HOMECOMING: ON A PENINSULA

Story 1

Wearing the Brain Backwards

When drinking, David LaFond was polarizing and menacing. It became normal for his wife, Katherine, and their only child, Dorothy, to blame themselves for causing his woes even though he never said anything like that. While deeply admired within the Two Rivers French Canadian Enclave for his fishing skill and cold courage, he was to be remembered as the quintessential master drunk in town.

Two Rivers grew up anxious, damned by loss. Winter fishing on Lake Michigan saw to that. In November, the fishermen attacked the foreshortening daylight by pressing outward, fishing past nightfall, chasing schools of silver perch, whitefish and chubs that sought deeper, more tempered waters. Each foray was more dangerous than the one the night before because the Mackinaw boat’s sails became a little more hardened, a little more top heavy.

By Thanksgiving, swift storms of sleet and hail blinded the men trying to steer vessels that behaved more like floundering driftwood than boats that teetered and tottered.

November 30 was the feast date for the patron saint of fishermen, St. Andrew. To celebrate their icon, the east side fishermen men would meet up after work in the center of the town at one of the many saturation points of taverns, beer gardens and saloons. And, of course, St. Andrew also welcomed to the fray factory workers, foundry hands, sawmill wagers and farmers. Baetz Beer, the staple suds of the town, filled their bilges with pluck and bode well for a return visit on December 6, St. Nicholas Day.

Jacob Geimer’s Washington House and Tap Room was a large part of the numerous set of establishments that flourished in Two Rivers, so many so, in fact, that the expression, “There’s One on Every Corner,” could have originated there.

The drinking holes lent themselves to converting the smut accumulations of living to ordinary neighborly chitchat about birthdays and weddings. Baetz Beer was thick enough to wash down fish stench, sooty ash, sawdust, and any other byproduct of hard work.

Beer comforted the worker, not the soul. In this regard, it was a very good bet that beer would beat out religion any day of the year.

A few drinking men were immune to beer’s convivial effect. That was the case for David LaFond. Even though he started out conscientious about practicing his strokes at his second home, Geimer’s Tap Room, beer drinking was known to heave him around in a corrosive undertow.

Jacob Geimer was David’s father-in-law. To David, the tap room was just a normal extension of the family’s home. The LaFond home, just one very long cast away from the tap room, was a cottage on the north bank of the mouth of the East Twin River. It was a perfect dock for David’s Mackinaw, the LaFond, because Lake Michigan, where he earned an income, was right there to the east.

In more than one way David lived on the midpoint between two watering holes.

December 23, was a snowy, blustery, very cold afternoon on the lake. There was no such thing as “wind chill” in those days. David knew the raw cold score not by feel but by how much his face was tightened around his cheekbones like a deer skin left to dry on a pine frame.

And Christmas Eve would be much worse.

Katherine kept a watch out for him from their kitchen window. She was relieved to see his Mackinaw appear out of the gloom. Once again, her prayers (the Twenty-Third Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer) had been answered with his safe return.

The few fish he had taken were frozen to his homespun gill nets. He plucked the fish out one by one and dropped them into a wooden tub, cursing loudly because freeing them tore the hell out of his nets. He shinnied out of his frozen overalls and left them, literally, standing for Katherine to retrieve and launder. He lumbered off with a full head of steam to his second home where he crashed down on his bar stool. David tossed his iced woolen cap to the oak floor and started throwing down cold beers for their paradoxical warming effect.

Katherine and daughter Dorothy retrieved the overalls and the fish tub. They lugged them into the kitchen and set them next to the stove. David’s overalls quickly wilted. When the fish thawed, Dorothy descaled them and Katherine gutted them, being sure to save the entrails as fertilizer for their vegetable garden. After wrapping a heavy woolen shawl around her, Katherine went out the back door and down the porch to their smoker on the side of the cottage. In the middle of the smoker sat the stone fireplace on a beach sand floor. She built up a cedar wood pyramid and lit tinder below it and went back to the cottage to get the fish tub.

The tub was much lighter now. Dorothy carried it back to the smoker and hung the fish up on the drying lines hanging around walls of the smoker. Soon, aromatic black smoke poured out of the chimney basking East Street.

And while the smoker did its job, Katherine and Dorothy continued to labor in the kitchen, for as long it took, to repair the nets and prepare the bait for the next day.

The moonless sky cleared and formed the canvas for a spectacular display of The Northern Lights. It was the kind of pizzazz of a Two Rivers night that swallowed up the cold.

David LaFond was beaten up by the bruising hand-over-hand work of his life: the hauling aboard of net after net, all without losing his well-worn fishing hat. He thought he drank over the dry feeling about his life. That was about it. However, every now and then of his beer after beer existence, he felt an “oomph,” a mighty high of invulnerability. It was at those rare times of fellowship he slipped out of the ordinary chapter of town drunks and into the legends of the era. He could be, once in a while, a lot of fun.

Story 2

Fistics

Five years earlier, the Geimers had added a second floor to their tap room establishment: a dance hall, the piece de resistance. That’s when they changed the name to The Washington House and Tap Room. The dance hall was the only one of its kind in Two Rivers and it became central to town life on a Friday night. Those Friday nights, for as long as anyone could remember, were carnivallike and sometimes downright historical. One example of the latter was the time John L. Sullivan came to town.

One slow Saturday morning, a tall, well-dressed man entered the House’s bar and confidently squared up to the stool where Jacob was looking over the registry. The man dropped his duffle bag. Without looking up at him, Jacob immediately knew by his stride that the man did not fish.

“Sir, would you have a room available?” asked the man.

Geimer smiled. “Yes sir. I do,” he said and he offered the man a pen and the registry book. While the man signed his name, Geimer asked him, “If you don’t mind me asking, sir, are you here on business?”

“Yes. Yes, I am,” said the man. Jacob looked down at the signature. He saw that the man had signed John L. Sullivan on the registry. He looked at the man’s meaty, hard-worn face and asked, “You are John L., the prize fighter, sir?”

The big fellow smiled and nodded.

“My goodness, sir! You are the gloved champion of the world!”

“Yes. I retired like that.”

Geimer clapped his hands loudly together. He was always thinking business. He rushed past the man and ran out into the street. In less than ten minutes, everyone in town was on the way to knowing that the greatest of all fighters, John L. Sullivan, had registered at The Washington House.

Sullivan was a living legend. He held the title, “The Fistic Champion of The World” for 10 years before he retired. Then he capitalized on his immense popularity by travelling around the country and promoting a challenge to any and all comers to best him in the ring.

He always promised to let his opponent give the first shot.

A crowd had already begun to gather in Two Rivers’ Central Park, as news about Sullivan being in town had spread by way of mouth across the tightly-knit community.

“Let’s go see if it is really him,” Mr. Baetz said to his wife.

“How will we know if it is really him,” she asked.

“I saw him once in Chicago. I’ll know.”

The crowd made its way to Geimer’s House. They entered the bar and saw John L. having a beer. Sullivan smiled broadly and held out his ham hock-sized hands to introduce himself.

“I’m John L. Sullivan. The Boston Strong Boy. Very nice to meet you all.”

“That’s him,” Mr. Baetz said.

Shouts and applause.

“I have come to Two Rivers for a fight,” he hollered.

Hoots and whistles.

He pulled out from his jacket a thick stack of handbills and waved them above his head.

“These handbills proclaim that I will fight three exhibition rounds with anyone in town, professional or amateur, and if he can last three rounds with me, I‘ll give him two hundred fifty dollars. But first the venue needs to be determined.”

“Two hundred fifty dollars? That’s half a year’s pay,” someone said.

“That’s as much as I made for one round not so long ago,” laughed Sullivan.

“Where’s the fight going to be,” someone shouted from the crowd.

“The show must go on here,” cried Geimer.

“And when?” asked Sullivan.

“How about next Friday night,” yelled Geimer.

“All right. It’s a deal,” Sullivan replied.

Hollers and hurrahs.

“Hey, everybody. Belly up to the bar for one on me,” shouted Sullivan.

“That’s the spirit!”

“He’s a great guy!”

“He’s sure not punch drunk!”

“Please put it on my tab Mr. Geimer,” said Sullivan.

Brilliant, thought Geimer. By serving this crowd one free beer, he’s making sure everyone in town will know about his show!

Mrs. Geimer was cleaning rooms on the second floor when she heard all the commotion. She dropped her mop and went downstairs.

“What’s going on?” she asked her husband.

“I would like to introduce to you Mr. John L. Sullivan.”

“How do you do Mrs. Geimer?”

“Pleased to meet you sir,” she answered. “Are you famous? You sure drew a crowd.”

“Catherine, I’d like you to meet the ‘Fistic Champion of The World.’ And he’s staying here with us for the week. He’s going to put on a fight in the dance hall next Friday night that the town will never forget!”

“Well, if that’s true, gentlemen, I better get busy. There’s going to be a lot of thirsty men and a lot of Baetz to pour! If you give me those handbills, I’ll see to it that they all get passed out.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Geimer,” said Sullivan.

She took the handbills and headed across the street to the vestibule of St. John’s Lutheran Church and left half of them there, the other half destined to be posted up and down Washington Street just like was done for every major town event.

Mr. Sullivan, let me show you to your room,” said Geimer.

“Thank you. I’d like to take a load off for a while,” he said.

“Yes sir. Please follow me. Is that bag your only luggage?’

“Yes, this is all I need,” said Sullivan.”

At eight pm sharp on Friday, Geimer readied to open dance floor stage curtains. A boxing ring sat in the center. The stage and hall were lit by kerosene lamps that gave an ethereal glow to it all. Geimer was not surprised to see that Sullivan was still wearing the same suit and tie he wore every day since last Saturday. It did not fit as well as before, being tighter around the shoulders and chest and displaying a jutting tummy. Sullivan had spent the last week doing pushups in his room and writing. Mostly, though, he stood at the House bar, cavorting with the townspeople and recounting tales of his masterly craft while imbibing beer, eating smoked fish, and cheese curds and German potato salad, always topped things off with one of Mrs. Geimer’s freshly baked pies.

“Go get ‘em Champ,” said Geimer and he led Sullivan out to the stage. His entrance was met with a great roar from the audience comprised of old men, young men and boys, numbering about 150 in all. Crunched shoulder to shoulder, it seemed every family in town was represented in town in that room. Each of them had paid a five-dollar admission fee, more than half a week’s wages for most of them. Geimer’s take would more than equal one-half year’s wages making cheese while Sullivan would be able to more than afford another sojourn to another town.

