It was a grand idea on a Friday.
“Hey, let’s all wear our costumes to class on Monday!”
Halloween was on a Sunday, and a group of about eight of us DePaul kids had just got finished talking about our stellar costumes we’ve got planned. We were in a film study class, we’ve been watching characters perform all quarter long, so we thought we’d have a little fun. It was a day late, but who cares. We were loose friends. It’s college. Continue reading
“Oh son, you don’t know?” the cashier asked.
“No, what?” I said.
“They pay for the pavement by the foot!” he said.
And with that sarcastic Southern drawl, I learned why some highways in Alabama are narrower than elsewhere. I thought maybe I’d been too used to the luxurious 2-way byways of Northern Maine, where they leave a couple extra feet on the shoulder for winter snowpiles.
We last left our hero…
Cotton Fields
On the road to Alabama.
That was a year ago. Would you guess that if I said Roll Tide to Alabama, it would say Roll Tide back? Continue reading
“So how long are you here for?”
I heard the question a thousand times. Day after day. I felt like I was a shortstop taking grounders. The ball never took the same hop every time, though. Continue reading
I tuned into AM-780 WBBM tonight at 10:18 p.m. just to catch the traffic report. It was a little scratchy, but I’m astonished and thankful that I can pick up Chicago’s best AM radio news station down in Huntsville, Alabama.
“You’re going to avoid the South Loop, as protesters have shut down streets in the vicinity of Michigan and Roosevelt,” the reporter said. Continue reading
When I was an eight-year-old kid, they were the two most unfunny jokes in the world.
It would be 3:30 in the afternoon, two hours before dinner. I would go up to my mother, tug at her jeans, and look up to her with the sweetest little puppy dog face and say, “Moooommmmm, I’m huuuunnnngry.”
“Hi hungry, I’m mom, nice to meet you!” she’d reply.
Frustrated, I’d give a little whine, and press on, “Can you make me a sandwich?”
She’d drop what she was doing, turn to me, and pull her hands in close to her chest, wait two seconds, and extend them both out like she was performing a magic trick.
“Boomph!… You’re a sandwich!” Continue reading
I have a t-shirt from Jake’s BBQ in Virginia Beach, Va. The background on my phone is a picture that says, “No Jake Brakes.” My favorite John Wayne movie is Big Jake.
Whenever you see your name somewhere, whether it’s on a billboard, or a coffee cup, or the name of a menu-item, it’s usually pretty awesome. You say to yourself, “Hey! That’s my name! How cool!”
Unless your name is part of a stupid TV commercial that’s been burned into the brains of the entire country. Continue reading
Chicago sports fans make big, bold predictions all the time: Jay Cutler is going to have an MVP season. The Cubs are going to win the World Series. Derrick Rose is going to stay healthy this year.
Most of them never come true.
They also make smaller, more specific predictions: Rizzo’s going to hit a homer. Jimmy Butler is going to sink a game-winning three at the buzzer. Hawks are gonna get a power play goal right here.
While they have better odds, still most of them never come true.
But every once in a while, our prayers are answered.
“Guys! Buehrle’s still got the perfect game!!!” Phil burst into the cooler and yelled.
I was sitting on an empty Miller Genuine Draft keg inside a walk-in cooler at U.S. Cellular Field at 3:00pm on July 23rd, 2009 drenched in sweat with no idea Mark Buehrle was ten minutes away from completing the 18th perfect game in Major League Baseball history.
I was just a tired ballpark worker, happy to be off my feet and enjoying an after work cooler beer in refreshing 38° temperatures.
“What?” I said. It was the only word I could mutter. Continue reading
I don’t think there’s been a better spokesman than Wendill Middlebrooks since Spuds McKenzie, and no better on two legs than Bob Uecker, though he was best seated, right down in the front rooowww.
Nobody embodies a beer quite like the Miller High Life Delivery Guy. You can make a case for other bottle cappers one by one, but nobody was more cold-filtered, barrel chested, or smooth poured as the Miller High Life Delivery Guy.
Rarely do you think of one individual when you sip a beverage (when they’re not staring you right in the face like that creep, Sam Adams). Sure the Kool Aid Man or the Hawaiian Punch Guy maybe or Mr. Pibb. But Wendill was no cartoon.
The Miller High Life Delivery Guy wasn’t just delivering beer, he was delivering common sense. Plain and simple.
“How about I give you five dollars and you give me six Miller High Life’s?” he told us.
Miller High Life was a good honest beer at a tasty price. The Champagne of Beers.
If you were a college age beer drinker like myself, you bought it. Hell, it was $10.99 for a 30-rack. Wendill probably would have applauded the advanced economics, doubling down with an amigo on a 30.
Now that’s living the High Life.
High Life nights were always good nights. Because someone would always use a High Life commercial line. I know a half a dozen kids in a half a dozen cities who dressed up like him one Halloween. He’s an icon. Sometimes you just wish he’d appear with a load of hijacked High Life and join your party.
He didn’t need more than a second to sell the beer. In what was one of the best ideas in a long while, The Miller High Life Guy stood in a room full of High Life and shouted good time phrases at us.
Now maybe you’d think it would be cool to party with another spokesman, like the Most Interesting Man in the World. That would be incredible. Just imagine the stuff the guy could do. Spontaneous fires and summoning dolphins and pulling weird things out of ladies’ bras. But that sounds more like creepy mystical magician than a buddy you’d want to hang out with at the bar. Even if he did pull cool tricks and have amazing stories, it’d be like going to a show. He’s the spectacle.
But the High Life Guy would rather be watching the game. He doesn’t try to impress us. He’s just here to let us know about how great our own lives are. You’ve got good beers, good people, a good ballgame? Wendill would say that’s living the High Life.
In fact that’s what he did say, when I met Wendill at U.S. Cellular Field in 2011. I was working as a bartender in the Jim Beam Club on the 200 Level, right behind home plate.
He comes storming down the hallway with a case of High Life in his hands and bursts right through the doors. He was tailed by a couple of girls in short shorts, high socks, and High Life T-Shirts, handing out High Life buttons and stickers.
After I shit my pants because my TV Commercial hero just walked into MY BAR, I grabbed a can of High Life from our fridge, ducked under the elbow, and went out to shake that man’s hand.
It really sucks when the people you’re truly star struck by stumble into your life. Your first encounter you’re never thinking straight. The awe and jitters never leave you enough power to say anything other than, “I’m such a huge fan!”
“Thanks. I’m Wendill,” he said.
He was introducing himself to me. What class. After all, how could we be buddies if we didn’t know each other’s names. I mean hey, that’s the first thing Bubba & Forrest do too.
“I’m Jake. Nice to meet ya,” I said as I grasped his hand and posed for a picture.
We talked for a minute. He’s just as full of life, on point, and genuine in person as he appears on the screen.
The Grainy Cellphone Photo of When I Met Wendill Middlebrooks at the Ballgame
He wasn’t delivering much common sense that day, as the section I worked, though a little pricy, was always filled with good honest fans.
He shook a few more hands, posed for pictures and then he was gone. He walked off with the casual yet no-nonsense stroll he always had. There was more work to be done. And somebody’s gotta do it.
But who?
Jake Berent 