The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County

by Jerry Apps

  Marilyn Jones and the mayor knew something was up when they saw all those “old-timers,” as Marilyn referred to them, in the audience at the community room at the Link Lake Library. She had no more than begun her opening remarks when Emily Higgins’s hand shot up. When Marilyn refused to recognize her, Emily asked in her loud voice, “Is this deal with Big R final?”

  “Miss Higgins, I believe you are out of order and that I have the floor,” Marilyn replied.

  “You may have the floor, Miss Jones, but as you know, I represent the Link Lake Historical Society and you haven’t once bothered to let our organization know about this proposal to bring a new restaurant to town and to locate it on the site of the old railroad depot, so my question deserves an honest answer.”

  “Well, Miss Higgins,” Marilyn Jones said, smiling. “I thought your group had better things to do than worry about a dilapidated railroad depot. We didn’t want to bother you with this rather minor undertaking.”

  “Not bother us? Not bother us?” Emily said with an even louder voice. “I understand the plans are to tear down the depot for this new fast food place.”

  “Well, yes that’s likely to happen. The Big R group prefers to put up new buildings. They like the depot’s location, but the old building is in the way.”

  “In the way, huh?” said Emily, her face getting ever redder. “Are you saying that history stands in the way of your plans? Is that what you are saying?”

  “Of course not, Emily. You know how much everyone on the Economic Development Council appreciates and supports Link Lake’s history.” She said it with a straight face, but it evoked several groans from the historical society membership, which included Ambrose Adler, who sat in the back row with a big grin on his face as he listened to the give and take between Emily and Marilyn.

  “Have you suggested that Big R might renovate the depot so they could save the building but still have their restaurant on the site?” asked Emily.

  “We did, but Big R rejected the idea.”

  “I suggest you talk with them some more,” shot back Emily.

  The meeting continued with the rift between Emily Higgins and Marilyn Jones deepening, and a new distrust between the Link Lake Economic Development Council and the Link Lake Historical Society developing.

  The week after what turned out to be one of the most contentious meetings the citizens of Link Lake could remember, a well-known nationally syndicated environmental writer, Stony Field, wrote a column about the situation. For more than three decades, Stony Field had been widely known for shining a light on local communities across the United States, focusing on local matters but then showing how what happens in one place has application in many other places. Field’s column was carried each week by hundreds of newspapers across the country, including the Ames County Argus.

  FIELD NOTES

  Local Historical Society Challenges Development

  By Stony Field

  Hats off to the Link Lake Historical Society in little Link Lake, Wisconsin, for taking on the village’s Economic Development Council and challenging its members to consider more than money when looking at the future of the village. My research tells me that the Economic Development Council, led by supper club owner Marilyn Jones, and Link Lake’s mayor, Jon Jessup, struck a tentative deal with the Big R fast food company to build a new fast food restaurant on the site of the former Chicago and Northwestern depot. Big R’s plans included quietly tearing down the depot and replacing it with a new, modern Big R standard-planned building.

  When the Link Lake Historical Society president, Emily Higgins, heard of the plans (the historical society had not been informed before a recent public meeting) she immediately rounded up 65 citizens who believed it was important to save the depot because, as Higgins said, “It’s a part of our village’s history and has a rather unique design.”

  My sources tell me that Big R has pulled the plug on the whole effort and is looking elsewhere in central Wisconsin to build a new fast food place. Good riddance, I say.

  What can a village, no matter where it might be located in the country, learn from this? Several things. While economic development in a community is surely important, it is not the only thing that is important. History is important, caring for the environment is important, education is important, and the arts are important. Has Link Lake’s Economic Development Council learned a lesson? Let’s hope so. What is needed is for the council to work in tandem with groups like the local historical society and come to a common agreement before charging ahead with the agenda that “the economy and jobs are all that is important.”

  4

  Fred and Oscar

  Good morning, Henrietta,” said Fred Russo, as he greeted Eat Well Café’s regular morning waitress.

  “And top of the morning to you, Mr. Russo,” said Henrietta, who bowed a bit when she said it. Henrietta O’Malley was pushing sixty, her once red hair was mostly gray, but her green eyes sparkled when she talked. She was proud of her Irish heritage; her grandfather had come to Link Lake in the mid-1800s, not long after the village was established. The O’Malleys had been in Link Lake ever since.

  “And will that handsome Mr. Oscar Anderson be joining you this morning?” she asked.

  “Well, he’d better,” said Fred, “or I’ll be slurping coffee all by myself.”

  Fred Russo and Oscar Anderson, retired farmers in their eighties and lifelong friends, met every morning except Sunday for coffee at the Eat Well. Fred settled into his chair at their usual table in the back corner as Henrietta poured a cup of coffee for him.

  “A grand and glorious day,” said the always cheerful Henrietta.

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” said Fred. “Not so grand and glorious when your arthritis is kickin’ up.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Henrietta.

  “Don’t be, just one of those little extras that comes along after you’ve accumulated a few years.”

  Now, Oscar Anderson, with his ever-present cane, was making his way toward the little table where Fred was sitting.