“Good evening, everyone,” said Geimer. “Tonight, you all know about the main attraction. But as a special bonus, there will be two acts to follow John L Sullivan’s appearance.”

Appearance?

“Take it away John.”

Sullivan belted out a sound more than worthy of a behemoth his size. “Please, please, listen, please,” he bellowed. The crowd’s side talk noise was stopped in its tracks. “Tonight’s entertainment begins with a short story that I wrote this week. I’ve gotten to know quite a few of you and it’s about what you’ve told me about yourselves and the town of Two Rivers. It’s about your beautiful beach. It’s called, ‘An Afternoon at Neshotah Beach.’’ (Neshotah meant “Twin” to the Anishinaabe, the original settlers.)

The crowd was stunned. It had not come for literature.

“Two Rivers always kept secret that it had the nicest, most perfect beach along Lake Michigan. The beach sand ran through your fingers like gold dust.”

A group of swarthy looking men in front of the stage groaned and spat. They made a “living,” if that’s what you want to call it, not from the sand, but from fishing and by dying, some quickly some slowly, off the Neshotah, out from the East and West Twin Rivers, way out beyond the fourth sand bar.

The landlubbing townsmen in the crown included sawmill workers from along the south side of the East Twin River. Edging and trimming planks earned you two dollars a day. Dust coated everything at these places and men inhaled it, coughed the brown residue out on the job and at home. Over time, the brown turned up with red and then illness, and lung cancer which they called consumption.

If you were good and handy t edging and trimming you could move up in the world and work as a turner in a lathe mill.

Turners always seemed to come to grief.

A turner had to stand behind the tailstock as to not be perpendicularly speared by it if it kicks to the side from the spinning work. Plus, the wood frequently disintegrated resulting in impalement by large and lethal splinters. Simply, there really wasn’t any safe place to stand. And no shop owner cares to take the time to train you about lathe operations because there so many workers waiting to snatch that job for three dollars a day.

That is partly how Two Rivers was built. Not by the sylph-like beach summer afternoons. Not by the marram grass framing the horizon of the lake’s glimmer.

The story of Two Rivers was not a “story.” It was an obituary.

“Shove that writing up your ass,” cried David LaFond, feeling his oats, which emboldened others to curse and swear.

John L. stood speechless as the disdain grew louder and louder.

Expectations had soured.

“We came for a fight!”

“We want our money back!”

A gun was fired into the floor. Then a second shot bit into it. A hostile armed crowd festered.

Geimer rushed out from the side and ushered Sullivan sidewise out of sight and closed the curtains.

A saloon keeper tries to do his job as best as he could. He could drown out the dangerous thoughts carried home from Lake Michigan or from the town’s nascent industries. Now catastrophic fear of being duped was alive and poisoning the dance floor.

“Mr. Sullivan,” said Geimer, “You got to go and fight.”

“What about my short story?”

“That crowd wants blood, not poetry. Are you punch drunk? They’ll burn this place down if you tease them anymore. Get your warrior garb on right now.”

“Okay. All I have to do is take off my shirt,” said Sullivan.

“Good. Remain right there until I get things straightened out.”

“All right Geimer. Let’s give them what they deserve.”

“That’s what they have in mind.”

Geimer opened the curtains and stepped forward. He had to do something, anything, to save his place. He picked up the metal pitcher that was going to serve as the bell for the fight and banged it rapidly with a ladle until the crowd settled.

“The fight will go on in two minutes.” he said. “But first, I have a surprise for you.”

“Okay, Dad,” hollered LaFond. “We’ll wait. But these folks are thinking this surprise better be good!”

Geimer shimmied down from the stage and raced downstairs.

“Momma,” he said to Mrs. Geimer, “Here’s what we have to do. Open the taps and fill as many five-gallon buckets as we have because we got a horde of angry people up there and there’s only one way to handle them.”

“This will wipe out a lot of our profits,” she said.

“If we don’t do this, there may not be anything left at all.”

“Okay… you’re the boss,” she sighed with her fingers crossed behind her back.

He raced back upstairs, climbed back on the stage. Things were simmering. He banged the pitcher again and raised his hands and it created a last ditch effort hush.

“Okay. Thank you for your patience. The big surprise is ready for you.”

Murmuring and shuffling was the response.

“Now, form a line that begins in the front by last names.” Everybody knew everybody of course. Here’s where they would see how being an Allie and not a Zander would make all the difference for the good.

The crowd bobbed and weaved to get into the right order. This took about three minutes, time enough for Mrs. Geimer to fill up the three buckets, one under each tap.

Now they needed a leader.

“David, take these blokes downstairs just like that in a line to Mrs. Geimer at the bar. David, you go first and lead them.”

Murmuring gave way to incredulity.

“What’s going on dad?” asked David.

Then Geimer announced his surprise.

“Now, everyone, listen up! You have free William Baetz’s draft on us!”

Whoops renewed the earlier jocularity.

Relief!!

Church etiquette reigned and the line descended the stairs as if anticipating Holy Communion. Five-gallon buckets of beer, 10 of them, were passed up, down and around and emptied dry. The tingle and pulse of coarse pail wood softened those hardened jaws. This was done in a little more than 10 minutes, over a quart a person on the average. It only took 10 minutes because the amateur teens’ sipping balanced out the chugging of their elite elders. It sounded like cows mooing and donkeys braying.

Then Jacob nodded to Catherine and he banged the gong, signaling her to close the taps.

“The taps are now closed.”

David finished off the last bucket. Groans, belches and farts filled the air. The beer ploy had worked. The fire was doused.

“Now, go back up for the fight!” he hollered and hustled ahead of everyone. He joined John L. behind the curtains.

“Geimer, what the hell is going on with you people?”

“Now, go fight!”

Geimer opened the curtains. John L. Sullivan was shirtless with white long johns, a wide red belt, and black boxing boots. This was not a fashion show.

“So, little girls, who is it going to be that I lay down?”

Sullivan was met with a roiling audience primed and mobilized for a real fight.

“LaFond,” someone hollered.

“Schmidt,” hollered another.

“Yes, LaFond,” hit the air.

“LaFond! LaFond!!!”

The room echoed. The floor shook. LaFond waved.

“So, are you man enough or not, LaFond?” Sullivan asked.

It got really quiet.

“I know French,” said Sullivan, “LaFond means ‘The Bottom’.”

LaFond was wearing a heavy shirt over bib overalls and low wading boots.

“Really, Sullivan? Fight you like this?”

“You won’t be upright long enough to worry about it,” scoffed Sullivan.

“And when I win,” David responded, “that two hundred and fifty dollars will buy us all a lot more beer!”

The town roared! The people’s choice!

LaFond hopped up on stage.

The ex-world champ bowed to the audience, struck a fighting stance, one big left fist stuck straight out and the other protecting the point of his jaw. LaFond cleared his nose and throat and spit out the debris. He unbuttoned his shirt, tightened the suspenders, showing off bedrock biceps and a mountain chain of shoulders.

“Someone’s gonna be really sorry,” laughed John L.

With that act of bravado Geimer sounded the pitcher gong.

John L. stepped forward. He tapped out two quick jabs with his left fist and hit LaFond each time while LaFond held his hands at his hips, not defenseless, coy. Thinking he had set up LaFond for the old lollapalooza Sullivan squared himself and went to David’s body with an upward volley of rib-crushing force, then ducked and stepped through to deliver a vicious combination right upper cut and left hook.

He stepped back to survey his work. The crowd went still. LaFond stood tall, raised his arms and cried out, “I need a beer!”

The crowd roared.

“David, send him to the river!”

“Stick his L. up his ass!”

LaFond just stood there with purpose. Geimer sounded the gong to end round one.

“So far, so good,” said Geimer to himself.

Sullivan sat on his stool, shoulders slumped, head down, drenched in sweat, sucking for air.

The Sweet Science, for sure.

“Who is this guy?” he asked himself. Sullivan knew he had already given out all that he had. LaFond just stood by his stool across the ring downing beer. Geimer sounded the gong once more. “Round Two!”

Sullivan remained seated.

“You call him a champ,” shouted a man. “That’s a real chump!”

The crowd started a slow rolling chanting from the maple dance hall floor.

“FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT…”

“There’s a better champ at the ‘Blue Goose’,” hollered LaFond. “There’s probably a really good fight going on there already!”

“Geimer, how about we want our money back!”

“We want our money back!”

“Yes, we do!”

Geimer, once again sensing the economic gravity of the situation, repeatedly rang the gong while dashing out in front of the ring. “All right, all right, all right everybody!!! I hear you. How about Baetz’s beer free all night?!?”

“And tomorrow too!” someone shouted.

“Yes, tomorrow too!”

“Okay,” said Geimer.

“I’m staying!!”

“We’re all staying!!!”

“So, let’s get cracking with Round Two,” shouted Geimer at Sullivan.

John L. was still seated. He looked up to see LaFond approaching. Sullivan had one last move to try before being shamed for life. He got up and stumbled forward and bear hugged a bemused LaFond and whispered, “I’ll give you three hundred dollars if you quit.”

LaFond smiled and said, “I would have quit you for two fifty!!”

Sullivan dragged himself back to his corner, from where he heard LaFond crumble on the ropes and addressed the crowd.

“I’m finished. I’m through. John L. bested me fair and square.”

With free beer looming that was good enough for everyone.

Geimer went to Sullivan’s corner and lifted the arm of the huffing and puffing presumptive while shouting, “The winner by way of TKO, John L Sullivan.’

Sullivan waved to the crowd.

“Now, boys, you all behave yourselves and drink up,” said Geimer.

There was a mad rush downstairs.

David loosened his suspenders, put his shirt back on and followed the revelers down the stairs.

There was a second act that night in the form of a drunken wrestling match. It featured the hometown Frenchman, Mr. Jean Pauquette, who had come to the East Side of Two Rivers from Paris, via New York. He had made a name for himself in the New York Herald as a classy and clean wrestler, and a crowd pleaser:

“The likeable Paquette worked on a theory that the bigger they came, the harder they fell. His ‘go-get-um’ ring tactics included a variety of holds and featured, ‘The Flying Mare,’ a sort of windup treatment that sent foes to the canvas for many a minute to listen to the birdies tweet.”

Paquette’s opponent was his long-time hated adversary from Manitowoc, Mr. Carl Van Wurden, a German who was the State Middleweight Champion. The press referred to him affectionately as “The Reducer.”

It soon seemed evident to the inebriated crowd that Van Wurden had started the action by drenching Paquette with beer. With that advantage, Van Wurden gained the first fall. After that, it looked like their hero Paquette perhaps had more than met his match, that it was all over but for the shouting. Paquette would have clearly lost right then and there if the German had been in better health. However, Van Wurden was wearing a huge boil on the back of his neck and he screeched like a wounded eagle when Paquette tried to answer him with a headlock.

