Thomas “TR” Reis was the type of man who grabbed life by the balls.
Reis partied hard, hunted deer and fished. All were activities he enjoyed almost as much as a cold beer with his friends. He was the life of the party who never met a stranger. He loved his family and his daughter Kim Schewe, whom he called “his sunshine.”
Reis also loved to eat balls. Not those kind of balls, but bull nuts, which in their fried form are also called “Rocky Mountain oysters” or “cowboy caviar.” Depending on who you ask, they taste a bit like chicken.
Reis has been dead for nearly four years now. He passed away at age 82 due to heart failure. But a tradition he started nearly two decades ago after experiencing a craving for balls lives on.
On January 1, Reis’ namesake tavern, TR’s Place (4901 Concordia Church Road, Belleville, Illinois) will host its annual Testicle Festival.
The Testicle Festival is a bit of a production, according to general manager Lori Schutzenhofer. The tavern gives away free fried bull nuts to lines of people. There are games, including a “testicle toss,” live music and prizes, a shuttle for parking, and of course, fried bull testicles.
Schutzenhofer says she ordered 150 pounds of the meat this year, and guesses TR’s will probably sell out as they always do.
“Once the bull nuts are gone, they’re gone,” Schutzenhofer says. “We won’t have any more until next year.”
COURTESY PHOTO
The legend himself: Thomas “TR” Reis.
No one who spoke to the RFT could remember the exact year the Testicle Festival began, but they believe it was about 15 years ago during the holiday season.
As long-time pal Gary Eversmeyer recalls it, he and a few other of Reis’ friends sat around the bar wondering what they were going to do on New Year’s Day. Bull nuts somehow came into the conversation.
“We all said, ‘You know, we haven’t had bull nuts for years,’” Eversmeyer says. “‘Do you think we could find some somewhere?’”
They did find some. About 15 pounds’ worth, in fact. They fried up the balls in TR’s Place’s kitchen and gave the leftovers to patrons, who raved, according to Eversmeyer.
“They said, ‘You guys should do this every year,’” Eversmeyer says.
And thus a tradition was born. Before his death, Reis and his friends prepared and fried bull nuts in a tent they called the “nut hut” outside of TR’s Place on New Year’s Day. They called it the Testicle Festival.
“He always wanted to do something on the holidays because he was a divorcee,” says Nut Hut Crew member Mark Seib. “He said everyone went to their family’s on the holidays, while widowed or divorced men had nowhere to go, so he kept the bar open. He had a big heart that way.”
Reis’ daughter, Schewe, owns the bar and continues to keep it open during the holidays.
Reis volunteered to tend the bar on holidays so no one else had to. There was one Christmas Eve, Eversmeyer says, when Reis’ daughter came to the bar the following morning to find less cash in the drawer than when she left. Not only did he give away drinks, Eversmeyer says, he probably gave away cash, too.
When asked to describe Reis, at first Eversmeyer says he doesn’t know how.
“He was a “one-of-a-kind individual,” he eventually concludes. “The kind who could strike up a conversation with anyone.”
Oh, and the first time Eversmeyer met him, he says nonchalantly, Reis was wrestling a bear.
A man once traveled around the Midwest with a tame bear (at least, before the “animal activists” got to him, Eversmeyer says) that people wrestled for sport. “Honestly, the bear had more fun than anybody,” Eversmeyer says.
COURTESY LORI SCHUTZENHOFER
TR’s Place in Belleville, Illinois.
The bear certainly had more fun than Reis, who lost a tooth during his match.
Reis could seem harsh, according to Seib, but as his obituary states: “If he said he didn’t like you, you were probably considered one of his best friends.”
“He could seem abrasive if you didn’t know him, but he had the biggest heart of anybody I knew,” Seib says.
Now Reis’ friends continue the Testicle Festival, partly in honor of Reis. It’s also just a lot of fun.
The Testicle Festival takes place at TR’s Place this January 1 from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Both the balls and entrance are free, but you may want to budget some money for this year’s Testicle Festival t-shirt, which Schutzenhofer says will bear the slogan, “Swinging beef, it’s what’s for dinner.”
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