From Spittoons to Pontoons
by Kristin King Stapleton
The first full week of September 2017 held onto summer-like temperatures, and masses of mosquitoes. From Sunday to Friday, the town of Slayton in Murray County was host to twenty-seven Road Scholars with an interest in a variety of topics. Lake Shetek Retreat Center— on picturesque Keely Island— was our host, a part of Shetek Lutheran Ministries.
“Please do not sit on the velocipede.” How many of us were even tempted to break that rule, while approaching the 1860s ‘boneshaker’ version of the bicycle? As we were all seasoned adults with prevalent common sense, few such strict rules were necessary when our group visited the End O Line Railroad Park and Museum— which is on the National Registry of Historic Places. Our tour guide noted that there was a real purpose to the railroad depot’s divided male and female waiting rooms. This polite factor separated the ladies in long skirts from tobacco-chewers, whose aim often missed the spittoon. There is a replica of the Murray County Courthouse. Past cases in that town of Currie, MN held much local history. After a few hours of examining artifacts and visiting the schoolhouse, we learned the tale about the community’s 1870 witch trial. A man claimed that a woman had cursed his cattle. His view was, “I have legal right to shoot her.”
Our day moved from spittoons to pontoons, when we arrived back at Camp for an impromptu outing on shimmering Lake Shetek. The waters were mesmerizing. This was my first visit to Murray County, and also my first Road Scholar venture that I have attended solo. In past, my partner and I travelled multiple times to Door County, Wisconsin for hands-on culinary classes run by Road Scholar. Now that my beloved Ted is gone, I travel alone.
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