Month: October 2019

A Halloween Zombie

I grew up reading a daily newspaper. Most people did in the 1960s. Chicago had four daily newspapers in those days. We had the Sun-Times delivered in the morning, and my parents often bought the Daily News, the Chicago evening paper, as well. On top of that, we received the South-town Economist, containing news from our local neighborhood, once a week. Admittedly, my reading was confined primarily to the sports pages in those days, but I did occasionally drift into the front section of the paper as well.

Both of my parents read the paper each day, and my dad often saved headlines or entire papers covering events that he thought were historically significant. He kept a box in the attic with papers covering everything from World War II, to landmarks in the space race, to the JFK assassination. Sometime in the ‘70s, my mom went on a cleaning frenzy and tossed the entire box without telling him. He hit the roof when he found out about it. From that day until he died, whenever I was home visiting, I would subtly remind him of those headlines just to watch his head explode. I would casually say, “Hey dad, I’m teaching about WWII in class. Have you still got those old papers in the attic?” He would immediately turn red, grind his teeth violently, and go into a tirade that began with the words, “I had every goddamned headline from the war, from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day, but your mother . . .”

It was great entertainment.

Chicago was in the center of the news in 1968, when I was 14.  Local protests over the Tet Offensive in Vietnam registered on my radar in February. The city was ripped by rioting after Dr. King’s assassination in April. The Irish-Catholic neighborhood in which I grew up went into mourning when Bobby Kennedy was killed in June. In August, the “police riots,” as they were called by the Attorney General, against anti-war protestors went on for days at the Democratic Convention. Thus, I started paying more attention to the front page news in my teens, but it was college which really awakened my interest in following a daily newspaper. In 1973, my sophomore year, I vividly remember a classmate asking our history professor about Watergate. The Nixon scandal that led to his impeachment was just heating up, but I hadn’t paid it much attention to that point. The student asked, “Do you think this stuff will make it into the history textbooks someday?” The teacher looked flabbergasted and, struggling to find words, finally replied, “They will be writing . . . volumes about this in the future.” I felt guilty about not realizing the import of this event, and, from that point on, reading a newspaper became a big part of my daily routine. That routine has continued for the rest of my life.

It was the Washington Post, with reporters Woodward and Bernstein relentlessly pursuing the truth, that finally exposed the Nixon cover-up and helped bring down a corrupt president. Good newspapers have cautious editors who won’t print a story until they are certain it is accurate. Fact-checkers follow through meticulously to assure the veracity of every detail. This process stands in sharp contrast to web-based “news” sources in which any idiot with wi-fi access can voice an opinion and pass it off as “news.” (You are reading one such idiot’s thoughts at the moment.) There is no guarantee of accuracy, integrity, or even an attempt to discover the entire truth. Those stories might even be picked up and reported on cable news channels. I shudder for the future of democracy in a nation that gets its news exclusively from the internet or television.

When I first moved to Nashville in 1997, the Tennessean was a first-rate newspaper. Moreover, the Nashville Banner was an evening paper that provided healthy competition which, in turn, kept both papers on the top of their game. I didn’t realize it, but right at that moment, the nature of the daily newspaper was changing. By 2000, people began discontinuing their newspaper deliveries and getting their news on-line. Advertisers shifted away from newsprint to digital sites, circulation began to plummet, and newspapers faced economic disaster. Soon the Banner went out of business and the Tennessean, without competition, went steadily downhill. Each year, the price went up considerably, and the content went down to the point where it had become a provincial, small-town newspaper. In recent years, the editors made a conscious decision to cover only local events and issues, to the exclusion of any national news or sports. There were only rare exceptions to this rule, such as when a former student, Jamie McGee-Chenery, wrote an award-winning, multi-part series on Haiti in the aftermath of a natural disaster. But those stories were anomalies. By the time we moved from Nashville, the paper was feather-light (both literally and figuratively), expensive, and seemed to cover only country music, the Titans, Predators, and the Vanderbilt and Tennessee football teams. No baseball, basketball, or high-school sports with the exception of Saturday coverage of HS football games. Moreover, any games that finished after 5:00 p.m. were deemed “too late” to make the next day’s paper. For example, if a Saturday football game started at 2:30 in the afternoon and finished at 5:30, the story about the game would not appear until Monday morning. National and business news were non-existent.

