my feet! It was surreal to walk around in the middle of the bay at least a mile from land in any direction. The glorious sunshine made the turquoise water sparkle and the 360° view was unmatched by anything I could imagine. Plus, there were indeed sand dollars all over the place. I could feel them out with my toes as they were just beneath the soft sand. I looked over to Eddie, who was about twenty-five feet from me, and he exclaimed, “Look! I’m Jesus!” He then mimed the famous story of Jesus walking on the water. From my vantage point, it did look like he was treading on the surface of the ocean. But I thought to myself, “There isn’t a cloud in the sky, but that idiot better watch what he says before the Big Man Upstairs decides to set him straight with a few lightening bolts.”

After exploring the sandbar for a while, we got back into to the boat and Creek Runner Bill shuttled us over to where our tropical island paradise awaited our arrival. As we approached, the details of its landscape began to emerge into view. The main body of the isle was formed by a thick stand of palm trees that towered into the air with a deep blue sky forming a magnificent backdrop. The white, powdery sand of the beach extended fifty feet out from these trees before it touched the water as it made a ring around the small island. A seagull soared briefly into view and then off into the distance on its search for whatever a seagull eats. The only sound in the air was that of Creek Runner Bill’s motor, and I knew that soon we would only have the slight rustling of palm fronds to serenade us. I looked to where we had come from and I could just make out a tiny sliver of land that the town of Cedar Key occupied.

“Aaaaaaah, The Grail!”

Creek Runner Bill landed the boat and we gathered up our gear. He walked us across the beach saying that we weren’t allowed to go into the brush on the island on account of it being protected land. We were to restrict ourselves to the sandy beach and the water. He saw that we had all our supplies (drinking water, lunch, beach towels, suntan lotion, etc.) and began to walk back to the boat. “I’ll be back to pick you up in three hours.” And with that said, he drove the little boat off into the distance and out of sight.

“Wow! This is amazing!” proclaimed Eddie. “We are in the middle of nowhere! I wonder if there is any pirate treasure buried anywhere along this beach? Swag!” I looked across the blue-green ocean and felt the hot sun and cool breeze on my face. The warm sand sifted between my toes and I thought to myself, “I hope that guy comes back for us.” In truth though, I was too overwhelmed by the beauty of our setting to spend any serious time dwelling on a negative thought like that. I’ve been on a lot of beaches with Eddie, but none were ever this isolated and remote. The island seemed completely untouched by human beings…there were no bottles or candy bar wrappers in the sand, no sounds of cars or some kid’s radio, no scary-looking teenagers, no freaks throwing a Frisbee around. Nothing. Nothing but the sand, the palm trees, the ocean, the sun, and occasionally a bird!

We established a base camp of beach towels midway between the palm trees and the water’s edge. We had food to snack on and a few bottles of water. I got myself comfortable with my book after applying a nice layer of suntan lotion to my exposed skin. Eddie did the same with the suntan lotion, but he decided to hit the water right away. This was just about perfect. I didn’t have a care in the world as I adjusted my sunglasses and turned the pages of my Puffy Shirt Book. A fly landed on my arm and I thought, “Aha! I have come prepared for this!” I fished a small bottle of bug juice from my bag and began to spray it around to ward off any further annoyances. Returning to the base camp, and seeing the bug spray, Eddie said, “I wouldn’t have thought to bring bug spray. You’ve got everything in that bag, LeTigre. I swear, there’s nothing you don’t come prepared for!” As he helped himself to a bottle of water, he said, “Hey, I think that there's a dolphin swimming around a little ways out.” He then ran back into the ocean, crying aloud about being Aquaman or someone.

That fly that had lit upon me flew away after I applied my bug spray. But don’t think that it was because he feared the repellant. I think that the little guy flew away to find his friends and exclaimed that there was something new and wonderful sitting on the beach. Because after a few minutes had passed, a swarm of horseflies descended upon me. It was terrible. They were huge! And they went right for me despite my efforts to swat at them! Eddie has an uncle who once told me that the mosquitoes in Northern Wisconsin were so big that they carried violin cases to hold their stingers. These horseflies looked to be carrying cello cases containing all manner of medieval stinging and biting devices! I momentarily withstood their attacks but was soon forced to abandon base camp and head for the safety of the water.

