Early warning signs include the idea that Minneapolis, or suspect provocateurs in Minneapolis, intend to steal some Winter Carnival thunder next year. There is already something called the Great Northern Festival, which magnanimously included St. Paul this year, but because its principal founders are restaurateurs with the name of Dayton, nothing should surprise us if the Super Bowl is used as an excuse to make Minneapolis the center of attention next year at carnival time.
Let’s face it, we all know what this will come down to: an ice palace. We need one, grand and illuminated and irresistible to television cameras. We can’t let ourselves, our city, get tugged over there to accommodate the barons and titans of the NFL. They are a conniving lot, and we need to be braced against any demands that they wish to see a dethroning in which Boreas, for example, wins in some glorious takedown of Vulcanus Rex, the True King.
Blasphemy! I’m not saying that could happen. I am saying I have heard whisperings and they are disturbing.
My mailbox has been stuffed for a couple of years with various plans for a Super Bowl-year ice palace in St. Paul. We must be vigilant. I will be rolling out that mail soon. I am prepared to donate. The very thought of the Vulcans rattling across the Lake Street Bridge in old Luverne, Fire Truck No. 1, sends chills down my spine.
The other night, the last night of this year’s carnival, I had dinner with a Boreas from a few years ago. I will keep his name private because I owe my allegiance to the boys in red and I do not want them getting the wrong idea that I have crossed over. Out of costume, we can all be friends, but there were Vulcans in the place and we sat at a distant table, out of sight. Outside the windows, there were bursts of light and explosions. The dethroning of Boreas was underway.
“We can’t let this get away from us next year, your highness,” I said.
“We won’t,” he said.
He, too, seemed a bit nervous to be acting in concert with an enemy. He glanced around the room to make sure we weren’t seen and then added, “We have held meetings.”
“And?”
“Boreas winning has come up in conversation.”
“No.”
“It has come up. I can say no more.”
“That can’t happen,” I said, my voice rising. “It has never happened. There is a legend to uphold.”
“Keep your voice down,” he said.
“I apologize, your excellency.”
The former Boreas assured me that in those conversations, there was little groundswell to upend the lore. It’s just that the NFL is brazen in its demands of a Super Bowl host city and a scenario is easily enough imagined in which Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, wishes to wear the Boreas crown and then because, Trump-like, he can suffer no slight, he will order the Royal Guard to defeat Vulcanus Rex in a pageantry that could even include Taylor Swift delivered by helicopter to drop into his waiting arms.
“I’m telling you, Boreas, we have to be alert.”
He raised his hand to silence me.
“When you leave this table,” Boreas told me, “do not mention our breaking bread together.”
“Believe me, I won’t,” I said. “This is the longest time I have spent with a Boreas in my whole life.”
He left first, to attend a function, he said. I lingered until it was safe to wander into another part of the restaurant where past Vulcans were gathered. I wandered into their midst and none of them seemed to sense anything amiss
“You have to win next year,” I said.
“We always do,” they said. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying that next year, we need a big ice palace and that you guys need to win. That’s all I am saying.”
“Do you know something?”
“No, of course not. Hail the Vulc and all that. I’m just, uh, cheering you on is all.”
Oh, I know something, all right. I know we better be prepared.
Joe Soucheray is heard from 1 to 4 p.m. weekdays on 1500ESPN.
Copyright 2017 Pioneer Press.