When we moved to Wisconsin, we knew that River Falls was too small to support a daily newspaper. We also thought that the decline of Nashville’s newspaper was an endemic problem affecting all papers. We believed that our beloved daily newspaper was dead and buried in a six-foot grave reserved for outmoded forms of communication and technology. Still, we wanted a daily paper to read each morning and sampled the two papers from Minneapolis-St. Paul, only 20 miles away across the St. Croix River. We have been delighted to find that we were wrong about the demise of the daily newspaper. Both the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Star-Tribune of Minneapolis appear to be first-rate newspapers. We chose the Star-Tribune for a trial run. The paper is expensive to have delivered, but having a newspaper is important to Kathleen and me, so we bit the bullet. From the first issue that landed on our doorstep, we could see a noticeable difference. Instead of a story about still another country music awards show or the Titans NFL game on the front page, there was a headline about the impeachment inquiry into the dealings of another corrupt president. I felt as if I had come full circle from that history class in 1973. I could almost hear that history professor saying, “They will be writing . . . volumes about this!” On a daily basis, the paper contains a full section on national and state news, one on local events, one on business, one on entertainment, and a 12-page sports section. And when I say “sports,” I mean more than just football. A World Series game had been played the night before and ended late, yet the full story about the game was included. There was coverage on basketball, hockey, football, and other sports. Several pages were devoted to the high-school soccer and tennis playoffs, as well as results from cross-country meets. Even the letters to the editor were intelligent and well-reasoned. In short, it was everything we were hoping to find in a newspaper, but had not seen for years in Nashville.

Since the Peter Zenger case in 1735, long before the US was even an independent nation, freedom of the press has been a hallmark of American democracy. That freedom was under attack during the slavery debate in the early 1800s, in World War I under President Wilson, and at other times in our history.  In recent years, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, and Donald Trump have attempted to silence or intimidate newspapers that voiced a disagreement with them. As we watched the steady decline of our newspaper in Nashville, we thought that the same thing was happening across the country, and that democracy itself was endangered. In our minds, however, the newspaper has clawed its way out of the grave like a Halloween Zombie. So add another item to the list of reasons we are happy we made the move up here.

Raincoats and Tiaras: A River Falls Homecoming

As a small town, River Falls has a number of festivals, parades, and other events that provide continuity with the past and a sense of community for the present. In mid-October each year, they hold the homecoming weekend for the University of Wisconsin at River Falls and it is a region-wide affair.  Homecoming parades used to be a staple for, not just small-towns, but for every suburb and big-city neighborhood in America.  We were happy to see that River Falls continues this tradition even as it has disappeared in many other communities.

We had the grandkids for the weekend while Ben and Amber were out of town for a wedding. Homecoming weekend provided all of the entertainment we would need. On Friday night, the college showed the recent live-action re-make of the 1992 Disney cartoon, Aladdin. They also invited anyone in town to attend for free. We thought this would be perfect for both Abigail, age 9, and Lucas, age 6. The film was good, although less engaging than the original with Robin Williams as the genie, and the kids had a ball. I doubt that Lucas got all of the jokes, but he laughed whenever the audience did and added his own distinctive, infectious giggle when something tickled him. The students who hosted the event and handed out free popcorn were friendly, helpful, and welcoming. So far, I have seen none of the Town-versus-Gown tension that exists in many college towns. It may well occur, but it appears that the students and townspeople here seem to mix and mingle in an easy manner without conflict. Many of our favorite waitresses and bartenders have been students from UWRF, and we have found them in variably to be bright, outgoing, and helpful.

