Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Palouse coffee
G.A. Perry, right, and Monte Nearing, foreground, sit at coffee Monday morning in Palouse. The group has raised $7,000 since last January.
A longtime Palouse coffee group has raised more than $7,000 in the past year and a half for various town causes.
The informal serving moved to the Roy M. Chatters Printing Museum in January of last year, after the Palouse Tavern closed.
Museum Director Janet Barstow, and volunteers Fred Spencer, Monte Nearing and Police Chief Jerry Neumann arranged for coffee to be served at tables in the museum.
At the time, a bank account was opened, a dishwasher, dorm-size refrigerator and commercial coffeemaker bought and set up in a back room.
To pay for it, patrons put in a dollar each day and a roll of the dice determines two losers, each required to contribute $5 for the day.
The money goes to the museum in a checking account which Barstow can access.
All of the funds come from coffee and six dice.
“Each guy rolls,” said Nearing.
“If nobody beats your roll, you put your dollar in the pot and sit back.” The confident can even buy their way back in.
They sit at two long tables, around which are 20-30 chairs.
An average of 10-15 people come by every morning, except Sunday.
If you roll all six’s, you buy for everyone for the day.
One’s are wild.
“They had a sheet over at the old tavern of who’s all done it, but it burnt up in the fire,” said Nearing, referring to the former Palouse Tavern building that burned down in April of last year, four months after the tavern closed.
The coffee group met there for four or five mornings as final construction was completed on the inside.
The new establishment, the Brick Wall Bar and Grill, was to be the group’s new location.
After the fire, the group moved back across the street to the museum.
Aside from museum expenditures, other donations are voted on by the group.
Various people approach them.
“They come to us,” Nearing said.
Support given includes for school field trips and camps, town funerals and other causes.
The museum has used its proceeds for new displays and partially funded a new heating system that went in last fall.
“I really appreciate the generosity,” said Barstow.
“I just appreciate them being here.” New patrons come and go to the morning gathering, some more temporary than others.
A few times people have stopped on the street, looking in the window.
“We wave them inside,” said Nearing.
“We’ve had people from Canada, Alaska.
We bring them in.
We make them roll.” The elder statesmen include G.A. Perry, 89, and Alan Flansburg, 94, who have met in Palouse morning coffee groups over decades, stretching back to multiple locations: the former Oasis Restaurant and Bar, the Family Café, and the upstairs of the grocery store before the last two stops.
Now the younger ones like Nearing and Spencer take care of the details.
“They just want their coffee,” said Nearing of the veteran members.
“That’s all they want.
These old guys, they don’t want anything to do in the back.” On Monday, Whitey Eagen and Gloria Hodges lost the dice roll and each paid the five dollars.
“I don’t get mad, I get even,” Hodges said, sitting next to a tray of donated coffee cups, one with a WSU logo that hasn’t been used since the early ‘80s.
Perry, his contribution kept to a dollar on Monday, will be 90 Dec. 4.
Born in Oakesdale, he was once Water Superintendent for Palouse and later worked in construction and ran the former Wooden Nickel Tavern for five years.
“His wife did, he didn’t,” said Byron Hodges, from across the table, himself a former 18-year Water Superintendent in Palouse.
“She counted the money, that’s all that mattered,” countered Perry.
And so it goes, mornings at the museum in Palouse.
“They’re welcome to stay as long as they want,” said Barstow.
“They just have to be out in October.” Last year the group moved to the community center during the fall event, in which the museum is transformed for Haunted Palouse.
There has been some talk now of moving to the new Palouse Caboose bar and restaurant that just opened.
“I think we’ll be staying at the museum,” said Nearing.
“There hasn’t been much interest in moving.”
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
Reader Comments(0)