Homer's Travels: The Haverhill Social Club

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

The Haverhill Social Club

Like salmon swimming upstream to their spawning ground, the Wife's family periodically converges on the small town of Haverhill, IA (pop: 170) to eat good food, drink good beer, and enjoy good company and on Sunday Homer and I had the privilege to witness this joyous reunion.

This impromptu get together, planned over the last couple of weeks, converged on the Haverhill Social Club, formerly Blum Grocery, now a bar and soon to be a restaurant. The old building is full of character. It's been gutted and reconfigured for entertainment with only the original worn floor remaining. It had that old, comfortable atmosphere and turned out to be the perfect place for the gathering. What grabbed the attention of us was the one-way mirror in the men's room that allow you to watch the bar and big screen TV while standing at the trough and the ice that fills said trough. Several of the women had to go into the men's room to check out the view. We're plain folk who are easily entertained. :-)

Homer behaved himself at the bar. To our surprise he didn't jump on anyone like he usually does. He mostly just stood in the middle of the room and panted - what he does in strange new situations. He became the official greeter, meeting everyone at the door. Unfortunately he's blowing his coat and by the time we left there was dog hair everywhere.

We all visited the cemetery to visit the graves of the Arnold and Marcella, the grandparents. We went down to the historic Edel Blacksmith Shop. I took some pictures which you can find here.

The restaurant was not complete yet but this didn't slow the party down because one of the Wife's cousins runs a catering business on the side and they parked their trailer out front and everyone enjoyed some shredded pork, barbecue ribs, and potato salad washing it down with beer and soda ("Pop"). We ate and drank our fill and a group made a circle and started playing games. I'm not much of a game player so I sat back and observed. I don't think anyone there was not enjoying themselves.

After four or five hours (I didn't pay too much attention to the time) the party broke up with people heading to hotels in Marshalltown. The get together continued at the hotel with the Wife, Homer, and I joining the Best Man, Matron Of Honor, Godson, Altar Boy, and two of the Wife's Aunts squeezed into the one of the hotel rooms. Beer and memories continued to flow for a few hours more.

The only cloud over the festivities was the health of the Mother-In-Law. She had surgery recently and she hasn't been feeling well since. This cut her stay at the reunion short. We all hope and pray for a complete recovery soon.

The next day everyone went their separate ways. I drove home with Homer. The Wife and the Godson went off to the police station to investigate a family story that only she seems to remember. I may post about it if there are developments - it's an interesting story. The Godson and the Wife followed later.

The reunion continues with the Godson visiting our new digs in Omaha. We'll be joined later this week by the Best Man and Matron Of Honor.

3 comments:

  1. I'm sure you talked about having a wonderful time with the family in this post, but once I got the mental picture of the BBQ pork, ribs and potato salad in my head, pretty much everything else was pushed out. Sorry 'bout that. ;)

    Great pictures though!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm interested in how you washed down the bear... ;)

    No big fights? No weeping? No deep dark family secrets? What kind of get together was this?!

    Sounds pretty darned good actually.

    ReplyDelete
  3. GH: That's alright. The food was good.

    Thanks!

    JaG: Things went remarkably smooth. I also end to gloss over rough spots in the posts.

    HA! You wash down a bear with a very long hose and a brush on an even longer pole.

    ReplyDelete