The German cried, “Uncle!”

The last act came from Darmody, a dwarf and well-known entertainer from Manitowoc. He stood on top of the bar where he entertained the crowd with an exhibition of tumbling dumb bells.

“This is almost as much fun as the Fourth of July Snow Festival!” exclaimed Darmody.

Story 3

Playing

An experience of feelings is the lifeblood of everyday mood and everyday family conversations, all of which are compounded, for Roman Catholics, on Christmas. Katherine’s mind was alive with the horrors of Christmases past as she mopped the kitchen floor and readied supper. She knew it was just a matter of time again until David’s keel would again collide with her support beam.

“Dear Lord, if you vouchsafe, please bless this Christmas with peace,” she prayed as she frosted another coffee cake. At about the same time David wove his Mackinaw, the “LaFond,” into the darkened harbor off the mouth of the twin rivers, a beautiful natural harbor carved out of the resident granite.

No catch today.

No fish.

Piss on their gills was his attitude when he tied off his boat at his dock. Too much cold for them, just right for me.

He strode to the tap room. When he got back home six hours later, he complained to Katherine that he was too tired to be interrupted, too wound up to be kind and altogether too tired to be bothered by eating or doing any other thing. The next day was Christmas Eve and he needed sleep to be ready to showcase his prowess with his nets.

David passed out in bed until four in the afternoon. When he got up, he scratched his bushy head with both hands. He looked outside and saw it was dark. He came down the stairs and saw activity in the kitchen.

“Why’s everybody up already?” he asked.

Katherine and Dorothy looked at each other.

“What time is it?”

“Four o’clock,” said Dorothy.

“Where’s my bait?” he asked.

“Four o’clock in the afternoon,” said Katherine.

“NO!” he grunted.

He squinted and looked out the kitchen window and saw the Gar-How tugboat returning home on the East Twin with a heavy catch weighing that weighed it down very low in the floe-riddled water.

Realizing that he had lost twelve hours, his stomach objected, chiming in with a rumble of the hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-him hangover. David stroked on his beard thinking it was far too late already for anything right to happen this day. Christmas Eve’s set of emotions had already woken the promise of thick forgetting by way of hard drinking.

He grabbed his coat off the backdoor hook.

“Don’t you want coffee or food?” asked Katherine.

‘No. it’s too late for that. I’ll be right back. I’m going to get some air.”

“My dear, it’s Christmas Eve. Don’t be long. And there’s nothing open today.”

But he didn’t hear her.

The thought of alcohol’s first toss down the back of his throat plugged his ears. And Katherine was wrong. The saloons were wide open for bolts of elixir or toxins, depending upon who you were on Christmas Eve.

The Washington Tap Room’s bait was fresh. After eight hours of getting steaming drunk, consuming the last few ticks of Christmas Eve, David felt the gall of the clock gave way to the bearing-breaking forces of Christmas Day.

Now, in Two Rivers, being a remote husband and father was an altogether common role for fishermen in Two Rivers. While the town’s subconscious seemed to be condensed in a paste of absence, there was a commonness to it that made it bearable, normal.

In the LaFond cottage Katherine and Dorothy had finished putting on the final touches to the Christmas Tree and had finished baking all their nose-worthy treats. They sat in the parlor, wide awake, the peace of sleep assailed by the fright introduced by a dead-fast certainty of déjà vu. They had started out the day by saying a rosary and then attending mass and receiving Holy Communion. Katherine offered up her violent marriage to God as her pathway to heaven. After mass, they went out shopping for the final ingredients for their Christmas Day Feast.

David’s route was much different as he washed down with drinks aplenty, one ruthless taste of failure after another.

Mr. and Mrs. LaFond were poised for another annual Christmas Play. Katherine’s part required her to appease David, to keep close to him even when he charged at her or indicted her for failing him.

Dorothy’s part required her to stay clear of her father at all costs.

David’s part required him to get in the last word, period.

Story 4

Shellacked

“It’s midnight people,” announced Geimer. “Closing time everybody! Drink up and Merry Christmas to all!”

“Cheers!” responded the clientele.

“And you, David -- before you go -- I have a big favor to ask of you. Could you help me shellac the bar? I’m not open tomorrow, I mean today, so this is a great time to get it done.”

“Of course, Dad.” One thing about David, although it was contradicted by Katherine and Dorothy at home, was that family was everything to him.

Three hours later, David stumbled home. His yearlong catch of expectations assailed him across the 17^th Street Bridge like the tiny buckshot ice shelling him.

The nightlong sleet had pasted a frozen seal over the cottage’s wooden back porch and David was chagrined by the back porch door failing to budge when he tried to open it.

“What,” he mumbled.

Even in his condition he knew something was out of place. He inhaled with a bullish snort through his nose. Then he spit out wet, slurred words: “What is the matter here? Did she lock me out?”

The grunt of these words, traitorous words, backed him up a couple of paces from the confusion at the door. He flung off his gloves and his soaked watch cap to the icy floor and rubbed his alcohol-logged temples to clear his viewfinder.

He was so much less complicated and, by the same token, much more vulnerable, under the influence.

“Goddammit,” he cried. While it came out like anger, there was the contrasting smile and raised eyebrows of respect reserved for moments of strength like this. With bare hands, he applied his vise-like grip to the door handle and gathered his full weight forward against it. Then he inhaled deeply and pulled with an enormous backward torque.

The door sprung open, evoking a massive crack like the sound of a tree exploding. The wallop shook the back porch. A jet storm of ice pellets shot into the kitchen, wetting everything with its crystalized entrance.

David let out a whoop and picked up his cap and gloves. He kicked the door closed. It was in this manner that the silent home was bullied out of the safety of smells of warm baked cookies, icing-frosted coffee cakes, and the heavenly scent of the freshly decorated Christmas tree. Katherine and Dorothy’s vigil had come to an end. Katherine’s heart pounded as she made three rapid signs of the cross. With equal parts of dread and resolve, she approached the kitchen and steadied herself for the trouble she knew she’d surely meet, and, so much scarier, that which could be unfamiliar.

David walked forward to her. He knew Katherine was inspecting him. He could easily explain away everything by way of his drunkenness. His face took on a cocky smile.

Kathrine was beautiful and petite. Her long flowing dark hair fell out over her aging gold shawl and gave her skin the color of a candle. David could see that she looked far paler than usual, a look she reserved for moments like this.

He waited for her to say something. She just stared at him.

He had learned that the winning hand to these tricky deals was to put her on the defensive in any way possible, for as long as it took, so as to turn the odds in his favor until she would begin to second guess her own senses.

Time to break the silence. He asked her sheepishly, “Merry Christmas?”

Kathrine’s soul shivered under her withered expression. In her hand, under her shawl, she clutched her mother’s holy rosary so tightly that the white ivory crucifix left a deep red imprint on her clenched, white palm. She prayed for strength while her eyes filled up with fear and its ancestors.

David turned back to the kitchen. He collapsed into his chair at the head of the kitchen table. He dropped his head to his knees, pulled his watch cap down and fixed his eyes on the worn, broad, pine plank floor. His gaze dissociated in the melting drops of water that ran off his nose and beard and ears. He watched the drops fall and elide to form a puddle that reflected an uncut ghostly vision of himself, a pattern of doses of self-hatred. The smell of the puddle gave off a blast of evaporating alcohol.

The silence seemed to go on forever until, finally, Katherine broke the spell. She touched his shoulder and said, “David, Dorothy and I worked all day to prepare the tree and desserts, and then we just waited for you to come home.”

David raised up on the chair and let his head swing backwards. He started making snoring sounds as if he were fast asleep. She again tapped him on the shoulder. He jerked up to his feet, crossed his arms across his chest, and started tapping his feet. “Woman, what’s the matter with you? Can’t you see I was sleeping?”

Not missing a beat, she said, “David, it’s no good like this. Can’t you see it?” A ringing in David’s ears sounded out with the measure of his blood pressure that was coursing at the boiling point. “See what?” he asked. Katherine said something to herself, like, Help me Jesus. Here we go.

“Tonight, David was Christmas Eve. And you come home like this and there is no good reason on earth to explain why you weren’t home. How couldn’t you know that you’d make us deathly worried about you?”

“That’s enough,” he said.

“No, that’s not enough. How come you don’t care that every time you do this, you make me feel like a widow and Dorothy like an orphan?”

“Why are you bringing our Dorothy into this,” he asked with a glare. He had nowhere else to turn so he roared: “Are you crazy? What are you saying?” He knew this wouldn’t help at all, but, once he heard himself say this, the ringing in his head stopped. He had heard exactly what he needed to hear from her to get out from under her.

Of course, Dorothy remembered everything to come for the rest of her life. Her mother’s courage imprinted her with the spirit lacking in her father’s life.

“David, I am through with all of this,” said Katherine. “It’s nearly morning. I’m afraid I just don’t know what’s going to happen next if this continues.” Katherine had tried to somehow dig into the last loving feeling he still had for her and for Dorothy, a feeling that may yet hold out hope for them. Whatever it was, David was jarred all the way out from his blackout and all was left was reproach.

“Now, woman, this is over. You stop your braying right now,” he said.

Dorothy started crying.

“Yeah, Katherine, I had a few at your dad’s place,” hoping that this admission

would catch some foothold on which she would pivot into admitting she had gone too far.

Katherine had always been coaxed along by him, agreeing to see things from his point of view, whether it was his concept of manhood, or marriage, or his notion of hard work and hard play. His fragmented thinking had always won the day.

Katherine sighed.

He wanted more than that.

“Well, woman, have you nothing to say?” he asked.

“David, David, it’s alright,” she answered. She stepped up next to him, and placed her hand with her rosary on his still wet and cold hand. “Please, David, just go to bed. Go on. Go up and warm up,” she purred. “You’re soaked and you must be freezing. We can drop this. It all will surely pass by the time we get up in the morning.”

She had taken his bait. It was the perfect cast.

But Katherine’s heart wasn’t in it this time. She decided that she was done with everything and so mollifying him would hurt no more.

Dorothy shuddered when she saw her father stand up in his most behemoth way. There he was, the strongest man in town, towering over her mother who was barely five feet tall; her shadow was erased by his.

Katherine had two weeks earlier given still birth again, for the fourth time, another death. Four months ago, her mother, healthy and vibrant, had drowned, swimming and cramping beyond the fourth sand bar, during a Sunday picnic at Neshotah. Katherine had screamed out to her husband and father for help, but they were passed out, too drunk to do any saving.

