Nutty Squirrel – Jack Henderson, Take 5

Hygiene is the 1st Thing to Go

First, a quick quiz. Without looking it up, What day of the week is it?

The calendar, or at least our instinctive sense of what day it is at any particular time, has probably been another victim of the Covid crisis. Our daily routines have been dramatically altered, we are out of our usual rhythm, and many of us have slacked off a bit. With millions of people working remotely or affected by the stay-at-home orders, my guess is that many people are taking advantage of the chance to sleep in a little later and ease into their day at a slower pace. During the days when Kathleen was retired, and I was still working, she loved illustrating the difference in our personalities by describing the start of our summer. As soon as school ended, I knew that I had only two months to get a year’s worth of work and house maintenance accomplished. So I made lists. There was a master list, weekly lists, and daily lists. Kathleen always got a chuckle out of my master list that had things like “Run 400 miles,” “10,000 push-ups,” “Write two chapters,” “Paint two bedrooms,” “Read 20 Books,” “Re-Surface the driveway,” “Stain the back deck,” etc. etc. She would roll her eyes at my ambitious plans and say, “My only goal is to be out of my pajamas by noon.” I think a lot of people have that same attitude these days.

Living in a duplex/condo now, there is not nearly as much work to do, so my lists are more modest. I still get up at 5:00 most mornings and do some writing or reading for three hours before I feel as if I’ve done enough to have “earned” breakfast. It’s still dark up here until almost 7:00, so I can’t really get motivated to go outside anyway until mid-morning. Plus, it’s still cold most days, and we had snow flurries early on Thursday. My run, walk, or some combination of the two takes place about 9:30 or 10:00, and I try to get 5 or 6 miles in. So, not until after 11:00 do I finally take a shower. After six decades of showering before the sun is up each morning, it feels like a real luxury to shower that late in the day. I suppose that some people don’t shower at all; without regular social encounters, appearance has diminished in importance.

I also shave my face and head while in the shower. That’s where my slacking off comes in. After many years of shaving on a daily basis (except those times when I grew an ill-advised beard), I now shave only every other day. I figure, I’m not going to see anyone, so who really cares? There are some problems with this. After running, pulling a sweaty, nylon shirt off over my bristly head on the second day is difficult. My head grabs that shirt like Velcro and won’t let go. Still, at least once every 48 hours my head is gleaming like a freshly shaven, silent shroud of skull. (I believe Simon and Garfunkel first said that in their alliterative way; I’m not sure if the words are exactly right, or if, indeed, they were talking about my head.)

My step-daughter, Kristin, works at NASA, so she has been working at home for nearly a month. Someone in Huntsville created a tongue-in-cheek quiz to see how everyone was adjusting to their new work situation. Each question that received an affirmative response was rewarded with one point. They included such things as, Did you brush your teeth? Did you take a shower? Are you wearing shoes? Are you wearing pants? Did you get up at your regular time? There were twenty such questions and an accompanying scale with which to grade yourself. Kristin was awake and working, but she scored a “one.” Apparently, she received a point for logging onto an online conference of some sort. Aside from that, she might as well have been lying in bed.

A lot of the stuff happening around the country is so weird that it’s fascinating. Our lives have definitely been altered in both good and bad ways. I do think it’s important, though, to try to maintain a routine of sorts. After all, when this finally ends, I envision a rush to public places like we haven’t seen since the end of Prohibition in 1933. If I’m hanging out at the Nutty Squirrel that day, arm around some stranger, warbling a slurred version of “Happy Days are Here Again,” I want to make sure they don’t stink.

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.

River Dazzle

After a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat at Ben and Amber’s house on Thursday, we decided to venture out for another River Falls tradition on Friday. River Dazzle is a one-day festival that celebrates the start of winter or perhaps the beginning of the holiday season. I’m not exactly sure what its stated purpose was, but this town sure knows how to celebrate things.

