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MEMORY LANE WITH DAVE THE BEAR

 By Steve Keely, Hamm’s Club Member #1322

    Did you ever come across a piece of Hammorabilia that left you with more questions than answers?  I would bet that most of us have.  Such was the case for me when a friend of mine presented me with a small gesture of Hamm’s interest as a Birthday present.  It was the ‘Dave the Bear’ postcard.  The ‘Dave the Bear’ postcard features a real, full sized stuffed bear (dressed in backwoods flannel and a hunter’s orange hat) bellied up to a tavern bar with a half full glass of Hamm’s in front of his right paw, a cigarette in his left paw, and a full longneck of Hamm’s placed prominently in front of him.  Seated to the left of Dave the Bear is a mature gentleman, who also has a full longneck of Hamm’s at hand.  It appears to be a barroom play on the Hamm’s bear come to life, captured in a postcard for the Inn.

     With the proliferation of eBay, the ‘Dave the Bear’ postcard has become well known amongst the Hammophiles.  Who would have known that an otherwise obscure postcard from a tavern in the boreal forests of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan would take on a 2^nd and more prominent, permanent life as a fixture of Hamm’s memorabilia?  But other than the obligatory descriptive caption on the back of the postcard, which is undated but appears to be circa 1970’s, this postcard and the story behind it has remained mysterious.  Until now.

  My interest in the ‘Dave the Bear’ story was piqued when I read on the caption of the postcard that the very site where this Hamm’s moment was captured was in the Upper Peninsula of my home state of Michigan.  The caption states that you can “set one up…with Dave the Bear at Raincheck Inn, 6 miles north of Crystal Falls Michigan.”

    My gift giving friend, Richard Hobart and I sparked a harmless discussion about the current disposition of the Raincheck Inn and Dave the Bear himself.  We figured that the postcard, although not dated, was probably about 30 years old.  Would it still be possible to “set one up” with Dave the Bear at the Raincheck Inn?  We pondered whether or not this entertaining little relic of Hamm’s ephemera could be rediscovered.  The more we thought about it, the more curious we became.

     Several months went by and I found myself needing to take a business trip to the far reaches of Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula.  For those who have never been, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is a largely undisturbed, expansive land of towering hardwoods and clear, pristine lakes and streams.  Sound familiar?  It should.  This is definitely a “Land of Sky Blue Waters”.  With much anticipation I reached Crystal Falls, a quaint small town of about 2000 people.  It was late in the afternoon on a unusually sunny, warm and summer-like weekday in mid-September.  

     As prompted by the caption on the postcard, I began a six mile drive north on U.S. 141.  Uncertain of the fate of the Raincheck Inn over the last 30 or so years since this Hamm’s scene was frozen in time, I reset my odometer to zero and was anxiously awaiting it to tip the sixth mile.  What lies in between can only be described as Hamm’s country, likely rife with squirrel, beaver and bear alike!  After checking my odometer around the 4^th mile, I realized that I was no longer seeing much commerce or civilization.  Feeling that I was entering a historical or potentially archaeological time/space continuum, I decided that perhaps I should give up my odometer radar for some good old fashioned local directions, if possible.  Just at that time I caught a glimpse and then overran on my right what looked to be a tavern/restaurant.  Looking in the rearview mirror, I read the sign: “Memory Lane Resort”.  How appropriate!  Feeling that I may have just hit the motherlode with the 21^st century reincarnation of the Raincheck Inn, I quickly did a u-turn and headed back.  In mid-turn I glanced at the odometer.  I was only at 4.5 miles.  Now either the postcard was off on mileage to the Raincheck Inn, or this was not the reincarnation that I had hoped it could be.  Either way, it was definitely time to stop and do some reconnaissance work.

     Figuring that a picture is worth a thousand words, I decided that the best way to explain my mission was with the “Dave the Bear” postcard itself.  I grabbed “Dave” and proceeded to take a step (leap) through time for an evening stroll down “Memory Lane”.

From the outside, Memory Lane Resort gives you a ‘Scenerama’ chalet type woodsy feel, complete with the roofline to match.  Inside gives you more of the same, with an open and expansive log cabin motif with wood floors, tables, chairs, walls and a wooden bar that must have been 30 feet long!  Instantly I felt at home.  Standing behind the bar was the longtime host of Memory Lane Resort and the Captain for this evening’s flight through time, Milo L. Raffaelli, Jr.  Seated opposite Milo at the bar would be J.D. Dunn, a Registered Upper Peninsula forester by trade.

