Nickle Dickle Day

Contrary to what I was led to believe, it was Nickle Dickle Day and not Nickle Pickle Day.



Go figure. Not exactly sure what it was all about but I saw neither pickles nor dickles and certainly no beers for only a nickle. There were a few places where you could get a beer for half-a-buck though. Actually there was quite a large fair in a park with all kinds of crafts and food for sale and a very impressive show of old classic cars and hotrods.



After experiencing a near castration of Cubby at Rainy Lake when a potato gun misfired the Mysterious Chinese Lady decided to buy a marshmellow gun to replace it.



Bruce, you will be getting this shortly; be safe and remember not to inhale.

789) Floyd’s



Our first stop on our way to the festivities was this place in Victoria, Minnesota, that offered the hard to resist Week Ender. And what is that you might ask? A large Bloody Mary with your choice of vodka (price is the same, but they didn’t have Popov) and a small beer of your choice on the side. The Bloody Mary contains a beef stick, an olive, a shrimp, a pickle, a cube of cheese, a hot pepper, a few cocktail onions, a celery stick, an asparagus spear, and a pickled green bean. Truly a breakfast in a glass.

Toots Serving Up Breakfast


There is an old wooden bar in here with a tile foot rest. There are old wooden shelves and cabinets behind the bar along with a beer station with eleven spigots. Shelves of liquor flank the beer station. Old caps and some Floyd’s caps that are for sale hang above the bar back. There is a pool table and an electric dartboard to entertain you. Lots of electric beer signs on the walls, a lot of them shaped like guitars. A mirrored disco ball hangs from the ceiling. The pool table is mounted on retractable wheels so that it can be moved out of the way to accommodate a band. There are a few televisions mounted high on the walls. Round tables and stools occupy the rest of the space and there is another pool table off to the side in a separate game room.

I had the Week Ender with a small glass of Newcastle Brown Ale.

790) Bangarang Bar & Wangagut Grill



Kind of a great twofer here. You just walk out the back door of Floyd’s and you feel like you have stepped out into a bar in the islands. Well, there is no beach and the sound of traffic replaces that of waves crashing on the shore, but it isn’t a bad approximation. From the Tiki Bar to the brightly decorated stage



(I imagine this place is really fun at night) this place looked great.

After our hearty breakfast and considering the early hour I opted out of the various exotic drinks that they offer here.

Rico And Bar Man Having A Beer With Bartender Pete


We were a bit freaked out by this guy observing us from the nearby fence.



There is plenty to see here, from fish nets to paintings to monkeys in the trees. Minnesota isn’t known for its mild winters but they have outdoor heaters here and Pete said they crank up a big fire pit so even in the dead of winter this place sees significant action. I was compelled to match my carrying-a-beer-on-your-head skills with one of the locals, but she beat me hands down.



I had a Boulevard Beer before we headed out to Waconia where the Nickle Dickle festival was taking place.

791) The Saloon



We hit Waconia and then hit The Saloon. I would like to tell you more about it but it was so crowded that about all you could see were other people. The place was packed. It looked like a pretty plain place with a light bar and walls. Lord only knows if there was anything hanging on them, other then semi-loaded people. We headed outside to an almost as packed concrete slab surrounded by a fence and some wrought iron tables and chairs. A card table served as an auxiliary beer station and when the bartender wasn’t busy swatting away flies he would serve you up a draft beer.

I had a draft Budweiser and off we toddled.

792) Mark and Jessie’s Lanes



What is a small town without a small town bowling alley. By this time Sandy and The Mysterious Chinese Lady had located food, barbecued turkey legs, and we needed a place to gnaw on them. They didn’t seem to be too fussy in here about letting you bring in food from the outside so in we went. It was just a small bowling alley, only eight lanes. At least a couple of them had bumpers where the gutters would be so the little kids could actually knock down pins. They seemed to be having a good time.

The bar was just a plain wooden affair tucked into a corner with pretty much just a shelf behind it for liquor and a couple of coolers for beer. Just beer signs and televisions for decorations.

I had a bottle of Miller Genuine Draft.

793) American Legion Post 150



This is your typical older American Legion Post located in an old school. The U shaped bar has a brown Formica top with a brown padded faux leather edge to lean your weary head upon, or at least rest your arms. There were spot lights in the ceiling over the bar and brownish red bucket bar chairs. There was one small television on the wall and a big television in one corner above a shelf full of sports trophies. One wall had a list of all of the members. Several Schmidt Beer lights hang from the ceiling.