There were special events all over town, from a free matinee film at the Falls Theater on Main Street to free ice skating at the hockey arena. Kids could make crafts, mail letters to Santa, have their faces painted, ride on a horse-drawn wagon, or eat cookies and drink hot chocolate. In the evening, a Christmas parade brought Santa to town and the festive lights along Main Street were lit. This year, the lighting had a special aspect to it, because, as of January 1^st, all of the municipal buildings and streetlights in town will be powered by 100% renewable energy, rather than fossil fuels of any sort. It’s nice to know that my adopted home, despite its diminutive size, has that sort of global awareness.

As the grand-kids were with their other grandparents that day, we approached the afternoon with a more adult-friendly attitude. The weather cooperated. After 6 inches of snow on Tuesday, and before another 6-8 inches over the weekend, Friday afternoon was relatively warm, albeit slushy and overcast. We decided to participate in the “Chili Crawl.” The Chili Crawl, another free event, was a contest to determine the best chili in River Falls. About 20 businesses participated, including 10 of the 11 bars in a two block portion of Main Street. From 1:00 to 5:00, each of the participating businesses offered a tiny cup of chili to anyone who wanted to taste it. You could vote on your favorite, but tasters were also eligible for cash prizes in a drawing if they obtained stamps on their card from at least ten businesses. Kathleen decided that her recent luck in the Meat Raffle would spill over into this drawing, so she was determined to taste at least ten chili samples, earn the stamps, and win cash at the drawing. She was on a mission. As for me, my ambition went only as far as sampling a beer from each of the bars we stopped at.

When we reached downtown, there was a definite party atmosphere in the air. Christmas music filled the street. The sidewalks on both sides of Main Street were packed. Groups of people hustled from business to business carrying their day-glow green cards covered with stamps from the various places they had already visited. Groups of college students, friends from town, and entire, three-generational families strolled together from place to place. Many teams had planned their route ahead of time, hoping that efficiency would aid them in their quest. Most people dressed for the occasion. I saw deliciously ugly Christmas sweaters, Santa hats, and clothing that contained battery packs to keep the Christmas lights they wore twinkling all day long.

Our first stop was the Lazy River Bar and Grill, which is situated along the Kinnickinnic River that runs through town and gives it its name. We had a beer, Kathleen tasted her first chili, and we talked with a guy who explained how the whole thing worked. He wore a Santa hat with a plastic spoon tucked under the edge. No sense in using multiple spoons, I guess. The first chili was very good, and we quickly learned that, in Wisconsin, no chili is complete without cheese scattered on the top. We moved around the corner to a realty office, but a sign said, “No chili this year, Rick.” I love the fact that he signs with his first name, and everyone knows who he is. Next door, Broz Bar and Grill was packed to the gills with no way to really get inside, so we exercised options and moved down the street to the Maverick Corner Saloon. It was crowded, but we were able to squeeze into seats at the bar. I had a Spotted Cow, which seems to be the signature beer of a Wisconsin brewery called New Glarus. Good stuff. People came and went as we sipped our beer, and the crowd in the room turned over several times in about 20 minutes.

As we sat at the bar, taking it all in, a dour-looking man sat down next to me and ordered two Busch Lights. I nodded hello, but he seemed disinclined to engage in conversation, so I left him alone. When the girl behind the bar returned with his two beers, he ordered two more. I saw my opening, so, in my wise-ass way, I gestured toward his four beers and asked, “Are you expecting friends, or are you planning on a big afternoon?” Without cracking a grin or even looking directly at me, he deadpanned, “Both.” End of conversation.

We heard a commotion at the door, and a crowd of wildly dressed men came in, singing and having a great time. These guys had apparently taken literally the directive to don ye now their gay apparel, as they were decked out from head to toe in Christmas regalia. Christmas-tree hats blinked on and off, faces were painted, and elf slippers adorned each foot. They all carried the special River Dazzle cup that allowed them to carry liquor outside the bar, so they had clearly not been deprived of their concoction of choice while walking eleven feet to the next bar. One guy wore an outfit that was, in French artistic terms, a trompe l’oeil, or trick of the eye. (I learned this term while listening in on Robert Womack’s art history class at Harpeth Hall) It’s hard to describe, but it appeared as if he were being carried around on the back of an aged Santa Claus. Very clever costume. Eventually they rolled on out and we followed.

