If you want to know how Captain Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters came to be, you can’t start with the trivia nights at the local brewery, or even with the team’s impressive string of first and second-place finishes. You have to go back—way back—to a little boy of about ten, sitting cross-legged on a shag carpet in front of a boxy Zenith television, clutching a cheap plastic microphone and trying desperately not to breathe too loud. Because that’s where Captain Geech was really born.

There’s a funny thing that happens when the government decides to “get things done.” It begins with bold headlines, press conferences, and well-written mission statements. Billions of dollars are earmarked, and officials tout innovation, jobs, and progress. The goals always sound noble — revitalize chip manufacturing, expand high-speed internet, rebuild infrastructure. But somewhere between the approval of funds and the actual pouring of concrete, the gears of bureaucracy start grinding.

It was the winter of 1973, and in the snow-frosted town of New Lisbon, Wisconsin—where the smell of wood smoke hung in the air and mittens froze stiff in five minutes flat—lived a boy named Jimmy Halvorsen. Age fourteen. Average height, good grades, but with one extraordinary quality that set him apart from every other kid on his block: Jimmy was hopelessly, irreversibly, gloriously in love with Radio Shack.