45 Fairly True Tales from the Old Corner Bar Ships Free! |
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$ 17.99 USD |
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SHIPS FREE, WI Sales Tax Paid! ILLUSTRATED.
Come on in to the old Corner Bar! Meet the gang. Lift a glass. Join the fun. Laugh at the latest jokes or another late-night prank gone awry. Learn more than you might wish to know about the goings on around town or in the only other tavern in the village. These tales will leave you laughing or shocked or sad or utterly flabbergasted when you learn how clever some patrons of the old Corner Bar can be one minute, yet how dimwitted the next. So what are you waiting for? Grab a copy of this salute to every old Corner Bar and enjoy this journey into days gone by. Step into the past in the old Corner Bar. We’ve been waiting for you! Note: 6 of these stories are found in James Brakken’s other short story collections, Billyboy, the Corner Bar Bear and The Moose & Wilbur P. Dilby. But the remaining thirty-nine tales are all new. Written for adults but suitable for all ages. |
The Chapters:
Edna
Lucky Louie’s Lake Lot
Generosity
Moving the Privy
Nice Fish
The Sign
Snook Wilson
Triplets
Midnight Marksmen
Louisville Slugger
The Androy Affair
Chrystal’s Ice Cream Parlor
Jokesters
The Senator
Clarence’s Necktie
Up North
Billyboy, the Corner Bar Bear
The Winter Dam Incident
Exeland
Boys
Eye Opener
Norbert’s 2nd Comeuppance
Big Bucks
Fireworks
Insurance
Mincemeat
Bullfeathers!
Last Pocket
Changing the Channel
Deer Me!
“Detective” Norbert Finstead
Saturday Night
An Old Fashioned Tale
The Bet
Tim-berrr
The Raid
The Runaway
A Friendly Bar
Dinner for Two
Irked
The Boss
Mutt and Jeff
Wilmer
The Wedding Singers
The Ghost Buck
Addendum: The Truth behind the 45Tales
This excerpt features Sonny Peterson, a fictional character comprised of a half-dozen "characters" I've assembled for your amusement in the book. He appears in no fewer than 13 of the 45 tales. His counterpart is often Snook Wilson, Snook is made up from 3 or 4 game wardens I've known. It makes for some great fun!
Mincemeat
I no more than sit down at the bar and order a bottle of Fitger’s when I hear the door open. And in stumbles Sonny Peterson, shaking like a leaf and white as a ghost.
“Jeez, Sonny,” I say. “You feelin’ alright?”
“I’m better now,” he replies. “But I wasn’t a little while ago. You see I’m lucky to be alive …”
Now, this is not how most stories started at the old Corner Bar. A more common conversation usually went more like …
“How’s it goin’, Sonny.”
“Okay, I s’pose. You?”
“I’m here, ain’t I?”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“How’s the wife?”
“She’s over to the Cities visitin’ her ma awhile.”
“Your dog doin’ okay then?”
“I’ll say. Flushed a partridge yesterday.”
“Get ’im?”
“Missed him clean. Scared him, though.”
“Catchin’ any fish?”
“Nah. You?”
“Not so much. Well, I better get goin’.”
“See ya ’round, pal.”
“Yeah, see ya, Sonny. Keep her between the ditches.”
“You, too.”
That’s how most conversations went at the old Corner Bar. Thus, you see how surprised I was when a shaking, sickly looking Sonny stumbles in from the street one September morning saying, “Sheesh! I’m lucky to be alive.”
“What the heck happened to you, Sonny?” I ask.
“It’s like this,” he begins. “Me and my dog was hunting partridge down along the Namekagon River. Over by Les and Helen’s place. On the way back, I spots me a nice buck along the road so I pulls over down the road a ways and grabs my bow and doubles back, hopin’ for a shot.” Sonny waves at Harvey. “Bring me a Blatz, Harv,” he says. “And a shot of Old Crow to settle my nerves some.”