But nothing, NOTHING, made her feel absolutely lost like standing up to him.

Should David be remembered for what happened after that? Wouldn’t it have been enough for people to say, “David LaFond? Oh yeah! He liked to tip a few!!”

He pushed her backwards away from him, hoping would to scare her into forgetting it all.

She stood there with her arms folded.

He tried humor: “What are you blaming me for?” he asked. “It’s all Old Lady Lake Michigan’s fault for not giving me any fish Michigan for Christmas.”

Katherine’s wet and red eyes discounted his attempt to be funny.

“Okay, Katherine and Dorothy, you want the whole truth? Here it is.”

He seemed to immediately sober up again like he could once in a while when the circumstances were just right.

“I drank all afternoon at your father’s place and when he closed up, he asked me for a favor. He told me that because the tap room was always closed for Christmas, he decided it was the perfect time to finish the shellacking work on the bar. He asked me to help him.”

“Yes,” she said, looking deep into his rheumy eyes.

“How could I say no. He’s been so very good to us. I told him I would be happy to help him out. And he was really, really blue, missing your mother. I swear I never thought that you would mind in the least, with your father being all alone and this being his first Christmas without her.

“Well, it turned out to be a much slower job than we expected, what with all the gingerbread work on its front. And then it ended up needing not one but two coats of shellac. So, after the first coat, we got the fireplace going really good to help dry the shellac. Then your father asked me to cut up some sausage and cheese and we took a break and had a bite to eat. And then guess what he says?”

Katherine didn’t respond, not because she wasn’t paying attention to him, but because she was so disgusted by his hellbent intention to convince her he was being a Good Samaritan.

“Your dad said that Mr. Baetz had dropped off a pony barrel of his special Christmas Bock for him to taste. He said Baetz said it was his best product yet. He had named it, ‘Golden Drops Beer.’

“So, your father got it from the basement and tapped it. Was it ever good -- the best I ever tasted. That Baetz is a genius. I never tasted anything that good in my whole life. So, we toasted each other, and the Season. Your dad said he was doing the best he could and then he said he was going to fry up some of the perch that Allie gave him earlier in the day. Although that pissed me off, that Allie is always trying to make me look bad, I agreed to have few with the beer.”

“And then,” said Katherine, a tired chorus to the same ballad, “you did some more toasting.”

“Yes, Katherine, exactly!” David laughed because it looked like her response was the beginning of her getting ready to come over to his side.

With things winding down Dorothy got up from the parlor and went upstairs to bed without saying good night.

“So, we ate and had some more beer and talked some more and then we noticed it had started to snow outside. We finished up the second shellac coat as quickly as we could and then cleaned up. Your father was smiling. He said the bar had the special glow like it had when it was new.

“Then I began bundling up to go outside. But, you know, the weather got worse. There was an outright squall. Your father insisted that I wait it out with him for a while because it was too dangerous. In a way, he was right, because you know how treacherous and slippery the 17^th Street Bridge gets. I made up every kind of excuse I could to leave but, with each one, he just wouldn’t hear it. He just kept saying that if anything should happen to me on the bridge, he’d never be able to forgive himself --like he couldn’t forgive himself for not being able to anything to save your mother.”

“Yes,” answered Katherine, “I know he’s heartbroken and I know the bridge is treacherous.”

Lives had been lost on account of mixing drinking, revelry, winter squalls and the 17^th Street Bridge.

“But father could not have done anything to save mother.”

David stepped forward and reached out his hand and touched Katherine’s hand. It felt warm, like a fragile ember. She let him hold it.

“Your father kept wanting me to talk about my fishing. And then he talked about the town. I could see it was good for him to talk. He told me about how your mom loved to see the patrons filling themselves up on the smoked chubs I used to bring over. He spoke like she was still in the kitchen. He told me his weakness was your mother’s freshly baked bread. Did you know that?”

“It was my weakness too,” whispered Katherine, smiling slightly, surprised over the feeling that was still there in sharing this memory with him. But her mom’s bakery smell had been right there too, in her own kitchen, until David snuffed it out by his alcoholic draft.

David smiled back at her, reading her smile as a sign he was making good progress in smoothing a transition back to the sort of equilibrium where he was in control.

“David,” said Katherine, “I’m tired. It’s four o’clock in the morning on Christmas Day and this is the wrong time to be making idle chatter over bread.”

“My dear Katherine, I must tell you that your father told me he had a huge lump in his throat at last year’s Christmas Eve. He said he had a foreboding when he set out the final round before closing time when he called out your mother from the kitchen to offer her a toast and asked her to sing, ‘Silent Night’.”

Katherine nodded. “David, that’s all well and good, but, really, it’s time to sleep.”

“Katherine, you haven’t been listening to a word I said.”

Katherine turned and walked past him to go upstairs.

“What’s the matter with you,” he asked incredulously, “Don’t you believe me?”

She kept walking away like she did every Christmas Eve, every holiday, and most of the rest of the year.”

She knew that confronting him after all he had said would be a very, very bad move. Instead, she gently said, “David, you’re a good man, the best provider in the whole town. You constantly risk your life for us. Dorothy and I love you very much. But we don’t feel safe with you.”

“Okay, Katherine. I know I am not perfect. But I’ve told you everything and you should be satisfied.”

“David LaFond, I don’t have a husband. I have things the way that they are. Just look at this mess.”

“Katherine, you have Dorothy. You’re doing a great job with her, with or without me.”

“Dottie needs more than a mother. She needs a father at home, especially on Christmas Eve.”

David had spent his spirit. All that remained was his strength.

He moved to the center of the kitchen and stamped his heavy booted foot loudly on the kitchen floor grate.

THUD!

(In those days, the first-floor rooms of East Side cottages were heated, not only by wood burning fireplaces, but also by hot, moist air rising through metal floor grates from boiling water fired in iron kettles set below on dirt-floored cellars. The grates also channeled sound throughout the house.)

Katherine was too spent to react.

THUD!! a second time, insolently louder.

Katherine turned around.

“David, please. David, please don’t,” she pleaded with him. “This cottage is all we have.”

But she knew it was too late for any pleas, or don’ts, too late for any chance at all for Christmas this year. She turned around, with impunity and head-on revulsion, and yelled, “Damn you, David LaFond!!”
THUD!!!

CRACK!!! And the grate split in half and fell to the cellar.

“Oh, David, what’s next? The Mackinaw?”

“It’s my floor grate … and it’s my cottage and it’s my Mackinaw. So, the hell with them and you!!”

He marched towards her and she shut her eyes waiting for the inevitable. But he passed her with a foul smell of a dirty tavern, passed her right into the parlor with purpose, as if he were reading from a script.

“… AND IT’S MY CHRISTMAS TREE,” he bellowed, tripping over the edge of the parlor threshold rug, stumbling past the tree, landing chest first on the cassock in front of the wicker sofa.

“No. Oh, no, David. Please! No,” Katherine implored and she leapt on top of his back.

Too late. He was again mad steaming drunk.

He swept her off with one arm and she flew to the wall. He got up and turned and cursed the glorious tree with its homemade ornaments and aluminum tinsel and Katherine’s mother’s Emerald Star on top. Swaying like a timeworn drunken sailor, he approached the seven-foot tree that he had hewn three days before and brought home as a surprise before dawn. He reached into its branches with one arm and seized the trunk at shoulder level with a strangle hold. Then he lifted it off the ground effortlessly, wooden stand and all. He pounded the floor with it several times like a post hole digging tool. The house shook, glass ornaments crashed to the pine floor while the threaded cranberry strands swayed in the balance.

Then he set it free, aiming it so it could slowly fall towards Katherine’s feet. She scooted away to a corner where she curled up like a ball with her head and heart pounding and her tiny arms clinging around her chest.

David bent down over the tree and, with both hands, took hold of its lower trunk and lifted it. Katherine heard the last of the ornaments crashing off as he shook it like a wet umbrella, leaving only the Emerald Star at the top. He dropped the tree and walked around to the top of it. He pulled the cherished star from the top and threw it at Katherine. It missed her and shattered above her while she thought of her mother who seemed to be there with her.

He pulled the tree through the kitchen, leaving behind a trail of tattered cranberry and popcorn strings while his silent, pajama-clad daughter watched the maelstrom from the bottom of the stairs.

Katherine got up. Her moccasin slippers feet crunched on the sharp debris. She raced into the kitchen to see Dorothy, shuddering, hyperventilating.

“Dorothy LaFond! You go back upstairs!! Right now!!!”

Dorothy could hear but couldn’t obey. She was frozen like a rabbit, huddled up inside herself where the instinct to survive had taken over. Katherine moved protectively in front of Dorothy. Then Dorothy moved protectively in front of her mother.

David pulled the tree out the back door. He lifted it above the back porch. Heavy, wet snow blew over him and into the kitchen, dusting for posterity the memory of what had happened.

He aimed the tree’s top like a javelin into the wind.

Katherine slowly followed him with bleeding feet.

He stepped back to gain the extra torque he knew he needed for a throw off the porch and down the backyard slope to the river. He slipped badly off the porch while things ripped and tore in his groin and in his knee, ending up with his legs splayed apart as he and the tree dropped to the concrete at the base of the porch.

He howled with rage, too anesthetized with alcohol to feel pain. His dilated pupils failed to see anything in the whiteout conditions. He rolled forward, used a pushup maneuver to lift himself up to his haunches. There he sat. He used the tree as a cane to help him stand up. Then he lifted the tree like a javelin.

The slope to the river quickly steepened a few feet from the back porch and then flattened out right before his pier, which was actually only a short stone’s throw away. Mobilized, David flung the tree down the slope, and it got going pretty well, sliding just like he wanted, stopping at the pier.

He lowered himself and shinnied down towards the tree. The ground’s thin, slick ice cracked beneath him.

What can be so transforming to be drawn to a winter river after a day and night of drinking? There are Wisconsin towns everywhere, built on rivers, and along the big lake, like here inn Two Rivers where things like this just seem to happen all the time.

Katherine shinned down behind him, silently, cautiously, just a few feet behind him, holding her shawl, breathing shallowly, and clutching her rosary. Then she lost sight of him as she had for a long time -- such a long time with things like this -- and it was as if she too had lost her mind.

But her lips were filled with prayer, and they quickly began to move.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee, blessed art Thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus, holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners…”

David stood up and stood up the tree. He lifted it so he could launch it again He aimed to plunk it into the East Twin River where it would flow out to the lake. He had to have it end like this, to send her a message, that his anger was worthwhile. That would be his legacy.