There are the somewhat typical decorations, deer antlers, an old military rifle in a glass case, another glass case holding ceramic decanters seemed to be from conventions of long ago, pictures of duck and pheasants. Quite a comfortable place made even more so by the fact that we all chipped in $5 so Sandy could by pull-tabs and she won $200. Not a bad return. Sandy is a very lucky lady. When I was in Minnesota last year she won $500 on pull-tabs at a different American Legion Post.

We had met some friends here so we all hung out and enjoyed a couple of drinks paid for out of our winnings.

Bar Man, Sandy, Rico, Dawn, And Bob


I had a Jim Beam and water.

794) Schmitty’s



We were headed back home but as we passed through Victoria we decided to stop at this bar that looked like it hadn’t changed in ages. That is one of the nice things about bars in small towns, you feel like you have entered a bit of a time warp. Some of the customers look like they are locked in the sixties, like Peter, the self proclaimed “Bald Hippie” who still collects LPs and is, of course, a huge fan of The Grateful Dead.

Bar Man And The “Bald Hippie”


There is a real old wooden bar in here with a bit of an odd shape to it, kind of like the Greek letter Omega. The bar chairs have black bucket seats. There is a small television above the bar and a larger one off to the side. An ATM machine allows you to continue buying your drinks after you run out of money, how very thoughtful. There is a 2005 Golden Tee machine and a Silver Streak Bowling machine. A bit out of place here is one of those fish for a toy with a steam shovel contraptions. I guess this is for if you feel guilty about staying out so late and want to bring the little lady a little something to make up for it. One of those little cuddly pink rabbits that probably cost you at least $20 in quarters usually does the trick.

Big neon beer signs grace the walls along with a couple of rotating globe lights advertising Michelob Golden Light and Sam Adams. There is that oh-so-clever “Free Beer Tomorrow” sign hanging on the wall as well.

There is an attached pool room with four tables and an electronic dart machine at one end. The windows in this room look out onto a nice little lake.

I must have been hypnotized by the rotating light because I had a Michelob Golden Light.

795) Maxwell’s



We were going to a Golden Gophers football game so we stopped here first to hook up with a couple of old friends, Jerry and Pat, who I hadn’t seen in awhile.

Bar Man With The Ladies, Sandy, The Mysterious Chinese Lady, And Pat


Bar Man With The Guys, Rico And Jerry


This place is within an easy walk of the Hubert H. Humphrey collapsible stadium right in the heart of downtown Minneapolis so it was packed with fans. Long ago this place as Mixer’s and was another favorite hangout of mine. It was a much seedier place back then and if you knew the right people you could go through a door and down a set of steps to “The Dungeon.” This was just a room in the basement with a few over-stuffed chairs and a dilapidated sofa where you could have a semi-private party (which we did, almost every time we were here). Now it is kind of a blond wood type of place with tightly packed pub tables and overhead lights that look a bit like inverted lotus flowers. The brown wooden bar is quite long and features 14 spigots for beer. There is a large television on one end of the bar and two smaller ones mounted above the bar. There are mirrors behind the bar with a stained glass ledge above them lined with beer bottles.

I had several different types of beers here of which at least one was a Leinenkugels Red before heading to the game.

Well, a fruitful day with seven bars hit making 795 for the year and leaving but 205 to go. I suspect any suspense about whether or not I would hit 800 bars before leaving Minnesota is starting to fade.

Home Again Home Again, Kind Of

Well, not really home home, but I did grow up in Minneapolis and for many years made the first bar I stopped at my home away from home.

787) Lyles



Friends of mine live just two short blocks away from this block that is on the corner of 20th and Hennepin, and many is the night that we would close this place up at 1:00 A.M. and then toddle over there to order a pizza or two and play some cards or a bit of table tennis. This was home away from home for over ten years back in the early seventies. Whew, sometimes I don’t know how we all, or at least most of us, survived. It must have been the free pickled herring and cheese and crackers that they served during happy hour.

