During high school, when Christmas break was over, there was a long stretch of cold weather ahead of us before we could even start to think about spring fever.
To help pass the time on the weekends when we didn’t have a home basketball game, two popular destinations were the Lake Benton Showboat Ballroom and the Lake Shetek Valhalla Ballroom.
As I recall, the Showboat was more popular than the Valhalla Ballroom. The reason was probably two-fold – first it was further away and distance always seemed more exotic, plus South Dakota was nearby and it was an 18-year-old state for drinking 3.2% beer.
Many country bars would serve a 3.2% beer to anyone who barely looked old enough — not that we ever did that. A 3.2 beer as it was called back then would be more akin to today’s light beers, although they do usually have a slightly higher alcohol content than 3.2%.
I remember driving to South Dakota on Sunday afternoons with my buddies, Dick Drackley and Randy Vogel, to buy a couple of beers.
Our destination was a small farming town called Elkton, just across the South Dakota border. After a few beers, we had to chew copious amounts of chewing gum to cover up the smell of beer on our breath. I can still remember on one occasion when Dick or Randy left an empty beer can under the front seat of our family car. I was driving to Sunday School with my brother and sister in the back seat and with mom riding copilot in the front seat.
When I stopped the car at the corner of Elm and Center Streets a Hamm’s beer can rolled out from under my mom’s seat. Trying to come up with a quick explanation as to how that could have happened, I incredulously stated that Dick or Randy was playing a trick on me to make me look bad in front of my brother, sister and mom.
I’m sure that mom never bought that story but she kindly let it drop.
I want to be clear that none of my friends who played sports ever joined us in those rides to South Dakota. The coaches were all very strict about prohibiting the student athletes from drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes. All the athletes towed the line to avoid being kicked off the team for an infraction. I should also add that I never smoked (beer tasted too good to ruin the flavor by smoking) and I only occasionally had a beer or two, as far as I recall.
The Lake Benton Ballroom was a real dive that had seen it’s best days during the 1950s.
By the time the 60s rolled around, it had become a hole in the wall compared to other ballrooms in the area.
Valhalla at Lake Shetek was in much better shape. There were live bands on the weekends at Lake Benton and that was the main attraction. Of course, the possibility of meeting girls from other towns was also a big draw. I remember attending a dance at the Showboat featuring Tommy James and the Shondells before they really became big in the late 1960’s.
When the weather finally warmed up, I recall attending a party or two at a friend’s cabin on Lake Shetek during the summer when his parents were out of town. This normally called for a beer or two but usually no hard liquor.
Word of these summer parties on the weekend quickly traveled through the A&W Drive-in crowd and everyone would head to Lake Shetek for the party.
The other popular activity during the warmer months of the year was going to the drive-in theater in Slayton or Marshall, which I covered in a column last summer.
Next month: Ham radio