We tried several other places, including our favorite, the Nutty Squirrel, but they proved to be too crowded for our taste. About that time, I caught a glimpse of a frightening sight. Moving toward us with relentless speed, cutting a wake through the throngs of people like a World War II destroyer, with a maniacal gleam of holiday spirit in their eyes and a song on their lips, came my worst nightmare: Christmas carolers. This group all wore Victorian outfits that looked like something out of a Charles Dickens story. I’m not sure why they terrified me so much. I have the same reaction to mariachi singers and those annoying violin players who show up at your table in a romantic restaurant. (Okay; that never actually happened to me, but I’ve seen it in movies, and I live in mortal fear that it might occur someday). It all comes down to my uncertainty about how to behave properly. I mean, do I applaud? Do I sing along? Am I supposed to tip them? If so how much? Or, do I simply stand there with a stupid grin on my face and silently pray for them to leave? I know not what course others may take, but as for me, I did what I always do in socially awkward situations: I looked for the nearest available exit. I grabbed Kathleen’s arm and dragged her into the first doorway I saw.

It happened to be a Mexican Restaurant that was not participating in the Chili Crawl, but offered margaritas for $1. To recover from our narrow escape from a traumatic encounter, I had a fish-bowl sized one for three dollars while Kathleen had a smaller one and announced that she had had enough chili and liquor for the day. So, rather than the ten places she had vowed to hit, we had made it to two. I was reminded of the scene near the end of the Godfather where an aged Don Corleone says, “I don’t drink as much wine as I used to.”

We didn’t make it to the lighting of Main Street, and we were home before it got dark (as we usually are these days), but we discovered another fun tradition here in River Falls.

River Dazzle rules.

Slow Progress & New Friends

I woke up the other morning to a beautiful, light dusting of snow on the ground. I’m guessing that I won’t think it’s all that wonderful in a few months. Last March, during spring break, we visited up here for a few days, and there were still six-feet-deep snow drifts surrounding Ben’s driveway. I went for a run yesterday morning with the wind-chill temperature about 20. The first thing I did when I got home was get on Amazon and order some better running gloves, socks, and a ski mask. The other adjustment we will have to make is the shorter days. We are far enough north that there is less daylight than we are used to having. In the winter, it stays dark until after 8:00 and gets dark earlier at night. Then again, we don’t plan on being here all winter. There are Caribbean cruises, friends in warm climates, and craps tables in Vegas all beckoning to us during the drab, grey days of January and February.

We are still settling into our new home in incremental stages. I have now painted the entire place except the kitchen and three bathrooms, which will require more thorough updating before I paint. Painting over an interior stairway was especially challenging, as it includes a drop of nearly 30 feet from the peak of the upstairs vaulted ceiling to the bottom of the stairway in the basement. Luckily, the movers cooperated by destroying a large desk of mine during the move. I was able to take pieces of the shattered desk and cobble together a scaffold over the stairs. Then I balanced a ladder on top of that and could reach most of the ceiling edges with a long stick. I completed that part of the task while Kathleen was out of the house so as not to induce a panic attack. We have also ordered new furniture and carpeting, which should arrive in the next week or two. We are waiting to put most of our books and other things on shelves and into cabinets that will have to be moved by the folks laying the carpet. Thus we still can’t find some stuff that might be hidden at the bottom of boxes in our storage room. One of my favorite folksingers is Loudon Wainwright. Back in the ‘80s, he captured the frustrations of moving from one home to another in a song called “Cardboard Boxes.” Here is a sample of the lyrics and a link to a YouTube video of the complete song.

