Spring In Northern Minnesota

Anton,

Thanks for the trip down memory lane! I grew up just three houses down from your Uncle Vernon's store, and spent lots of "allowance" money in there. He also had a couple pretty daughters if I remember right! Vernon was always good to us boy's! Is he still around? We used to ride our bikes in the back way to his pits and try to sneak a few shiners, but he (almost) always caught us! Thank again!! Oh, I just noticed that there is an advertisement for the "Rainy Lake One Stop" at the top of this page! Kind of ironic in a way, since whenever I stop in there, I always think of Vernon's store. I must be getting sentimental (or mental) in my old age!!

Thanks for your reply to my question. Yes as roj said you provided more than the answer in sort of a "Way Back Machine" form if you remember that.

When you posted your happy birthday wish to your Father is when I became a little confused. At the end of that post if I remember correctly you said, Happy Birthday Laverne Oveson. I took the Vern from LeVerne and just figured your Father was the man I knew called Vern at the bait store just past the beach. I never knew your Father then I guess, but if he and his brother Vern were anything alike he was and is obviously a darn good man!

I have VERY fond memory's of your uncle Vern's store. It was the place my Father and I always stopped to get bait for a day on Rainy. I remember those beautiful summer days driving there prior to the causeway being built to bypass Ranier. I remember stepping through the door just behind my Father, and the smells that hit like a brick and flooded the minds of small boys. I can still smell it now. For a boy it was a smell you could put your arms around and hug. You know that smell I'm sure. Walking over to the separated minnow tanks and peering down into those clouds of black backed minnows going back and forth. If I didn't go fishing that day which I always did, I couldn't have thought of a better place to spend a summer day.

Then there was your uncle Vern. I remember a wonderful rather soft spoken down to earth guy, who had conversations with my Father on fishing and other things. Those conversations were good enough to get my mind of those minnows and make me pay attention. Their mutual respect for each was apparent even at my age. It was a part of a GREAT time in my life as a boy. I'll never forget as you can tell.

Anton, this is just a suggestion, one which you might have already done and are in the process of still doing for all I know. But just in case. If you haven't, I would suggest you sit your Father down in front of a video camera with or without his knowledge and ask him a whole lot of questions about his life in northern Minnesota to be saved for generations yet to come. Thanks again for your thoughtful reply.