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America Bizarro

A Guide to Freaky Festivals, Groovy Gatherings, Kooky Contests, and Other Strange Happenings Across The U.S.A

St. Martin's Press

A

ALABAMA ALASKA ARIZONA ARKANSAS ALABAMA

World Championship Domino Tournament

For all you thrill seekers, here's one that will really put a swarm of hornets in your shorts. Dominos ... say it with me "DOMINOS." For two days in early July every year since 1975, the city of Andalusia goes black-and-white wild at the World Championship Domino Tournament. We're talking men's, women's and children's competitions. And get this, they got singles and doubles, not to mention a little round-robin action. And the purse? Baby, it's big. Retirement city here I come. Almost $18,000 is given out every year, with up to $3,000 going to first-placers. And that ain't bad when you figure you only have to pay between $10 and $30 to enter. For those of you in the dark about this extreme and historic sport, here's a little trivia. Did you know the oldest domino set was discovered in the tomb of King Tutankhamen, yes, the funky Tut? Other famous domino dudes? Try President Lyndon Baines Johnson on for size! Them britches are hard to fill.

For more information, call 334/222-2030 or visitwww.worlddomino.com.

Enterprise

World's Smallest St. Patrick's Day Parade

Can you say "one"? That's right, this is a party for one, and it has occurred every St. Patrick's Day since 1993 in the town of Enterprise, Alabama. Each year a different person of Irish descent holds the Irish flag high above head, carries a pot o' gold and recites limericks as he or she walks past the local courthouse and around the Boll Weevil Monument. (Yes, Enterprise is the only American city with a monument to a pest. Don't ask!) Grand marshals in absentia are nominated and selected on the basis of their written acceptance speech, plus their reasons for not being able to attend the parade. In other words anyone can be a grand marshal.

For an application or more info call 334/347-0581.

Tuscumbia

Coon Dog Graveyard Celebration

This event isn't for everyone. It's only for those who are truly committed to experiencing the authentic outer edges of American life. Every Labor Day the Tennessee Valley Coon-Hunters Association (TVCHA) throws a bash at the only coon-dog graveyard in the nation. Pardon? You heard me. Since September 4, 1937, when Key Underwood buried his legendary coon dog, Troop, in the Freedom Hills Cemetery, over one hundred coon dogs have been buried here. (Nobody seems to know the exact number.) Every year coon hunters and their dogs show up — flowers in hands and mouths — to pay respects to their long-departed brethren.

What exactly is coon hunting? Well, it's a dying trade. Because there is no longer much of a demand for raccoon pelts or meat, coon hunting is now considered more of a sport than an occupation. In other words, coon hunters can't make enough cash to make a living. Now they make their money any way they can. For example, O'Neal Bolton, a born-and-bred coon killer and spokesperson for the event, tries to get money out of me for an interview. I, of course, decline his offer. In a Southern drawl so thick you could spread it on Wonder Bread, he says,

"Well, just wait a cotton pickin' minute. You going to sell this book for money ain't you?"

I nod, don't say a word.

"Oh, well, the hell with it. I'll tell you. You see, cooning is kind of like a ball game. You see if your dog gonna do it to it to his tonight or not. They race each other for the coons. You hunt with your buddies."

Now I can't get him to shut up. He goes on to tell me there's plenty of homemade wine over here, bluegrass music over there, a liars' contest right yonder, not to mention some good grub later on.

"Coon burgers?"

"No," Bolton says. "We used to have a barbecue-coon supper years ago, but this younger generation don't want to do nothing no more. Them coons eat good, though."

Be careful, the admission price is whatever they can get out of you.

For more information, call 256/332-3105.

ALASKA

World Ice Art Championships

Every March Fairbanks is the place to be for anyone involved or interested in the world of ice carving. Sculptors can compete in one of three events — the first two by invitation only. The Single Block Classic consists of forty pairs of sculptors who each work their magic on a block of ice measuring five-by-eight-by-three feet and weighing about 7,800 pounds. Recent standouts include dragons and pirate ships. For the Multi-Block Competition, twenty teams of four each attack twelve blocks of ice measuring four-by-four-by-three feet and weighing 3,000 pounds. For this event sculptors are provided with heavy equipment to move the massive blocks of ice. Examples include a dog team with sled and native dancers joined by a dancing bear.

