Louis Paul Tetiva 1901-1988

In 1972-73, we bought Zenner's Store in Buckman from Killian and Adella Zenner. Their calling-card was their wonderful smoked sausage. They taught us how to make it, of course, so once a week was Sausage Day.
There was a small back room with a sink, butcher block, counter, stove, hand crank sausage stuffer, and an electric meat grinder.

Louie Tetiva was "Halka's" brother...Math Hesch's wife Mary...and by the time I knew him, he was a widower in his 70s living east of Buckman. He wasn't a large man, and he didn't talk much in the best of times. He could stop in at the store, pick out what he wanted, pay for it and leave without saying one word. But, when he needed the sausage grinder, he had to ask...lol

It was late fall--furnaces were turned on already by the time Louie realized he wouldn't have a 'good day' to grind his horseradish at home. He told me that he usually opened both doors in his house, on a coolish windy day, and set up the grinder in the windward doorway. THAT fall, no day like that happened, and he found himself with.....

...great HORSERADISH roots that needed grinding. He was distressed. Could he...ya know...umm....possibly use our grinder?

(Go to your fridge, right now, and put some horseradish on your tongue. Notice how it makes your mouth and throat burn...and how it feels in your sinuses?? Are your eyes watering yet?)

Horseradish is EVIL stuff, and I had NO idea what I was saying yes to. Louie sounded way too grateful.

The next day, he parked next to the store and came in with a box of roots. Hmm. So that was horseradish? Looked innocent enough, like fat white carrots....but he had a trunk full, and a backseat full, too. Mysteriously, he had a farmer hankerchief tied around his neck, like a bandit would wear. Wha...?

LOL...he/we could take the fumes only about 10 minutes, even with the hankerchief tied around his face. I'd hear the door close, the grinder start up....and shortly, Louie'd stagger out with tears pouring down his face, gasping for air. Then, he'd go to the bar for an hour....wash, rinse, repeat...it took him two full days to grind that stuff, and to put me off horseradish for the rest of my life.
Just typing about it now, almost 40 years later, my lip and nose tingle and my eyes are watering.
But what a GREAT story, huh?