Town Characters: Ernie the Finn and Long George

Preface: This collection of vignettes is a chapter from my childhood memoir, The Tornado in my Life, that spans the period from 1950 to 1964 when my parents, Bill and Anne Haug, owned a bar on Bigfork’s Electric Avenue. While some may remember these characters and events differently than I do, this is my perception of the people and events that shaped my small life, not about facts that have no real meaning out of context.

ERNIE THE FINN

One of my earliest and most colorful memories is of Ernie the Finn. He lived in one of the small bachelor cabins across from the powerhouse, near the old steel bridge in Bigfork. He had curly red hair, with high cheekbones that stood out above his mustache. He wore a plaid wool shirt and used red suspenders to hold his brown wool pants on his skinny frame.

He was often seen fishing off the bridge or from the rocks between the bridge and the powerhouse, but in the morning when Mom and I walked uptown, he was usually still sleeping off last night’s drunk.

He had a personality that waxed between manic and stupor as his blood sugar swung from high to low. It seemed he was never on level ground. In the evenings, he came to the bar for a couple beers, and to tell about the fish he’d caught. When he felt his blood sugar rising, he took his insulin shot and kept on drinking. He plugged the jukebox to play a schottische or a polka. He was in good spirits until his blood sugar dropped too low. A few Hershey bars later, he was back in his stride, drinking more beer, and giving the leftover candy bars to any kid in sight, usually me.

Sometimes in the morning, we found Ernie lying along the side of the road in a stupor. “What’s wrong with Ernie, Mom? Is he dead?”  

She rolled him over and checked for pulse and breath. “He’s OK, Honey. Just needs some help.” She tried to get him to speak, but his mouth was thick with mucous and only weird sounds came out. She’d make out “Waaaaataaa” and sent me to the bar for a glass of water. That revived him enough to give himself a shot of insulin. Once he was able to walk, Mom bought him a meal at the Lake Café.

By the time I started School, Ernie had moved on, and another bachelor, Zachary, had moved into his shack.

LONG GEORGE

Long George Wells, so called because he must have been 7 feet tall and skinny as a beanpole, was a legendary character about town. He was a teller of tall tales, such as about the fish that got away or the miles of line he walked when he worked as a lineman for the power company (a job that lasted only a few weeks, but from the stories you’d think he’d earned his retirement there). George could nurse a story and a bottle of beer all afternoon. He usually came into the bar around 8, just after it opened for the day. He’d twist his long legs around a bar stool and sit there with his chin in his hand until he came up with an entertaining story to share with my Dad. He’d break into a boyish grin as the yarn came spilling out. If the story was really good, Dad stood him to a bottle of Hamms. Otherwise, George would have to lie in wait for some unsuspecting customer to pay for a tale.

He was married to his gentle Eva, but we only saw her in the bar when she came to escort George the block walk home for dinner. She did laundry and cleaned houses, and watched me sometimes during the day when both of my parents were working in the bar.  They lived in a three-room house behind the Koffee Kup Kafe. It was furnished with a wood cook stove and dry sink in the kitchen, along with a table and chairs; a worn mohair sofa and chair in the living room, where I took my nap; and a bedroom I never saw.

I remember one lunch when Eva made oyster stew.  She dished it up into bowls, gave each of us a good thick slice of her homemade bread, and we sat down to eat. I was only about three, I think.  I started to put my spoon into the bowl when I saw those black things floating in it. “George!” I cried, “There’s bugs in my soup!”  George’s long lanky body convulsed with hilarity, as he pounded the table, crying “Bugs in the soup! Bugs in the soup!” I looked at Eva in bewilderment. “Those bugs are just oysters, dear” she said.  “If you try one, you might like it.  But if you don’t, you’ll give George another good laugh!”  So, I took a tiny bite (holding back a grimace) and … I liked it!

I don’t think George had stayed with any job very long; and he certainly had no pension. He depended on Eva’s domestic jobs for a living.  He died after I went away to college.  I got a call one day from my Mom. “You’ll never guess what George did now!  He just died, leaving Eva a $100,000 life insurance policy!” No one ever knew where George had gotten the money to keep that policy up,  but $100,000 was a lot of money in the 1960s.  After Eva put her widow’s weeds away, she packed up and moved to a retirement villa in San Louis Obispo, feeling thankfully rewarded for all her years of want.