The final event, the Fairbanks Open, is reserved for anyone over the age of sixteen who is interested in trying their hand at ice carving. However, to be eligible, contestants must complete an ice-sculpting class. Day passes for the public are $6 for adults, $5 for seniors (fifty-five plus), $2 for children six to twelve years old; passes are free for kids under the age of five. Hint: Nighttime is the right time to view the sculptures, when colored lights bring the shimmering statues to life. As Chairman Dick Brickley likes to say, "Have an ice day!"

For more information, call 907/451-8250 or visitwww.icealaska.com.

Don't miss America's original game of Human Shuffleboard, which takes place every March at the Fairbanks Winter Carnival.

For details call 907/452-1105.

Fairbanks

Hairy Chest, Legs and Beard Contests

These annual July events are part of Fairbanks' Golden Days, a weekend that celebrates the city's rich gold-mining history, especially the late Felix Pedro, who was the first person to strike gold in Fairbanks in 1902. Since most miners were of the scraggly, unkempt persuasion, there's a Hairy Chest, Hairy Legs, Best Beard and Best Mustache contest. There's also a rubber-duck race on the Chena River. $20,000 worth of prize money is given away throughout the weekend. Warning! You better watch your p's and q's, because bad behavior can easily lead the local law enforcement to arrest your ass and toss you in the slammer.

For more information call 907/452-1105.

Ketchikan

Wearable Art Show

While I wouldn't advise a long-distance trek to cozy little Ketchikan for the Wearable Art Show, held every February since 1986, if you're in the area, this one's got the goods. Each year it features a new theme, such as "Living on the Edge," "Fantasy Island," or "Garbage into Gold." Area artists, housewives, bankers, butchers, you name it, spend a substantial portion of the year (especially during the long winters) in their basements creating wild, wearable works of art out of various textiles, papier-mâché, tarps, foliage and an assortment of junk. Local competition is fierce, so rumors fly all year about who was seen where talking to whom about what kind of hard-to-find material. It's got all the makings of a Flannery O'Connor story set in the Cold Country. A recent entry for the show, created by Sara Lawson, was a ball gown made almost entirely out of chicken wire. Tickets for the fashion show are $15 for adults and $10 for children, students, and seniors.

For more information, call 907/225-2211.

Kodiak

Pillar Mountain Golf Classic

What kind of golf tournament has rules that prohibit two-way radios, dogs, tracking devices, chainsaws and hatchets? Only one, the Pillar Mountain Golf Classic. This day-tourney, held on April Fools' Day weekend every year since 1984, offers some of the worst lies the sport has ever seen. Why? Because the course is the 1,400-foot mountain itself and the tournament is the world's only one-hole par seventy. And that isn't even the worst of it. Players are warned about extreme wind and the possibility of frostbite; they are even urged to carry a set of crampons (spiked shoes used for serious mountaineering). You see, in April Pillar Mountain often is still covered with snow and ice. But harsh conditions don't stop the sixty or so hard-core golfers who every year pay $50 to test themselves against the mountain and hopefully take home the $600 winning purse. Well, calling them golfers might be a stretch. Most are hackers who play once a year at most. Micky Mummert-Crawford, one of the female hackers who plays annually, says, "It's grueling. I shot like an eight hundred. My arms were so tired." She laughs, "I went to Hawaii last winter and played golf for the first time on a real course. It seemed so easy." If you're planning on heading to Kodiak to try your hand at guerilla golf, remember to bring lots of balls.

For more information, call 907/486-9489.

Nenana

Come to Nenana every first weekend in March for a festival that revolves around guessing the exact time of the ice breakup of Tanana River. Then head on over to the Banana-Eating Contest. No kidding.