His stance failed him. He slipped around like a drunken sailor so early in the morning. The frictionless sheet readied to claimed them both for the river. He held tightly to the tree like it was a mast in a storm. Then he fell backwards with it into the river. His head cracked open the ice. His panicked hands grasped at naught.

In that second, the squall subsided for an instant and Katherine saw the accumulating mass. She wrapped the rosary tightly around both hands, screaming: “… NOW, AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH, AMEN!”

She felt Dorothy touch her back.

“Mom, what happened?”

Katherine screamed out, “Your father,” while pointing towards the river’s edge below them to where David had disappeared. She turned around and said with a deathly calm, “Your father fell in.”

Dorothy put her hands on her mother’s shoulders and said, “Don’t worry Mom. I’ll save him.”

Shoeless, in pajamas, only 13 years old, but manly in strength like you’d expect David’s daughter to be, Dorothy leapt feet first into the East Twin River. She hit the 38-degree water hard with her arms stretched out to the sides like her father had taught her, a lifesaving move that keeps a head above water to maintain a search for a victim. The frigid water burned her, choked her and she could already feel her appendages start to shut down as her head scouted the surface. She knew she had about two minutes before her hands and arms would lose all dexterity and doom her to an eternal rest alongside her father.

When Dorothy was seven years old, her father had thrown her from that very same dock into the river. “Sink or swim,” he hollered. That’s how they taught swimming in Two Rivers back then. She became a profoundly strong swimmer, another better attribute than most men in town.

Those skills set her against the natural violent forces at work.

The depth at the river’s bank was kept dredged to twelve feet to create an immediate drop off from the shore. This allowed heavy fish-laden Mackinaws an easy berth at the dock. On warm and calm summer nights, the Mackinaws of the East Side fishing families bobbed gently side by side all along the river up to the 17^th Street Bridge, flickering in the moonlight like lanterns on a line.

Tonight, there was only the feral beauty of cold violence, the force of which made Katherine fear that Dorothy too would be lost in the river’s treacherous underbelly. Like an illustration out of David’s lifesaving book, Dorothy saw something flash five feet in front of her. Her adrenaline erupted. Dog paddling closer, she made out the shape in the water. It was tinsel and it was the tree, all that was left of Christmas.

Then Dorothy felt another object nudge up on her from just beneath the surface.

“Father,” she shouted.

Dorothy set herself for the rescue, ready to retrieve what was positive from the deficit water. How much time did either of them have left? She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, once, twice, before gathering in one more breath as deeply as she could until her lungs filled to her ribcage. The she dived down and under her father’s body. She hooked her right arm under his two lifeless arms and, with strength that seemed more her father’s than her own, she brought him up to the surface. She side-stroked and scissor-kicked to the bank and grabbed onto a rope that had been cast by their next-door neighbor, Mr. Gauthier (pronounced “Go-key”), who had heard Katherine’s last clarion call of prayer over the din of the storm.

Thank God Gauthier was sober.

Dorothy’s hands were quickly going numb, but she was able to tie the rope around her father’s chest. Another neighbor, Mr. Allie (accent on the second syllable), had joined them. The men pulled David up and out of the water and placed him flat onto the dock. They threw the rope back to Dorothy and pulled her out. Dorothy shivered violently yet she neither felt anything or thought anything. She was stunned by the cold events that she didn’t understand.

How much of this was real?

The men placed David on his side. He was morgue-like still. He had lost his watch cap, a very bad omen. They pumped his chest. David started coughing out water mixed with beer.

With great difficulty the men half-dragged, half-portaged David up and onto the back porch then into the kitchen where they rested him on the floor. Katherine helped her daughter into the cottage. She rubbed Dorothy’s hands and led her upstairs.

Mr. Gauthier and Mr. Allie began the finger-numbing chore of loosening David out of his heavy woolen clothing while Katherine fed wood to the kitchen stove.

“Dorothy, darling,” said Katherine, “Dry off and warm up as quickly as possible and then run and go get Dr. Weld.”

Dorothy peeled off her pajamas that were almost frozen into her skin. She dried off with her bed’s quilt while her mind spun like a flywheel in full throttle. She rubbed her arms and legs until it she could once again feel them.

“That’s good enough,” said her mother who turned and went downstairs. Dorothy dressed into three layers of the warmest clothes she owned, pulled on her socks and boots, grabbed her coat, and raced down to the kitchen where she stood by the stove to fully recharge her battery.

Meanwhile, the men squeezed David up the stairs that were sized for one person at a time. They laid him on the bed that he should have shared with his wife on, of all nights, Christmas Eve.

Dorothy tore out the front door and ran towards the 17^th Street Bridge. She concentrated on counting out her strides to herself like she did with her strokes when she was swimming her summer laps over and back across the East Twin. This habit locked away pain and freed her for palliative imagination. She counted out her paces, “One, two, one, two, one, two….”

She thought of her longer swims, her favorite being the one out to Rawley Point and back. “One, two, one, two …” She felt such an allegiance to the water; it was if she was skimming through family history.

And now this cursed present.

Dorothy’s name is from the Greek word, “Doretta” that means “Gift of God.” She prayed, but in a way quite discernible from the resentful prayers of her father or the obsequious missives of her mother. She offered up a deal to God: “If You save father from this sure death, I will someday likewise save some hopeless person like him too.”

Dr. Steven Weld’s home/office was four blocks away from the 17^th Street Bridge in the heart of the town, across from Baetz Brewery and the Town Central Square. From there, Dr. Weld had a gorgeous view of the East River and Lake Michigan.

Dorothy banged on his front door. Mrs. Weld promptly answered the loud familiar sound of emergency. Dorothy immediately blurted out the crisis as soon as the door was opened.

“Dorothy,” said Mrs. Weld, “Dr. Weld is out on another emergency call. Tell your mother that he will come right over as soon as he can.”

Dorothy raced back home with the news and found that the neighbors had left. She gasped at the shatters of the parlor but was too tired to think about what had happened and too upset anyway to do anything about what she thought. She went upstairs and found her father lying on his back in bed with her mother sitting beside him.

“Mother, Dr. Weld is out on another emergency, but he will be here as soon as he can.” Katherine fumbled around for her rosary and was petrified when she discovered that that it was gone, lost. She bowed her head and began praying, “Our Father who art in heaven…” Dorothy sat on the bed and joined her, "Hallowed be Thy name…”

When Dr. Weld arrived, Katherine led him upstairs, hoping to shield him from the upheaval in the parlor. He didn’t stay long at all. He quickly had ascertained that David had sustained a head injury during his polar plunge.

“Mrs. LaFond, during your husband’s accident, he hit his head and he is now in a coma. There’s nothing I can do for him until he comes out of it. Just keep him warm and watch out over him and I’ll check back as soon as I can, hopefully tomorrow.”

“Doctor,” said Dorothy, “what is a coma?”

“It’s a medical term that means that your father was struck unconscious, asleep you could say.”

“How will you wake him up,” she asked.

“We’ll know a lot more about that when I come back. He may wake up in a few minutes or a few hours.”

“Or not at all?” asked Katherine.

Dr. Weld paused. He didn’t conjecture about medical conditions or courses of illnesses like that. Guesswork was not part of his medical practice.

“It’s way too soon to say anything definitive like that,” he said.

“But?” she pressed him.

“I’ll check back tomorrow, and we can talk some more about that then,” he said in his most convincing medical tone.

“Thank you, Dr. Weld,” said Katherine. “Dorothy, please show Dr. Weld out.” On the way out, Dorothy said to him, “Just a minute Dr. Weld. She hurried into the kitchen and bundled up a pecan pie for him. “Merry Christmas, Dr. Weld,” she said, weakly.

Katherine got up and pulled her rocking chair away from her favorite window that overlooked the river and placed it right next to David. She began rocking back and forth, following David’s rhythmic breathing in a desperate link to him. She placed her hand on top of the homemade quilts that covered his rising and falling chest. The motion of his breathing and the rocking of her chair seemed to lock them together in a cadence as if they were afloat in time, like the rock that the local Ojibway, the Original People, said took a century to roll from one side of Lake Michigan to the other.

Dorothy returned and retreated across the hall to her room. Her head pounded and her legs cramped. She dropped fully clothed on top of the three layers of quilts on her bed. She had cycles of twilight sleep, the kind where you participate in the dreams. In one dream, she was standing in the middle of the 17^th Street Bridge when it began to open. As it rose, she caught hold of its railing. She dangled until the bridge was fully opened and then she let go of it and dropped to the water. She landed on a floating fishing net that wrapped around her and bound her tightly. Her struggle to free herself only tightened the net’s hold on her. As she started to go under, she heard her mother cry out from the river’s edge, “Keep trying Dorothy! Don’t ever stop!” Dorothy woke from this dream with a start. She rolled out of bed in a cold sweat despite her three layers of quilts. She changed into new clothes, pulled on her slippers, and went downstairs.

The parlor had begun filling with light to reveal the residuals of the previous night’s disaster. The sparkles and glints of light bouncing off the broken glass ornaments reflected another broken family in the small fishing town. Dorothy’s eyes filled with tears when saw a shard of the tree’s emerald-green star that Grandma Geimer had given to Dorothy the previous Christmas, their last Christmas together. Grandma Geimer told Dorothy that she would always be there with her, to guide her, like the North Star.

Dorothy picked up the shard and closed her eyes intently. She swore on it that she would never, ever drink, and never, ever end up like her father, and never, ever have children. She vowed, “Let it end with me.”

Dorothy went into the kitchen and fed the stove. Then she used paraffin paper to package and store what was worth saving of the bakery. One round frosted breakfast cake, her mother’s specialty, and Dorothy’s absolute favorite, was too attractive to ignore. She placed its aluminum pan on the stove to warm it. After cleaning off the table and mopping the floor, she got butter from the ice box and grabbed the cake from the stove with her hand wrapped in a towel. She sat down and sliced off a huge triangle piece and covered the bottom with butter. The taste of her mother’s bakery lifted out a thin, resolved smile with which she stared down the, “dare you to death threat” in the kitchen.

After a second piece, Dorothy went upstairs to her parent’s bedroom, bent over her mother, and whispered, “Mom, I love you.” But Katherine didn’t notice her. She was fast asleep with her head on David’s chest. Dorothy left them like that.

Katherine dreamt that David dreamed of fishing in December, of chasing massive schools of perch that sought the retreating plankton and minnow food stocks in the deeper, warmer waters of the lake. In Katherine’s dream David waved goodbye as his Mackinaw sailed out to the lake. She shouted out to him, “Be back before nightfall.”