     I walked over to both of them, put down my Dave the Bear postcard and asked, “what can you tell me about this postcard?”  It didn’t take two seconds to realize that this was not the site of the Raincheck Inn, but it was probably a better stop than the county Historical Society would have been!  Milo and J.D. were a wealth of information.  First, Milo let me know that the Raincheck Inn is no longer a tavern.  It was another mile and a half up the road, and was now home to Mel Saier’s carpet and floor covering business.  And as a matter of fact, Mel had just left Memory Lane.  How ironic, I thought to myself.

     I asked Milo about the history of the Raincheck Inn from around the time of the postcard and before.  Milo explained that, as stated on the postcard, Chuck and Elaine Neushaefer were the owners of the Raincheck Inn.  And Chuck Neushaefer is the Hamm’s drinking man in the picture sitting next to Dave the Bear.  One mystery solved!

Milo went on to say that the building was originally a schoolhouse and dates back 90+ years!  It was turned into a bar in 1952 and aptly named the “Ballroom Bar” by new owner Arnold Aho.  The reason for the name came from the fact that the old wooden floor of the original schoolhouse became the large, wide open dance floor that was well known in these parts to have been “rockin’ so hard” on Saturday nights that the entire floor would move up and down “an inch and a half” underneath your feet.  And if you happen to be standing in the basement you could actually see the plaster between the floor boards crumble and fall to the floor in pieces, chips and cloud puffs of 90 year old plaster dust!

     One thing that we didn’t exactly determine was when Chuck and Elaine Neushaefer bought the bar from Arnold Aho and changed the name to the Raincheck Inn.  But it was clear that Chuck had owned the bar for a few years by the time the Dave the Bear postcard was printed, likely in the mid to late 70’s.  The Raincheck Inn carried on through the first half of the 80’s but was closed in 1986 when Chuck became ill and could no longer manage the Inn.  Mel Saier, a friend of Chuck’s whose wife also had tended bar for Chuck, bought the closed bar from Chuck some time later and has occupied the building as his Saier and Son Floor Decorating business for roughly the last 15 years.  During the time that the bar was closed, the Liquor License was reverted to the State of Michigan because Mel did not plan to use it and it was not a “traveling” license.  The License was only valid for use within the township.  The township itself being sparsely populated and considering its distance from Crystal Falls, it no longer made sense for someone to buy the Liquor License to operate another establishment within the township.  Used to be that all the folks from Crystal Falls and the surrounding areas would pilgrimage the miles out to the Raincheck for a night of revelry, but this wouldn’t be so likely since the changing attitudes towards motor vehicles and imbibing that took greater root in the 1980’s.     

     Having gleaned all the background information from Milo, my interest was now piqued for a visit to the former site of the Raincheck Inn to answer the burning question:  What ever happened to Dave the Bear himself?  Milo called up to Mel’s to secure a visit for me.  He mentioned that Mel had intended to head back to his carpet shop briefly before going home for the evening.  As the phone rang, I crossed my fingers and hoped that Mel would still be there to answer.  Milo made contact with Mel and the visit was set.

     I proceeded to drive the mile and a half up the road to ‘Saier and Son Floor Decorating’, or the Raincheck Inn as I still prefer to call it.  Actually it turned out not to be right on the highway, but rather just off on the side road and not facing the highway either.  It became clear that without Milo’s help back at Memory Lane, I would never have guessed this building to formerly have housed the bar that bore the Hamm’s aficionado postcard known as ‘Dave the Bear’.  Looking at the building, there was no doubt that it actually was an old schoolhouse.  Now with all the talk of Mel Saier and his carpet business back at Memory Lane, I would have guessed him to be a man in his 40’s or perhaps 50’s.  Much to my surprise, I was greeted by a spry 81 years young Mel Saier!

     Being the consummate gentleman, Mel invited me in, showed me around and answered all of my questions.  And what a treat it was.  It was like the Raincheck Inn had simply been invaded by a carpet business.  It seemed that everything was still there, including the “Longest Bar in the U.P.” just as stated on the postcard!  This original bar must have been 70 feet long.  It stretched from one end of the building to the other.  And looking down beneath my feet, there was the famed wooden dance floor.  It was almost as if the Raincheck Inn had been frozen in time.  There was an Old Style beer ‘Born Before’ wall calendar sign that was peeled to the EXACT day that the bar closed:  October 20, 1986.  There was a back bar beer prices placard that actually predated the closure, with Hamm’s being the first on the list at 35 cents for a 7 oz. Glass, 50 cents for a 12 oz. glass and $1.75 for a six pack of bottles or cans.  Mel turned on the back bar lighting and it still worked and looked great with pinkish and yellow neon-esque backlit hues!  There were shot glasses still stacked in a five level pyramid against the back of the bar.  Many of the bar stools were still lined up, but just behind the bar now.  The wash basins were there, and stacked with baraphenalia.  All the drawers and cabinets were intact.  All of this was only somewhat obscured by the carpet samples, displays, racks and other carpet products and supplies that you might expect to find as part of a floor covering business. 