For details call Hanna Anna Bandanna (kidding) at 907/832-5888.

Nome

Great American Bathtub Race

Northern Exposure might as well have been filmed in nowhere Nome. Once Alaska's largest city, now Nome is a five thousand-person polar speck on the map (just a stone's throw from Russia) that hasn't seen the good old days since the gold rush over one hundred years ago. But this sure doesn't keep these poor bastards from having a hell of a bash every Labor Day, when they stage the oldest bathtub race in America.

"Anybody that has a bathtub that can get it on wheels is welcome to join," says big-bellied, gray-bearded Leo Rasmussen, one of the race's founding fathers and the only citizen to have annually competed in the race for its entire twenty-two-year existence. While most racers excavate their crafts from the local dump, Rasmussen lifted his fresh from an abandoned house. He also keeps an extra tub wheeled and ready for any last minute entries. Each team who enters the race (for a $20 fee) must have five members, one who rides in the tub (full of hot, bubbly water) and four who push and pull their cruiser down Front Street through the center of town.

Rasmussen's strategy is an arsenal of water balloons. But don't put your money on his slow-roller, because he rides an old iron claw-foot "that kills the horse that pulls it." In the race's history, Rasmussen's team has won only once, beating archrival Arctic Lighterage — "and that's because they did their training at the bar," he explains. Booze, bathing and barfing — there's nowhere like Nome.

For more information, call 907/443-2798.

ARIZONA

Oatman

Egg-Frying Contest

Oatman (elevation 2,800 feet) is certainly not the hottest spot in America, but the sidewalks surrounding this 159-person town get pretty hot every July fourth — 106 degrees to be precise. To celebrate their heat, Oatman hosts an annual solar egg-frying contest. In front of a crowd of about 1,500, every year about twenty contestants use anything from aluminum foil to magnifying glasses to homegrown solar devices to get an egg fried in fifteen minutes or less. Fred Eck from the Oatman Chamber of Commerce says, "There was one guy one year who even cooked potatoes and bacon with his egg." But beware, the hills around Oatman house quite a population of egg-loving wild burros. That's right, and you should expect to see a good many of them strolling the streets looking for ways to be stubborn. The contest costs nothing to enter, and winners win nothing but fifteen minutes of small-town fame. What a concept!

For more information, call 520/763-5885.

Prescott

World's Oldest Rodeo

Don't miss the World's Oldest Rodeo held every first weekend in July since 1888.

For details call 800/358-1888.

Tombstone

Blooming of the World's Largest Rose Tree

Every April the town of Tombstone, home of the historic OK Corral gunfight, celebrates the blooming of the World's Largest Rose Tree, singled out in the thirties by Robert Ripley in his famous "Believe It or Not" column. (The idea behind Ripley's forays into wild, weird America became a popular television show in the eighties, hosted by Jack Palance.) The Lady Bankia rose tree, which was planted in 1885, is Guinness's undisputed world record holder. Growing bigger by the year, the Lady Blankia hosts over a million blossoms that spread out over 8,000 square feet.

For more info call 520/457-9317.

ARKANSAS

Atkins

Picklefest

If you're road-tripping through the smoldering South this May and get a flat in Nowheresville, Arkansas, you've got to hit Picklefest. Atkins, Arkansas, is Pickle City, U.S.A. No joke. This 3,400-person town eats, drinks and breathes pickles. Literally. And because the town's biggest resource is the Dean Pickle & Specialty Products Company, the pickle paves its golden road.

Speaking of dough, Atkins claims they are the inventors of the deep-fried pickle. It's one of the many street delicacies served during the fest, which has attracted some 10,000 tourists since its inception in 1992. "Now that pickle batter is a secret mixture," says Chuck Colflesh, former President of People for a Better Atkins. "If we told anyone what it was, we might have to kill them," he laughs. Chuck, who took time away from watching his afternoon rerun of the sitcom Empty Nest, just might be the pickle's number one fan. "I love dill pickles," Chuck says. "You can buy one just about anywhere in this town for a quarter."