The place has been remodeled a few times since back in the day, but not so much that I don’t recognize it. They did redo the front though and the old Lyle’s sign is gone replace with, in my mind at least, a much less classy one. There is an elongated rectangular bar with a wood grained Formica top and a plastic wood-grained paneled front with a rough wood foot rest. The bar stools are chromed with round dark red seats. Nothing fancy inside the rectangle, just shelves and coolers set below the bar. There are two beer stations on the bar with a total of 19 spigots. Not a bad selection of beers and a welcome change from the somewhat mundane domestic stuff I was drinking up north.

The bartender, Lisa, was very nice and we chatted a bit about the old days that only I remembered.

Lisa, The Nice And Young Bartender


Along one wall is a series of ledges that match the bar top with stools in front of them. Bright red booths with dark brown tables line two other walls, one of which is actually a partition that separates the bar area from a small dining area with more booths and a few tables.

In the back is a two level game room with a couple of red felt covered pool tables, a foosball machine, Sopranos and a Time Machine pinball machines, an electronic dartboard, a Madden Football machine, a Golden Tee golf machine, a Big Buck Hunter II machine and a Silver Strike bowling machine. There were also three television, one was a fairly large rear projection affair. When I was a kid we just had one green felt covered pool table, a couple of pinball machines, and no television back here.

The walls in all the rooms are pretty much covered in nothing but beers signs and some nice mirrors, courtesy of beer companies. In the front though there is a large picture of the original founder of this place, one Lyle W. Dorrian.

I had a Bell’s Two Hearted Ale.

788) Red Dragon



This is another place that has been around for a long time, but not one that I frequented much. It is just a block over at 2116 Lyndale Avenue South. Donna, who I was staying with in International Falls, ran into the bartender, YoYo, at a shopping mall up there where YoYo helping out the owner of one of the shops. Somehow they got to talking and I got introduced and said I would stop by her place when I returned to Minneapolis and so I did.

YoYo And Bar Man Renewing Our Acquaintence


This is a dark place with a fairly small bar with a black Formica top and a dark and light patterned edging that separated it from a black wood arm rest. The front felt like black carpet and there was a dark red brick foot rest. Dark wood bar chairs had red seats and backs. Small red Chinese lanterns and small white Christmas lights ringed the pagoda-like overhang above the bar. The wall behind the bar was red and gold patterned tiles that had an Asian motif to the design. There were also three small rectangular mirrors. Two lights hang behind the bar and they look like they are enclosed in small metal bird cages. But maybe they are dragon cages because a scrawny red dragon lurks outside of one of them. An assortment of glasses hang from racks under the overhang. Yo Yo said they are known for their exotic mixed drinks.

To the left of the bar are two booths with red benches and tan marble-like patterned topped tables. Two black panels with gold leaf-like patterns each have a yellow box-like stained glass lamp with green circles mounted on them. The panels sit under what look like cherry-wood arches. Opposite the bar are another couple of booths and gold patterned wallpaper. Two more of the same kind of lamps hang on the walls above the booths and a larger, unlit red Chinese lantern hangs above them. Ther rest of the wall has the same black and gold leaf-like patterned wallpaper. There are several round tables with wooden chairs. An ornate wooden carving that looks like a cabinet hangs from the ceiling. I expect it conceals lights, but if it does they were turned off. There is a good sized dining area in a room behind the bar.

I had a Summit Extra Pale Ale and headed on out to hook up with my friends Sandy and Rico at a softball game. Rico was pitching a double-header. What a guy. Well, after a long drive I ended up hitting two bars making 788 for the year and leaving 212 to go. Will I be able to hit my 800th bar before I leave Minneapolis? Stay tuned.

Last Run Up North

I am heading back to Minneapolis tomorrow so today is my last run at bars up in Northern Minnesota. I hit a few old favorites and one that I have seen many times but never visited before.

783) Island View Lodge





Just a short way from where I am staying with my friends is this combination of a restaurant, bar, and lodge where you can rent rooms and cabins. It has a very nice location and they have boats for rent as well. I would have stopped in here sooner or later but I came at noon today so that I could say hello to Donna’s chapter of the Red Hat Society. Donna asked me to make sure that I got the name of her chapter right, it is Voyaguaire Rouge Chapeaux.

Bar Man And Members Of Voyaguaire Rouge Chapeaux


The bartender of the day (she said she is usually the office manager but when it is slow does pouring duty) graciously offered to be the photographer of our merry group.

