UF #6

Ralph, I hadn't met many people that knew where Benton Harbor was before you. I lived in Benton Harbor for a couple months before moving across the river to St. Joseph to attend half of my junior year in HS. My dad worked on the nuclear plant there for a short-term project. Moving to BH from Montana was a huge culture shock for me.

 

We stayed in BH a few times for ND games. Rooms were much more reasonable and it wasn't that far to ND. We had dinner though in St Joseph, they had a nice downtown district.

 

We were amazed at the contrast between the twin cities, separated pretty much just by a river.

 

Kes, was that the nuclear plant in Michigan City, IN, or is there one near BH?

 

Flying with the fam tomorrow from Tampa up to South Bend for a wedding in Niles, Mi. on Saturday.

Staying tomorrow night in S. Bend before heading up to Niles.

Anybody ever been to Cheers bar? It's about .8 mile from my hotel.

What's a good place to eat near there?

 

Kes,

It can be a small world at times, I cut my teeth in the business world, age 26 and my employment was with a national sales finance company. I was based in South Bend but made many trips to Benton Harbor, where our attorneys were located. Unfortunately, my predecessor was involved in many fraudulent endeavors in Indiana and Michigan. Turned out to be a great learning experience and proved to be very valuable down the road.

Ara was the coach at ND. This would have been 1964-65.

 

The first job I landed after I relocated on my own to Detroit from St. Louis in 1979 was with Abex Brake Linings. I was an account manager and South Bend Brake was one of my distributors.

I spent many a lonely night sitting at Gippers in the Holiday Inn drinking happy hour drinks eating happy hour food.

Was only 24 years old and pretty green although I had already worked as a new trailer salesman for Fruehauf for almost two years before leaving STL to be with my fiancee in Detroit. ( still with that girl miraculously )

 

I did a street view on google maps of Cheers Bar...It might be ok, but I don't think I would have stopped in there just driving by the place.

There are a lot of places of course, closer to ND. O'Rourkes is in a new development across from ND called the Eddy Commons, and then there is The Evil Czech on N. Main which is a little further.

 

Sid - it was the DC Cook plant in MI, about 10 miles South of St. Joseph right on Lake Michigan.


Don - Yikes, good thing you got learnings from it, because it sure doesn't sound like a fun experience! I livered there in 1988.

 

i'm hearing from South Bend up to Niles is a little dicey.....

There goes my midnight 5 miler.... lol