It gets better. Atkins is also the home of America's only organized pickle-juice drinking contest. Can anyone say Technicolor yawn? That's right, step on up, pound a jar of nuclear green vinegar and sumptuous spices and then try to hold it down. Chuck admits that he likes pickle juice, but not that much. "No, sir. You get a few every year that turn the same color as the juice," he says. "And sometimes it comes back up."

Not like any loyal resident of Atkins could imagine such heresy, but there's just no shaking the pickle here. Their clothes have even absorbed the smell. Chuck says, "I tell you, when the factory is brewing them pickles, you can smell it for miles." This is the point in the interview where Chuck seems to get a frog (pickle?) in his throat. He pauses. Tears? You can almost hear him thinking. Then he finishes, "You know, it's a pride thing."

For more information, call 501/641-7210.

Clinton

National Championship Chuckwagon Race

Each year the Tuesday before Labor Day, the small town of Clinton in the Ozark Mountains kicks off almost a week of Western competition that includes the National Championship Chuckwagon Race, the world's largest wagon race. More than one hundred three-person teams compete in front of a crowd of about 20,000, who sit along the bluffs that rise above the rangeland track. (Hint: Bring lawn chairs, a blanket, a picnic basket and a cooler.) Each racing team consists of a cook, a driver and an outrider. Chuck wagon racers compete in a series of one-on-one, high-speed battles, in which a sharp turn can send a wagon tumbling. Other weekend attractions include a six-hour Rough Riders Trail Ride, an Antique Western Auction and Mule Qualifying Trials for various asinine events. Expect lots of friendly fiddling and all-you-can-eat barbecue as well.

Held annually since 1985, the races attract mostly the same people year after year, who come to Clinton in early August to claim their favorite campsites. If you're a first-timer and plan on camping, make sure you call ahead to reserve a spot: hookups rent for $45 for the weekend. Daily admission fees are $10 for adults and $5 for children.

For more information, call 501/745-8407 or visitwww.chuckwagonraces.com.

Emerson

World Championship Rotary Tiller Races

Imagine tilling your garden, wishing your damn machine moved a little faster so you could soon relax under the shade of looming a elm and work on a six-pack of Bud. That's the likely origin of the World Championship Rotary Tiller Races, held every June since 1990 in the 317-person town of Emerson, Arkansas. Outfitted with tuned tillers and old ski goggles from the garage, racers fly down Emerson's 200-foot championship racetrack in search of little garden-variety glory. Well, calling the course a racetrack is probably stretching it a little. Maybe fallow field is more accurate. The annual emcee of the event, Bill Dailey, says, "We're hoping someday for a tiller racing stadium, but right now the event is just out in the middle of nowhere."

In 1998 Ronnie Hughey, a five-year veteran of the event, skippered his modified tiller into the world-record seat with a time of 7.37 seconds. How fast is that? "Faster than I am," Ronnie says. But for all you speed snobs out there, that's a whopping 18.5 miles per hour. We're talking blurrrrrrrr, baby. But what's Ronnie's secret? For starters, he made his own machine with the hands the Almighty gave him. Others have spent upwards of $2,500 on professionally modified machines — alcohol-burning engines et al. But Ronnie took his 185-cubic-centimeter-capacity engine from a Honda three-wheeler, because as he so slyly deduced, the power isn't just in the punch. The Kellers (a family of racers who are Hughey's biggest rivals) have a rototiller that uses a 425-cubiccentimeter-capacity Suzuki motorcycle motor. Hughey laughs, "When he took off last year, he was digging a hole to China." Ronnie also made another smart move. He realized that since his weight would be on the back, it only made sense to put his tires on the back. Fucking genius!

Unlike most small-time competitions, the winner of the World Championship Rotary Tiller Races takes home a substantial cash price: 1,000 clams. That works out to about $8,141.11 an hour, or $135.69 a second, which is better than a good day on Wall Street.

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Excerpted from America Bizarro by Nelson Taylor. Copyright © 2000 Nelson Taylor. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
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