Cassie, Photographer And Part Time Bartender (with Bar Man)


The bar has a shiny textured top on an otherwise knotty pine bar with a tan linoleum footrest. Tubular metal bar stools with round black and tan spinning seats. Shelves mounted behind the bar hold the liquor and display the beer selections. A plain metal cooler holds the beer and wooden cabinets with drawers on either side of it holds who knows what. One of those contraptions that holds three bottles of Jagermeister sits behind the bar as well, but they are everywhere so I don’t usually bother to mention them anymore. It is no wonder that the guy who got the U.S. distribution rights became a billionaire. Of course the fact that he also developed Grey Goose Vodka didn’t hurt his cause any.

A couple of ornate domed lights are mounted on the ceiling above the bar. The walls and ceiling are very nice knotty pine paneling. The floor immediately around the bar is linoleum that matches the footrest and the rest of the floor is covered in a well-worn red carpet. Large windows offer a gorgeous view of Rainy Lake and a door leads out to a deck with tables and chairs. There is a large gray stone fireplace tucked into one corner and a small totem pole sits against a wall. A pool table with the traditional green felt top and a Miller Lite light featuring a large plastic beer bottle sits in the middle of the room. A Golden Tee ’99 machine and a Deer Hunting U.S.A. machine alongside a jukebox sit against the wall opposite the bar. There are a few pictures on the walls and a large carved wooden fish hanging from the ceiling but the primary decoration is Rainy Lake as viewed through the windows.

I had a Leinenkugel’s Red (Leinenkugel’s, the beer with a taste as big as its name).

784) Sha Sha’s



A bit later I walked from my friend’s place to Sha Sha’s that is a bar, semi-restaurant (mostly burgers) and lodge. It is right at the far tip of Dove Island so is a very picturesque location. You can stand on the deck and see my friend dock. There is an uber-thick polished wooden topped bar shaped like a large U with a tail. The front of the bar is wood with carved and burned in lake scenes. Driftwood supports are at each end and in the middle. Most of the furniture in here is made by a local craftsman and it is very nice.

Cactus Table And Stool


This is one of the fanciest bars (meaning the bar itself, not the place as a whole) that you are likely to ever see, in a rustic way. The barstools are shaped like the rear end of horses and some of them come complete with saddles and stirrups. Too bad that they look much better than they feel.

Bar Man At The Bar (No Comments About Horse’s Asses Please)


Betsy The Bartender Served Up The Iced Teas


The walls and ceiling are knotty pine and covered with mounted fish, and these are all real ones, not just plastic replicas. Trophy sized northerns, walleyes, and bass along with assorted pan fish. Again, it is the great views of the lake through the windows on three sides that provide most of the décor.

There is a pool table and one of those machines where you can pull out a prize with a steam shovel. In fact, there is actually quite an arcade in here including two Off-Road Thunder racing machines, a Big Buck Hunter machine, and a Silver Strike Bowling machine.

Long Island Ice Teas seem to be the drink of choice in here and they are quite good. Stop in if you get a chance. Just take Highway 11 east out of International Falls until you can’t go any further and you are there. It is well worth the trip.

I had a Long Island Iced Tea.

785) La Place Rendez-Vous



We decided to head across the border into Fort Frances for dinner to a place where we had all been before. Clearing customs was a breeze, considering the fairly motley crew. It helps that my friends have a car with International Falls license plates. The bar here serves mostly as an anteroom to the very nice dining area that looks over the Rainy Lake. The bar has a nice, well-polished wood top with a gray plywood front. The bar chairs are wooden with diamond patterned cloth covered seats. Glasses hang from racks above the bar. The bar back is pretty plain, just refrigerators with dark doors with bottles and glasses sitting on top. Three televisions showing sporting events but not much else. You come here for the view of the lake.

I had a Beefeater Martini, up with olives, as my pre-dinner aperitif served up by the lovely and talented Lisa

Lovely And Talented Lisa Serving Bar Man


786) Roadhouse Lounge



This place you go past every time you head to my friend’s house from International Falls. It is a large, barn-like structure that, somewhat unfortunately, sits kind of in the middle of nowhere. It is only open three nights a week and was almost empty when we arrived. The owner, Carl Brown, said it is much busier during the height of tourist season and also on the week-ends when they have live music. Carl does ice-fishing guiding and is now affiliated with my good friend Woody.

You can check out Carl's website by clicking the picture below.

