Published: April 05, 2009 10:23 pm      

WOLFSIE: Some crabby customers

Take in a “race” at Folkies in Marion

Here’s my monthly look at offbeat, little-known stuff going on in Indiana. This time it’s a warning for bar hoppers: There are three pubs in Indiana where after a few Bud Lites, you could end up with crabs.

At Barney’s in Elkhart, Three Kings in Hoagland and Folkies in Marion, the most popular nights of the month are the bi-weekly get-togethers of speed enthusiasts who prefer the spindly hermit crab competitions to the more traditional forms of racing here in the Hoosier state.

The Crab Meister is Sonny Starr, who by day holds a pretty normal job as an airport security employee, but at night he tends to his flock (herd?) of three dozen hermit crabs.

Sonny first saw crab racing in Fort Wayne in the early ’80s at a local tavern and was just itching to try it. Now he runs – well, crawls – the only game in the state and one of the few in the country.

Sonny begins the evening with novelty songs, a few of which have appropriately racy lyrics. Then he breaks out the preferred track of the night, a huge plywood board with one of several themes like: beers of the world, the United States, or outer space. The crabs could care less what they race on. The crowd could care even lesser.

Race fans stand in line prior to the event to select their racer. Regulars have their eyes on certain crabs that either look particularly fit or were winners in previous nights of racing.

T-shirts with team names are common. Competitors take the whole thing pretty seriously. “As seriously as bowling,” one race fan told me. Wow, that’s just how tense things can get.

These crabs have odd names: She Told Me She Was Married and All My Exes Have Rolexes. Such labels are far too long to be painted on the crabs’ shells, so most of the little guys simply sport a number along with some rather creative artwork. Sonny paints some of the shells himself; others come that way from the pet store, a marketing effort by the hermit crab lobby to get more crustaceans in your home.

Sonny always manages to blend a little new material with his traditional rap, which includes opening the evening with the singing of the fourth stanza of the National Anthem (which in Marion is printed on the menus for the patriotically challenged). The crowd has also been conditioned to respond in unison to various verbal cues. If Sonny says the word “simultaneously,” which he always does when he explains the rules, the entire bar erupts with, “And at the same time.” If he says, “Thank you,” the crowd responds with: “NO, thank you.” Drinking sure can be fun.

Once the competitors have been dumped from a pail onto the race surface, the crabs inch along (and that’s giving them way too much credit) until a winner emerges. The victor is always in doubt until the very end because it is not uncommon for a crab to edge up to the finish line, then change his mind (assuming he has one) and head in the opposite direction. This reversal of fortune delights the fans who cheer and hoot like their next beer depends on it. Which it might.

The competition includes 16 separate races, with a final run-off at 9:30 p.m. sharp with the winners of the various heats. But the victor doesn’t take home his crab. All the crabs head back with Sonny to his house in Fort Wayne in order to rest up for their next competition.

Now, this may all seem like harmless fun, but remember: It’s really a shell game.

Dick Wolfsie is an on-air personality at WISH-TV Channel 8 and weekly contributor to the Kokomo Tribune. Contact him at Wolfsie@aol.com.