A few hours later a vision-searing dawn opened Katherine’s eyes. The squall had given way to pure sunlight that bounced off her dressing bureau mirror and splashed across some artifacts on the bedroom walls. She shoved off from David’s chest and walked to the mirror where a summertime daguerreotype tintype taken the previous summer hung.

The picture was taken from inside the LaFond Mackinaw out on the lake, about one mile east of Rawley Point. The photo showed her husband and his soon-to-be-drowned brother John, alongside the boat’s gunwale. They wore leather overalls and work shirts with rolled up sleeves as they hauled in some of the day’s catch. David was expressionless, with his pipe in his mouth, his watch cap on his head, as the men pulled the net out from the black shade of the lake. Behind the men, in the aft of the Mackinaw, Catherine Geimer sat stolidly looking straight at the camera. She was holding a parasol to protect herself from the sun.

The photographer was Jacob Geimer. It had been a remarkable afternoon of family fishing fun.

Katherine felt as tired as she had ever been.

“My God, it is Christmas Day,” she said as she leaned down to kiss David’s cheek. She was surprised that it was so warm. She went downstairs.

“Merry Christmas my dear daughter,” she said a little too flat for the content.

“Thank you, Mom. Merry Christmas to you. There’s coffee on the stove and your breakfast cake is wonderful.”

The two hugged and braced themselves for the coming of the telling and retelling of the forever memory: their desperate, remarkable, heroic Christmas Eve.

“I’ll try your coffee,” said Katherine as she took the cup then stood there allowing the steam to waft up to her face before she took a sip.

“The coffee is hot and strong. Good job dear,” she said and she entered the parlor.

Katherine saw blood on the floor, debris everywhere and caustic byproducts of unmanageable living. She feared that that the next broken jewel could be Dorothy.

Katherine LaFond was a sober mom, as sober as sober could be. At Dorothy’s birth, David told Katherine he didn’t want any more children, that, in fact, he hadn’t wanted children at all. Overhearing this, the midwife observed, “Katherine, look at your sweet daughter. Can you believe it? She’s already making eye contact. You won’t have a problem with this one as long as she knows you are seeing her, looking out for her.”

Things went south a few hours after the midwife left. Dorothy turned into a non-stop crying bundle of baby. After two days of this, Katherine and David were convinced that Dorothy was seriously ill, which, in those days, was not at all unusual. Katherine brought Dorothy to see Dr. Weld. He was a very good family friend, a near relative at that. After what amounted to multiple pokes and prods of the tiny infant Dorothy, Dr. Weld spoke to her parents. It was painfully ironic to him to see so much distress in a completely healthy baby. He had seen so many newborns with less alarms that indicated real life-threatening problems: a tiny heart that moved blood way too slowly, or not at all; flaccid lungs that were too small to do anything with air, just to name a few.

“Katherine and David,” he said, “I have found that there is absolutely nothing wrong at all with your baby. Babies are like this a lot. Dorothy is a colicky baby. She’s of a kind that seems to be in pain when there is really nothing wrong; a troublesome child for the parents to be sure. And while there is no cure for the colic because it isn’t an illness or disease in the strict medical sense, it is best understood as a phase the three of you are going to go through together.”

“For how long,” asked David. “She’s driving me crazy.”

“That I don’t know. All you can do is to keep her dry, fed, warm and comfortable. I know it won’t be easy at all but just by doing your best, you’ll do well enough. You can be sure about that, and that will be good enough.”

Katherine was mute. David got up and left.

“Thank you, Doctor. It is good news what you said. My husband will come around too.”

The doctor’s prescriptive advice kept Katherine busy day and night. She was totally devoted to Dorothy, holding her, feeding her, changing her, rocking her and cooing to her. Yet the colic persisted. And, while Katherine provided care, David kept on fishing … and cursing.

After nearly two weeks of Dorothy’s colic, David’s percolating anxiety and sleep deprivation did him in. He woke up one morning to see a full-blown case of red swollen bumps all over his body: hives. And those hives began seething.

“I can’t go out fishing like this,” he proclaimed. “I can’t do anything like this. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

David went to Dr. Weld. The examination led to Dr. Weld suggesting that David go to Two Rivers Municipal Hospital for four days of bed rest, the only treatment for hives back then.

“I can’t stand this. But a hospital? I’ve never been in one,” said David. “What can they do for me there? What’s it like there?”

“It’s quiet,” said Dr. Weld.

“Okay, Doc. You are the expert. Okay, I’ll do it.”

Katherine was shocked to hear that David agreed to go to the hospital. He never asked for help. And when David returned home after one week there, not four days, Dorothy’s colic persisted.

“Here we go again,” moaned David. “Maybe beer would help,” he said to Katherine.

“For Dorothy?” asked an incredulous Katherine.

“No, not for her. For me!”

Katherine’s father brought over a pony keg of beer that David suckled dry in two days. And then, like a school of perch, the colic vanished.

Dorothy’s parents kept her neonatal colic a secret from her. How could they tell Dorothy that her first family event involved sending her father to the hospital? She had been such an incredible blessing, an only child who helped her mother with household chores as soon as she could walk. Her industry at home freed up her mother to help work the fish.

When Dorothy turned ten and received her first Holy Communion, Katherine decided it was time to spill the beans. Dorothy laughed at the story like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard. So, while she made it seem like it was no big deal to her, she felt a ton of guilt that she hid from her parents. She felt that she owed something to her father.

Dorothy continuously tried to get close to her father to show him how much she cared about him. After third grade, she began sailing with him on weekends. She honored him with her fervor and her capacity to learn about fishing. On his Mackinaw she was genetically primed with a natural athleticism and a quick brain. By the sixth grade she had made her father proud of her by the way she mastered the boating etiquette needed to avoid the many cold dangers that caused unbloody deaths of so many fishermen on Lake Michigan.

Dorothy pleased her parents by being an excellent student at St. Luke’s Catholic School. She was the number one in her eighth grade graduating class. Having completed her formal schooling, Dorothy shored herself up by a compulsive devotion to doing everything perfectly on the LaFond. However, by this time, David was beyond just dating with the cure of the bottle. Alcohol had become his jealous mistress. It turned him away from Dorothy and made him resent her ardent desire to be helpful to him. That resentment made him absolutely cringe whenever he was supposed to say something like, “Thank you Dorothy. I love you.” He never had been that type of man in the first place. He knew he was missing something in life and alcohol filled the gap.

But he couldn’t out and say, “Alcohol, I love you,” either.

He had to choose one or the other. But why couldn’t he have both? He was, after all, David LaFond, and he always got what he wanted.

A bad day fishing? Have a drink. He’d like that. A bad hangover? Let Dorothy run the LaFond. She’d like that.

Story 5

Maddingly Transient

Dorothy brought in the few fish that remained in the smoker.

Another Christmas Day without Christmas, without its mirth, its good cheer and inner glows. Next year must be different.

There was a loud knock on the cottage’s front door and Katherine opened it to her father.

“Dad, please come in. I have bad news for you.”

“I heard all about it on the way over here,” said Geimer.

“I guess everybody on the East Side has heard about it,” said Katherine.

“It’s hard to keep a lid on something like this,” he said. He looked around, pointed at the broken down parlor and shook his head. “David did all of this?”

“Yes, Dad. All on his own.”

Dorothy had put the smoke fish on a platter and emerged from the kitchen.

“Hi Grandpa,” she said, “Merry Christmas.”

“Another one of these Christmases, huh,” he asked as he embraced Dorothy with an enormous hug that drew tears from them both.

Jacob Geimer had worked for 30 years as a cheesemaker. He and his wife Catherine also owned 55 acres of glacier rich land west of Green Bay where they farmed corn and worked 25 milking cows. Not a surprise that after such toil that the last bit of joy got farmed out of them. They loved the land; they learned its secret. But they had to sell. They wanted to start something new, something that didn’t require every hour of every day to keep up. After little interest was drummed up for the sale, Victor and Florence Vannieuwenhoven stepped forward to buy the farm. They continued using the land for dairy cows and the farmland for corn.

In August of 1956, the Vannieuwenhovens peddled 50 of their 55 acres to the Green Bay City Council. The City of Green Bay paid them more than $73,000 for the land. That would buy a lot of cheese. The Vannieuwenhovens were extremely happy about pulling this off. They would have taken far less because those 50 acres were extremely hard to work due to poor drainage in its bowl-like shape.

The Green Bay City Council had a brilliant vision for that very odd bowl-shaped acreage. On September 29, 1957, a crowd of more than 32,000 Green Bay Packer fans filed into the bowl of New City Stadium for the opening game of the National Football League Season. The contest pitted the Packers against their fierce rival, the Chicago Bears. Vice President, Richard Nixon, attended that premiere.

The Vannieuwenhovens never attended a game. Nor did Jacob Geimer, who hated football. He kept the secret of the land to himself, the secret being that the stadium had been built on a sacred place, an Ojibway burial ground.

The Geimers used their sales revenue to purchase “The Fishery,” a one-story tavern in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. They decided to rename it, “The Washington Tap Room.” The couple spent their first month of proprietorship using tons of elbow grease to thoroughly scour the place and restore its luster. The night before the grand opening, standing behind the gorgeous cherry and mahogany wood bar, they hoisted a toast: “To Our Homecoming!” Three years later, their hard work had paid off so well that they added a second floor, a dance floor.

There was another knock on the front door. This time it was Dr. Weld.

“Come on in Dr. Weld,” said Katherine. “I am so glad to see you. Thank goodness you’re here.”

“Hello Mrs. LaFond,” said Dr. Weld. “Hello Mr. Geimer; Merry Christmas, though I know not so merry.”

“Thank you Doctor,” said Katherine.

“Merry Christmas to you,” said Geimer. “You know, into every life a little sorrow must enter.”

“Agreed,” said Dr. Weld. “The hard part is when there is no time to prepare for it.”

Sometimes the hard part is looking the other way when sorrow come’s a-calling.

“Mrs. LaFond how is the patient?” he asked.

“He hasn’t stirred a muscle,” she said.

Katherine led the doctor upstairs to the bedroom. She left the two of them alone. For whatever reason, her thoughts shifted to the last time the LaFonds had a good time, years and years since the two of them LaFonds had a good wholesome merry time at the Two Rivers Fourth of July Snow Festival.

Story 6

Weird Weather

A Snow Festival in July in Two Rivers?

A parade and fireworks dedicated to snow at the height of summer?

How would they do it? Why would they do it?

However, whatever, this festival really put Two Rivers on the map.