Finding Eddie knee-deep in the cool water, I told him about the horseflies. He was watching the dolphin swim back and forth in front of us about thirty feet away. I followed his unblinking gaze and said, “That’s no dolphin. That’s a shark!” He turned to address my profile, “That’s two sharks.” We both watched as the trademark dorsal fins of a large shark and a larger shark swam side-by-side just beyond where the water began to deepen. The larger shark, which we guessed to be the mommy-shark had a second tail fin emerging from the water about eight feet beyond her dorsal fin. They were tracking back and forth, back and forth, directly in front of where we stood, not coming any closer, yet not moving further out to sea. “I don’t think the water’s a good place to hang out in.” And with that said, Eddie and I began to move toward shore.

Once back on land, and safe from the sharks, the horseflies attacked us full-bore. They had recruited more of their allies and dive-bombed us from all directions. Eddie moved back out into the water a few feet. I stayed on land, determined to take a stand against the wretched flies. “Hey, the flies won’t go over the water!” Eddie stood in about three inches of water observing the lack of flies biting him. I ran over to where he was, and sure enough, no flies. The ocean was calm and there were no waves to shift the border between land and sea. Tempting the flies, I walked right up to where the water met the dry sand. They would not cross over the water’s edge! Taking one step onto the beach, the viscous flies descended upon me once again. Stepping back into the water a bit, and they were nowhere to be found. “Those little buggers will not fly over the water! That’s crazy!”

The two of us stood six inches from shore wondering why the flies wouldn’t dare journey out over the water. “Maybe they’re afraid of the sharks, like I am.” Eddie turned back to confirm that the sharks were still were still maintaining their incessant course, waiting, hoping for us to wonder out a little deeper. Looking down to gather his thoughts, Eddie put forth the next relevant question pertaining to our situation: “What is that?”

Looking down I saw what looked like a small, lightly colored grey, diamond-like-square shape. It was moving almost as if it was flying…or more accurately: it was like a taco, a prehistoric taco, that was flapping its square tortilla shell to propel itself and glide through the water. It was no more than six inches across as it flew from our right to the left, about three feet from where we stood. “That looks like a stingray. It’s got those wings, and a long tail, and it’s gliding through the water. It must be a baby. Hey, there’s another one!” I looked to the right and sure enough, there was the baby stingray’s little bother or sister. “And there’s another one! And another! And another! And another! Holy crap!”

What came to be known as StingRay HighWay turned out to be a single file line of baby stingrays following each other through the water, about eighteen inches apart. They appeared to be swimming counter-clockwise around the island. StingRay HighWay was about three and a half feet from shore and it looked like the 405 running through Los Angeles with bumper-to-bumper traffic. Eddie and I looked at each other. “Okay. I don’t know if we’ve been here twenty minutes, and we’ve got horseflies on the beach, sharks out in the water, and StingRay HighWay just off shore. We’ve got a strip of water about three feet wide that seems to be safe. When did that guy say he was coming back for us?” We stood in that spot for two and a half hours.

Watching the sharks was mesmerizing. (They probably hoped that they could hypnotize us into venturing out into deeper waters.) The stingrays glided by, the sun beat down, and occasionally that stupid bird flew overhead. We waited. I think that I’ve blanked from my memory how we passed that stretch of time. Occasionally, one of us would try the land, only to be beaten back into the water by the dreadful horseflies. And the water was only deep enough to barely cover the tops of our feet. Hundreds of stingrays paraded by us on their oceanic speedway encircling the island. After what seemed like an eternity, the sounds of Creek Runner Bill’s boat motor began to fill the air. As the vessel drew near, the sputtering coughs and gurgles of the outboard motor overwhelmed the grueling tranquility of the rustling palm fronds.

Thinking back to that situation, I have no idea what possessed us to be left on a deserted island for three hours by a guy whom we’d only just met. Hasn’t a great deal of classic literature been devoted to the subject of Man vs. Nature? And Man usually doesn’t fair too well in those books, does he? As Creek Runner Bill’s boat approached, I saw that he had two additional passengers with him. I guess he’d been ferrying people like us out to these little islands all day. Getting in the boat, I thought that they also looked a little spooked and I wondered what sort of adventure in paradise they had found that afternoon. I can only imagine that we looked completely shocked and totally out of sorts. Glad to be aboard, Eddie took his place at the bow and I sat back with the two new people toward the stern.

