We drove to Minneapolis over the weekend, high gas prices be damned. Clint's family has settled into their home there, and we wanted to see how things looked. When we left to return home by heading west on Monday morning I couldn't help but think where do all these cars heading into the city fit? Incoming traffic didn't seem to thin until we had driven about 20 miles out. The more miles we drove down the highway, the more I relaxed. Traffic and I do not blend well. We stopped at the monastery at St. John's University and bought a couple loaves of the monks' bread - good, hearty whole wheat bread. Our next stop was in Lisbon to visit with my folks.
Dad remembers lots of interesting stories, and it's fun to listen to him tell them. Tales of the prohibition days always entertain me. For a few years his family lived near Nome, ND. When they were getting settled, Art and Emil Kaatz were helping put a cow in a pen in the barn. She fell into a hole and when they inspected it, they found a whisky still nested neatly down in there under a false floor. For a couple of years after that, apparently-thirsty strangers, not knowing the property had changed hands, would stop in the yard asking for Jack.
This story especially amused me. Dad's Grandpa Menge and Joe Spiekermeier owned a still. They must have been on good terms with the sheriff because he called one day to warn them he was coming out to have a look. They showed their ingenuity then by hiding the still up inside the cupola of the barn. In another incident in the sand hills area the Ransom County sheriff must not have been on such terms with moon shiners because when he came out to one place to snoop around they shoved his car into the river.
Prohibition ended 75 years ago, and people of my generation have not experienced the shenanigans carried on during that time. There is always talk now of legalizing some drugs like marijuana to eliminate some of the legal problems and maybe that will come to pass someday, but I don't think the stories surrounding it will be as amusing as those of the homemade distilled spirits that the old-timers can tell.
