What Cheesy brought me from Detroit

Greg and I at a mini high school reunion some
four years ago back in my Labatt Blue days...

It's been about four years since I last saw my old high school buddy, Greg, a.k.a. Cheesy (because his last name is Cheesewright) but through the magic that is Facebook, we have managed to stay in touch. Cheesy remains one of the biggest and most vocal supporters of my son David's athletic achievements.

As high school ended, Greg flew south, armed with a tennis scholarship to an American college and simply stayed put. There was little doubt on anyone's part that he would become anything but a success. Even in high school, he was an outgoing, friendly-to-all and well-liked Type A personality, sharp as a whip, very skilled in seemingly all sports and adored by the ladies, who parted in his wake with little cartoon hearts thumping from their chests. About a decade or so ago, Greg founded an IT-service-provider business that started small and grew rapidly to have some pretty big business clients from around the world. While his head office is in Detroit, Greg and his wife live a comfortable upper-scale suburb of the city.

My little girl, Katie, models the Detroit
Surf Co bowling shirt and distressed Red
Stripe ball cap (complete with opener on
the brim) that Cheesy brought up for me.

And despite its myriad of financial woes, believe me when I say Cheesy is fiercely loyal to the Motor City. This will come as particularly interesting to the Detroit Red Wings fans in the crowd (yeah, Kevin... looking at you, bub). As the coach of a Detroit Under-18 Rep Hockey team (which is, in essence, a feeder team to American colleges), Greg has his own office right in Joe Louis Arena - simply because the team is sponsored by Little Caesar's Pizza... which in turn was founded by Mike Ilitch... who in turn owns both the Red Wings and the Detroit Tigers baseball franchise. And hold tight there, Kevin, because the best Red Wing story is yet to come.

So when Greg, up here to visit his Mom in Oakville, called me up last week to join him and another high school friend Andrea (every bit as pretty now as she was then) for a drink, I couldn't say yes quite quickly enough. I caught up to the pair at a local Starbucks and Cheesy, a regular reader of this beer-soaked blog, noted quickly with a familiar smile, "This is gonna be a little like Christmas for you, Don." Indeed, I felt like I was a winning contestant on The Price is Right with Cheesy being a benevolent Bob Barker. In my goodie bag was a Detroit Surf Co. bowling shirt, a Red Stripe baseball cap, two bottles of Chicago's Goose Island Brewery's Bourbon Country Brand Barleywine Ale (at 50 bucks a pop!), a big-ass bottle of Detroit native son Kid Rock's Badass Lager, as well as assortment of  Badass coasters and an opener. As beloved hockey announcer Foster Hewitt used to say quite often when Detroit superstar Gordie Howe was on the ice... "Score!"

Gordie Howe: the only pro hockey player ever
who played in five different decades - 1946 to 1980.
How good was he? We called him Mr. Hockey...

When we went around the corner for proper libations at the Queen's Head British Pub, well, then the stories started to fly. And to me, the best by far was Greg's recollection of getting his Gordie Howe tattoo. A fan of the Red Wings and Howe in particular since childhood, Cheesy already had the Red Wing insignia (seen on Howe's sweater to the right) and Howe's number "9" tattooed on the side of his lower left calf. One day, Howe happened to be at Joe Louis for a book-signing. Greg thought, hey, that'd be a great gift for my buddies and lined up with a handful of the books. As he got closer to Gordie, he thought, man, it would be cool to get him to sign under my tattoos. So he asked. Because Howe is in the initial stages of Alzheimers, his handler quickly intervened and said, no way. To which Howe barked words to the effect of "The hell I won't!", up went Cheesy's leg on the table and Mr Hockey himself dutifully signed his name in marker under Greg's tattoos. The second he was out of there, Greg called his tattoo girl and she permanently etched the signature into his calf.

To Edna, Gordie is forever Woodrow.
Well, I'd say the likeness is uncanny.

To those outside the North American hockey culture, Gordie was as gifted with the fisticuffs, as he was with the scoring touch. To this day, a goal, an assist and a five-minute fighting major are still referred to as a "Gordie Howe Hat-Trick." Howe was further immortalized in an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart plots revenge against his teacher Edna Krabappel for confiscating his yo-yo. Responding to a personal ad his teacher had placed in the newspaper, seeking companionship, Bart took a picture of Howe and used the first name of former US President Woodrow Wilson in a return letter. The best line that Bart/Woodrow used to woo Krabappel after she sent Woodrow a sexy lingerie shot? "Yesterday morning, I put your photo up in my garage to inspire me while I gapped my spark plugs."

But back to the three of us. As these mini-reunion things tend to turn out, it was a night filled with laughter, fond and funny memories of days gone by and mostly just catching up.

Well, Kid Rock, it's not quite Badass but a great souvenir!!!

The best part of this kinda night is the inevitable "Whatever became of...?" portion because each of us, scattered in different directions as we are, knew what became of former classmates that the other two had long since lost track of. While Andrea and I happily drank our Kronenbourg Blanc, a decent enough but not outstanding French wheat, Greg cheerily quaffed his beloved Guinness. Andrea and I graciously conceded early on that Cheesy's adventures were the most exciting of the lot and he didn't disappoint with a sibling-rivalry classic. While his brother rides a Harley and is in a biker gang, it is, in fact, Greg, the respected businessman, who has more tattoos.

Holy crap on a cross!!! This black gold is liquid dynamite!

And the beers he brought me? Well, let's start with Kid Rock's Badass American Lager, which Greg brought more as a Detroit souvenir since he told me Kid Rock's backyard is facing Canada over the Detroit River and the singer can literally see Windsor from there since they're only a mile (1.6 kilometres) apart. This tastes pretty much like your typical American mainstream lager... but when you think about it, that's pretty damn smart. Kid Rock's fan-base is largely Bud-swillin', Pabst Blue Ribbon-lovin' dudes. They are not gonna want something Fancy Dan.

Chicago's Goose Island Beer Company, recently purchased by American giant Anheuser-Busch, is, on the other hand, pretty Fancy Dan.

Well, what can I say? Stevil St Evil is back on the blogging
bandwagon and merrily mocking my beloved Maple Leafs!

While pricey, their Bourbon County Brand Barleywine Ale is simply outstanding!!! Sweet, malty and bourbon on the nose, this is light raisin and more bourbon on the tongue and very warming in the stomach. I would happily hand this to any beer expert in the world and impart a single word: "Enjoy!" Cheesy, thank you so much, buddy!!! Since it's a bourbon-barrel aged beer that will continue to age beautifully in the bottle, scoring 100 on RateBeer plus another 100 on style points, I am hoping to hold the second one for a cold winter day where I can look at the window, raise a toast to an old friend and warm myself up with this treat. However, it probably won't make it past the weekend. I know me too well. To both Andrea and Greg, thanks for a great night - there's no friends quite like old friends.

And speaking of old friends, my New Zealand buddy and Beer Musketeer, Stevil St Evil, is back from his blog hiatus and happily and hilariously mocking my beloved Maple Leafs once again. You can read why he stepped away for a while here in: Come On, It Was A BAD Blister, Okay?? And then there's that other Musketeer Glenn who gleefully wandered Durham's first-ever Craft Beer Festival last Saturday and reports with: Why Can't They Do This Every Weekend? As for me, guys and dolls, hey, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!!! Until next time, I remain...