Mistake, Wisconsin by Kersti Niebruegge

Author:Kersti Niebruegge [Niebruegge, Kersti]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kersti Niebruegge
Published: 2014-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Velkommen! That was the cheerful greeting on the red sign, painted in Norwegian rosemaling that hung behind the large bar in the Nimrod Lodge. In true Northwoods juxtaposition, the welcome sign hung above an old tommy gun that had been fished out of Waushauna Lake back in 1984. Both were displayed between a twenty-three-point buck and a seventeen-point buck, both shot decades ago by founder Bill Eckerstorfer.

The tavern room at the lodge was where the prized macho trophies of Mistake were displayed because it meant that everyone would see them. It was like the community family room. Why hang an elk at home when more people can admire it at the lodge? There was the legendary bear that local mom Susie Galineau killed when she saw it destroying her petunias; a wolf that John Petersson, the founder of the Chitchat Supper Club, had trapped; a fifty-pound musky that an eighteen-year-old had caught during the bicentennial; and three chipmunks a young Mike Zwicky shot during the 1974 chipmunk infestation. There were also a handful of high school football trophies on display near the window. But the prize trophy, positively screaming with Americana, hung over the fireplace: a stuffed bald eagle from the good old days, shot by the first Mistake postmaster when hunting the birds was legal.

Day and night, old men sat around the bar, drank, and told tall tales about the glory days before the Internet ruined the world. These guys were the only Nimrods who regularly wore the Order of the Nimrods lapel pin, which depicted a shotgun and a musky that crossed to make an X. Younger men and families would filter in during the afternoon and evening. Many kids got their first taste of beer at the Nimrod Lodge since it was legal in Wisconsin for children to be served alcohol as long as their parents were present. Kids didn’t care about the origin of the unique law, but it was generally attributed to the beer-drinking traditions of German immigrants. It certainly made for some lively wedding receptions in the tavern room, like the time all of the Brabender boys got in a Packers versus Vikings fistfight with their Minnesota cousins. Luckily, the Brabenders morphed into “I love you, man” drunks as the night wore on, and by the end of the evening, they were all arm in arm and singing “America the Beautiful” under the stuffed eagle.

During the summer, most lodge action was by the boat pier on Waushauna Lake and the large fish-cleaning shed. That smelly shack was constantly full of people, flies, and grateful raccoons at all hours from May to September. During the colder months, the lodge was a required stop on all snowmobile trips, so that riders could refuel with a hot toddy before heading back into the elements. Some cities in the Northwoods championed silent winter sports, like snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, but Mistake fully supported the rights of all Americans to loudly race gas-guzzling machines over frozen lakes, dodging the ice shanties like obstacles in a video game.

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