Monthly Archives: August 2013
Old movie fans will be disappointed. This is not a review of, or the announcement 
of a remake of, the great old Spencer Tracey movie by the same name. It was redone once as Always starring Richard Dreyfus, Holly Hunter, and John Goodman but this article is not about that either. (Be a little patient, please. You’re gonna have to wade through a couple paragraphs of me telling some folks and their place how great they are. It will be worth reading, and then I’ll get to the story).
Despite the confusing name, this story is about a guy I met named, “Joe.”
A couple weeks ago, my girl Helen and I took my two sons to a resort in the Wisconsin Dells called “Birchcliff.”
Birchcliff Resort is a classic American North Woods resort. I don’t mean it’s decorated in the “classic” style or that it’s just “classy” (which it is, in a classic North Woods sort of way). It is classic American summer resort including shuffleboard, horse shoes, bean bag toss, and (I am not making this up!) a no-kidding concrete ping pong table. The dozen or more pine cabins, apparently spanning at least two different generations (of cabins) contain such things as Cribbage games, books (!), and the standard mix of kitchen equipment and accoutrements, making up a more or less complete set. The ubiquitous park/resort built-in charcoal grill that turns on a pole and has an adjustable grill height is mounted outside. The place is clean, well-maintained, and, well, classic!
If you needed to make a film set in a resort in the 1930’s, you could just remove the TV’s and other modern conveniences and ROLL ‘EM!
