The Man Who Never Lost

On the northeast shore of the southern peninsula of the state of Michigan cozies the small town of Alpena. Oh, it boasts an Abitibi plant that makes chipboard and sends its unique smell as far away as Manitoulin Island on the North Shore, and has a cement factory that the residents are justly proud of, but when all's said and done, the town doesn't rip and snort like it did in the old days when lumber was king. Ormighthad the town elders wooed Henry Ford north from Dee-troit. Even as a resort town little ole Alpena missed the boat. Partly because the shores are rock-flat and shallow, not like the duney sands elsewhere on the great mitten, and partly because the traffic zoomed up center-state to get to Canada. So the city of the Thunder Bird was pretty much bypassed or, as some residents still say, safeguarded against the high-stepping hotshots of its southern neighbors.

If a map reader looks around the surrounding area, he will easily see the reality of the area: hilly, swampy, and lake-strewn, the country is ideal for deer hunting, fishing, and potato farming which Polish-filled Posen attests. While a few tourists do go through Alpena enroute Rogers City and its beautiful State Park, next to no one goes inland even a few miles. Here is the quiet land, more still even than slighted Alpena, and it's here that a most extraordinary man and his successor lived.

On the edge of Ossineke, a village as remote as any reindeer-rearing Lapland ranch, for this is in the snow belt where roofs cave in regularly when not built with a steep pitch and minus thirty is not unheard of, the old

fellows still spend many days and evenings with their feet against the fenders of ole Bessie, the pot-bellied stove, sip hot coffee they warm on the flat, cast iron top, smoke pipes and cigars and "pritinear" anything they can get a hold of that resembles a tobacco holder, and idle away the time half chatting and half knowing what his neighbor is going to say before he says it. Of course, there's one other pastime: Euchre. The old-timers play until the numbers on the deck fade. The boys used to play Cribbage but don't indulge in that anymore unless the stray tourist passes through and needs an eye-opener. The reason they don't play is because of one Frank Dubinsky.

Everyone knows that as long as people are pretty evenly matched in most any game, everyone joins in and no feelings are hurt. That's the way it was with Elmer, Tommy, Gus, and Frank in the old days. But when one of them stands head and shoulders over the others, when he begins to win an inordinate number of times, then they change the game. The old boys in Ossineke play a lot of Euchre now, but haven't played Cribbage for years.

No one knew how old Frank "Got that way." Before the Second World War Elmer, Tommy, and Gus played right along with him. But after that, and especially after the Korean skirmish and obviously after the Viet Nam thing andeverytime they played after Desert Storm, there was no question: Frank Dubinsky NEVER lost at Cribbage. But Frank didn't mind his friends quitting the game. He was just as happy playing Euchre, smoking, and keeping his back warm from Bessie.

Now, the old boys, like all backwoods people, were savvy in their own, subtle way. They really did seem to communicate at least as much without words as with them. Especially when an Outsider wandered in. The poor man was invariably lost. And usually wanted to impress "those dumb hicks" with how sophisticated he was. If they were such hotshots,

reasoned the local boys, why were they lost? Anyway, because the fellows had played cards together for decades and developed their sense of non-verbal communication to an art, the outcome of a game with an Outsider was as predictable as the sun rising over the Spruce trees next morning. If the group wanted the stranger to win, they'd let him. If not, there wasn't a hand under the sun that would help him. And if he did win, and felt cocky to boot, they always had their secret weapon, Frank Dubinsky. But they only let Frank take him on in Cribbage if they were desperate or felt the only way to maintain their dignity was to go vengeance.

Well, one blustery February day when the snow banks were high and the temperature low -- the snow was just under the telephone wires at the Ossineke General Store and the mercury hailed minus thirty-six -- that out of the gusting, drifting, snow-filled air drove a 4x4 Ford Ranger. "Pretty as a picture," said Elmer, years after. "You know, like one of them glossy-smooth magazine ads with a half-dressed cutsie-pie sprawled over the hood. Scrape her off and there it was, a spanking Ranger fit to get buried by a good ole Ossineke snow drift." And out of that un-Ossineke-like vehicle strutted one of THEM. Straight from Dee-troit. Clothes-dryer snapping red-and-black Mackinac hunting suit fit to sell a million if it stood in Hudson's window. The fellow was complete with his matching hat and mitts, plus insulated boots also straight from Goodyear's.

Well sir, the boys took one look at the Outsider and turned toward Bessie. There was guaranteed warmth there, and what this new fellow brought could only be guessed until he made his move. First, the man stomped his feet and banged his hands and held them to his ears like he was freezing. Which he was, because he'd been fully dressed in his 4x4 with the heater on full blast. So when he stepped into The Weather -- minus thirty-something, remember -- he was stunned.Hethought, like

all tourists, that the all-wool Mackinac suit straight from J.L. Hudson's would keep him warm no matter what because Northern Michigan was its birthplace. What he didn't know was that no man from the North, no matter what he wears, steps outside inthisweather. Well, the Outsider ran to the stove like a starving Eskimo to blubber. He pritinear upset the boys and the card table.

