The Tanks’ slogan says it all, “Getting together for a worthy cause … us!”
Every July for the past 40 years, this group of about 50 people makes a pilgrimage to Litchfield’s Watercade — executing a grand plan to stuff as much fun as logistically possible into a single weekend.
Tanks began this year’s Watercade preparations in May at a retreat involving 12 members, known as “commissioners.” They’re in charge of figuring out event details, such as arranging tee times and ordering shirts and other gear emblazoned with the Tanks’ logo.
While commissioners have an agenda, they take themselves less seriously than their official-sounding titles imply. Tanks’ designated leader, Mark Scharmer, started this year’s retreat in New Ulm, as he does each year, by having all the commissioners stand up and announce their job duties. “Some people can’t always remember exactly what we’re supposed to be doing,” he explained last week.
Golf is what the Tanks do every Friday at Watercade. After playing 18 holes, they eat and then reconvene at their headquarters on North Sibley Avenue, a home owned by Tanks member, Tom Lindsey. The headquarters comes complete with a portable bar built by another Tanks member, Will Rossbach. He crafted it about 15 years ago as a punishment of sorts for missing a commissioners’ meeting.
“He got this assignment to put this bar together, and he just blew us away,” Scharmer said. “It was way more than we expected.”
The bar separates into four pieces and even includes a glass-covered box containing Tanks memorabilia, including old T-shirts and fireworks. Fireworks got some Tanks in trouble one year during the early 1980s, Rossbach noted. Litchfield police officers pursued a group of Tanks shooting off rockets during the city’s fireworks show at Lake Ripley. “I don’t remember that we had anyone arrested,” Rossbach said Friday night as his fellow Tanks sipped cocktails alongside the memorabilia.
The Tanks’ origins trace to 1975 when Scharmer, a Litchfield native, wanted to find a place for him and his friends, college students at the time, to meet during the summer months. He picked Watercade to play softball, and the group’s name, Tanks, stems from the name of their softball team during those early years — Sherman’s Tanks. (To further explain, “Sherman” comes from one of Scharmer’s nicknames during college, Sherm.)
Over time, Tanks’ gatherings became more elaborate, expanding beyond softball. “It didn’t take us long to realize over the years that we didn’t have to spend all our time in the softball field,” said Scharmer, who lives in Lakeville. “There’s other things to do.”
Several times, the Tanks have hired a band to perform at their events, typically Boom Boom Steve V and the Knockouts, whose singer, Steve Vonderharr, went to high school with some Tanks.
There was even a Watercade wedding one year. In 1988, Tanks member and Litchfield resident Kurt Birkemeyer married his wife, Bridget. They got married at Meeker County Courthouse. “We went out and played golf right after we got married,” Kurt Birkemeyer said. They then had their wedding reception with fellow Tanks at Litchfield’s VFW Post, where they set “financial records” for beverage consumption.
The Tanks have also exhibited a philanthropic side, having donated years ago a granite bench to the Litchfield Golf Course, where it sits at the 10th hole.
Forty years since their founding, the Tanks have refined their taste for adventure. “The Tanks still have the same spirit, but we might not go into the wee hours like we used to,” said Dan Gainey, who is communications commissioner. “It’s just a group of people that love to get together and pick up where we left off.”
Many Tanks became friends during their time as students at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, though not all of them. Kurt Birkemeyer, for instance, knows Scharmer from their childhood in Litchfield.
While the group consists of mostly men, several women count themselves among the membership. “I’ve never seen a tighter group of friends,” Cynthia Bowell said, noting the group’s long-standing bond is the “envy of our grown children.”
Offspring’s attendance at Tanks gatherings is discouraged because, as Bowell explained, their children can find their own friends. Gainey said the group previously debated whether to broaden the Tanks’ membership to include offspring, but decided to limit its membership to the original cast of characters.
“The tanks will continue to gather as long as there are Tanks to gather,” Gainey said.
Copyright 2015 Litchfield Independent Review/Crow River Media/Media News Group.