On Saturday morning, the kids were enticed to cease watching Garfield cartoons for a while by the promise of candy being tossed to the crowd by marchers in the parade. They brought plastic pumpkin containers with which to carry their anticipated bounty. The morning was cool (45-50 degrees) with light rain falling, but a two-block stretch of Main Street was already filled twenty minutes before the parade. Main Street in the downtown area is a wide thoroughfare with one lane in each direction and a median in the middle with benches, trees, and bike racks. Parallel parking is available for free on each side of the street, as well as on each side of the median.  The street was blocked off for the parade. Unable to find a good spot to stand along the storefronts, we picked a location across the street on the median. As it turned out, this was a fortuitous decision, as Abigail and Lucas were the only children in the immediate area.

While waiting for the parade to begin, I noticed something else about River Falls: little kids don’t mind the cold. Adults talk about the weather all the time and speculate about the coming winter. Kids like Abigail and Lucas, however, love the snow and the cold. On Christmas vacation two years ago, the temperature was below zero, and the kids had a house full of new toys. All they wanted to do, though, was go outside and play. In the summer, Amber has to force them to go out, and she sets a timer for 30 minutes, encouraging them to do something—anything—that will get them out of the house for a while. So, as the adults shivered under umbrellas and waited for the parade, a bunch of kids were in the middle of the street dancing and playing in the puddles of water. It was heartening to see children in spontaneous play without toys or electronic devices.

Finally, we heard some commotion: the parade was beginning. A Scottish bagpipe unit came first. A relative of mine—one I don’t recall ever meeting—won a bagpipe scholarship to Maclester College in nearby St. Paul, so perhaps there were a lot of Scots who settled in the area along with all of the Scandinavians and Germans. The pipers were followed by the middle-school marching band. This band was impressively large for such a small town. After that, we saw a group of middle-aged men (or older) riding in tiny go-carts with fezzes carefully protected by specially made plastic coverings. These, I knew, were Shriners. They drove their undersized vehicles in figure eights and other interlocking formations for a few minutes before moving on. Then came . . . another Shriners group from another town nearby. Then another. And another.  They came on miniature motorcycles, small cars, and other minute modes of transportation. They came on Harleys and firetrucks. There must have been 8 or 10 groups of Shriners from Wisconsin and Minnesota. I know that the Shriners are a fraternal group that raises money for Children’s hospitals and burn units. Aside from that, the clubs seem to be an excuse for middle-aged men (or older) to re-live their childhoods by riding around on cars and bikes better suited to young kids. And, somehow, I’ll bet beer is involved. That all sounds fine to me, and the show was entertaining, but our grandkids were growing impatient and wondering when the candy would arrive.

Finally, the girls’ soccer team from UWRF came down the street. Some were crammed into a pick-up truck, but others walked alongside or behind the truck tossing candy to the kids. This was the moment for which Lucas and Abigail had been waiting. After the soccer team came the volleyball girls and the track and cross-country team and the golf team. Every squad except the football team (which was probably getting ready for the game) was represented. There were cheerleaders and dance squads as well. And each group brought candy and plenty of it. About then, we noticed that Abigail and Lucas were the only kids in our area. The college kids invariably spotted them, came over, and put a handful of candy in their plastic pumpkins. It didn’t hurt that Lucas’s luminous yellow sweatshirt shone like a beacon of light on the gloomy day. Several people mentioned the brightness of his shirt.

The sports teams were followed by some monstrous, J. I. Case tractors representing various agricultural groups. These things had to be 10 feet high with double wheels all around. Truly impressive. Finally, the homecoming court arrived, but it wasn’t what we expected. I guess we thought it would be girls all dolled up, with beautiful gowns and half-a-pound of make-up. Instead, the girls wore practical, jeans-and-sweater outfits, sometimes covered by a clear raincoat. Make-up, which would run in the rain, was also absent, and, indeed, unnecessary on girls that young. The homecoming queen was easy to pick out because of the tiara on her head. The choice of clothing pointed out another difference that we have noticed between River Falls and Nashville. These people dress pragmatically, for the weather, rather than trying to impress anyone with their ensemble. After the college court, the homecoming queens and courts from several other local high schools followed. My guess is that many of the schools are from towns too small to have a parade of their own, so they consolidate them into the one at River Falls. The common link was that they all dressed in that same, unpretentious way, with raincoats and tiaras.

