When we last left off this story , I was sitting in a bar in Shakopee having lunch on the way back from Duluth in late April . A text message comes in and I look at it . It was from Bert Whittington . It contains a picture of a highly coveted Grain Belt backlit ROG sign . He says he ’ s sitting with a friend at the bar and his friend is trying to sell this sign . He had it on Craigslist and recieved 3 offers and didn ’ t like any of them . He asked if I wanted to make an offer . Well of course I want to . It had a little paint peeling around the Friendly , but hey a nice one just sold on ebay for $ 6,600 . I said how about $ 1,600 ? He wrote back right away and said “ sold ”! Wow ! Was I happy . Now to tell the wife . She took it pretty well and liked the idea of another trip back to Duluth . So I told him Peter we ’ d Freuchen
be back on Memorial weekend to pick it up . I was estatic . Last trip a Kernan in an original frame and now this . Memorial weekend came and we ’ re on the way up north . We stop in a little joint about 15 miles south of Cloquet called Rob ’ s Mahtowa Tavern . Bert ’ s friend called me and he was in a hurry to get to the lake for the weekend . So he wanted to meet up at the Black Bear Casino parking lot . We payed the tab and headed for the casino . He brought a generator to plug in the sign and show me that it worked . I was happy and then he pulls out a nice Grain Belt radio and wants to know if I ’ m interested . I have one , but you can never have too many radios so we bundled that into the deal for a reasonable price and he headed off to the lake . We continued on to Duluth . We checked into our hotel in Canal Park and did some bar hopping and had supper . Saturday we headed north to Hibbing . The last time we were there the Hull Rust Mine was closed and we wanted to see it . Driving through Hibbing there ’ s this cool little bar with a Hamm ’ s sign out front . Of course we had to stop and have one . The guy who owned the bar was as nice and friendly of a bartender as you could ever want . He asked what we were doing and we said we ’ re here to see the mine . His customers chimed in as some of them
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