Grab the Lapels

Your Dog is In the Bar by Celia Rensch Day

Celia Rensch Day was raised in a tiny town called Ramona in South Dakota, which, for those of you who do not know, is a sparsely populated state. At some point in life she moved to California and married a city guy, Gene. After thirty-five years in the city, Celia and Gene had a serious conversation about their complaints regarding city life. Celia noted that the couple returned yearly to her hometown, and what about buying a house there to live during the spring, summer, and fall? Much to Celia’s family’s delight, Gene agreed to do it. Hence, in 2004 the Days bought a house in South Dakota sight unseen. The following spring they flew to South Dakota to see their house, which had a condemned, signed “Sheriff/Jack the Ripper,” sign on the door.

Celia Rensch Day’s book, Your Dog is in the Bar, follows the author from 2005, when she and Gene start fixing up the home, until the fall of 2008. And you may not believe it, but the entire book is just a diary. I mean, not even a poetic diary, not a themed diary. Celia is weeding gardens and showing up anywhere there is a free meal. She’s picking wild asparagus and helping friends paint awnings or redo decks. Garage sales are a big hit, as is pie day, which happens at the bank, and which I never fully understood, except it actually involves pie eating. The amount of pizza and beer this lady has a the local bar, which is owned by the city (I guess teeny towns do this?), is comparative to a college student. Almost everyone in the book is around retirement age, like the author, or even older (80’s or 90’s). There is no order to the book except the dates. Rensch Day will describe tearing out her kitchen cabinets and then mention old so-and-so died, the funeral is Thursday, and she’s going because there will be food.

The book looks self-published, but it’s not obscure. Which is weird. The font is definitely much larger than I’m used to, so the diary comes in at 543 pages. I read the entire thing aloud to Nick. Why did we keep reading an aimless diary by a stranger in South Dakota? Because every so often, Nick would make a “heh” noise, which is basically an uncommitted laugh. I even checked in: “Hey, do you want me to keep reading, or are you bored?” And we kept reading.

Rensch Day is just . . . a bizarre person who thinks she’s normal. From 2005-2008 she never has a phone installed — and I don’t mean a smartphone, I mean any phone — so people come to her house and bang on the windows to find her. Even city-raised Gene doesn’t get a technology update in South Dakota: “Gene doesn’t need a TV or phone now that he is proficient with the flyswatter.”

The author is also cheap in ways I can relate to, like refusing to use a clothes dryer in the summer. Gene, more used to comfort, has is complaints. His wife responds: “I have been hanging wash on a rack outside again. It only takes about an hour to dry in this heat. Gene thinks his socks feel like sandpaper, but I think it will save on a pedicure.” Interestingly, this not a diary about how poor Gene survives in what is described as a small town Andy Griffith would thrive in. It’s about anyone who walks up to Rensch Day and says something. Mostly, that is Maude, who has, for reasons I don’t understand, glommed onto Rensch Day, visiting about five times per day, but refusing to wear her hearing aids so no one can talk to her. Talk about a captive audience. Maude is also odd:

Maude mowed my lawn for the first time this year and now has a satisfied look. She lives for the days when she can mow. She will be eighty-two this fall and has been working with Jackie (seventy-eight), cleaning her neighbor’s backyard. Maude says she can hardly keep up with Jackie. Jackie claims she is glad Maude smokes, so they can stop and rest.”

And as important as food is to the average person, it’s even more so to Rensch Day, who is proud that her oven didn’t need hooked up for an entire year because she lives likes a scavenger bird. To be fair, she volunteers an awful lot of labor, but her food-finding antics are offensive in a way that makes you think, okay, that’s awful . . . tell me more. For example, “Maude wanted me to paint the entry of the country church, and I told her she would have to wait until Tuesday since Henry’s funeral is Monday, Regina’s is Wednesday, and who was I to turn down free meals?”

Such a bonkers sort of book that I should have hated and did not. I can see someone like Stefanie @ A Stone in the River getting into, reading a chapter each night before bed.

this ended up being #20 OF THE #20BOOKSOFSUMMER 2023 CHALLENGE

28 comments

  1. It’s available in Australia from Dymocks (a chain) for $67.00. They describe it as “This novel-memoir takes a dry-humored, straightforward, journalistic, yet slapstick approach ..” Apparently, I might also like ‘The Little Book of Dad Jokes’.
    Kindle Unlimited is $0 or $10.42 to buy. I’m not sure I know what that sentence means.
    It sounds like fun though 536pp might be a bit much.

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    • I feel like I could carrier pigeon my copy to you for cheaper.

      Ha, I looked up an image of Jesus putting his hand on Trump’s should to discuss how worshipping a political leader is corrupt for my Christianity class, and now Amazon is trying to sell me ALL KINDS of Trump/Christ posters.

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  2. This seems like the type of book that might be of great interest to historians in about a hundred years, but doesn’t have a lot of appeal to me as a reader right now. I assume nobody would have been particularly interested in Samuel Pepys’ diary in the 1700s, but people went mad for it 200 years later when it was published.

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    • That’s a great point. It almost made me think it was a good book for someone who wanted to feel like they had a friend who wanted to talk about her day, and you read a chapter each night. That’s about where we were with it.

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  3. Lou makes an interesting point about Samuel Pepys.

    I can sort of tell why you kept reading. It sounds like one of those mesmerising sorts of books that keep you wondering about what next. But, I can usually only keep reading writing like diaries if the personality of the writer and/or the writing engage or intrigue me.

    “The author is also cheap in ways I can relate to, like refusing to use a clothes dryer in the summer.” This is not cheap, to me, this is being environmentally responsible. I have not owned or used a dryer for thirty years. We don’t have snow, but we often can’t get clothes dry on a line in winter here because there are not enough warm hours in a day, so I use clothes horses inside in winter for everything, including sheets and towels.

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  5. My goodness! What a rum one! But hooray for book 20 – well done! I’m on Book 17 (and almost done with 20 which is 366 poems and I’ve been reading a month of poems per week) so I might not actually do it this year. I am a sucker for a diary and yes, the “boring” ones from the WW2 home front are now treasured, however this doesn’t seem representative of anything except one woman’s weird life.

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  6. “Rensch Day is just . . . a bizarre person who thinks she’s normal” OMG this made me laugh! As did her top notch food scavenging. It reminded me of a coworker I used to have who somehow managed to always get into events going on around campus when there was food to be had. He’d disappear for 20 minutes and come back to the library with a heaping plate of food and we’d ask where did he find that? And he’d say oh there’s some conference going on over in the business school and I just walked up to the food line and helped myself 😀 You are right, I love odd people so much I would totally read an entry or two of this before bed 🙂

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  7. This makes me feel like I should publish my journals! I mean, I moved to a small town and walked around and talked to people sometimes. Though I very rarely attend funerals.

    I very rarely use my dryer and I tell myself it is more environmentally friendly rather than being cheap!

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  9. I can relate to her love of free food. I love a free spread, but now that I have a gluten intolerance I can’t indulge like I used to, simply because so much of it is off limits unless I take my ‘gluten cutter pill’ (basically a lactaid pill but for people with gluten intolerance).

    This sounds like a fun little read, I could see myself reading it out of curiosity more than anything. And i love large text, it’s easier on my eyes haha

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