As we walked back to our car after the parade, the kids struggled to carry their bulging pumpkins and noted that they had hauled in more candy than they had all night last Halloween.  Kathleen and I anticipated a sugar-high that would have them bouncing off of the walls at mid-night. As we got in the car, Abigail, who generally, at best, grudgingly tolerates her younger brother, said, “Next year, Lucas, you have to make sure you wear that sweatshirt again!”

Road Trip to Deadwood, Part 2

Batteries recharged after a good night in Rapid City, we proceeded on our journey. First stop: Mt. Rushmore. We drove into the Black Hills National Forest in the southwest corner of South Dakota and immediately saw a big difference from the rest of the state. The elevation rose around us, green forests replaced brown farmlands, and we saw beautiful scenery in all directions. The majestic heads of Washington, Jefferson, TR, and Lincoln peeked through the trees as we approached the park.

The next step was to park the car. The parking system involved pulling into a gateway, taking a ticket, and later paying at a kiosk.  Not as easy as you might think. Kathleen, who was driving, is a wonderful woman, but . . . and there’s no easy way to say this . . . she has short arms. She drove up to the gateway and reached for the ticket. As has previously happened at every parking garage or drive-through ATM that we’ve ever been to, she suddenly realized that she could not reach the ticket. She put the car in park, opened the door, and reached through the window again. Still no good. She clicked open the seat belt. In the process, she must have hit another latch next to her seat, and that’s when the fun began. The back of her seat suddenly dropped flat behind her, and she went into panic mode. The door was still open, her seatbelt was unlatched, her arm was out the window clutching the ticket, and the seat was down flat. I was reminded of Lincoln’s phrase when one of his generals was attacked while his army was crossing a river: “He’s like an ox that’s jumped halfway over a fence.” Then the warning system of the car kicked in. Annoying signals began sounding periodically, adding to the pressure she was feeling. The line was beginning to form behind us, and an official-sounding voice yelled, “Please pull forward.” So Kathleen, always a rule follower, did as she was told. She put the car into gear and tried to pull forward with the door open and the seat belt tangled around her neck. At the same time, she was trying to fix the seat while sitting in an awkward upright position. We inched forward and the warning signals became more insistent, beeping more frequently, urgently reminding her that the door was open and her seat belt was not attached. The voice of the park ranger also grew louder, “Ma’am! Please pull forward!” During this entire fiasco, I was no help, because I was laughing so hard. We finally cleared the gate, pulled to the side, and set everything back to the normal position. The beeping stopped and angry drivers accelerated past us. Crisis averted.

Once in the park, we walked in until we had a clear, unobstructed view of the monument. It truly is magnificent, and you can’t help but marvel at the vision, the artistry, and labor that went into the project. We looked at it again from a slightly different vantage point, but then . . . we were pretty much done. I mean, I’m glad we saw it. We can check it off of the list of things to do in our lives, but you can only look at four enormous heads for so long. Back in the car, we enjoyed the scenery as we wound through the National Forest. The Black Hills are much prettier than the Badlands, and the weather had turned sunny and warm. By the time we reached Deadwood, at 11:30 in the morning, it was about 75 degrees. We were too early to check in, so we decided to drive up to Mount Moriah Cemetery, about a mile from Main Street—that’s a mile straight up.

Deadwood is situated in a narrow little valley between two ridges of mountains, with Mount Moriah located at the high point above the town. Our original plan was to walk to the famous graveyard, but I am glad we opted to drive. Otherwise, I would have had to dig another hole up there and drop Kathleen in it. She does not do well on hills.  I was picturing a “Boot Hill” type of graveyard, with wooden tombstones and barely legible names, but the cemetery is neat and well-organized in concentric ovals of marble headstones. The centerpiece, figuratively and literally, is the grave of Wild Bill Hickok, Deadwood’s most famous dead person. In 1876, he was shot in the back while playing poker at the #10 Saloon in town. A large, bronze bust now adorns his gravesite. Right next to Bill’s marker, lies the grave of Martha Canary, better known as “Calamity Jane.” She was a rough-hewn woman who performed jobs normally reserved for men in the West, such as driving mule teams. She also fostered an unrequited love for Hickok and requested that she be buried next to him. Her last wish was granted. Both of their graves are festooned with coins, stones, and small bottles of whiskey left by tourists and other well-wishers.

