Caffeinated Politics

This morning, I awoke to a very nice email from the granddaughter of a favorite person I knew when working in Sturgeon Bay. Keta Steebs was the newspaper reporter and columnist for the Door County Advocate. The email message asked me to call and reminisce about Keta’s life and who she was, the impact she had, and the soul she carried. That brought genuine smiles to my face. Not only did I again recall Keta, but also the atmosphere of WDOR, the radio station where I worked. During the Christmas Season, the station had a festive feel, and our programming was filled with uplifting music and, of course, Letters From Santa each weekday afternoon following the 4 P.M. newscast.

That time of year was among the best at WDOR, when the counter in the hallway was always loaded with cookies and sweets. But it was when the first notes of Jingle Bells by Jim Reeves started in the broadcast studio that we knew every boy and girl in the area would be at home listening to hear their letter read over the air by the big jolly man. Santa was at our station several times in December to read and record the collection of mail. The spirit of the season was alive and well!

It was during the first Christmas season at the station that the owner had our holiday party at a nice restaurant in the city. It was there that I first discovered beef cooked medium rare was the only way to enjoy it. Mom had me thinking during my growing-up years that gray meat was the goal of any cook. She never relented in her way of cooking it, and I never altered eating it when it was most flavorful.

Since those days, life has been good to me, and radio continues to hold a special place in my heart. As does the memory of Eddy Allen Sr. He thought I had the sound they wanted across their airwaves in 1982. Everything that followed in my life was made possible by being hired as a radio broadcaster at 15th and Utah in Sturgon Bay.

A favorite memory of mine was a phone call from Keta to the station, asking me to have a seasonal drink for the holiday. I knew this was going to be another great time for talking and laughing about a bevy of topics, including local politics. She was a good liberal. My type of person to hang around with in those years. Since Door County was barn red in those days of Ronald Reagan, those of us who did not cotton to his conservative views had to band together.

Some in Door County understood I had a ‘crush’ on Keta, even though she was ‘slightly’ older than me.  And that I was gay.   I was the new hire at WDOR, and she was the established writer at the local newspaper. She seemed to know everybody, and better yet, everything about everybody.  Who wouldn’t want to have a drink with the lady? Just the type of person I needed to know when starting out in both broadcasting and local politics.  To be around her meant that others would soon flock, and amazing conversations would follow.  She had that type of personality that drew others near.

I have met only a rare handful that can turn heads when they enter a room, and Keta could.  That struck me at the age of 20 as quite impressive.  I most enjoyed talking with her during some very long and tedious county board meetings that we covered for our respective newsrooms.  Many a time, all she wanted was a cigarette, and I just wanted an adjournment of the proceedings.  We would laugh and kid each other about all sorts of things, and share political sentiments back and forth that made us kindred spirits in staunchly conservative Door County.

Being a part of the Door County media, I knew the writers at the local newspaper and had the pleasure of trading gossip and insights during the weekly lunches named ‘Pen-n-Mic Club’ where we would all sit and review the world and local scene.  I recall Keta would sit at another table with a few other women, and I would look over and wonder if she knew the guys at my table were discussing topics other than boring sports stories.  I made sure of that! I so wanted her to be close by and hear her memorable and hard-to-miss laugh.  As I said, I had a ‘crush’ on this lady.

She was a profoundly powerful and creative writer. Her columns are as warm and spirited as when first published.  Like this one below, starting with a Christmas feel.

After weeks of scrubbing, painting and stocking shelves, Herman and Keta Steebs opened Happy Herman’s Market in Sister Bay the week before Christmas in 1956. The following description of the early days of Happy Herman’s was written by Keta for a local newspaper.

Opening night saw our first employee, Harriet ‘Sis’ Seaquist manning the checkout, yours truly helping Herman at the meat counter and gobs of customers jamming our aisles. The event was an unqualified success.

