IZZY AND THE SNOT DRAGONS

By Madam Mystic Misty Merkel

When you live in a trailer park like I do you come across all kinds of strange stuff like dead people, werewolves, vampires, killer snakes and space aliens. Other than what I just mentioned, people in trailer parks live pretty much normal lives. The one exception to that rule is the late Izzy Snotkowski.

Izzy is a local legend here in Northern Michigan. Back in the 1980’s he had a heavy metal band called Izzy and The Snot Dragons. Izzy’s band went on tour all over the world and opened for such bands as The Nooner Specialists and Telly Titus and The Sea Monkeys. In fact, Izzy had an awesome band and I went to see them several times. There was always something special in the air at his concerts. His music is said to have transformed many a young mind. I think that maybe my psychic abilities grew out of my experiences at his live concerts on the green in downtown Grelickville.

Now Izzy was not only a magical man when it came to heavy metal music but, he was also a biker. He was especially good at performing stunts at local fairs and backyard functions like birthdays, weddings and getting home from prison parties. One day back in 1989 my boyfriend (soon to be husband and former husband) got out of jail and his parents through him a big party on their farm. My boyfriend knew Izzy really well so Izzy was honored to perform a stunk on his bike at the party.

Izzy and my boyfriend went way back so Izzy decided to do something special for entertainment at the party. My boyfriend’s parents had a railroad track that went right across their farm and every evening at 8:15 p.m. a train would run through the farm. Izzy decided his trick would be to run his motorcycle up to the track and then jump on the track right in front of the train and run his motorcycle ahead of the train for a quarter of a mile and then jump his bike off the track before the train ran over him. Well, the stunt went badly from the get go for as soon as Izzy’s bike jumped onto the track the train hit him which turned Izzy and his Kawasaki into sushi.

That was the most tragic get out of jail party I had ever attended. It is ironic that the tragic end to poor Izzy foreshadowed the tragic end to the relationship that I and my boyfriend had for the day after the accident my boyfriend and I got married and we hated each other every single day afterwards. Just thinking about that man right now makes me want to break something and then call the cops.

Anyway, Izzy used to have a trailer over on lot nine. Because the trailer was haunted by Izzy’s ghost no one would rent it so, Izzy’s family burned it down one Halloween night and collected the insurance on it. The fire was blamed on a neighbor kid named Justin and Justin spent a few years in the pokey for it. It seems Justin was known in the neighborhood as the kid who liked to play with matches so everyone assumed that he was the arsonist who burned down Izzy’s trailer. This is a clear warning to all the kids out there that you should not be caught playing with matches or you’ll be blamed for burning something down.

What really sealed Justin’s fate was when the jury found out that Justin wet to bed. They assumed he was an arsonist since everyone knows that people wet to bed in an attempt to put out a fire they started in a dream. Playing with matches and bed wetting got Justin five years in Jackson penitentiary.

After the charred remains of Izzy’s trailer were hauled away someone else rented the lot and put a brand new trailer on it. It was not long before that trailer too was haunted so the owner and his family abandoned the trailer in the middle of the night. Several more trailers were tried out on lot nine but everyone moved out within a few weeks. Finally, the last trailer that was abandoned lies empty to this day. The only thing is that every night at midnight the entire trailer park can hear Izzy ripping through chords on his electric guitar like he did before he became a ground hamburger with Kawasaki shoestrings fries along side the railroad track.

In the trailer park we have come to view Izzy’s late night riffs as a sort of trailer park taps. It’s goodnight to the day and goodnight to all those old heavy metal bikers