The Jitterbugs Get Back To Our Roots

Although we Jitterbugs were expecting to rough it throughout our trip, reconnecting with the spirit of our pioneer forebears as we survived off of hardtack, pemican, and Miller High Life, enduring harsh hot winds and stormy nights, we were surprised and delighted by the generosity of our own Mitch Minarick's family, who fed us spaghetti and peas and breakfast caserole. What's more, they put us up in the North Bend Central Tower School, which they'd previously converted into another house, complete with pool table, Hammond organ, and big screen TV.

After enjoying the comfort of soft beds and air conditioning, we were eager to help the Minaricks with whatever chores they needed accomplished at their homestead a few miles north of the Tower School. And so, this afternoon, Mitch, Paul and Mark Demmel, Lucas Stock, Justin Snyder and Michael Busk unloaded a truck bed full of hay bales, threw them onto a conveyor belt that escalated them up to the Minarick's barn loft, and stacked them there. We think our pioneer and Jitterbug predecessors would have been proud. After hosing ourselves down, we changed the battery on The Dolphin, our appropriately vintage camper, and zoomed off to Weeping Water for tonight's game.