We met Dave ‘the Pie Guy’ Hulett at his unassuming south Minneapolis eatery. In a region famous for autumn desserts, he’s perfected an apple streusel number that won him national notice sometime back. But if you think his pies deserve a Michelin star, you should hear him tell a salty story or two.
He grew up in the lakehead city of Duluth, Minnesota. Imagine a skyline of shipping cranes and lift bridges, with the ever-present clatter of trains hauling iron ore, coal and wheat, and bulk freighters blasting their horns. It’s the stuff of Bob Dylan ballads. Little wonder that a school kid would drift into the local gym to hang with the boxers and body builders. Despite the pristine wonder of Lake Superior, the North Shore bluffs and lighthouses, life on the streets could be rough. Plus, the bite of winter loiters around a corner somewhere.
Who should show up at the gym one day in 1979 but a celebrity bodybuilder named Arnold Schwartzenegger, already a Mr. Universe winner, who had enrolled for college studies in neighboring Superior, Wisconsin. Hulett fell in with Ah-nold that day, learning some inside – and shady – showman’s tips for enhancing muscle definition under the flood lights. Afterward, they slipped out back to share a reefer in the alley. There were stories to tell about Austria, the competition circuit, bright lights in LA.
Out of school and fired by manly ambition, Dave signed on as a lumberjack, working the forests west of Duluth with a crew of fellow loggers. So well did he master the ins and outs of forestry, says he, that blindfolded and hugging the trunk of a tree he could identify it, its age, its condition and in what ground it was rooted. Such intimate knowledge of boreal forests, (or prowess in the gym) however, could not save him from the universal human condition: fallibility. This was a truth that Ah-nold had failed, it seems, to impart to him.
Dave and his crew were assigned that day to a stretch of US Hwy. 2, northernmost transcontinental highway in the USA stretching 4000 km. (2500 miles) from Everett, Washington to Houlton, Maine. Called the ‘Highline’, (the nickname seems prescient), it parallels the old Great Northern railroad and a section of high-tension power lines just outside of Floodwood, Minnesota. Dave wielded his chain saw like a maestro and had carefully plotted where and how to lay down the conifer he was assigned to fell. Assessing the wind, he set to work as he had been trained to do. Though, as any Scot knows well, of course, weather can be fickle. As his chainsaw snarled a final cut, the prevailing winds swung round to gust from an unfriendly direction. As it broke free from its anchor, that towering tree laid down directly across the power lines. It hesitated for just a moment when it met the lines, bounced gently, and then crashed to earth.
The aftermath was even more spectacular. Molten metal rained to the ground from the severed lines, setting ablaze a field of cattails as balls of fire raced back up the derelict lines in both directions. It was breathtaking. When they recovered their wits, the loggers remembered that they had seen a utility company team a stone’s throw up the road. Dave raced back to check with them, pleading that they not call in the mishap. In return, he struck a gym rat’s bargain with them. If they could manage a fix for him on the QT, there’d be a case of beer on offer. Loose ends were all tucked in.
has come to feature in novels and films (e.g. ‘The Outsiders’ by Susan Hinton, later
turned into a film and Broadway play). While some 4000 DQs dot America’s
highways and towns, the world’s largest is now located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
photo credit: greggjerdinge.commons
Until they untucked. Between the loggers and the town of Floodwood sat a wildcard Dairy Queen whose soft-serve machine suddenly went down for no apparent reason. A line of children and parents was waiting for their cones. Just about the time Dave had shaken hands with his powerline co-conspirators, the Dairy Queen sent a message of distress to the power company and to town emergency services. Within minutes, Dave and the logging crew were swarmed with vehicles and disbelieving authorities demanding to know how this had happened and by whose hand. The upshot of this debacle was that contrary to all normal practice, though severely reprimanded, Dave was not fired. He knew too much about the trees.
So, here’s the takeaway (other than the soft-serve cone, that is): the Dairy Queen will trip you up every time.
(The rest of Dave’s story in the next post.)
Sorry I missed reading your previous account.
Keep me on your listing.
Loved your story. have 2 sons that are always looking for people who have dead oak trees to cut down as they sell fire wood.Accidents have happened but they like the exercise and income.Their wives are trying to to get them to only go out together. My family is growing.Just had my 27 th great grandchild. Becker Baptist will celebrate their 115 th anniversary the end of the month.Greeting to your family.