As documented in The Demons and Ghouls of the Upper Midwest (Eli Westman, Medford & Ochs, 1978), The Six Woeful Bachelors have haunted the front room of the Cookie Jar Restaurant in Medicine Flats, South Dakota since at least the late 1930’s. The ghosts are described by regular patrons as “harmless,” and “almost funny if you think about them long enough.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Argyle, who spent much of his boyhood in Medicine Flats, made note of the Bachelors in his memoir, Witness to War (Watermark, 1984).
"Sunday mornings, I’d have to pull my dad out of the Cookie Jar to bring him to church. It was one of those unspoken understandings I had with my mother. We never discussed his whereabouts and I never talked about how difficult it was to drag him the hell out of there. She’d say “Go get your father, will you dear? We don’t want to be late.” I think she was just content that he wasn’t at the whorehouse. I still don’t know if that’s heartbreaking or if that’s just life.
The Cookie Jar was a haunted tavern. Six ghosts of long dead, sad-sack bachelors moped about the place. Nobody was frightened by them, they didn’t raise a ruckus and break dishes or rattle the chandeliers. They just kind of moaned and lamented. The living sad sacks gathered about the bar accepted them as part of the scenery, just some ectoplasmic ambiance to make them feel more comfortable with their afternoon drinking. If you sat in the bar long enough you’d hear the Bachelors. They’d grumble and sigh, say things like:
“What the hell?”
“Jesus, this is a lonesome goddamned town.”
“Woman tells me to get a job, I say I got a job, she says get a better one.”
“She went a married O’Toole. Can you believe it? O-fucking-Toole of all the people in this miserable town to shack up with.”
“I can’t shake it. I’m trying, lord.”
“She gave me a dose, all right. I reckon I like the wild ones too much.”
“So what, I say. So what. Don’t matter anyway.”
The Bachelors rarely materialized, mostly you just heard them. I did see one of them once, just for a second. A slim gentleman with a handlebar mustache and a stiff collar, sitting at the bar, looking a locket. They teach a good lesson, the Bachelors. Bitch and moan in life, you’ll probably bitch and moan in death.”
