Isn't it funny how some things are forgotten and some things are remembered from when we were children? As children, sometimes we make silly promises to our friends about silly things we may do in the future. Sometimes these promises are forgotten, and sometimes we follow through and keep them.
Unfortunately, I cannot recall whether it was grade five or grade seven, but my friend Peter and I heard a song by a musician called "Weird Al" Yankovic. The very concept and essence of this one particular song drew us in to the point of obsession and we felt that one day, we must act upon the lyrics to this "masterpiece", if you will. This glorious piece of music legend is known as "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota." We made a promise to each other that when we graduate high school, we will seek out and make a journey to this legendary ball that actually does exist. And we kept our promise.
All through junior high and high school, we reminded each other of our little pact and remained true to each other and to our magnificent dream. We also recruited two of our friends, PJ and Dustin, to join us in our pilgrimage to our Midwestern "Mecca" called Darwin, Minnesota.
We hadn't even known where the ball rested until our senior year of high school when a couple friends of ours mistakingly ran across it on their way home from the Twin Cities. They reported back to us what they had discovered and our plans were underway.
We decided that something as important as this had to be our very last trip of the summer. A grande finale of sorts. And so it went. In August of 1997, after waiting about five years for this, we loaded up the car in great anticipation of the adventure that lay ahead.
The aforementioned song contains a description of a character and his family's journey to the great wonder, and being the people we are, we decided that we must relive the song to the best of our ability and as far as our resources would allow. So, as is mentioned in the song, "we loaded up the car with Potato Skins and pickled weiners, crossword puzzles, Spiderman comics, and Mama's homemade rhubarb pie." We had it all; a bag of sour cream and onion Potato Skins potato chips, a can of Vienna sausages, a book of crosswords, and three Spiderman comics. Except we didn't actually have homemade rhubard pie on our first trip--just a bag of sliced rhubarb, but surprised as we were, we did find the Diet Chocolate Soda that is mentioned in a later verse. And on a personal note, the diet chocolate soda was completely horrible and it gave almost all of us stomach aches.
We took Dustin's car and I sat in the passenger seat. PJ sat behind me and Peter behind Dustin. We started our trip by listening to our theme song and singing along with very loud voices. Then, after we filled gas, it was good-bye Jamestown, ND, hello open road!
Darwin is approximately five hours from Jamestown, so we had quite a drive ahead of us. We knew that we would be there in just a few hours, but there was nothing we could do to speed up time. We did our best, though, to keep ourselves under control. We occupied our time by doing crossword puzzles and reading those sacred comic books as it was prophesied in the great anthem. When we weren't busy with those activities, we were either sleeping or just casually talking. But no matter what we were doing, I know we were all joined in one common thought, "Are we there yet?"
Finally, at 5:36 pm, we approached the fabled Darwin and began the drive down the road that would take us to our destination. We were on First Street and we knew that once we hit the intersection of First and William, we would be in the presence of greatness. We would behold the legacy of a man named Francis A. Johnson, a farmer in rural Minnesota who really had nothing better to do than to build a massive ball of twine. We would cast our eyes upon that great spectacle built by a single man over a period of more than twenty years. And then the moment came. One solitary moment that I will never forget, when the World's Largest Ball of Twine (made by one man) came into my line of sight. And it lived up to all our expectations. It went beyond our wildest Twine dreams. There it lay; all 21,140 pounds of it, eleven feet high, forty feet in circumference, resting under a make-shift pagoda.
Then as the song says, "We parked the car and walked with all filled reverence toward that glorious, huge, majestic sphere." We stood in awe for an undetermined amount of time and then posed for many various pictures. And then again, as the song states, "We went to the gift shop and stood in line, bought a souvenir miniature ball of twine, some window decals, and anything else they'd sell us, and I got a couple postcards, 'Greetings from the Twine Ball, wish you were here,' won't the folks back home be jealous?" We got it all, the postcards, the mini twine ball, bumper stickers, T-shirts, and even a shot glass.
When we left the gift shop, there was nothing else to do but just sit and contemplate. We sprawled ourselves out on the grass pondering why anyone would do this, how anyone would do this, and where he got all that twine. It is a thought that baffles any right minded human adult and only God knows the answers now. The great Francis A. Johnson passed away in 1989.
It is true that all good things must come to an end, and as the sun was setting in the Minnesota sky, we could be seen standing there. Four silhouettes on the horizon next to the gigantic ball. We were again all joined in one common thought. And as the song says, "We didn't really want to leave, that was perfectly clear. I said, 'folks I can tell you're all sad to go,' then I winked my eye and I said, 'You know, I've got a funny kind of feeling we'll be coming back again next year!' "
And we did come back the next year and it's just sort of become an annual summer trip for us. We even designate days to wear our T-shirts. And yours truly has even become the webmaster for the Official Darwin Twine Ball Website. I don't think our boyhood obsession has even come close to wearing off and as long as there's a Twine Ball in Darwin, Minnesota, we will be devoted to it.
It is kind of funny how we keep silly promises. But I'm glad that this trip was a silly promise that we kept. It's created a sense of brotherhood amongst the four of us (and others in recent trips) and though it was silly, it's founded tradition and a circuit board of fond memories. It is definitely an experience worth telling again and again.