We got the books and the records and the tapes and the pictures
And the pots and the pans and all the breakable glass
The living room couch and the dining room table
The washer and the dryer; what a pain in the ass

–Loudon Wainwright, 1985

Aside from that, we are slowly adjusting to our new town, meeting people, and finding our way around River Falls and the Twin Cities and its suburbs. Thank goodness for GPS, or we’d still be stuck on the various interstates weaving in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul. About once a week, I’ll go to a local restaurant in the morning to read and enjoy breakfast. “The Kinni Café” is my favorite for this, as they offer a discounted price for seniors along with friendly, personable service. The other day, I overheard a conversation there that captures the laid-back attitude we’ve seen among the people in this small town.

1st man: “Have you seen George lately?”

2^nd man: “Yeah, but, ya know, he’s had some health issues.”

1^st: “No kiddin’; what’s goin’ on?”

2^nd: “Well, his heart stopped.”

1^st: “Jeez, that’s too bad.”

2^nd: “Yeah. They had to, ya know, get it goin’ again.”

1^st: “Ah, well that’s good.”

Here they were, talking about a friend having a heart attack, and the tone sounded as if they were discussing a dodgy lawnmower engine that wouldn’t start on the first pull. I guess they don’t get excited easily up here.

In terms of friendships, we are slowly meeting new people. We went to another meet raffle and, once again, Kathleen won two massive T-Bones worth about $20. The bartenders, Greg and Sandy, now know her by name, as do Lisa and Kayli, two students who moonlight as waitresses. Last night, we stopped in for dinner and had a great conversation with a fun couple we had met on an earlier visit. We are older than the parents of Jake and Nina, but we enjoy talking to them whenever we cross paths. We have explored several other bars in town, but the Nutty Squirrel has become the one we stop at most frequently. The other night, grand-daughter Abigail (age 9) walked the half-mile to our house by herself to deliver some mail that had gone to their house. She called first, afraid that we might be out at “that Nutty Squirrel place.” Is it bad when your grandkids know what your favorite bar is?

Our duplex/condo is part of an elongated cul-du-sac at the end of a long street adjoining a golf course. I think there are 28 units in 14 pairs of buildings. Most of the people who live here are retired, and they have all proved to be helpful without being intrusive. They also hold periodic happy-hour gatherings on Wednesday afternoons for about an hour. It seems that 6 to 12 people attend each of these, although, the particular people might vary. The first one we attended was outdoors on the grassy common area, but lately we have been driven indoors by the cold temperatures. The people are all pleasant and bright, which makes for lively and enjoyable conversation. In particular, Jane and Larry taught English at UWRF before retiring. I had a great discussion with Larry last week about the history of mystery and detective stories, ranging from Edgar Allen Poe, to Sherlock Holmes, to Ross McDonald, to contemporary writers. While painting walls, I have been listening to a Great Courses lecture series on that very subject, so the timing was fortuitous for me.

In short, we have been impressed with the friendliness and intelligence of everyone we have met. DMV clerks, waitpersons, delivery men and women, cable installers, and everyone else with whom we have been involved have been helpful, competent, personable, and bright. Two factors play into this, I think. First, of course, is the public education system. We pay considerably higher property taxes up here than we did in Tennessee, but we are happy to pay it if it results in better education than the abysmal public schools of Tennessee. Another factor that affects the quality of the work force in Wisconsin is that they seem to pay higher wages. Every business we go into has a “Now Hiring” sign, and many of them mention the hourly wage, which is better than comparable jobs in Nashville. I suppose this all means they are able to attract smarter workers with a strong work ethic. This is all just impressionable evidence and a small sample size, but, so far, we have had pleasant interactions with almost everyone we have met in River Falls.

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.