     I felt as though I had found some sort of Rembrandt painting behind a thin disguise of wallpaper.  And speaking of great paintings, on the back wall behind the bar is a large, spectacular hand painted mural of a river and woods scene that Mel says was done entirely with regular housepaints!  It was done and signed by a local “F. Stromberg” in 1956 when the Inn was still known as Arnold Aho’s Ballroom Bar.  Apparently the subject river in the mural spawned a years long and apparently as yet still unsettled debate as to whether it was a portion of the nearby Paint River or if it perhaps was another Upper Peninsula river such as the Upper Hemlock.  Somehow I picture a few Hamm’s being consumed amidst this great debate. 

     Mel explained to me that when the building was the old Schoolhouse, the students would walk up the stairs just inside the front door and they would enter directly into the library.  Then there were two identical classrooms, one each on either side of the library.  The rooms were mirrors of each other, both having their own bathrooms at the rear and windows facing out at each end of the building.  You can see these windows in the postcard if you look to the right and to the background of Chuck Neushaefer’s position.  In fact, it was quite easy to visualize all of the incarnations of this building.  All of the strata of life in this building were still intact as if pressed together like sedimentary rock.                                                                                       

      In my mind’s eye I could now visualize exactly where Chuck Neushaefer and Dave the Bear must have been sitting.  And it was at that time that I felt compelled to ask and Mel reassured me that Dave was strictly a “Hamm’s” drinking bear and that patrons were always welcome to buy Dave another.  Mel said that Dave enjoyed universal popularity and true to the script on the postcard he was probably “the most photographed bear in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.”

         Which brought the conversation back to the burning question:  What ever became of Dave, the “Hamm’s” bear?  Surely a stuffed bear should have survived if all of these other relics still remain?  Well, then Mel proceeded to give me a short lesson in Taxidermy.  In order to preserve fur on a stuffed animal, you have to glaze it.  Sadly, Dave had not been glazed.  Over his time served at the Raincheck, Dave began to lose some fur and his coat began to deteriorate.  Suffice it to say, Dave was permanently “retired” to the Land of Sky Blue Waters in the sky.

     I was feeling very privileged that Mel had welcomed me into his time capsule yet I couldn’t help but be a little deflated about the fate of Dave the Bear.  The demise of Dave the Bear left me feeling somehow deprived of fulfilling an otherwise complete mission.  As I was about to bid farewell to Mel, I decided that I should spent a few minutes just walking around and visually committing everything that I could see to memory.  And then my eyes fixed on it, propped up against the wall of the back bar amongst the shot glasses and the beer prices was an item that I didn’t see on my first pass.  It was a single solitary Dave the Bear postcard.  And it was sitting within mere feet of where Chuck Neushaefer and Dave the Bear must have been sitting the day that they were immortalized.  And as I held the postcard in my hand, and for the very first time ever, I noticed the faint, ghostly image of a Hamm’s globe sign on the far wall in the background between Dave and Chuck.  Had the postcard been sitting there 15 minutes ago?  Conventional wisdom would tell me that it hasn’t moved in 20 years.  But I prefer to think that there was something of a more ethereal explanation.  And then, all at once, within that moment, like an epiphany, I realized that I did indeed find Dave the Bear.  

     It had grown from dusk to evening by this time so I bid a Hamm’s salute to Mel and retreated to Memory Lane Resort to share my discoveries with Milo and J.D.  I began to decompress from my time machine.  I asked Milo for a business card so that I could stay in touch as I felt this day had all the earmarks of a good Hamm’s story.  And what did he give me?  A postcard.  As I held the postcard in my hand I realized that the Memory Lane Resort was much more than tavern and restaurant.  The picture was an aerial view, with the caption of  “Memory Lane Resort on the beautiful Paint River, Crystal Falls, Mi.”  Turns out that the resort is situated directly on the crystal clear Paint River and features quaint log cabins, boats and canoes, and all for rent!  On this picture postcard I saw pure waters, lofty firs, chalet style log cabins and…well…you get the idea.   It was becoming obvious to me that the Memory Lane Resort has all the self-contained ingredients of a Hamm’s Sky Blue Waters weekend straight out of one of those famous vintage TV commercials.  And as I stared deeply into that colorful, picturesque scene, I do believe that I could almost hear the faint but rising beat of those familiar Tom-Toms….  

…From the land of sky blue waters

From the land of pines, lofty balsams

Comes the beer refreshing

Hamm’s, the beer refreshing…

______________________________

If you wish to stay at Memory Lane Resort call Milo L. Raffaelli, Jr. at (906) 875-6949

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