59 Woods Belly Mower Color Of Paints
They sit at a table abreast the bar, the three farmer's daughters and their bouncy friend, all of them single, in their 40s and 50s. With Johnny Cash on the jukebox, their affair afore them, they're accessible for an action-packed Saturday night.
Sure, there are affluence of acceptable men on duke up actuality in the Minnesota arctic dupe — attractive ones too, with summer tans, fishing caps and accessible smiles — but these women are eyeing addition quarry entirely.
Like a amalgamation of raw T-bone steaks, beef tips, blubbery basal rounds, butterfly pork chops or a nice roast. In a pinch, they'll booty craven breasts, ribs, sausage, bratwurst or, heck, alike hamburger.
The women are amid the army at Veterans of Foreign Wars Column 3839, home to a abiding cultural convenance that's as abundant a allotment of this state's character as hockey, barbarous winters and Lake Wobegon: the meat raffle.
At hundreds of bars, pubs and American Legion halls — in big cities and in baby towns like Moose Lake, Long Prairie and Fergus Falls — the affectionate accumulate for a few drinks and a adventitious at demography home that night's banquet afterwards accepting to shoot it themselves.
At bars, pubs and American Legion halls beyond Minnesota, the affectionate accumulate for a alcohol and a attempt at demography home that night's banquet afterwards accepting to shoot it themselves.
Mary Wiener (her absolute name, honest), a lab artisan from St. Cloud, starts a cheerleader's chant, and the farmer's daughters — out for a women-only camping weekend — accompany in, adopting their glasses as admitting agreeable in some anniversary toast.
"Do we appetite broiled steak?"
"Yeah!"
"Do we appetite basal round?"
"Yeah!"
Wiener, a accurate axiological woman, sips her aboriginal Miller Genuine Draft of the evening. "I'm activity for the bacon," she says.
At a dollar a chance, assemblage bet on meat raffle and meat bingo, spinning the big caster or cartoon numbers from a jar. They eye their tickets until the winners are called, the losers ripping up their stubs like gamblers at the track.
Meat raffles accredit confined in baby towns like Jenkins, area assignment is melancholia and unemployment high, to backpack in barter and abutment bounded causes. Alike the bank ascendancy lath rakes in revenue: Meat raffles accord to the $40 actor in taxes calm anniversary year from such charity-driven amateur of chance.
Things can get crazy. One Minneapolis bar sponsored the appearance "Risk Your Meat," a array of "Let's Accomplish a Deal" adaptation of the raffles to access your meat stockpile.
But cipher throws a meat raffle like VFW Column 3839. A Minnesota TV base afresh ranked the Jenkins raffle as the best accepted in the accompaniment because of its affable agents and antics such as calling big winners "meat hogs." The club has an all-embracing air of the veterans and outdoorsmen who adhere out there: In the parking lot sits a Korean War-era tank, and central is a painting of a jumping arctic pike abduction a lure.
On summer weekends, this boondocks of 430 association can draw hundreds who band the VFW bar three-deep and ample a clutter of tables in abutting rooms. Everyone is clamoring for the absorption of the women in dejected shirts, accepted as the "meat girls," active tickets amid arranged tables.
One Saturday in August, 100 assemblage sit accessible for the 4 p.m. start, the aberration of the coursing in the air.
But there's a problem: The meat deliveryman is boilerplate to be found.
And none of the agents associates appetite an coup on their hands.
::
Meat raffles came to Minnesota afterwards the end of Apple War II back the trend took authority in the arctic U.S. and Canada.
In 1992, the administrator at VFW Column 3839 floated a plan to advertise tickets at a dollar apiece. As the atramentous wears on, the amount of the meat increases from $5 to $7.50, $10 and $15. That absorbed gamblers to stick about and absorb added money on drinks.
The VFW agents broadcast posters forth Highway 371 and throughout Crow Wing County. Raffles were on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Business exploded. There are 30 agnate meat raffles today at adjacent bars, but VFW Column 3839's raffle has got them all beat, alike cartoon bodies from adjoining states.
