Machine Age Reaches North Woods Anglers

Ham and cheese and earthworm? What do you do if you run out of worms while fishing in the remote north woods?

Just head for one of Dick Brimblecom’s 14 coin-operated machines and choose the bait you need: minnows of various sizes, leeches, night-crawlers or earthworms.

Brimblecom, of Trego, Wis., has 14 former sandwich machines dispensing live bait instead.

Minnows are the toughest to keep alive, he said. He puts them in water-filled black plastic sacks that fit in the compartments of the refrigerated machines, where the temperature is kept at 36 to 40 degrees.

“I’ve had a lot of people say they’d never buy another tank minnow as long as they could buy one out of the refrigerator,” he said. “They say they live longer.

“I don’t know myself. I don’t have time to go fishing with all the running around with the machines.”

Trivia Time: Against the New York Giants Sunday, Cowboy quarterback Danny White came within just 52 yards of completing only the third 400-yard passing game in Dallas history. Who had the first and second? (Answer below).

I New York: Skip Bayless of the Dallas Times Herald had reason to be strolling through Manhattan Sunday a few hours before the Cowboys’ victory over New York at Giants Stadium. His impressions:

“Whenever you are in New York, strange things happen. Bearded creatures ask if you’ve got any spare bills. People with pink hair stroll into the middle of 7th Avenue and say, ‘Look, there’s God.’ For cabs, the speed limit is a minimum 80 m.p.h., and they never have wrecks or run over people with pink hair.

“When in New York, you keep your hand on your wallet, your eyes straight ahead and expect the world to end at any second.

“About four hours before Sunday night’s game, I ran into Cowboy cornerback Everson Walls as he walked up 7th Avenue. Walls said he was on his way to eat some oysters. Oysters for a pregame meal?”

Just goes to show, you don’t have to live in New York to be strange.

Ron Zell Brewer, one of seven TCU football players suspended a few weeks ago for taking payments from boosters, had such a good deal that he didn’t want to take a pay cut.

“I was getting so much money that I thought the college level was pretty good,” Brewer. said. “I felt like I might like to stay an extra year.”

So he did. Brewer is a fifth-year senior.

Trivia Answer: Only one passer in Dallas history has surpassed 400 yards in a game. Don Meredith did so twice. His 1963 record (460 yards) against San Francisco is the club’s oldest passing mark.

Quotebook

Tulane Coach Mack Brown on his decision to start freshman Maurice Nelson on kickoff returns against Vanderbilt last weekend: “If you see me down on my knees getting sick before the game, it is because we have a freshman back there returning kickoffs.”