Bear Creek in Michigan's Upper Peninsula is best described as a cross between The Little House on the Prairie's Walnut Grove and Garrison Keilor's Lake Woebegone. The year is 1923 and prohibition is in full swing. The Ladies' Aid Society from the local church plans to close the Snake Pit Saloon.

The town's influential men meet everymorning at Barker's Hardware and Feed Store, where they plan strategies toprotect their moonshine from their meddling wives. In their spare time, theyorganize MACHO nights (Men Advocating Completely Hedonic Outings) in which theyplay poker and drink moonshine while hiding from their spouses.In this rural paradise arrives a quixoticMethodist pastor. The Rev. Hooper was apprehensive about his assignment to the localchurch, feeling it was a vindictive appointment in revenge for Rudy'sdisparaging comments concerning the Bishop's wife. He had expected arun-down parsonage in some God forsaken land filled with tsetse flies andcannibals, not an idyllic community such as Bear Creek. The Bishop didn'tmention the previous three pastors were weaving baskets in downstatesanitariums. Nor did the bishop warn Rudy about the obsessive-compulsive beaverthat came with the parsonage. Rudy would discover this soon enough.