After he thawed out, he took stock of the General Store and its contents. It didn't take but a glance at the local boys that he regained his feeling of superiority that all southern Michiganders feel in the presence of boondock-clod northerners. And with a smile, Reggie couldn't wait to prove his prowesssomehow. And don't you just know that's when his beady eyes fell on the table, the deck of dilapidated, starchless cards, and the old codgers warming their feet on the fenders of ole Bessy? When such awareness comes, it's like Eureka, hallelujah, and a-ha all rolled into one, because every Dee-troit hot shot justknowshe can whup every local known at every thing, and here was the way.

By now the reader has undoubtedly read between the lines.Certainlythis will be like so many other stories where an outsider comes in, the locals beat him at something, and at the end everyone's back where he belongs. But this story is different for a couple of reasons: one, it's true. There really was an Elmer, Tommy, and Gus who hung out Winters at the General Store in Ossineke, Michigan. Two, there really was a Reggie Stoner who owned a 4x4 and he was from Dee-troit. And, best of all, there really was a Frank Dubinsky who was a phenominal whiz at Cribbage. These fellows, then, are not a figment of an author's imagination nor exaggerated stereotypes just to make a story sound good or to make a point. So this isn't really a story, it's an account.

Still, the action followed what a fiction writer might conjure: the

southerner did take on the boys at cards, they did show remarkable skill, and, yes, the challenger was sucked into playing Cribbage, one-on-one, with the legendary backwoods Master. And, true to the predictable scenario, the old codger whupped him over and over until the unbelieving city boy had lost everything. Including his 4x4 Ranger that was buried under an Ossineke snowdrift by the time the game was over. Now, if you were writing a fiction story, at this point you could come up with a number of possible endings, couldn't you? Like the tourist crawled away with his tail between his legs. Or he swore revenge and the story could have sequels with him returning every winter for rematches. Or maybe he pulled out a hand canon and blew the whole lot of those backwoods bums away. But like I say, this isn't fiction: it really happened. And here's how.

This Reggie Stoner turned out to be a card-sharp. Or card-shark. He'd spent much of his youth in back-street gambling rooms, at private clubs, and fancy casinos. He'd learned how to deal with the best, how to bet wisely, and could spot a cheat a deck away. But for the life of him, he never found a single movement that showed that this codger, Frank Dubinsky, ever manipulated the cards. The cards were not marked. Nor did the ole fellow use mirrors or hand signals to his buddies. Reggie couldn't believe what he saw, especially since the old coot NEVER LOST.

To top that, even when Stoner reverted to cheating, hestilllost. It was uncanny. It was unbelievable. It was downright spooky. How could this hick gallop his horsie-peg around that Cribbage-board race track furlongs ahead of him -- consistently? This is where true-life outshines the make-believe of fiction. Reggie Stoner was SO convinced that he could never beat Frank Dubinsky, that this unknown Ossineke man was the REAL THING, that he gave up trying to whup him and decided the only thing to do was become exactly like him. Because no matter how he tried, the Dee-

troiter simply couldn't beat him or figure how the old man did it. So he played and played and played until the old fellow finally died. Not then and there in an endless Marathon, mind you. It took years. But Stoner was willing to take as long as it took. So he moved into that out-of-the-way land off the off-beaten track of Alpena with all its high snows and low colds.

In time, the whole gang passed away: Elmer, Tommy, Gus, and Frank. Reggie was left with other locals. He let his whiskers go white-stubble, took to a pipe, and spent the long winters warming himself next to Bessie just like his mentor had done for decades before.

Now this story -- if it were one -- could end a number of ways, couldn't it? Like, now Reggie never lost and the tradition of the invincible Cribbage player kept going. Or, a hot shot from Dee-troit, a fellow just like Reggie in his youth, came fluffing in, determined to put this Ossineke hick down. Or the media could get hold of the card wizard and make a big splash of him. Then, too, old Reggie could become the world's champion beating every comer. But not being fiction but fact, the truth is that this Stoner fellow so respected the area that had produced a True Master, Frank Dubinsky, that he bought the Ossineke General Store and kept it exactly as it was the Winter he first stepped into it. Even when Hy-Vee wanted to buy him out, and Walmart, Wendy's, McDonald's, Burger King, and all the rest attempted to establish their franchises, Reggie held out. And well into the Twenty-First Century the store is still there, exactly as it was so many decades ago. Complete with ole Bessie. The original card table fell to pieces years ago and the chairs had to be replaced. Even a board or two wore through from all the scooting in and scooting out. But the place is still in tact, still selling cans of pork and beans and Wonder Bread and pipe tobacco. Reggie Stoner made sure it'd stay that way by

writing it in his will.

As to a successor to the Dubinsky-Stoner Cribbage line, the fellows that never lost a game once they'd learned the secret, I'd prefer not to comment. After all, itcouldset off a media blitz and the ambiance of the whole Northern Michigan mystique could be shattered, right? So let me put it all this way. Don't go to Ossineke just to check it out. Please don't go as a tourist. Especially if you're from Dee-troit. But if you feel a yearning deep inside, one that won't subside no matter how you scratch it, an unquenchable NEED to face the inexplicable and become part of it, then whatever I say won't keep you away anyway, will it? In the meantime, let's leave little ole Ossineke, inland from Alpena, cozy in its subzero, drift-piled snow, content knowing that ole Bessie is still keeping the heart of the Northland warm.