Time for another newsletter , it is simply amazing to me how fast the summer and these newsletters go by . For those that are unaware , the Schells Brewery celebrated their 150 th anniversary the weekend of September 17 th and 18 th . The Border Batch chapter was asked to have a display set up at the celebration and of course , the chapter accepted the invite . The week before at Stubiefest , we did a “ dry run ” of the chapter display , just to see what needed to be improved or changed . A few ideas were tossed out , such as , putting out some free beer cans as “ seed ” to help kick start those interested in collecting .
Saturday the 18 th arrived and that was the day for our display . We needed to have our booth set up by 9:30 am and we had no problems there . As luck would have it our display booth was right across from the beer stand , so we did not have to walk far to enjoy some Schells beer . I had about 300 beer cans from the 1980 ’ s gathering dust in boxes and decided to put those cans out as freebies . I put a limit of 2 beer cans per person and by the end of the day all 300 or so cans were gone ! Wow ! We also did a flyer on the history of the Border Batch along with info on the BCCA and the North Star chapter .
Those manning the booth were , Tom & Judy , Stubie & Lori , Teri & Charles and of course myself . All of us spent the day from 11 am to 5 pm answering every question you could think of , about breweriana and beer in general . Since I like to talk about beer , this day was my podium and all the world a stage , I personally had a blast . Not sure how many people came thru but , I did hear there was somewhere around 4000 people that entered the brewery grounds . There were brewery tours , museum was open , gift shop , old time bands and a very LOUD cannon that rattled my teeth loose . I would certainly say
that the Border Batch display booth was a resounding success . We did not pick up any new members that day but , that is fine . At least we got plenty of information out and in my view that is all you can do .
I had one lady ask about Pabst cans . So I showed her a very old 1930 ’ s Pabst can from my collection and she just flipped out . She wanted to buy it , but when I told her the price that sorta damped her enthusiasm . The other issue was that our son Charles , got stung by a bee on his eyelid that day . He survived and all is well , although it wrecked his afternoon . Plenty of good will was handed out that day and I know that in the future it will be returned .
For us this year , the Border Batch events have been an absolute whirlwind of fun and good times . The people , places and friends made are just too numerous to recount them all . I guess one of our favorite moments was at the chapter meeting at the Anderson home on Lura Lake . The pontoon ride , the Amp car , beer , camping and just plain good times , and the sunset that still is in my mind . We sat on the dock and watched that multi colored “ snocone ” fade out of sight that evening . All was right with the world .
Instead of a quote , I ’ ll end with this nonsense . I just recently found out that the month of October is Squirrel Awareness month . I don ’ t make this stuff up . Go put it in your search engine . Nuts !!! Till next time ,
Jay Martin # 16605 .