Creek Runner Bill idled the boat through the shallow water away from our island of terror. I told him that we had seen sharks just out from the beach. “Oh, I saw those, they’re all over the place out here. They’re only Tiger sharks though, it’s the Hammerhead’s that you’ve got to watch out for.” I noticed his alligator-like skin once more and imagined him swimming fearlessly through the ocean depths with a knife clenched between his teeth. I was daydreaming about Creek Runner Bill waging war against a giant octopus or something when he gunned the motor and up out of the water came a massive splash and a large black square, both of which blocked the sun for a moment before disappearing back into the ocean. Eddie was thrown back off his perch at the bow of the boat as he yelled, “HOLY MOTHER!”

The four of us city slickers sitting in the boat had a series of individual heart attacks while Creek Runner Bill calmly shifted the toothpick in his mouth and said, “Stingrays are all over the place out here too." As we had traveled out of the shallows, and into deeper waters, Creek Runner Bill had kicked the motor into high gear and the bow of the boat had surprised a humongous, fully-grown stingray! It reared up and breached the surface of the water not two feet from where Eddie sat! The monster must have shot five feet into the air!

We made it safely and without any further incident back to the harbor at Cedar Key. I thought Eddie looked like Ponce de León must have after the long trip across the Atlantic as he hugged and kissed the dock after we had disembarked from Creek Runner Bill’s skiff. In kindness, we thanked him for facilitating our little adventure and began to make our way back to the hotel. We rejoiced in every step as it brought us closer to the creature comforts of the hotel and further away from those terrible sea creatures that had unwittingly tortured us all afternoon. Arriving back at our room, I flopped down on the bed and cried, “We made it! I can’t believe we made it!”

“I’ll be in The Neptune Tavern,” Eddie said, as he moved back toward the door. I replied, “Wait for me!”

Warily, we descended the stairs to the first floor of the hotel to where the Neptune Tavern awaited our arrival. Finding two stools at the bar, Eddie asked if they had shark or stingray on the menu. “I don’t even know if they eat stingray around here.” In lieu of appetizers of cold revenge, we were given two frosty beers. We then took our seats at a table near a large picture window overlooking the bay. I could barely make out the individual islands far off in the distance, and I wondered which had been the isle that had held us captive by our own stupidity.

The sun was beginning to dip down below the horizon, and everything was turning colors of pink and amber. We watched as the setting sun wowed us with overwhelming displays of hue and color that the greatest Masters could never have hoped to emulate with paint. It was a stunning view to say the least. Stunning, but as we had learned, also deadly…stunning and deadly like a spy in one of those James Bond movies.

We sipped at our beers and watched the atmospheric ballet of color and light play out for our pleasure. Our blood pressures seemed to be normalizing as the stress of the afternoon was waning along with the sunlight. Someone played a Boz Scaggs tune on the jukebox as darkness began push the panoramic view into obscurity. With the dazzling light show almost at its end, Eddie turned to me and quietly said, “You know, from now on, I prefer my nature on the other side of a plate-glass window.” – LC

Looking north, up the beach of the Island of Terror.



An easterly view from the island showing Cedar Key in the distance.



One of the smaller palm trees in the "protected" part of the island.


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Edmund Callipeaux – Wednesday, 28 January 2009, 7:15am

I awoke and got out of bed a full two seconds before I was supposed to this morning. I do this every once in a while and it always makes for an interesting day. For example, I'll be three or four car-lengths ahead of the jerk that would have otherwise cut me off if I had kept to the time schedule that the Universe had set for me. Or better yet, I'll walk through the door of the post office moments before, as opposed to directly after the guy who has a thousand odd-ball requests for the Post Master. Or still better yet, I’ll probably win the lottery! In the past, I have always bought my Powerball tickets by letting the computer do a Quick Pick. In this way, I've purchased randomly generated lottery numbers that are always losers. Today, using my time-adjusted method, I’ll be asking for my Quick Pick tickets seconds before the Fates expect me. Therefore, my odds of winning will increase exponentially. And the next chump in line will purchase the crappy numbers that I would have invariably received!