Babe Winkelman

Canada! The very name is exciting, calling up visions of rugged mountains, vast stretches of uninhabited lands, wolves loping along with migrating caribou and a wealth of perfectly pure rivers and lakes. - Babe Winkelman

Bought a copy of Babe Winkelman's Comprehensive Guide to Fishing Canada in a used book store today. Besides looking forward to roller derby this spring I am also looking forward to ice-off. Ice-off is when town drunks like me take their study of the magical powers of booze to the country where we can often be found hanging for dear life to overturned boats, hanging out in Canadian country stores that sell liquor and telling Americans, like the immortal Babe Winkelman, we must often share our camping spots with, how much we admire their bloated, gasping Freedom and shit like that they do not even believe any more until they have downed at least a half dozen Canadian cold ones and maybe choked down some of our truly magic dope too.

My dad phoned while I was reading Babe's book. I asked him, "How come you didn't name me Babe instead of Beer?"

He told me, "We don't name our kids Babe in this country."

I countered, "What about Todd Bertuzzi. Everybody calls him Babe."

I knew my dad would have the answer to that one. "Bertuzzi isn't fucking Canadian, he's an Asshole."