  “About time you showed up,” said Fred by way of greeting. “You’re late.”

  Oscar glanced at his watch. “Nope, you’re early,” he said.

  “Can I pour you some coffee?” Henrietta asked. She was smiling as she enjoyed the good-natured banter between the two old friends.

  “Might’s well, now that I’m here,” said Oscar as he hung his cane over a chair and sat down.

  “So how’s my ornery old friend?” he asked Fred, smiling broadly.

  “Old Arthur is kickin’ up again this mornin’. Must be a change in the weather—some rain on the way,” answered Fred.

  “So what’s new with you?” asked Oscar.

  “Not much. Did pick up a couple rumors though. Always got my ears open to what is going on and what might be going on.”

  “As bad as your hearing is, you do manage to hear a lot,” said Oscar.

  “Just trying to pay attention, trying to stay awake and alert. When you’re in your eighties that’s sometimes a challenge.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” said Oscar.

  Both men sipped their coffee and were quiet for a bit. The Eat Well was filling up with breakfast customers, mostly older folks who had retired in the area and needed to get out of the house on a cloudy spring day.

  “So Fred, you gonna tell me something about these rumors you’ve been hearin’?”

  “Oh, yeah, the rumors. Well, I think I’ve been pickin’ up more than just rumors. You wanna hear the rumors or you wanna hear what else I’ve been hearin’, or a little bit of both, or maybe you’d like to hear about what I saw the other day?” said Fred.

  “Fred, you’ve got a way of makin’ the most simple things sound so damn complicated. I just asked what’s new.”

  “Well, what I’ve been hearin’ and seein’ is this.” Fred paused and took another long drink of coffee and held it up for Henrietta to fill on her way back from serving another custo
mer. “There is something going on in the park.”

  “Which park is that?” asked Oscar.

  “You know damn well there’s only one park in Link Lake and that’s the one named after old Increase Joseph.”

  “Something happening in Increase Joseph Community Park in the month of April when it’s usually too cold to have a picnic and school isn’t out yet?” said Oscar, a bit surprised at what his friend was saying.

  “Well, I can’t be sure. But what I saw were some guys wearing those bright orange vests, like the highway workers wear, prowlin’ around. One of ’em was walkin’ around the old Trail Marker Oak, gawkin’ at it this way and that.”

  “Prowlin’ and gawkin’, huh?” asked Oscar.

  “Can’t rightly say but it looked like they were surveyors.”

  “Maybe the village is planning to fix the road by the park—sure could use some fixin’.”

  “Nah, they were well inside the park. There was three of them. They came in a white van that they parked on the road just outside the park,” said Fred.

  “You get their license number?”

  “Why would I do that? But I did notice that the van was from a car dealer in La Crosse.”

  “Might be some kind of crooks,” said Oscar.

  “Geez, Oscar, crooks don’t look like surveyors, and besides crooks know better than to frog around in a park in broad daylight.”

  “So what’s the rumor you’ve picked up?” asked Oscar.

  “Somebody told me that something’s goin’ on in the park.”

  “Good God, Fred, you just told me you saw some guys in the park— that’s no rumor, if you saw ’em with your own eyes.”

  “Calm down, Oscar. The rumor is that something big is planned for the park. Something really big.”

  “I suppose fixin’ the road by the park would be something big— especially for Link Lake. A new flag at the post office was the biggest thing happening in Link Lake last year. I suspect fixin’ the road past the park would rank right up there with a new post office flag,” said Oscar.

  “Oscar, I don’t think they’re planning on fixing the damn road by the park. If you’d have listened, I said they was working in the park, doin’ survey work inside the park.”

  “Why was they doin’ that?” asked Oscar.

  “How the hell do I know—except I heard it was something big. Something really big in the works.”

  The men sat quietly for a bit, enjoying their coffee.

  “You read the last issue of the Argus?” asked Fred.

  “Yup, always read the Argus from cover to cover, page one to the last page. Read it every week. Pretty darn good paper, too, if I must say so. Papers are havin’ problems these days, some of the big ones are goin’ out of business. Argus seems to be doin’ okay, though. Why’d you ask?”

  “You read Stony Field’s column, the environmental guy who stirs up all kinds of mischief around the country?”

  “Yup, always read Stony Field. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes I don’t. Pretty fair writer though. Easy to understand what he’s trying to say.”

  “You read about the fact that you’re gonna have to stop smokin’ that old pipe of yours?”

  “Where’d you see that?”

  “Was right there in Stony Field’s column.”

  “To hell, I read them columns pretty careful and I didn’t see no mention about pipe smokin’.”

  “Well, old Stony was writin’ about climate change, remember readin’ that column?”

  “I do, but I don’t recall that he said anything about pipe smokin’.”

  “Well, he didn’t say it in so many words, but he did say that puttin’ smoke in the air, smoke from power plants for instance, is one of the contributors to global warming. That’s what he said.”

  “I read that too. But he didn’t say anything about pipe smokin’.”

  “Oscar, it don’t take no rocket scientist to figure out that smoke is smoke and pipe smoke sure as hell is smoke.”