The town itself is a charming little place that extends over a three- or four-block main street in the shadow of looming mountains. For those who watched the show, we stayed at the Mineral Palace Hotel, built on the site of Al Swearingen’s Gem Theater. The term “theater” was used loosely, as, at the time it was actually a saloon, gambling hall, and brothel.  It is now a modern hotel housed in a building that is over a century old. The desk clerk who waited on us was apparently part of the original staff, as she seemed also to date from the 1800s. When we checked in, the old woman said, “Let me see if your room is ready.”  Instead of calling housekeeping, she scurried down the hall (at least as fast as a woman who was 112 years old can “scurry”) to check for herself.

While we waited, we looked around the lobby and saw that it extended in a labyrinthine manner down the entire street. Like many of the extant businesses in Deadwood, the hotel has expanded horizontally over the years, and now occupies an entire block of one and two-story places. The walls have been knocked out between them, and you can wander from one to the other without stepping onto the street.

I said, “Kathleen, Darling, what are those machines with bright lights and noisy sounds?”

“I’m not sure, Dearest; perhaps we should investigate.”

“Well, Pumpkin, I’m not certain, but those machines and the tables covered in green felt appear to be some sort of games of chance.”

“They do, Sweetums; do you think we should try our luck?”

“Yes, Sugarlips,” I said solemnly. “I believe that Wild Bill would have wanted it that way.”

(By the way, that’s exactly how we talk to each other.)

We spent the rest of the day roaming up and down the street in glorious weather, stopping in at one casino or another. Seth Bullock’s Hotel is still there on the sight of his original hardware store, and there are two saloons that claim to be the spot where Hickok was murdered. We explored everything. Drinks were complimentary as long as you were gambling, so we drank for free the rest of the day and had a wonderful time. It wasn’t crowded, the people were friendly and pleasant, and none of the prices were exorbitant, as is unusual for tourist locations.

We had dinner in the Gem Restaurant, where all of the dishes were named for characters from the TV show. Here is a link to the breakfast menu, if you want to see it: https://www.sirved.com/restaurant/deadwood-south_dakota-usa/gem-steakhouse-and-saloon/448710/menus/2847457 I actually won $300, so it was a lucrative day as well.

The next day, we drove back, but stopped in an Iowa motel, just across the border from Minnesota. To reach our hotel, we had to pass another casino, so we stopped in. Amazingly, I won another $300. By the time we got back to Ben’s house, we were tired, but happy that we had made such a memorable trip.

Road Trip to Deadwood, Part 1

In the 1978 comedy, Animal House, starring John Belushi, the men of Delta House find themselves stymied completely by Dean Wormer and his cohorts. They are about to be expelled from school and have their fraternity shut down. When some of the guys realize that there is really nothing that they can do about it, Otter and Boon know what needs to be done. “Road trip!” they announce.

Kathleen and I found ourselves in a similar situation in late September. We closed on our Nashville home on September 12 and drove up to River Falls where Ben and Amber were generous enough to allow us to stay with them and the grandkids until we closed on our new place on September 30.  We couldn’t start cleaning and painting, or even shopping for needed items until we actually had our furniture and were moved into the new place. Feeling a bit restless, and not wanting to overstay our welcome, we knew what we had to do: “Road trip!”