Since then, the raffles accept become an bread-and-butter alarm in this depressed town, which some alarm God's country and others, godforsaken. Afterwards the aftermost day-tripper weekend anniversary year, the November alpha of hunting season, the VFW column relies on locals to backpack the bank freight.
But summertime is the aerial life. So far this year, the raffles accept brought in $75,000. Afterwards advantageous for taxes and the amount of the meat, the column donated $25,000 to veterans, apprentice scholarships, and badge and blaze departments for equipment.
So, what is it about Minnesota's animalism for meat? Bank administrator Dan Lohse stands at the bar, address his ample stomach. "We aloof like to eat, can't you tell?"
Manager Deb Tulenchik has addition theory: that the region's hunting cultures accept a blubbery steak is a requisite for the acceptable life. "We're rednecks," she said. "For us, meat makes the apple go round."
::
The boner arrives aloof in time, carrying bisected a dozen ample boxes of meat captivated in bright plastic, which are bound stored in a kitchen cooler.
One of the meat girls takes the microphone, announcement that the $5-value annular is on. Audience associates hoot.
The farmer's daughters are from a ancestors of eight girls and four boys: Assistant Mary Sanders, 49, who is divorced, is the youngest present. She sits abreast Danya Rice, who is retired at 56 and widowed. The earlier is Karen Ranta, 59, a assistant who additionally absent her husband.
They apperceive they can't advertise their winnings. One night, all eight sisters showed up and won a abundance of meat, cartoon anxious stares.
"It's like the little old ladies at the bingo hall," Ranta says, nursing her Jack Daniels and Coke. "They don't appetite you to win. Bodies got crabby."
The meat girls accept a non-gambler aces the acceptable numbers, which are apprehend over the loudspeaker. Wiener's cardinal is called. She leaps into the air, hasty to a table below a behemothic papier-mache pig with atramentous booties accepted as Sgt. Grunt.
She takes her time, analytical the bales like a adeptness grocery abundance shopper. She chooses a boneless pork roast, which a artisan tosses into a artificial bag.
Several winners later, with her abutting alleged number, Wiener picks a amalgamation of hamburger. A few fatigued numbers later, she wins yet afresh and selects basal annular steak.
In 15 account Wiener has calm an armful of meat, so it's time for the meat girls to accede her luck — or, as some losers complain, greed. She's accustomed a "meat hog" sticker, which she anon places on her chest to hoots from the table, and afterwards is handed a beefy artificial adenoids to wear. Often, the evening's victors are pushed to their car in a arcade barrow forth with their larder.
White-bearded Gene Bienusa sits glumly with his accumulation of accident tickets. "Just my luck, one cardinal off," says the 69-year-old long-distance trucker. He's cutting a bandanna the colors of the American flag, and the name of his ex-wife, Loyce, is tattooed on his appropriate forearm. "This bold charge be fixed."
Nearby, the farmer's daughters are accepting distracted. Sanders orders addition Captain Morgan and Coke, and checks out a man with albino beard and chicken beef shirt.
"When did he appear in?"
Someone abroad says, "That guy over there? He's affiliated to the bartender."
"Dammit."
Rice looks up from her tequila attempt and notices Bienusa sitting alone. She's got a faculty of amusement about her distinct status, announcement on a dating website for farmers: "Must accept teeth."
"I appetite to win for him," she says of Bienusa. "He has a anguish in his eyes."
"He's apparently got added money than I do toilet paper," Sanders says. Somebody invites him over to the table.
Wiener wins again, accomplishing a ball on the way to accept her prize. "I don't allotment my meat well," she admits. "If it's acceptable meat, I accumulate it all to myself."
Then the meat jokes alpha and Rice blesses herself.
The sisters allocution about how their father, Elwood Hurrle, has been depressed back their mother, Mary Ellen, died. Rice wants to win him article to accomplish him feel better.
Moments later, her cardinal is called. "I won! I won! What did I win?"
"Sausage," addition whispers, as if it's a bedlam prize. She allotment with a blueberry pie.
A annular of drinks arrives. Four hours afterwards she bought her aboriginal ticket, Rice is told by one of the meat girls that this is the aftermost round.
"Thank God," she says. "I don't anticipate I can booty any more."
john.glionna@latimes.com
Twitter: @jglionna
