Bear Creek

<p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Bear Creek in Michigan's Upper Peninsula is best described as a cross between </span><em>The Little House on the Prairie's</em> Walnut Grove and Garrison Keilor's <em>Lake Woebegone</em>. The year is 1923 and prohibition is in full swing. The Ladies' Aid Society from the local church plans to close the Snake Pit Saloon.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>The town's influential men meet every</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>morning at Barker's Hardware and Feed Store where they plan strategies to</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>protect their moonshine from their meddling wives. In their spare time they</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>organize MACHO nights (Men Advocating Completely Hedonic Outings) in which they</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>play poker and drink moonshine while hiding from their spouses.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In this rural paradise arrives a quixotic</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Methodist pastor. The Rev. </span>Hooper was apprehensive about his assignment to the local</p><p class=ql-align-justify>church feeling it was a vindictive appointment in revenge for Rudy's</p><p class=ql-align-justify>disparaging comments concerning the Bishop's wife. He had expected a</p><p class=ql-align-justify>run-down parsonage in some God forsaken land filled with tsetse flies and</p><p class=ql-align-justify>cannibals not an idyllic community such as Bear Creek. The Bishop didn't</p><p class=ql-align-justify>mention the previous three pastors were weaving baskets in downstate</p><p class=ql-align-justify>sanitariums. Nor did the bishop warn Rudy about the obsessive-compulsive beaver</p><p class=ql-align-justify>that came with the parsonage. Rudy would discover this soon enough. </p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p><br></p>