Welcome to the StubbyBottle Tavern

Established 1949

Norman Collins started the StubbyBottle with $600 in cash - loaned to him from his mother - an old truck to pick up the beer and liquor and three tables with eight chairs. That was it. He was eighteen, with the jowls of a sixty year old that wobbled and churned when he spoke. His hair was thinning even at that age, and a cigar jutted out from his lips. Farm life, he told his father, wasn't for him, even though he was the eldest son. That had led to a rout, that led to rage, that led to physical confrontation, that led to punches, that led to broken furniture and complaints from the neighbours of two men throwing empty beer bottles at each other on their lawn and nearly catching Mrs. Traherne on the head as she walked her dog down the street. Eventually the Mounties were called in, and Constable Braunier, a burly 280 pounder, took each of them by the scruff of their shirts to the creek and tossing them in.

"This ain't the place to be doin' this," he scolded them, as he plunged their heads into this tiny tributary of the Red River. "We're gonna have none of this. Not in my town. Not when I'm tryin' to rest for the day. Not when old Traherne is tryin' to walk her dog, that bloody mutt. Her husband's my wive's minister. I'll hear 'bout it tonight, I tell you. Don't need this, don't need it at all. So you keep your disputes inside, no bottle throwing or fists outside, or you'll both spend a few nights down in Portage at the jail. Don't you doubt me."

He plunged their heads in the water a fourth time for good measure and so the lesson would stick.

"Keep your fightin' inside," he said as they walked dripping up the hill to the house. "I'd rather have you people tossing around chairs and breakin' dishes inside and dealing with you wife, than my wife taking me to task for not doin' my job."

He drove away in the old constable's dusty gray-coloured Chevy, his face red with exhaustion and anger and the hope that his wife would go easy on him. His stomach churned as if he was five years-old. Damn he hated the prospect. His lunch would never settle now. The gears ground as he shifted and the car lurched and his trugeon lurched to the passenger side floor.

At fifty-eight, he was getting far too old. He drove past the church where he was sure that old minister was already composing a sermon on the evil of drink and how the mounties were honour-bound to thresh out the troubles of a drinking nation, even it meant not a wink of sleep. His wife would tie his tie extra tight the coming sunday. The old Monkey-brained twit who ran the weekly paper would write an editorial on the subject. He needed a drink, and he couldn't get one now. The whole town would chatter if he did. The W. I. would have his head on a post. Then the Masons would have at him for their wive's fury. And the Knights of Columbus would complain to keep things even.

He stopped to buy a coke.

What the town needed was a tavern. He couldn't wait for Norman to start up. He'd be first in line.