Lucky's Bar & Grill

While traveling recently to MN and WI for a family reunion and family farm roots search I stayed with relatives in Clear Lake, WI.  Clear Lake has a populaiton of about 1000 with a downtown of five to six square blocks surrounded by many churches with a long history of German and Norwegian settlment dating back to the late 1800's. Lucky's Bar and Grill is the primary meeting spot for the locals.  I ate breakfast with my cousin two mornings in a row and was invited to join the revolving table of strongly opinionated farmers and farm equipment manufacturers.  After a few minutes  I could quickly see politics and farming were the two primary topics of discussion.  I will duck the biased political viewpoints but one of the farmers had an interesting point.  Why are we growing corn to make ethanol when there is plenty of oil in the ground.  From a farmer's perspective maybe he is correct and we need to look for oil in the right location.  Another farmer and his twin brother invented the mechanical bean picker while in high school and run a farm equipment company a few blocks away employing a hundred people.  Later in the morning we stopped by to visit PBO and received the cooks tour.  PBO is also known for making civil war cannon replicas down to the last detail and fires them at many civil war functions around the country.  Another farmer puts out scores of nesting boxes for martins which are similar to swallows.  We also visited his farm and saw tens of martins flying all over the place.  All in all a lively hour long form of entertainment plus cheap breakfast with farm fresh eggs, bacon, toast or oatmeal and toast.  Where else can you get breakfast for three with coffee for under $15 and be entertained?