There is a large U shaped bar on one side of the room as you walk in. The bar has a grey tile bar with a blond wood plank front. Two pool tables along with a foosball machine and 3 electronic dartboards are off to one side and there is a separate, much smaller serving bar.

A good sized, attached dining room has booths made of the same type of planking as the bar. An accordion style door leads to a large room with a good-sized stage on the left side. The right side has yet another bar. If you walk across the dance floor you enter still another room with booths made of padded brown faux leather and tables of fake brown wood. There are also four tables with padded bucket seats. Stairs lead up to a loft with a pool table on one side and an air hockey machine on the other. Two large windows in the loft let you check out the action down on the dance floor, if there was any action to check out.

Quite a fancy and, as I am sure you have gathered, large place for this neck of the woods. I hope it does well in the summer because the people were friendly enough. There were a few regulars having a drink at the bar who appeared to be friends with the charming bartender, Brittany.

Brittany, The Charming Bartender


The Mysterious Chinese Woman took a lot of the pictures on this trip and I notice that the bartenders seem to somehow fade into the background.

I had a rum and coke and homeward we headed. Not a bad last day, four bars hit, international travel, lots of fun. This makes 786 for the year and leaves me with 214 to go.

Rainy Lake Run And More

Today was a fun day that started out with quite a boat ride. And the pictures are back.

779) Lumberjack Saloon in The Kettle Falls Hotel





This was a fun place to get too. You take about an hour and forty-five minute boat ride from International Falls to an island in Rainy Lake where you will find the Kettle Falls Hotel.

Tying Up Our Transportation


The Lumberjack Saloon is located inside. The Kettle Falls Hotel is also known as the Tiltin' Hilton because of the extremely wavey wooden floors in the bar that make you feel like you are walking in a fun-house. Maybe it is named that because you walk like Paris Hilton does after she has had a night on the town. This is such a famous feature of the place that when they remodeled it a few years back they made a topographical map of the floor before removing it to make sure that it would be reinstalled just the way it was. Now that is dedication.

The bar itself has a light wooden top with a wood paneled front. The bar chairs are oxblood colored vinyl sitting on metal legs, and they swivel. There are old wooden coolers with silver handles and hinges behind the bar. On top of them is a tiered shelf of liquor and a small wooden shelf above a narrow bar with a display of their canned sodas and beers. In the center of the shelf is a lamp mounted on the wall that is kind of a mottled stained glass with a semi-nude woman with a small scarf on her lap sitting on a rock in the woods. There is also a ceramic hula girl hanging on the wall next to a small oval mirror. Also sitting on the bar is a small shelf shaped like the prow of a rowboat. It holds a few cups and shot glasses. The lights above the bar look like old gas lanterns that now have lightbulbs in them.

A pipe runs the length of the bar up near the ceiling and from it hang the caps of previous customers (they didn't get mine though) and a display of sunglasses that were for sale. Stuffed otters, a bear, and a monkey either hang from the pipe or are draped over it.

Bar Man At The Bar


There is a red felt covered pool table that is set up on angled blocks so that it is level despite the floor.

Chris, Bruce, And Bar Man At The Pool Table


Bar Man And Donna


The walls are covered with tasteful pictures of nude women, photos of what the hotel used to look like in the old days, pictures of old fishermen with their catches, mounted fish, and old beer signs. There are also a rack of moose antlers and a rack of the smallest deer antlers I have ever seen. Lights similar to those over the bar and more of the semi=nude with a scarf lamps are mounted on the walls. Against one wall is an old-time coin-operated music machine that still works.

This place has been around for a long time, back when the island was home to lumberjacks, fishermen, gold miners, and boot leggers (easy access to Canada). In 1918 the place changed hands for the princely sum of $1000 and four barrels of whiskey. It is now owned by the Park Service but still operates as a hotel and bar with a decent restaurant. I would say be sure to drop by if you are in the neighborhood, but you will never just be in this neighborhood.

I had a bottle of Miller Genuine Draft (the beer selections aren't real good up here in the North Country, except at Bruce's Brewpub).

780) Ranier Muni



On the way into the small city of Ranier you are greeted by an enormous lumberjack and a large sign welcoming you to town.





