“Lest We Forget” Part 2

Here is Part 1.

Here is one of our jokes, written down in the Lest We Forget book described in Part 1. I cannot describe it without making us sound insane. I suppose we were insane. But dammit, we cracked each other UP.

We drove across the country together in a beat-up Westfalia. We took two months to do so. We went all over the place. BUT. The first leg of our journey was a night in Chicago, to hang out with friends … and then we headed up north, into Wisconsin. Our plan was to camp our way through Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming … and on and on … which we eventually ended up doing.

But here is basically the ENERGY of the whole trip, encapsulated in one moment in Wisconsin.

It was our first day on the road, after leaving Chicago. The trip was still new to us. We had been saving up for a year in order to do this. And now … it was here! Yippee! So we were giddy.

And we pulled off randomly, into a town called Beloit (please, if any of my readers are from Beloit – try not to take offense. We were in your town for all of 5 minutes and I’m sure it’s a lovely place. But whatever, it sure gave us hours and hours of enjoyment.) We wanted to pee, get some water, get some groceries.

Beloit looked like the town in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (BEFORE the big supermarket came along). There was a gas station, a grocery store, some houses, and corn fields as far as the eye could see on the outskirts of town. So Tonio and I went into the grocery store to buy some fruit. Only to find that they had no fruit.

It was a grocery store, no doubt about it … but unless you wanted to buy Oreos, Pampers, super-size Capn Crunch, or 6-packs of Pepsi … there wasn’t anything there for you. We went to the produce section, and all we saw were a couple of sickly looking shrink-wrapped peppers. That was it. Pretty funny, considering the endless corn fields stretching off to the horizon on all sides.

So okay. No fruit. No big deal. We’d find a better grocery store somewhere else.

But … as we merged back onto the highway … Tonio said, in a kind of flat voice, just giving the facts, as though it were a travelogue or something, “Beloit has no fruit.”

There was a long pause, as I considered the truth of this statement. Yup. No fruit. In Beloit. Don’t even stop there if you’re lookin’ for some fruit.

Long story even longer – our experience in Beloit was very very quickly (in about 15 minutes) turned into a full-blown song, which we sang with GUSTO as we careened north into the wild. I am telling you – we sang the SHIT out of this song. Over and over and over ….

I want you to realize that I realize how stupid this sounds. I know. But still. To us, it was “fucking funny”.

Here is the song (and this is how crazy it is – I even remember the tune):

Beloit Has No Fruit

Well…….(long drawn-out note)
Tonio and Sheila – they were lookin’ for some food
So they looked on the map
And they said “Beloit looks good!”
So they went to Beloit – lookin’ for some fruit
But OH!
In Beloit, there is no fruit.

Chorus
Ohhhh Beloit is a place where they have no fruit
It’s a place on the map where there isn’t any fruit
So if you want an apple, a banana or a pear
Don’t GO to Beloit
There’s no fruit there.

Repeat Chorus ad nauseum