Smelt Fry

    The town of Goodridge was not looking its best on this Saturday, the 24th of April as my brother-in-law Pete, Steve Reynolds, and I pulled into town. It was the day of the Lions annual smelt fry, undoubtedly Goodridge's biggest day of the year. The smelt fry had been cancelled to past two years due to Covid so there was a lot of anticipation. But it had rained all day the previous day, and even more heavily this morning. One more kick in the teeth from the hard winter hardly passed.

   All our previous smelt fry jaunts had been on sunny days. We would arrive an hour or so before the smelt fry began at 4:00. The little town, pop. 132, would be packed with trucks, trailers, and people. We would hear the stereophonic chant of the simultaneous auctions that would have been going on since 9:00 a.m.

  The rummage sale was in an adjacent lot. This also had started in the morning, but there would still lots of stuff left for us to gawk at; Elvis memorabilia, homemade and insurance voiding barn heaters, kitchen implements no one uses anymore, 3 hp outboard motors, farm implements no one remembers how to operate anymore, etc. You could look in the pickup beds to see what people had already bought. It always looked like the same exact stuff no one had bought.

   In previous years, a line started forming at 3:30 alongside Lions Hall, a long quonset building with a square kitchen tacked on the far end. Some of the people in the line would be sipping beers they had stashed in their coats while chatting with their neighbors. The town has no resident police force and the usual norms are relaxed on this special day. 

   Once inside the building we would buy a meal ticket and accept plastic mug which was soon filled by a jolly woman with a pitcher of beer in each fist. We would inch our way along the wall toward the counter where green shirted Lions served up the deep fried smelt. Smelt are long and skinny, like super size sardines. The smelt itself gets lost in a thick coating of batter. The diner can further enhance his or her serving with dollops of bright yellow tartar sauce. 

   There are baked potatoes steaming in their tinfoil jackets, waiting to melt the frozen butter pats. There is sour cream as well to top it all off. Coleslaw provides the vegetable element and if that's not enough, there is soft bread, white and whole wheat. There's no dessert. That would be redundant here. There is milk for the kids and coffee for the designated drivers.

   That's a picture of years past. On this day the rain had quit around noon, but the day was still grey and cool when we arrived at three. We had passed mile after mile of flooded fields on our forty mile drive. This year there was no sign that the auction had taken place.  There were a few piles of rummage in the muddy lot. This stuff would soon be hauled back to the place it had come from. It would keep till next year.

   Some of Goodridge's streets are unpaved.  As we drove around town I found one that had formed a greasy surface atop its gravel base.  There were plenty of trucks to pull my little Corolla free should I bog down, but a rescue would involve muddy pants on my part.  I stayed on the blacktop after that.

  By 3:30 no line had started to form by the quonset. All the action seemed to be at the Municipal Liquor Store.  We decided to kill some time there. There was a small off-sale liquor store inside the door but most of the space was given over to the bar, booths, tables and chairs, a pool table, and a small bandstand where the band Eagle Creek was slowly setting up. They would not perform until 9:00, when the smelt fry was over.

   The Muni was packed with locals, old and young. The two women behind the bar were busy serving up bottles of light beer and alcohol-infused soft drinks.  No wine, sorry. Young boys raced motorcycles on the TV, but no one was watching.  Everyone seemed in good spirits. The weather was not bringing them down. Even those who disliked smelt were enjoying the company.

  At 4:00, we walked over to the quonset. There was still no line. It was mud all around the building with a big puddle in front of the door. The Lions need to make that area a public service project. We bought our tickets and within ten minutes we were filling our plates and finding seats at the long tables. The place was filling up. 

   There was a one man polka band to mellow out the scene. Two Lions circulated among the tables. One carried a thirty pound saddle of side pork (unsliced bacon) over his shoulder and the other sold raffle tickets.  Every few minutes the music would stop and a number would be called out. There would be a shout of joy, the music would resume,  and a new slab of bacon would soon be making the rounds.

   Even though Goodridge is a fair distance fromWannaska, we usually see someone we know, and sure enough, there was Putzy, the woman who used to own our favorite little café in Thief River Falls. She said she was doing well, but her husband had fallen off the roof a while back and was not doing so well. Her daughter was already eating and was giving us a who are these bozos look, because her mom kept standing with her back to her while talking to us.  "I paid for their meal," Putzy said. "I don't like smelt myself. I like standing to see if there's anyone I know." She had spent considerable time as a young woman in Goodridge. "People tell me the restaurant has changed since I sold it. They tell me I need to come back." That's not going to happen. She's busy with her catering business and taking her husband to his appointments. 

   A woman at our table had a green souvenir "Smelt Fry Goodridge 2022" coozie on her drink. She said they were giving them away at the Muni. I noticed new diners were looking for seats so we said goodbye to Putzy and headed for the Muni to get our souvenir coozies. They were fresh out. Pete said his wife Kathy back in Moorhead was meting a friend for supper. "She's probably cutting into a filet mignon right now," he said.. He mentioned a couple of other downsides of the smelt fry. "So you won't be coming next year?" I asked. "Oh no. I'll be here." 

   I had told Putzy I missed her potato dumplings at her old café. The new owners had dropped them from the menu. "I'll bring you some of mine to the smelt fry next year," she said. I smiled and told her spring is coming early in 2023 according to Old Joe's Almanac. 

Goodridge rummage in better days.
It shall return.