One of the earliest proprietors of the bar was Tonica Ryan who ran a saloon at that location in the early 1900's. Ryan was the father of Marie Ryan who many remember as being the fifth grade teacher at Minonk Grade School from the 30's through the early 60's. Tonica got his nick-name when he was a little boy and ran away from home and got as far as Tonica.

Some of the oldtimers in Minonk remember seeing the coalminers carry their beer buckets into the side door of the saloon along the alley to get their daily refill after a long day's work at the mine. I remember going into the bar in the morning after working the night shift at the bakery and seeing the bartender lining up warm bottles of Star Model beer for a couple of oldtimers who would proceed to down then one after the other and then head home.

After Tonica Ryan, the bar was owned and operated by Tony Ketchmark as Ketchy's Tap. In the 1950's Joe Copp bought and ran the tavern as Copp's Tavern. In 1960 when I was old enough to start frequenting the bars, being a bartender was a full-time job. Baldy Wypeski worked with Joe Copp. George Sabol ran the Glass bar where Jess's Pub is now. Jerry O'Brien and Howard Parks worked at Al's Tap which was located at the site now occupied by the Bowling Alley tavern. Gil Janssen and his father ran Pinky's and Keggy Vogel ran Keggy's Tavern at the south end of Minonk. All of them wore a white shirt and tie. Some even wore arm bands although I never knew what was the function of the arm bands.

My favorite bartender in those days was Baldy Wypeski at Copp's Tavern. He had a gravely voice with a vocabulary of 5000 words, 4000 of which were cuss words. Baldy didn't want to mess with fancy drinks. Just a beer or a shot. You took your chances if you tried to order a ladies drink like a daquari. Also, he didn't like to prepare food. Once in a while my buddies and I would order a pizza from Baldy. He would grumble and walk over and throw the frozen pizza into the little oven and then proceed to forget about it until he could smell it burning. When he served it to us, he would say, "Looks like I cremated your pizza again." He also liked to give us nicknames. He used to call me Fidel because I grew a goatee one time and he thought I looked like Fidel Castro.

Years ago many of Minonk's stores had awnings to keep out the morning sun. Part of the morning routine was to crank down the awning and then sweep the sidewalk. It doesn't appear to me that today's shopkeepers sweep their sidewalks every day. I suggest that if you are a shopkeeper in Minonk, why not sweep the sidewalks every morning and also pick up the litter from the curb or the street.

I remember when the city crew in Minonk would routinely clean the streets by hand. Joe Mueller and Bill Kalkwarf used to take a shovel and scrape the curbs of dirt and debris and throw the stuff into a city dump truck driving alongside of them. These men were in their late 50's when they did that kind of work.

Two weeks ago a group of local volunteers walked the streets of Minonk and picked up 30 bags of garbage. In an effort to reduce the amount of litter in Minonk, I suggest that if you see litter outside a business establishment to go and complain to the store manager. If you have children who frequent the downtown area, stress to them the importance of not being a litterbug. I also think that a couple of more trash containers in the main street parking lot would help reduce the amount of loose litter. We know the kids are going to have pop and snacks while they are hanging out in the parking lot. Give them more places to throw away their trash.

Our property values and our feeling towards our city can be enhanced if we all become stewards of the city and help prevent litter.