“Coming right up, Sonny,” says Harvey. “Say, you’re white as a ghost. You feeling okay?”
“I’m better now,” he answers. “See, I was sneakin’ up on a buck this mornin’ but, when I got there he was gone. So I turns back and right there across the road up in this tree is a bear.”
“Then what?” I say. (To be continued)
Below: This bear cub and porcupine diorama hung above the backbar for decades.
Forty-five Fairly True Tales from the Old Corner Bar
Ah, the good old days! When the rivers of time flowed slower and local taverns served as public meeting places. Although these “fairly true” tales could have come from almost any watering hole, most originated in the old Corner Bar in Cable, Wisconsin, a usually quiet village not far from Lake Superior and deep within the Chequamegon-Nicollet National Forest.
While names and some of the “particulars” have been changed, these stories are based on true events as told to or recalled by James Brakken, Bayfield County’s award-winning author of historical fiction novels and short stories.
So, come on in. Meet the gang. Lift a glass and join the fun. Laugh at the latest jokes or another late-night prank gone awry. Learn more than you might wish to know about the goings on around town or in the only other tavern in the village.
These fairly true tales will leave you laughing or shocked or sad or utterly flabbergasted when you learn how clever some patrons of the old Corner Bar can be one minute, yet how dimwitted the next.
Step into the past in the old Corner Bar. We’ve been waiting for you!
Note: 6 of these stories are found in James Brakken’s other short story collections, Billyboy, the Corner Bar Bear and The Moose & Wilbur P. Dilby. But the remaining thirty-nine tales are all new. So what are you waiting for? Grab a copy of this salute to every old Corner Bar and enjoy this journey into days gone by.
This excerpt comes from The Winter Dam Incident. It is based on two stories told to me about game warden Ernie Swift from Sawyer County. The story is being told at the Corner Bar by "my" game warden, Snook Wilson. Snook is telling the gang about two Chicago thugs who were shooting muskies and sturgeon with Thompson machine guns at the Winter Dam. (See photo above left.) We enter mid-stream. Here's Snook:
“Now about this time, the man in the car says, ‘Forget it, Jake. Let this nobody game warden (Swift) have his fun. Just take the ticket to the boss and let him know about this. He’ll take care of things.’
“Then Swift hands each man his citation and says, ‘I want you to unload those Thompsons and pull the magazines. You’re not using them in Sawyer County ever again. And the next time I catch you poaching fish or game, with or without those sub-machine guns, you can plan on spending time in the slammer.’”
“See?” Edna shouted, “I told you so. That’s where those bums belong.”
Snook finished his beer. “So then Warden Ernie Swift walks over to his car, gets in, and drives off.”
“Just like that?” Sonny asked. “You mean he didn’t confiscate the sturgeon?”
“Nope. Those sturgeon were full of bullet holes and shot up so bad that Swift figured that they wouldn’t be good for anything anyway. He figured he’d leave them there to stink up the violators’ Ford.”
“So did they pay their fines?” Fuzzy asked.
“Well, that’s the clincher. The next day, Swift gets a visit. It’s one of the two thugs. He says there’s a man outside who wants to talk to him. So out from his office Ernie goes and there, in the back of a big, black Cadillac, is none other than Al Capone.”
“The Al Capone?” Harvey asks.
“The Al Capone, Harv. And Capone says to Swift, ‘Where I come from, if some lamebrain lawman pulled a stunt like that on one of my men, he’d never see another sunrise.’
“And Swift puts his finger in Al Capone’s face and says, ‘Well, this isn’t Chicago, pal. And if any of your men ever inflict harm on any officer up here, those men will never leave prison alive. And that, includes you, mister.’”
“Holy cow,” says Sonny. “That Ernie Swift had some backbone.”
“You bet he did,” Snook said, as he grabbed his ... (To be continued. And YES, Swift DID give Al Capone a ticket. It was for fishing w/o a license!)