Linse, John

              Peggy: This is Peggy Barta today is June 30, 2013 we are in Lewistown, Montana at 608 NE Washington. Today I’m talking with John Linse for the Touchstone Project for St. Wenceslaus Church, so John tell us when and where you were born.
John: I was born in Lewistown, Montana in St. Joseph’s Hospital April 9, 1951.
Peggy: You lived briefly when you were a little tike in Danvers I understand, but your grandparents lived there so you’ve had some experiences with Danvers and St. Wenceslaus. What can you tell us?
John: I was really little and I got these vague memories of the trail between grandpa’s house and the bar and I remember Charlie Longin. There is one memory that stuck with me as we talk about tragedies and stuff. I remember there was a man who had  gotten hit by the train at the train crossing and I had this vision of him… there is a boxcar they had the box car door open and I remember I could just visualize him laying there I thought he was dead. I was like, wow, there’s a dead person in there. That kind of burned in my mind. I guess he lived and I just remember he was laying by himself, nobody was there to check out if he was going to be ok.
Peggy: So after he got hit he climbed into the boxcar you’re saying?
John: The train hit the car he was in I was just assuming that they said, ‘what we do with him let’s throw him in the boxcar’.  Probably somebody took him to Lewistown but they had stopped in Danvers. I think that was a Killham, I think, so most of my memories of Danvers are after my family had moved away so we were living in Denton and I would go and stay with grandma and grandpa for a few days at a time and so we had these little experiences with Grandpa Barta, as anybody would know, was a character he loved to chew Copenhagen. I don’t think there was a grandchild of his who wasn’t offered to have a taste, most of them didn’t take it, I did, then of course you would spit and  spit for half an hour to get that stuff out of your mouth because you didn’t know what to do with it ,you just put it right on your tongue and after about three or 4 milliseconds later realized that between grandpa’s  laughing and the taste in your mouth you really shouldn’t  have done it. He enjoyed that. Always had candy bar, he had to make candy, loved to give the grandkids candy you are never too far away from the sweets. When you followed him into the bar he would set you up on the stool well, first you got to go look at the candy and pick out what you want, then get on the stool and he’d get you candy bar and a pop . The bartender, Fenner, he had such big thick glasses couldn’t see very well at all. Getting off the track a little bit here when we were in high school we were under age we sure wanted beer really bad so a carload of us would head over to Danvers. We’d get the oldest looking guy in the car and he would go into Charlie Fenner’s bar and of course Charlie would ask for an ID that was no problem, Charlie couldn’t see what the heck the numbers were anyway, so we always came out with beer unless Charlie’s wife was there and he would bring her out to look at the ID then you’re shot down.. But you would go in there a week later and Charlie wouldn’t recognize you anyway. Getting back to Grandpa Barta he made the world famous Kool-Aid and the ratio was 50% Kool-aid and 50% sugar and as much as little kids like sweet and sweet and sweet it was just about chokingly sweet. I remember one time when I was just a little guy I was staying with them and it was getting towards bedtime, this is probably the first time I really stayed with them, I couldn’t understand why is grandpa sleeping here and grandma was  sleeping there in two different bedrooms? Grandma says because grandpa snores grandpa says no it’s because you snore, no it’s because you snore… I got to tell you from experience that both snored and I think grandma was the loudest but the rooms were far enough apart that it was nice and quiet. One time that I was there Grandpa Barta decided that the he needed to entertain me so he made some toys; he’d take a couple sticks of wood and this and that and an old regular rollers that you’d ring the clothes dry or wring the water out of the clothes I’d say, and he make little roller things and made these little toys for me out of just chunks of wood. I had a great time they wouldn’t have sold for much but they were sure fun to play with grandpa. He always had stories to tell one I can remember was with Grandpa Barta. The thing with Grandpa Barta was that the more he had to drink the better the story. This one story I’m about to tell you he told, was about this guy, he was digging a ditch, he was really muddy and everything and he looks down he sees something wiggling down in the mud so he grabs the shovel thinking it’s got to be a snake so he takes the shovel down and he starts to cut his toe off. His stories kept getting wilder and wilder though as a little kid any story was a good one. Then he was talking about when he was working in a furniture shop that was back in Chicago this guy that he worked with was really a handy guy to have around. He’d take this leather and he put it over the furniture, turning it over and tack it down but this guy had a big thumb and he’d take the tack and he would shove it in with his thumb, the little kids went, wow. Every so often they would have company over, I remember them playing cards, and I tried playing cards with him and he really tried to play cards with me but I just wasn’t too good at it, anyway this old fella that used to come around, Walter Slivka, he had this big bushy beard with nicotine stains, he always had this pipe in his mouth. Their card games were real lively, always argue back and forth take cards and slam them down on the table, they’d say ‘look at that’ it was so funny they were really having a lot of fun just giving each other hard time.