  “So you think smokin’ my pipe a couple times a day contributes to global warming?”

  “Well, it might. It just might. That’s what old Stony Field was implying anyway.”

  “I don’t think so, Fred,” Oscar said, smiling. “I don’t think Stony Field cares that I smoke a couple pipefuls of tobacco a day.”

  “Well, you gotta believe he cares about smoke. And pipe smoke is smoke, and if a million people, old guys like you, was all smokin’ their pipes that would be one helluva lot of smoke goin’ up there to contribute to global warming.”

  “Drink your coffee, Fred. Might help your way of thinking a little.”

  5

  Ambrose Adler

  Many people in the Link Lake community thought Ambrose Adler was different; some people came right out and said he was strange. One thing that made him different was that he stuttered. His parents had told him that he stuttered from the day he was born, and that they had thought he would grow out of it—that he would eventually learn to speak normally. It never happened.

  When he started school, his fellow schoolmates teased him relentlessly. They asked him to say his name and he couldn’t get past “A . . . A . . .” Then they pointed their fingers at him and laughed and told him he was some kind of dummy because he couldn’t speak properly. He felt just terrible. He so much wanted to be like everyone else and he just couldn’t, as hard as he tried. When he tried to speak, even a word or two, he got all red in the face and messed up the words that were so clear in his head but wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

  When he was in second grade, one of the older boys, Albert, told Ambrose that his pa said Ambrose’s tongue was stuck in his mouth and that’s why he couldn’t talk straight.

  “We’re gonna cure you,” Albert said as he motioned to several other boys who had been listening. Before Ambrose knew what was happening, Albert and three other boys grabbed his arms and legs, laid him out flat on the ground, and began pouring water in his mouth.

  “Water will loosen up your tongue,” Albert said.

  Ambrose didn’t know if Albert really believed what his pa had said or he was just being mean. Ambrose tried to yell, but when he opened his mouth no words came out and water poured in. One of the girls, Judy, who was in eighth grade, came to his rescue.

  “You’re going to kill him,” Judy said. “Let him up. Let him up.”

  Ambrose staggered to his feet, gagging and throwing up water as the boys who’d held him down stood laughing and pointing their fingers at him. Judy told the teacher what happened, and the teacher made the boys who nearly drowned Ambrose stay inside the schoolroom and miss recess for the rest of the week. But that was all the punishment they got.

  Kids at school and people in the community all believed Ambrose was “slow”—mentally deficient. But his mother and father, Sophia and Clarence, knew better and they always supported him. Ambrose surely didn’t consider himself “slow.” He liked reading and doing math. He liked writing. He liked school, but he didn’t care for his fellow students, who couldn’t move past teasing him every opportunity they got.

  When he was in seventh grade, and well past five feet tall, husky and strong because of all the farm work he had been doing, an eighth grader pushed him to the limit one day. They were both carrying in wood for the woodstove in the school. “D . . . d . . . n’t know you . . . you . . .” He didn’t finish his mocking sentence. Ambrose took a piece of wood and whopped the eighth grader over the head. The eighth grader fell to the ground in a heap, the wood sticks he was carrying spilling on the ground in front of him.

  For that little outburst of temper, Ambrose missed two weeks of recess. He never enjoyed recess anyway, so he spent his time in the schoolroom reading books.

  Ambrose’s parents didn’t say much about the trouble he got into at school. But later that week his mother gave him a little notebook and a new number 2 lead pencil. “Why don’t you write down things that are happening around the farm?” she suggested. And that’s
what he did. He wrote about the weather, especially about storms that rolled through that part of Ames County regularly. Fierce summer thunderstorms and wicked winter blizzards that made farm life challenging and left farm families isolated sometimes for days on end.

  He wrote about what it was like to be different from other kids, and how their teasing and constant reminders of his inability to speak like other kids never ceased to make him feel inadequate, some days downright worthless. It was as if what was bothering him and causing him so much unhappiness had moved from his mind to the page in front of him.

  He wrote about farm life, the crops his father planted and the livestock they raised. He wrote about harvesting hay, mostly by hand as their team of horses did only the heavy work such as pulling the hay mower and the hay wagon on which they pitched cured alfalfa and clover. Ambrose described in detail how to chop and split wood with an ax, which he and his pa did every fall.

  He wrote about the coming of spring and how he looked forward to it after winter had dragged on and on, never wanting to give up its grip. And as strange as it may seem, after a long, hot summer of never-ending work, and an equally busy fall with the grain, potato, and corn harvests, he wrote about looking forward to winter when everything slowed down and life was more pleasant—until a blizzard blew in from the northwest and made the Ambrose family miserable for several days.

  He wrote about the seasonal cycles on the farm and his reaction to them. Somewhere he had read that all of life is a circle and that people return to earlier places again and again as they live their lives. That was surely true for people who lived on farms. Each year you did the same thing: spring planting, summer caring for crops, fall harvesting, and winter resting and planning for the next year. It was the same each year, but it was always different too, as weather, markets, and a hundred other things added spice and challenge to farm life and made what might seem predictable quite unpredictable.