Transcript

Location: Ferris Tavern, 1646 George St.

Joan Ferris: I’m looking at a bar on the corner of the block. Well, that’s an interesting place. My Uncle Don was really a character. When you went in there, everybody knew everybody. As he got older, he had diabetes and glaucoma, and he was legally blind. It was about one in the morning on a Sunday night. He refused to close earlier because he thought, If you have posted hours, you stay open those hours. But a uh would-be robber came in, and my uncle, I think, kinda sensed there was trouble amiss.  He said, “What do you want?” And the guy said, “I want your money.” And my uncle sort of was positioning himself behind the bar. What he didn’t know about my uncle is that my uncle was one of the roughest, toughest guys, when provoked, on the north side. My uncle grabbed him and pulled out what is reported to be an 18-inch butcher knife. Some say it was a machete; I don’t know. He said, come and get it and the robber supposedly turned around went out running. Last seen running south down the street. And it ended up being in the paper. It ended up being unfortunate because what I think it did was it advertised that there’s this blind bartender with money, [laughs] you know? Anyway, that’s the story of Don Ferris and the robber. My name is Joan Ferris, and I’m co-owner of Lovechild Restaurant in downtown La Crosse.