We had recently finished watching the old TV series called Deadwood on HBO. The show aired from 2004-2006, but has been played in reruns ever since then, building up something of a cult following. We resisted watching the show after seeing part of one episode in a hotel room years ago. Kathleen is no prude, but the profanity in the show was especially foul and seemed almost gratuitous, so she was turned off on watching it. She thought that the language was worse than at a Henderson-family reunion—and that’s pretty bad. We have loved long-form television series such as Sopranos, The Wire, and Game of Thrones, however, and eventually a teaching colleague of mine, Adam Wilsman, talked her into giving it another try. We were hooked from the first episode. We learned that the language was indeed excessive, so the show was not for everyone. Realistic profanity was used, though, because the creators were trying to duplicate the raw, uncivilized nature of a Western boom town in the 1870s. Once we got past the language, we found that the plotlines and characters were well-developed and intriguing, and the writing was first-rate and intelligent. In the second season (there were three all together), the writers seemed to make a conscious decision to include elements of Shakespearean writing in the scripts. From that point on, the style of the Bard was evident in each episode, complete with dialogue in iambic pentameter and soliloquies spoken to the severed head of a dead man (similar to the “Alas, poor Yorik” speech in Hamlet). Therefore, when we wanted a destination for our road trip, Kathleen said, “Let’s go to the real Deadwood.”

Deadwood was a mining boom-town that sprang up overnight in the mid-1870s. Gold was discovered on land previously granted to the Lakota tribe, white miners rushed in seeking their fortunes, Native Americans tried to protect their land, and the US Army was sent in to drive them out. It was an unfortunate, familiar story in Western history, and it led to Custer’s Last Stand in 1876, and the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, both in the same region of SW South Dakota. Deadwood became a colorful town that attracted such Western celebrities as Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Wyatt Earp. Hickok was famously murdered there in 1876 while playing poker and holding the notorious “Dead Man’s Hand” of aces and eights.

As we drove over, we noticed some things I had never seen before on the bland, interstate highway system. As soon as we crossed over the Minnesota line into South Dakota, the speed-limit signs reflected the wide-open spaces of the Great Plains. You could legally drive 80 miles per hours in most places. Also, there were warning lights and railroad gates at each entrance ramp because the interstate is often closed during blizzards and heavy snow. Other than that, there was not much to see until we reached the Badlands National Park.  It left plenty of time watch the unchanging landscape and ponder the many famous South Dakotans who have left their mark on history since the area became a state. Let’s see, off the top of my head, there was Billy Mills, one of my boyhood heroes and Olympic 10,000 meter champion in 1964. Tom Brokaw from television. George McGovern, the last liberal to be nominated by a major party for president (in 1972; he lost badly to Nixon). Then there was . . . um . . . well. . . I guess that’s about it. Back to the unchanging landscape.

By the time we got to the Badlands, it was cool, overcast, and drizzling a bit. We were pleased to receive a senior discount—I still can’t get used to that idea—and bought a pass that allows us to enter any national park in the US for the next year. Kathleen paid no heed to the “Beware of Rattlesnakes” signs as she bravely forged a path from the parking lot to the inside the park. She is a true woman of the outdoors. When we reached a good vantage point, we scanned the bizarre landscape in all directions. Over millions of years, wind and water erosion have scoured the terrain, leaving reddish-tan structures of rock standing in all directions. It’s unlike any other place in the country. You could certainly understand why outlaws would choose this location as a place to hide from the law; there was little to differentiate one rock or hill or valley from another. Actually, it was beige, craggy rocks as far as the eye could see. “Look over there, some beige rocks! Hey! Some more beige rocks! My God, woman! Is that a big beige rock way out there?” We returned to the car and drove another twenty miles or so through the park and saw a lot more beige rocks. Perhaps we were just tired from a long day of driving. Perhaps the colors look more spectacular when the sun is out. The truth is, we realized, that we are simply not as affected by natural landscapes, especially deserts, as others might be. We tend to prefer historical sites and places where humans have left an imprint on the world.

We spent the night in Rapid City, SD. There was not much to see there except in the downtown area. On each of the corners, they had erected statues of the presidents. The first forty-one are included so far, through George HW Bush. They were each about five feet tall, which meant they were slightly smaller than life size. Except for James Madison, which was about the right height. I guess Rapid City’s proximity to Mt. Rushmore (about 20 miles away) is why they chose this unusual tribute to the presidents.

The next day brought glorious weather, with lots of sunshine and temperatures in the mid-seventies. On to Rushmore and Deadwood!