The municiple bar in Ranier is probably the primary source of income for the city. It has a U shaped bar with the service station in the center. Three televisions are mounted above it. The bar has a blond wood-grained Formica top and black vinyl bar stools. There is a popcorn machine at one end of the bar and the popcorn is free. Also a video poker machine where you could win "gifts."

Bar Man At The Bar With Donna


We were being served our drinks by Lorna, the cheerful bartender.

Lorna, The Cheerful Bartender


Four dartboards are mounted on one wall but two of them are the electric type. They do have dart tournaments here though because there are plenty of dart trophies around the place. There is a pool table in the back room covered in red felt and a Simpson's pinball machine that wasn't working.

On one wall is a large map of Rainy Lake with notations in both French and English (probably indicating where the big ones lurk). There is also a plastic replica of a large walleye mounted next to the bar.

The upper part of the walls and the ceiling is wooden. Next to the door are hooks to hang your jackets and caps (Minnesotans love their caps). Their is also a picture of the Ranier chapter of the Red Hat Society hanging by the door. The outside of the place looks like a log cabin.

There was a good sized, boistrous and friendly crowd in here so a fun time was being had by everyone.

I had a Miller Genuine Draft.

781) Border Bar





We ventured into the big city of International Falls and stopped in here for a beer and a couple of pizzas. Another U shaped bar with a fake brown wood top. Red padded faux-leather formed a ledge around the top of the bar providing a comfy cushion on which to lean your arms, or your head after you have had a few too many. The bar stools were covered with the same stuff. Six yellow stained glass lamps hang over the bar along with Vikings banners. A couple of people at one corner of the bar were engaged in a noisy dice game.

The bar is in one corner of a large room that contains tables and chairs for eating your pizzas and drinking your beers. One wall of the dining area has several sports trophies. There are a lot of pictures of what look to be local sports teams hanging on the walls. There are a couple of televisions over the bar area, one showing baseball and the other hurricane news. There is another television in the dining area.

There was a sign announcing dates for Karoke Nights and Music by Patty-O every Sunday from 4:30 P.M. until 7:30 P.M. A good sized stage in the corner of the dining are allows Patty-O and karoke singers to strut their stuff.

There is an attached pool room with a single table and one regular and two electronic dart boards off to one side. Another two dart boards hang on another wall. There is also a Golden Tee 2K machine in one corner and a vending machine for snacks if you aren't in the mood for pizza. The pizzas were very good though.

I had yet another Miller Genuine Draft.

782) Viking Lounge





Not too far away was this, well, to call it a lounge would be a stretch, shall we say bar. It was the most jumping place we had been in so far by a long shot. The place was packed. There is a statue of a Viking by the door and the plague at its base announces "Furry Freak Brothers Softball Invitational Beer Drinking Champs."



It must have been a training night.

The bar is oval shapped and the top is brown Formica edged with beige Formica. It is surrounded by red padded bucket bar seats. Spotlights shine over the bar and it is ringed with strings of red, white, and blue Christmas lights. There are five televisions along one wall and another at the end of the bar.

One nice feature that you don't see too often was a regulation shuffle-board table. The Mysterious Chinese Woman beat my buddy Bruce quite soundly and then the two of the teamed up to beat a challenger. Quite an impressive display. There were also two pool tables covered in blue felt that were seeing quite a bit of action. I was waiting for the Mysterious Chinese Woman to wade into that bunch as well but she said she had hung up her ivory and jade inlaid cue long ago. Pity.

A red sign on the wall announced their specialty drinks that included Jager Bombers for $3.50, H Pnotiq Breezes for $3.75, and my favorite, the Suck & Blow Jello Shots for a mere $1.00 each. These were not only quite colorful, they were also quite popular.

This place also had a couple of electronic dart boards and at least one regular one that I could see. There was also a foosball mackine in the back. A big sign on the wall announcing that Wednesdays are "Kill The Keg Night" and tap beers are only fifty-cents might help explain the crowd, but by the time we got there the keg had long ago been killed.



I had another Miller Genuine Draft and we all piled into the car and headed home. Have no fear though, Donna was the designated driver and she doesn't drink.

A nice day in the Great North Woods and a very nice boat ride coupled with four bars made this one for the books. This makes 782 for the year and leaves me with 218 to go. Tomorrow I am expected to make a guest appearance at a Red Hat Society luncheon so that should prove to be interesting. To be a member you must be at least fifty years old so I keep looking for the Junior Pink Hat Auxilliary group.