Transcripts

[HAMMERING] LEIF ENGER: Mark Tadych stands out of the weather, in the door of the nearly completed blue walled building on the Western shore of Mille Lacs. Everything, the plumbing, electricity, the masonry, has fallen behind schedule. All this rain. But Tadych, a part owner of the new Blue Goose, seems cheerful. When you're stepping into a tradition that's 70 years old, what's one more month?

MARK TADYCH: It survived depressions, and wars, and bad fishing, good fishing. It's survived fights. At one time I'm told it was owned by a mafia person. The Goose was a survivor. It was here.

LEIF ENGER: The Goose was here, until earlier this year. The night of March 5, the man left the bar angry and went around to the back, some old dry boxes were stacked there. He struck a match, and The Goose became legend.

BUCK THOMPSON: I just remember governor Olson's widow used to stop there every weekend on her way to her summer home North of Brainerd. She loved to play slot machines.

LEIF ENGER: Buck Thompson and his brother Bob grew up here in Garrison. Both worked at The Blue Goose back when it had cabins and famous chicken dinners. Buck especially started young.

BUCK THOMPSON: I peddled papers there when I was five years old for $0.03 a piece. $0.03 a piece and they used to give me a nickel and tell me to keep the $0.02, and I was the happiest guy in the world.

BOB THOMPSON: At one time you couldn't have dinner at The Blue goose unless you were dressed with a coat on and a tie. That's when George Crosby owned it. The Crosby family out of Crosby Minnesota.

LEIF ENGER: It was George Crosby, in fact, hankering for a liquor license, who pushed to incorporate the community of Garrison, making it a town long predated by its favorite gathering place. In 1946, Bob Thompson recalls, there wasn't a legal Casino in sight. But around Mille Lacs, The Goose was one of many nightspots operating illegal slots.

BOB THOMPSON: They always took care of the Sheriff. He'd come to make a raid why they'd hide all the slot machines in the ice houses. They'd just take them out and he'd come make a little look around and no slot machines. Well, by the time he was halfway back to Brainerd, they were out again.

LEIF ENGER: The Blue Goose of those years is spoken of with reverence in Garrison, though there's no doubt that time and the fire have nurtured sentiment. In the 70s and 80s, The Goose became less a symbol of Mille Lacs hospitality and more like most other Lakeside taverns. It began to earn a rowdy reputation, with honky tonk bands and younger crowds. The name even seemed newly appropriate. The Goose, a place where the noun itself was likely to turn verb, if you didn't keep your back to the wall. Six months before the fire, a karaoke disk jockey named Jason was asked for his most memorable Blue Goose adventure.

SPEAKER 1: I got to punch out. Somebody wanted to sing 10 songs in a row without getting down from the stage, and I told her she couldn't do that, and turned around and popped me, knocked me right out.

SPEAKER 2: A woman

SPEAKER 1: Yeah. A big woman.

LEIF ENGER: As the rebuilt Goose nears its opening, there's curiosity around Mille Lacs about which side of its past the establishment will choose to emulate. Its new owners say it'll have a little of everything. Some good dinners and a lot of drinks, a little Rock, and a little Country. And the charred safe from the old Blue Goose on permanent display. For other Garrison businesses, the resorts, and motels, and the gas stations, it can't open soon enough. As owner Mark Tadych says, what small town doesn't need its own history? And what town can't use a healthy goose. Leif Enger, Main Street Radio, Garrison.