![\"sids](\"http:\/\/blog.keloland.com\/lund\/files\/2014\/03\/sids-bldg.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI figured it would come to this, the end of an institution.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Sid\u2019s Crown Liquors in downtown Sioux Falls is closing.\u00a0 Sid\u2019s marks the end of an egalitarian era in Sioux Falls when it was s city with no real class distinctions.\u00a0 It was a melting pot.\u00a0 You would see bankers elbow to elbow with street people.\u00a0 People buying cigarettes searching their pockets for that last desperate penny, a coin the same color as the nicotine halo on their fingers.\u00a0 The clerk and the line patiently waiting.\u00a0 Sid himself greeting customers and bouncing some evil doers before they even got through the door, throwing them out on a first name basis.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Sid was one of those World War II army radio school leftovers who found a local girl, Judee, and stayed after the war, this man of the world from New Jersey or someplace.\u00a0 That radio school in its time was quite an attraction, thanks to the WWII draft.\u00a0 Even Phil Graham who later ran the Washington Post and was a confidant of LBJ passed through when duty called.\u00a0 Sid Epstein was, of course, Jewish which didn\u2019t matter a lot in those days.\u00a0 He hit the till for every charity that came along, Jewish or Christian, probably even Muslim.\u00a0 Once during one of those Middle East flare-ups, Sid told me: \u201cWe should just stay out of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fight among cousins.\u201d\u00a0 You have to add a New Jersey accent to that to get the effect.\u00a0 He was probably right, but what world power listens to the wisdom of a guy who owns a liquor store.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n One of my favorite episodes was a Friday night.\u00a0 There used to be a gay bar up Phillips Avenue a block or so from KELO, across the street from the one that\u2019s there now\u2026last I heard, anyway\u2026right across a parking lot from Sid\u2019s.\u00a0 One Friday night after the news I\u2019m stocking up for the lake, waiting in the usual eclectic line.\u00a0 There\u2019s a guy at the front of the line in full drag.\u00a0 The guy next to me says: \u201cHey, I used to go to school with him\u2026her!\u201d\u00a0 Today, who would notice?\u00a0 Sid\u2019s son-in-law has been running the place since Sid died five years ago, pretty much run out of business by a liquor store on every corner and in every supermarket.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Thanks, Steve. \u00a0By the way, Steve is returning to his first love, Radio. Well, sort of. He’s started a pod cast on the internet in which he’ll be doing interviews and commentary on a variety of subjects mostly having to do with people and events in and around his beloved Hendricks, Minnesota but I have little doubt he’ll be able to resist the temptation to offer observations and critiques from just about anywhere. The link to his \u00a0website and first interview is here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Next week..the story of a Woonsocket, South Dakota farm girl I found out about who became a corporal in the Army during World War II and played a significant role in the D-Day invasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whenever I’m out and about, people ask how my old Keloland News sidekick, Steve Hemmingsen, is doing these days. Well, Steve popped over to the house the other day for a visit. We talked and laughed for a couple hours; mostly about the perils of obesity, our latest travels, (a lot of which involve trips…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11611,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3445\/revisions\/11611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jodystaples.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>What brought people to Sid\u2019s was\u2026money.\u00a0 He had the cheapest prices in town, maybe the world.\u00a0 You could always get 10 percent off if you bought a case of wine or whiskey.\u00a0 I was practically a rum runner for friends at the lake.\u00a0 He used to sell side brand beer for less than pop.\u00a0 One of my favorites was something called \u201cNude Beer.\u201d\u00a0 If you scratched the label, the lady lost her clothing.\u00a0 I never had to pick up one of those bottles on the lawn.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n