Day 1: The Bacon Bash

September 15, 2019—First Day in River Falls

On my first full day in my new home town, I took a walk downtown (about two miles) for breakfast at the South Fork Café. Two doors down stood a bar/restaurant that had loomed large in our memories and was one of the things Kathleen and I looked forward to upon moving to River Falls. On an earlier visit, a year or two ago, we conducted an impromptu pub crawl along Main Street and stopped into the bar called Bo’s ‘N Mine. We wandered in, and the bartender immediately informed us that we could enter the “Meat Raffle” free of charge. We declined, as we were just visiting and had no place to store any meat. Periodically, during the night, however, they would call out a winning number and someone won some meat. We thought it might just be venison, or wild turkey, or some sort of game, but they actually awarded nice cuts of beef, poultry, or pork, packaged and ready to cook. Now I discovered that Bo’s ‘N Mine was gone and a new place called The Nutty Squirrel had taken its place. My disappointment was severe, and I ate my breakfast thinking we had missed out on our chance to win meat on a Sunday night.

Just when I thought that our protein intake would suffer by moving to a town that no longer had a meat raffle, my spirits soon picked up again. Upon leaving the South Fork Café after a breakfast that couldn’t be beat, I noticed signs and banners every few steps that advertised the “Bacon Bash,” a small festival that would be held that very day. I had no idea what to expect, but that afternoon I attended the Bacon Bash with Kathleen and Lucas, our six-year-old grandson.

What we found was the typical, small-scale festival with booths hawking everything from hand-made jewelry to windows capable of insulating the owner from Wisconsin’s onerous winter winds. At one end of the street fair, a Janis-Joplin-Wannabe was belting out bluesy songs, but most people gathered around tents with radios broadcasting the Minnesota Vikings versus Green Bay Packers game—a huge regional rivalry in this town near the state border. The centerpiece of the event, however, was the row of food tents, all offering various items containing greater and lesser amounts of bacon. The savory scent of cooking bacon wafted through the air, tempting even the most health-minded people to sample the strange concoctions. Everything there had some sort of bacon–even the cinnamon rolls. For those lacking in imagination, bacon-on-a-stick offered a simple solution to satisfying their pork craving. With a cup of semi-sweet white wine in hand, I chose the shrimp kabob, with each jumbo shrimp wrapped in a brown strip of fried bacon. Kathleen opted for a chicken-wrap sort of thing with bacon bits scattered throughout. Lucas proved to be the most adventurous of all, picking the cheese curds smothered in bacon bits.

For the uninitiated, cheese curds are a regional delicacy found in Canada and northern parts of the US. “Curds” are sort of the dregs of cheese remaining after the cheese-making process is completed. They are little pieces of cheese in balls or small lengths, and, in Wisconsin, they tend to be made of cheddar. While the cranberry is the official state food of Wisconsin, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a restaurant that does not serve cheese curds. In fact, cheese in general is ubiquitous. With every meal you order, you might be asked, “Do you want a wheel of cheese with that or just a wedge?” Another feature of Wisconsin-style cheese curds is that they are invariably lightly battered and deep fried. If the mere description of these little treats doesn’t have your mouth watering and your arteries hardening, picture them mixed with fresh bacon fried to a crisp brownish-red color scattered generously on the top. They were amazing.

As a post-script to the day, I later bought a local newspaper, which comes out weekly. That particular issue contained a story about the closing of a local landmark, the Bo’s ‘N Mine tavern. Apparently, the bar and restaurant had been operating at that location for more than a half-century. Then the story got a bit strange. The owner hadn’t sold the business, he still owned it but had simply renamed it to The Nutty Squirrel. I’m not sure why you would change the name of a business with fifty years of name recognition built up, but that’s exactly what he did. The story went on to explain that they had done extensive renovations on the interior of the building. So, later that week, we eagerly took the family to the new Nutty Squirrel to see what it looked like after the massive changes. Inside, however, I could detect a few cosmetic changes, but no substantial differences from what it had looked like before. Now admittedly, I had only been in there a couple of times before, so perhaps I was missing something. I’ll keep you posted.