Day 11 – Green Bay

I had a late start as I was staying in Green Bay for two more nights. The only thing I needed to do this morning was check out of the hotel I was staying in and move to a hotel 200 metres down the road. The rate for the Friday night was better at one hotel, but it was higher for the two weekend nights so I moved to another hotel which was actually a much newer hotel and as well as being cheaper I also received a $25 Shell petrol card for staying two nights.

I was able to check in early again and spent some time sorting out my paperwork I have accumulated so far. I then went out to get some lunch before travelling over to see Ken Treml and his wife Barbara at their home. Ken as I mentioned was the person who invited me to Green Bay to start with and I was able to visit them and have a look at his collection. Ken also has a basement under his home where he has his collection displayed.

He has a collection of favourite cans and his main specialty is sports cans and sports schedules. Schedules are the cards handed out by sporting clubs or sponsors listing all the games for the year for a particular team or sport. There is a chapter of schedule collectors in the BCCA. Ken has in his sporting cans sets of Australian sports cans including the XXXX 1982 Commonwealth Games set.

At 4pm Ken and Barbara took me to their local church for mass. The church was build 8 years ago and is a very well built architecturally. Following the mass we went to the Titletown Brewing Company building which is the old Green Bay Railway Station on Main Street in the city, next to the river. Ken had arranged for any members who were coming into town today for tomorrows show to come to the brewery for dinner tonight. We had 8 people for dinner and they were also able to try some of the 14 beers on tap. They also brew a non alcoholic root beer which I tried, it was quite good, only a bit sweet for my taste.

Following dinner Ken had arranged to take me to the home of Pete Vann, another collector to look at his collection and also see how he makes the “booyah” stew broth that is for lunch for tomorrow. Pete and his wife Claudia travel annually to Hawaii and have a lot of Hawaiian memorabilia as well through their house. We went down a set of stairs into the basement. Whilst going down the stairs Peter has lined the walls and the ceiling of the stairwell with beer tap handles.

Once in the basement the whole area was covered with brewery signs, mirrors and beer cans

and Pete had set his bar top with photos and other memorabilia of his family and poured clear resin over them to create a counter top. He even filled in gaps in the memorabilia and put more items on to of the first layer and poured a second layer of resin over the top.

We talked for quite a while about collecting, Hawaii, and about the Green Bay Packers which Pete like everyone else in Green Bay is fanatical about. He has a share certificate for the Packers, it is the only team in the NFL that is owned by the general supporters of the team not by a rich person or corporation. He also has a replica Championship ring from last year’s Superbowl win that was sold to Packers supporters.

We left the Vann’s and I dropped Ken off and made my way back to the Hotel. Once there I rang home to my Sisters mobile as she had sent a text saying she was going to visit my mother at the respite home and I would be able to ring and speak to mum. I was able to ring and get them so I had a good conversation with my mum and she seems to have settled well into the home. She said that she is enjoying it and that all the staff are real friendly.

Once I finished the phone call I headed for bed as tomorrow should be a good day at the Beer Collectors show.