The origin of the Snow Festival came about by a flukey thing. It was on one hot and sticky Fourth of July when a Two Rivers teenager was out walking his dog beneath a promontory point called Picnic Hill. He was looking for a good place to watch the fireworks. The young man’s dog, a naturally curious golden retriever named Brandy, wandered off into a mostly hidden cave under the promontory. When hollered “Brandy,” the dog did not show up. “That’s weird,” said the boy. Then he called out again and heard barking and followed the sound to the cave. He lit a stick match and went in and not only found his dog but also, in the darkness at the rear of the cage, a large mound of snow that was magnificently preserved in its pristine form, appearing as if it was freshly fallen.

Lake Michigan’s frigid water caresses winter for a very long time in Two Rivers. The last bit of winter’s snow sometimes doesn’t melt until the beginning of May. For that reason, Two Rivers was known in Wisconsin as, “The Coolest Spot in Wisconsin.”

The boy recognized the irony of his discovery: the existence of snow on The Fourth of July where the temperature was pushing into the upper 80s. He wanted to get the news out without sounding like he was crazy.

So, he concocted a plan.

The boy ordered Brandy to sit and stay right there. That was no problem for Brandy had a great genetic power to obey and please. Brandy’s human ran off to the Fire Department. He put on a frenzied face and shrieked about his dog straying off under Picnic Hill and that he was desperately in need of help to find him. Being a small-town fire department, firemen often helped in untreeing wayward cats and finding lost dogs. The chief volunteered to help out the lad.

The two drove in the chief’s car to Picnic Hill and when they got out, the boy hollered, “Brandy!” They heard barking. “That’s him. That’s Brandy,” cried the boy. They followed the barking right up to the cave. The chief opened his flashlight and in they went. Brandy remained seated until the boy said, “Brandy, come.” Brandy rushed up to the boy and frenetically waved her tail. “Good girl Brandy,” said the boy. “Chief, she’s okay.”

“That’s great news,” said the chief.

“But chief, you won’t believe what else is in here!”

“Oh no,” said the chief, fearing the worst, perhaps, stolen items, or a dead body. “What is it,” he asked.

“Shine your light towards the back,” said the boy.

“I don’t believe it!” he exclaimed. “It’s snow! It’s snow! Your dog found snow!! A mound of snow!!!”

“She sure did,” said the boy.

The chief drove the boy and his dog home. Upon returning to the fire station, he called an impromptu meeting with the firefighters.

“Gentlemen, I have made quite a discovery. I found a big mound of snow has preserved under Picnic Hill! What should we do with it?”

“Let’s have a snowball fight!” said one.

“Let’s build a snowman!” said a second.

“How about we have a Snow Festival?” said another.

“A what?” asked the chief.

“A Snow Festival. It’s the Fourth of July, right? Let’s get word out and get the town together. We’ll bring out the snow and have a brat fest.”

“Yeah, in Central Park”

“You got to be kidding. Who’d believe us about the snow?”

“Well you know, us Two-Riversites have always been a bit loony!”

“I agree! I think we got something here,” said the chief.

“Let’s get cracking!”

Following that first very successful foray into the ridiculous, Two Rivers quickly began the big planning for the second.

The town manager embraced the concept. “We invented the ice cream sundae, and nobody knocked us. Why not a Snow Festival on the Fourth of July? Yes, and a parade, and food extravaganza, and fireworks! Next year we’ll have a full-fledged Fourth of July Snow Festival to beat all Fourth of July Festivals!”

He decided to have the cave excavated to make it a bigger receptacle for snow. He made the Sanitation Department responsible for trucking into the cave tons of snow at the end of March. He put the Fire Department in charge of sealing the cave to be doubly sure that the snow was preserved.

So, the next year, and every year thereafter, the Fourth of July was celebrated with The Snow Festival, complete with a snow queen. The parade was held on the main drag, Washington Street. The Snow Queen rode at the front of the parade in the dignitary car, a brand-new Model A Ford. The car was driven by the broadly smiling and heartily waving Town Manager.

The Snow Queen’s car was followed by nineteen vehicles carrying the City Manager, eight aldermen, and ten members of the Police and Fire Commission. After the 19-car motorcade came floats created by various industries in town. People on the floats showered the three deep bystanders with candy. Then came the Washington High School Band Marching Band, followed by the local Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops and the younger Cub Scout and Brownie packs. Behind them rode a huge group of kids on bicycles. Next up was Santa Claus walking with his elves that danced around him as they sang Christmas songs. Next came the priests and pastors of the local congregations. Then came four rows of members of the Two Rivers Professional Liquor Association. Ironically, they were followed by all the town’s fire engines, police cars and ambulances each with blaring sirens. The Two Rivers Municipal Marching Band came next. The next to last segment of the parade was a horse drawn trailer upon which sat a single-masted Mackinaw boat filled with representatives of the fishing families that were the bread and butter of the community.

The parade concluded with a platoon of Coast Guardsmen, outfitted in sparkling white uniforms, who saluted the crowd. At the rear was a Guardsman pulling the canon that the Captain would fire off at Gill’s Bend to officially open the Fourth of July Picnic.

Every year Gill’s Bend served as the perfect place for a Fourth of July picnic. The Bend provided cooling shade from its pine trees. The town’s picnickers lounged on homemade dyed blankets and patchwork quilt, eating out of reed-wound baskets.

Children shuffled with bare feet on the soft sandy beach. The older kids waded out into the lake on the gentle sloping shore. Even with all the drinking, no one got too drunk; the air off of Lake Michigan proved to be the perfect antioxidant.

The evening was strobed by the beacon of the Rawley Point Lighthouse. The beam was visible up to 20 miles away. The magnificent lighthouse’s steel tower, all 113 feet of it, had been made in France. It was part of the French Exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Mr. Baetz happened to be on a business trip to Chicago the same time as the Fair and purchased the lighthouse. Since then the structure diligently, imperfectly, guided Lake Michigan navigators off Rawley’s Point, an historic place of numerous deadly shipwrecks. On some special winter nights, the beacon light seemed to join with the Northern Lights to create a perceptual wonder, giving rise to a race of spirits called the Gatherers.

That night, the LaFonds shared a lovely night in bed. Nine months later Dorothy arrived.

Story 7

More Like A Bad Mutilation

For centuries, the LaFonds concocted an unpromising recipe, blending alcohol with DNA and transmitting anxiety from generation to generation.

Dear symmetry?

Certainly, alcohol was a bad companion to David LaFond’s business with the lake. Even so, on some mornings he’d set out for Rawley Point with five or six buckets full. On those days he would sit and drink, drink and sit. On those evenings he would curse the line of mackinaws making their way back through the two protective breakwaters with their hauls of fish attracting hundreds of hungry seagulls, all bound for piers west of the 17^th Street Bridge.

“There goes the ‘Gar-How II,’ (named for its builders, Gary and Howard.

“There’s the ‘Suzy Q.’

“There’s the ‘Buddy O.’

“There’s the ‘Elsie J.’”

His negative thinking horse power was in full motion. “Why waste the last letter? Why name the ships at all? They’re all going down. Not me today, or ever. Why don’t you sorry sacks stay out and meet the Rouse Simmons,” he shouted as he slapped his head.

“I’m not going down to the bottom of the lake. I prefer drowning in these buckets of beer.” David got up and peed into the lake.

“Take that and choke on it you lousy lake,” he hollered.

After all of this he’d traipse over to the Washington Tap Room.

David’s talking to himself was his trademark when drinking alone. He sat at a window on the 17th Street side of the saloon and looked out at the steeples of St. John’s Lutheran Church and St. Luke’s Catholic Church. David’s talking to himself was his trademark at the tap room. “God, what you are doing to me?” he asked. “Can’t you please just leave me alone?”

A neighbor of David’s at the bar, Jack Lonzo, heard him and walked over to David.

“Hey neighbor, can I join you?” he asked.

“Take your pick,” David responded.

“Hey, thanks David. I wanted to ask you about the engine problems I am having with my ‘Mallard’.”

“Your tug, huh,” asked David.

“Yeah,” said Lonzo.

“Sure,” said David, as he extended his right hand in apparent fellowship but used it to clinch Lonzo’s hand with his vice-like grip.

“Thanks David,” squeaked Lonzo. “But, maybe some other time.” Lonzo winced as he twisted his whole body to break David’s grip. He got up and as he exited the tap room he shook his hand to get the feeling back into it.

“David, why’d you do that?” asked Geimer who had seen everything from the bar. “Lonzo’s a good paying customer.”

“Sorry Dad,” said David. “My wife prays to God and she gets salvation. I sit here and pray to God and what do I get? Lonzo! He’s so dull, he probably believes in The Gatherers!”

“David”, said Geimer, “Nobody believes in The Gatherers anymore.”

Story 8

Legendary

According to Ojibway legend, there once was a race of people called, “The Gatherers.” Gatherers were little beings that lived in the pine woods around the shores of Lake Michigan and along the East and West Twin Rivers. The male Gatherers hunted but were rarely sighted. The female Gatherers spent their days scooping out roots and berries and other foodstuffs to feed their families. In the summer, the parents would sit with their children on the beach at Still’s Bend. The children loved to run around barefoot. They weren’t always careful about the Marram Grass that grew in the sand dunes. The Marram was razor sharp and would cut into their bared ankles. But, there was nothing like playing on the hot beach sand and then wading out into the cool water, then having your mother tend to your bleeding ankle with the healing herbs she brought along for the occasion.

Gatherers never adopted anyone from the outside and they never adapted to anyone. They had a daily prayer that they used to invoke to the White Eagle in the North, the Red Eagle in the East, the Brown Eagle in the South and the Thunderbird in the West. It went like this:

“We pray to be long with the good plenty of the Great Spirit.”

To celebrate the end of summer the Gatherers had five gala days where they sang and danced to 300 hundred different drum songs, symbolizing the strength of their friendships.

Story 9

Not in Things but In Places

Two weeks after the La Fond Christmas Eve disaster, David remained bedbound and comatose. Dr. Weld told Katherine that his further care required transfer to the Manitowoc County Asylum. With that, Katherine knew the end was near. For the next two months before David died, she visited him daily, frequently with Dorothy in tow. They’d sit in chairs on either side of his bed and keep vigil, sometimes for hours at a time.

One Saturday afternoon Dorothy asked her mother, “Why did we settle in Two Rivers?” For the rest of the visit Katherine answered the question.

“For us, dear, that’s a very long story. Most family histories have a telling and retelling of the tales, generation after generation and a lot gets garbled. But what we LaFonds have is a written log that your father’s father received from his mother, your great-great-grandmother. The log got passed all the way down to your father. We are so very lucky to have it. And now, my dear, it’s my turn to turn it over to you.”