Our First Meat Raffle

As I previously mentioned, Kathleen and I were disappointed to learn that Bo’s ‘N Mine, the bar/restaurant on Main Street that had been an institution in River Falls, had closed. We had been looking forward to the meat raffle that we had witnessed in the past and that had been held on Sunday nights. We assumed that the meat raffle had died along with the old name. Still, we liked the feel of the place in its new manifestation as the Nutty Squirrel and went there on a recent Saturday morning to watch Florida’s football team play against the Tennessee Vols. A word or two of explanation is required here.

While waiting to close on our new home and move in, we were spending several weeks with our son and daughter-in-law at their home in River Falls. Ben does not subscribe to a regular cable package and therefore does not get ESPN, which was broadcasting the game. Also, this game is a big deal for us. The Florida-Tennessee game is held in mid-September every year, right around the time of Kathleen’s birthday. Thus, it had become a family tradition for daughter Kristin and her husband, Kevin to join us in Nashville to watch the game and celebrate her birthday. Kristin, Kevin, and I all have one degree or another from the University of Florida and are fans of the team. Since Kathleen and I were momentarily homeless and too far away to view the game with Kristin, we felt it was important to continue the tradition on our own. So there we were, at 11:00 on a Saturday morning at the Nutty Squirrel.

To our dismay, all of the television sets in the bar area were tuned to the Wisconsin-Michigan game. We did, however, find the game on one TV set in the restaurant area. So there we were, sipping Bloody Marys and beers while surrounded by little kids eating pancakes and eggs. It should be mentioned that the Bloody Mary was unlike any I had enjoyed before. It came fully garnished with a large toothpick bearing an olive, a pickle, a hunk of cheese (of course), and a Slim Jim sausage about three inches long. Further, it included a beer chaser. Very elegant. We had a great time cheering the Gators to victory. More important, though, our charming and delightful waitress, Kayli, informed us that the meat raffle was alive and well and living at the Nutty Squirrel on Monday nights. We were beside ourselves with joy.

Two days later, my Chicago Bears were playing Washington on the Monday night game on ESPN. Have I mentioned that Ben does not get ESPN? Off to the Nutty Squirrel again. As soon as we sat at the bar, the waitress gave us two tickets. We simply wrote our names on the back, returned them to her, and waited in glorious expectation for the bounty of meat we were sure would be flowing in our direction.

In a bar surrounded by Packers and Vikings fans, I had to keep a low profile while cheering for their divisional-rivals, the Bears. But no harm befell me, and we had another great time. Every fifteen minutes or so, the bartender called out a name from a ticket. The winner would be led back to the walk-in freezer and allowed to select a package of meat. The woman next to us won early in the evening and chose a package containing six thick pork chops—almost five pounds worth. Winners would shriek with joy and high-five their way back to the freezer. One table of six college students won three times in the course of the evening. Name after name was called, but we remained meatless. As the game entered the fourth quarter, many of the patrons had left and there were only a dozen or so people remaining in the establishment. The bartenders changed shifts, more names were called, and we were beginning to lose hope. By that point in the evening, most of the names being called were absent, and the ticket was tossed. Finally, we heard the magic word, “Kathleen!” and we had won some meat. There wasn’t much left in the freezer, but she selected a nice package of 12 pieces of poultry—a full chicken and four extra thighs. Afterward, we practically danced down the street to our car, clutching our frozen meat in our cold hands. We had such a good time, that we went back again a few weeks later, and Kathleen won again. This time it was early in the drawing, so she had her pick of many items and selected two nice strip steaks. I think we’ll have to keep attending the meat raffle while Kathleen is on a hot streak.

As a postscript, during our first meat raffle, we had the chance to talk to Greg, a man who had been bartending at the same place since the early ‘90s. He explained that the current owner had actually purchased the bar about three years ago. He planned on changing the name right away, but delayed doing so in order to maintain continuity with the customer base. Earlier this year, he shut down for several months for remodeling and updates. They moved the kitchen, opened up the ceiling, and made other changes that I had not noticed at first, given my limited exposure to the place before moving here. The owner also decided that the temporary shut-down gave him the perfect opportunity to change the name. Bo’s ‘N Mine was gone and the Nutty Squirrel rose from its ashes like a beer-serving Phoenix.