The Reinhart boys

Way back when I was coming up, and we're backing up forty or fifty years here, when I was coming up out there on the 86 Dragway, the Reinhart boys were coming up one concession over.

Jamie was a couple years older than me. I remember him sitting a couple barstools down from me at The Chooch one night. I was playing my harmonica. Jamie takes up a collection and comes and dumps a handful of change in front of me.

"That's yours if you stop playing that fucking thing," he says.

That was good enough for me. Jamie was reputed to have biker connections. There was enough there for two beers.

That was my first paying gig.

Jamie had the most awesome 68 Mustang that he'd rip down the 86 Dragway once in awhile.

With open headers. You'd hear him fire it up one concession over, and then you could track his progress coming down the Marden-Maryhill road. Word was that Mustang had been raced in NHRA Super Stock by Barry Poole the year before, but that may have just been hearsay.

But it was one fabulous car.

Jamie's younger brother Carl was making quite a name for himself in Junior Hockey circles at the time. We all figured he was heading for the bigs. I was actually on the ice with him once. I think it was a pick-up game among the Ariss locals and somebody invited me along.

There used to be a after-hours joint near Ariss called the Boar House. It was what they might have called a speakeasy in a previous generation. I was only there a couple of times but a lot of the local aristocracy attended there regularly.

Like the Reinhart boys.

At the end of the day, Carl never quite made the bigs. But there was a younger brother, Paul. I don't even recall having a beer with him at the Boar House.

But Paul actually made the big leagues! Played for the Flames and, if I'm not mistaken, scored a Stanley Cup ring along the way! Then he went into management. For all I know he might still be in a front office job somewhere.


A farm kid from one concession over.


Local boy makes good!