Our suppliers, the Plumb & Nelson Company of Manitowoc, Mrs. Karl’s Bakery, Pleck Dairy, Dick Brothers Bakery, Fairmont Ice Cream and two Green Bay produce companies all chipped in with prizes, adding a bit of a fillip to the occasion. Although our little store only had three aisles, we were able to carry some of everything. Space on the bread rack – limited as it was – was fought over daily by our competing bread men: Dale Seiler of Mrs. Karl’s and Gene Kasten of Dick Brothers.

Herman’s Market prided itself on its meat and, to justify that claim, Herman bought nothing but the best, using the oldest, least-popular cuts for our personal use. Equipped with a frying pan, slow cooker and Nesco roaster, Herman made such savory, good-smelling meals that our morning regulars – Wes Staver, Alma Bunda, Emma Pahl and Joe D’Louey – would copy his recipes and have the same meal themselves. One Ellison Bay couple – she thrifty, he not – drove in every other day to see what was cooking. While she shopped for the basics, he loaded his cart with gourmet foods and choice steaks.

Our meat first got a taste of the limelight when I decided to walk in the Fall Festival parade leading Ed Koessl’s cow – proclaiming “The Only Meat Fresher than Herman’s” – down Main Street. The cow showed her disapproval by stepping on my foot, laying me low for days. That same year, 1957, was the year our good friends Rita and Earl Willems opened their bowling alley, encouraging every business in the area to sponsor teams. Thanks to my bad foot, Herman’s Market was in the cellar all year.

But everything else was coming up roses. In 1962, in order to do needed remodeling, we bought – rather than continuing to rent – that homely little concrete building from owner Anna Peterson, who, with her niece, Eunice, had once used it as a tea room.

Before then – between the time Herman’s Market opened and Earl Willems bought a rotisserie to serve roast chicken to his growing number of bowlers – a major event took place. Ellsworth “Andy” Anderson, owner of Masterfreeze, a freezer-cooler operation, moved his factory directly across the street. Were we ever happy! Not only did business pick up, but Andy and Herman worked out a deal trading groceries for a new walk-in freezer-cooler, which, to my knowledge, may still be there.

Life was full and rich in those still-young years but, by 1968, the handwriting was on the wall. Blessed by then with two young sons but burdened with an unprofitable business (chains could sell cheaper than we could buy), we got out while the going was good.

Painful as the process was, it was inevitable. The mid-sixties, we belatedly learned, was not a propitious time for shoestring operations. Nor for stores prone to extending credit to customers who shopped elsewhere when they had money. But then, I never was good in arithmetic. The store was leased to George Brunns, and the Steebs’ farm home was rented.

What Keta had been good in since high school, however – when she penned essays for college students – was writing, and she soon had a job on the Women’s Desk of the Green Bay Press Gazette. She loved it, but Herman and their two little boys, Scott and Patrick, missed Sister Bay. “I came home every night to three long faces,” Keta wrote.

“Remember how in the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy kept repeating, ‘There’s no place like home; there’s no place like home’? Well, substitute ‘Sister Bay’ for ‘home,’ and you’ll have an idea of what I heard night after night. Fortunately, relief was in sight.

“Just as I was about to resort to a heavier dose of Valium, the miracle occurred, the clouds disappeared, the sun came from behind the clouds. Herman’s Market had a new owner, and that owner wanted Herman to run his old store. A Sturgeon Bay newspaper could use my services, and our home, thanks to an understanding renter, became available.”

Although the Steebs boys weren’t very old when Herman and Keta ran Happy Herman’s Market, Scott has one vivid memory.

“Little bags of Frito corn chips had a prize inside – a little eraser in the shape of the Frito Bandito. I took one to school, and all the other first- or second-graders were really impressed. I thought if I took enough erasers for everyone, I’d be really popular. So, I opened every bag in the store to get the erasers. My parents were not happy!”

The building that once housed Happy Herman’s Market is now Grasse’s Grill.

You know life is good when a simple email can bring back a flood of memories that come bundled with smiles and laughs from decades ago. Thank you, Adele.