Tag: Meat Raffle

A Wonderful Life

On Sunday (Dec. 29), Kathleen’s daughter, Kristin, came to visit. Until she arrived, it felt as if something was missing from our holiday season. We spend some time every Christmas with her and her husband, Kevin, and this move to Wisconsin threatened a long-running streak. Unfortunately, Kevin was ill, so she flew in alone. We made the best of it, however, had a great time, watched a lot of football, and Kristin was able to spend some quality time with her niece and nephew.

The grandkids were a big part of the reason we moved up here, so being with them on the holidays was especially rewarding. On Christmas morning, I was terribly sick, but Kathleen pulled on her bathrobe and drove down the street to watch them open presents. Later that afternoon, I rallied long enough to spend an hour with them while we exchanged our presents. Six-year-old Lucas is probably at the peak of the childlike wonder I associate with Christmas. You could give that kid an empty shoebox, and he would squeal with delight, saying, “How did you know this is what I wanted! My old shoebox has a rip in it, so this is perfect!” We also played a spirited game of Pictionary with the kids. Abigail (nine years old) is quite good at drawing and guessing. What Lucas lacks in artistic talent, he makes up for with enthusiasm and creative thought. The night we played the game, we had had the kids staying with us for the day while their parents were at work. We also had our contractor over for an hour or two while we selected fixtures, etc. for a bathroom remodeling job. While we were upstairs looking at faucets and tile, the kids were downstairs watching Christmas movies and gorging on a stash of Halloween candy they had left at our house. When we went to dinner, perhaps inspired by Wil Farrell’s Elf character, they had pancakes and waffles smothered in syrup, ice cream, and whipped cream. In short, by the time we played the game, they were experiencing the mother of all sugar highs. We told Luke to just yell out the answer when he thought he recognized the picture, but he took it to extremes, racing through a stream-of-consciousness list of items that had us holding our sides with laughter. At one point, Abigail started by drawing a straight line or two. Lucas began spewing guesses at a rapid rate, sounding something like, “Hercules! A sunny day! A bicycle! Garfield the Cat! A tree!” The kids were still wired and bouncing off of the walls when we made a strategic exit. That’s the beauty of being grandparents.

Now to the title of this entry. On Monday, we took Kristin to the Nutty Squirrel to experience the Meat Raffle. The Gators were playing in a bowl game, so we had beer, football, and the chance of winning frozen meat—it was the best of all possible worlds. Almost immediately, I won something for the first time. I selected a T-bone steak that weighed in at over one-and-a-half pounds. A short while later, Kathleen was called and she selected another T-bone. Now the only suspense centered on Kristin.

It had been a day of constant snowfall. I had shoveled our driveway every time a new 3 inches or so of fresh snow came down—three times in all. Then, before we left for the bar, I had to shovel again to remove the 2-feet-deep pile of the while stuff that had been plowed up in front of our drive. Because of all of the snow, the crowd at the Squirrel was thin. Thus, we thought Kristin had a good chance of winning meat of her own. Just then, we saw a familiar face walking toward our table (You have to love the way this happens in a small town). Our son Ben had been next door at Freeman’s Drug Store. Freeman’s is an old-fashioned, mom-and-pop drug store reminiscent of Gower’s store at which a young George Bailey worked in It’s a Wonderful Life. Ben had been picking up a prescription next door when he happened to glance into the window at the Nutty Squirrel and saw our festive group celebrating our meat winnings. He joined us for a beer. Then Kristin’s name was called. She selected a 7 ½ pound pork roast that had been eschewed by the college students who were probably mystified about how to cook such a massive piece of meat.

By this point, all of us were winners on a number of levels, so we headed for the door with ten pounds of frozen meat. At we walked out onto Main Street, the snow was still falling heavily. The fluffy white powder was illuminated by the Christmas lights still decorating the trees up and down the town’s primary road. I swear I could see George Bailey running down the street yelling in a scratchy, Jimmy Stewart voice, “Merry Christmas, movie house! Merry Christmas, you wonderful old building and loan!” I felt like the richest man in town.

It was a magical moment and a fitting end to a great and eventful 2019 for us. I hope everyone has a wonderful 2020.

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.