Listing Through Life

We packed up on Monday morning and headed toward home, but we made one last vacation stop at the Wisconsin Cranberry Discovery Center in Warrens. The Discovery Center was pretty much all there was to the town. It is located in an old brick building that once was, among other things, a cranberry packaging plant.

The lower level is a museum about cranberry growing and processing.

It was well done and informative, although geared to fourth-graders. I overheard one of the guides saying that cranberry production was a required subject in that grade in public schools. The upper level was split between a gift shop and a cafe. My wife and I split a delicious but tiny piece of cranberry pie and a scoop of cranberry ice cream.

The local library stood next to the museum.

Warrens is surrounded by cranberry bogs. We stopped on the way out of town and got a shot.

My recommendation for a town slogan — “Library on a Stick!”

Sunday dawned gray and rainy — again. I didn’t want to spend an entire day sitting in the cabin, so I made plans to head for the nearest town, Black River Falls. Most of my friends decided to come along. We hung out in a cheese shop/used book store for a while, then headed downtown to look for antique stores. I didn’t expect to find any open — since it was Sunday morning in mid-October — but we found three. Here several of us are wandering around in the basement of one of them.

As you can see, we were pretty much the only people in town.

Back in 1973, a guy named Michael Lesy went through tons of old Wisconsin newspapers from 1885 to 1900 and pulled out all the articles on odd crimes, strange deaths, and bizarre happenings. He compiled these, along with weird photographs, into a book titled Wisconsin Death Trip.

I got a copy of the book from the library and read excerpts to my friends around the campfire on a couple evenings. Here are some samples:

Marie Sweeny, who ran away from her husband at St. Paul and has been creating trouble at Ashland with her wild mania for breaking windows, has finally been captured. Reports from St. Paul say that she was a model wife and mother, but some injury to her brain entirely changed her character. She ran away from home 2 years ago, and since then … has been in more than 100 different jails, serving short sentences for indulging in her wild sport.

Mary Sweeny, of window breaking fame, attempted to throw a satchel through one of R. Katz’s Clothing Store windows at Fond du Lac … She was arrested and given 5 days in the county jail.

Mary Ricks, the Wisconsin window-smasher, has put in an appearance at Eau Claire. She was taken into custody by a policeman as she was about to wreck a fine plate glass window.

Anyway, many of the stories in the book took place in Jackson County, where we were camping. I thought it would be fun to get a photo of me reading the book in Black River Falls. It was raining, so a friend gave me an umbrella. I sat down along Main Street. While we were framing the shot, an old man came walking along with his dog. The leash was oddly wound around his body. It must have been obvious to him that we were taking a photo, but he just kept coming and passed within a foot of where I sat. It seemed like an fitting addition to the photo.

When we got back to the campsite, one friend took time to “roast” one last marshmallow.

My recommendation for a town slogan — “Not much. How about you?”

You know those fiberglass statues you see out in front of businesses and museums — like Deke Slayton and Ben Bikin’? Chances are they were manufactured at F.A.S.T. Corp in Sparta, Wisconsin. The yard behind the plant is littered with molds and statues — and it’s open to the public! The first thing we noticed as we approached was the giant eyeball. It sat in a park in downtown Chicago for several months but now waits here for a permanent home.

We wandered around for about 45 minutes. There were a few finished statues, but most of what we saw were molds. It wasn’t always easy to know what we were looking at.

Of course I had the red chair in tow. This was my favorite of the several shots I took.

Staring contest! Go!

No two people go through museums at the same pace, and I definitely went through the Deke Slayton Space and Bicycle Museum faster than those members of our group who sat down in the kiddie section and colored.

I wandered outside and took a couple pans of the damp, sleepy town.

That “group” of people huddled out of the rain on the far side of the parking lot were a farmers’ market. A bit later, friends (not among the coloring crowd) stopped by and bought about half the market. I’m not sure the guy in the middle was enthusiastic about having his picture taken.

When the group finally tore themselves away from coloring, we drove a few blocks to see Ben Bikin’. Sparta considers itself to be the “Bicycling Capital of America” because the first railroad bed converted to a bike path in Wisconsin runs through the town. This big guy rides in a park along a main intersection.

We ate lunch at Ginny’s Cupboard, a sandwich shop/ice cream parlor.

I had a good ham and cheese panini and a chocolate shake. My recommendation for a town slogan — “World’s Saddest Farm Market!”