“Thank you, Mom. Could you tell me about it?”

“Dorothy, for starters, let’s take the city cemetery. You can walk among the headstones and, in one place, see that our relatives had three different ways of spelling their names: ‘LaFond,’ like us. Then there is ‘Lafond;’ and ‘La fond’; and ‘La Fond;’ And these are just relatives from the east side of town.”

“How did we ‘LaFonds’ get here,” Dorothy asked.

“Okay, dear, I’ll go by the book. here we go, by the book. A Mr. Etienne Pepin is recognized as our most distant relative. He lived way back in the mid-16^th century. Pepin’s nickname in his hometown, Vichy France, was Bacchus.

“Why Bacchus? Who is Bacchus?”

“Bacchus was the Roman god of wine.”

“Is wine like beer?”

“Yes, a lot like beer.”

“Mom, father never liked wine, did he?”

“No, he certainly didn’t. He was strictly a beer man. But wine, beer, brandy, and whiskey are close kins.”

“My goodness,” said Dorothy, while she silently swore for a second time that she would never, ever, drink any of those family things.

“Next, we have baptismal record of a family event that took place in 1564, back when Etienne Pepin named his first-born son Jean Baptiste.”

“John the Baptist? Isn’t it a sin to give someone that name,” asked Dorothy.

“No, dear,” said Katherine. “That was a very common name back then. This relative’s full name was Jean Baptiste LaFond.”

“Okay, but Mom, how did the name change from Pepin to LaFond?”

“Well, that happens to be the next interesting part of our story. Etienne Pepin’s family had owned an immense estate in a boggy lowland since the 1400s outside of Vichy. In fact, we may still own it.”

Dorothy’s eyes lit up. “Yes, Dorothy dear, and maybe you’ll see it someday.”

“Who knows?” asked Dorothy. “Please continue mom.”

Katherine smiled. “Over time,” she said, “The bog owner came to be called ‘Lord de La Fond.’”

“Mom, a teacher told me that our last name, in French, means ‘The Bottom.’ Is that true?”

“Yes, indeed, that’s true enough.”

“The bottom of what, Mom?”

“Actually, Dorothy, it’s quite the reverse. Dorothy. Pepin is a name of French nobility from the 12^th century. The Pepins are actually descendants of the old kings of France.”

“Does that make me a princess?”

“Yes, if you fancy yourself one. But here in Two Rivers, women are far from royalty.”

Dorothy had already begun to see that. Right then, she had another reason to hate her name and she doubled down on her oath that she would never have children, stopping the LaFond name dead in its tracks.

“Mom,” she asked, “what did Mr. Baptiste do with his life?”

“Jean Baptiste had a different calling than his father. He left the estate, left France altogether, and moved to Canada for adventure. Then his name disappeared from our family history for quite a while.”

“What would make someone so rich move away and disappear like that?”

“There is a lot of world out there. Some people have to find themselves by leaving what and who they know behind.”

Dorothy sighed and wondered if she would do something like that someday.

“So, Mom, Jean disappeared and found himself? How do we know that?”

“Good question! Jean Baptiste LaFond’s name reappeared in Canada’s town of Trois-Rivieres when he married Katherine Marie Senecal in December, 1625. Before they had any children, though, Katherine died unexpectedly while visiting her sister in another part of Quebec. That was on August 20, 1626. Jean Baptiste held Katherine’s funeral right there in a Roman Catholic church. The church was kept up by a convent of Ursuline Sisters. On the day of the funeral, in the back of the church there was another person in mourning: a woman grieving over the death of her husband. That woman’s name was Catherine Annennontak.”

“That’s a funny last name,” said Dorothy.

“Funny? No, just hard to pronounce.”

“I’m sorry. Not funny. I see what you mean. Can I just call her Kateri?”

“Yes, you may. Kateri was born in October, 1612, in a bark-covered log house at Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. Her father was Nicolas Arendanki. He was one of three principal Huron chiefs of the Bear Clan. Both he and his wife, Jeanne Otrihouandit, were baptized by the Jesuits who had come among their people several years earlier. A French missionary, Father Chaumonot, baptized her as ‘Belle Fleur de Bois’, or ‘Beautiful Flower of the Woods.’

“Back in those days, there had been about 35,000 Hurons living peacefully in an area called Huronia, only about 40 miles by 10 miles, about the size of our peninsula. The Huronians had been a strong and indomitable people for a thousand years. Then Europeans came and spread a mysterious, awful sickness, small pox, that quickly wiped out many, many of them and weakened the rest.

“Then, on March 9, 1613, disaster struck when thousands of Iroquois from the Hudson River Valley attacked them and nearly annihilated the entire Huron Nation. Only three hundred Hurons escaped: mostly women, some men, some children, and a few elders. They took refuge nearby on St. Joseph’s Island. Among the survivors were infant Kateri, Kateri’s chieftain father, and Kateri’s grandmother.

“Kateri’s father did everything he could to defend his small band of people. However, just two months later, while hunting on the mainland, he was caught by the Iroquois and killed by the son of the Iroquois Chief.”

“Indians killing Indians, Mom?”

“Yes, Dottie, Indians killing Indians.”

“I didn’t know that was possible. Aren’t they all related?”

“That makes little difference, doesn’t it? Remember our Civil War with brothers killing brothers and sons killing fathers?”

Dorothy sighed and nodded. “Yes, I remember that from school”

“This little band of Hurons hid another two months, gaining strength and confidence as they did so. They made birchbark canoes and set off on a desperate dash for freedom. They paddled through hostile territory from Georgian Bay on Lake Huron, along the French River, across Lake Nipissing, down the Ottawa River, along the mighty St. Lawrence River, past the Lachine Rapids to Montreal, and finally arriving at the fortress of Quebec City in the late fall after a perilous 1500-mile escape.

“And this is all this in our record?” asked Dorothy.

“Yes, it’s all written down.”

“My goodness,” said Dorothy. “We are blessed! Tell me more.”

“Kateri, her grandmother, and the other survivors of the Great Huron Massacre settled in Quebec. On April 21, 1614, Kateri’s grandmother was taken down by yellow fever, but not before leaving our Little Huron Princess on the front steps of Quebec’s Ursuline Convent. Kateri was taken in and raised and educated by the Roman Catholic nuns who called her ‘La Petite Creature Deu’. That means, ‘Little Creature of God’.”

“An angel,” said Dorothy.

“Just like you sweetheart: A princess! And an angel.”

Dorothy, beaming, began growing into those things at that very moment.

“And that’s pretty much all we hear about Kateri for the next twelve years or so. Then, our record picks her up again and things gets even more interesting.

“On October 23, 1626, fourteen-year-old Kateri was contracted to marry a forty-four-year-old soldier by the name of Jean Durand dit Lafortune. On their marriage certificate, Kateri signed her name, ‘Katherine Hurone.’

“In March of 1627 Jean Durand dit Lafortune drowned. Kateri was left with nothing. She somehow survived, but the history doesn’t say anything about how. And, Kateri started to think that she was cursed.”

“Did you read anything about there being a curse?” asked Dorothy.

“A LaFond curse? No, Dorothy… just bad luck.”

“Very bad luck,” said Dorothy.

“So, Kateri was seeking solace at the same Ursuline Convent in Quebec where, in the back of the church, she met the newly widowed Jean Baptiste LaFond.

“They married on June 30, 1627. One year later, when Jean was 63, and Kateri was 15, they had a son.”

“Mom, does that make me an Indian?”

“I never thought of it like that,” said her mother with a frown. Truth be told, some of Two Rivers’ LaFonds were said to have “swarthy” looks.

“It’s okay mom. Jim Thorpe was an Indian.”

Katherine smiled.

“Mom, whatever happened to Kateri’s son?”

“He became a Voyageur and engaged in trade with the native peoples. Then he disappeared.”

“More disappearances Mom? Does that also happen a lot to other families?”

“Oh yes, sweetheart. All the time. Even if you have a family historian.”

“And that would be you mom,” said Dorothy.

“That would be me,” said Katherine.

“Mom, you said the word, ‘voyageur.’ I love the sound of that name. What is a voyageur? Please tell me everything you know about voyageur.”

“Voyageurs, okay; but it’s another long, complicated story.”

“Was Father one? Is that how he came to settle in Two Rivers?”

“I guess you could say that. Your father came here from Trois Rivieres in Canada. Centuries before that a band of adventurers, called the voyageurs, founded and settled our home town area.”

“Mom, do you think I have some voyageur in my blood?”

“Yes, of course you do. Lots of it.”

Dorothy now had something to hold on to with which to press forward.

Story 10

“Chanson De Voyageur”

Jean Nicolet, the greatest French Voyageur, was the son of a mail carrier. He was from the tiny town of Cherbourg en-Cotentin, France. At the age of 19, he had already established himself as a seafaring prodigy. All the rage in those salty days was to find a waterway passage, a trade route, westward from New France to China. In 1618, Nicolet was commissioned to do just that, to sail to New France to find the channel.

He set off westward for his destination, Trois Rivières. There he was to be introduced to Samuel de Champlain, the man known as The Father of New France. Champlain was renowned for his singular passion and multiple attempts to find the westward passage. Champlain’s health had failed; the hardships of exploration forced him to abandon the search. So, for the next 16 years, Champlain schooled Nicolet on everything he knew about the factual, apocryphal and mythic narratives surrounding the searches. He grounded Nicolet in the region’s relevant geography and topography. He spent an enormous amount of time going over the types of indigenous peoples and cultures akin to the hunt for passage, specifically educating Nicolet in the Huron Language and Culture.

The Huron had become Champlain’s great friends. The Huron had told Champlain about a land far to the west, a land where a hairless and beardless people lived in sumptuous wealth. The Huron called this people “The Puans.” Their land was aid to be bordered upon a great body of salt water.

The final lesson for Nicolet came as fieldwork assignment. Nicolet was to live among Champlain’s great friends in order to demonstrate his integrity.

Finally, Champlain gave his blessing to Nicolet set out on his commission. In the late fall of 1634, Nicolet and his party of Voyageurs pushed off from Trois Rivières in four immense canoes. Each vessel was powered by twenty-four men all of whom rowed eight hours a day up the St. Lawrence River and through the territories of several tribes.

The crew did a yeoman’s job of rowing and portaging over 750 miles. They canoed across four huge freshwater lakes, singing as they rowed. Singing gave the Voyageurs strength in unity of purpose. Their favorite song was, “Le Chansons de Voyageur.” a song comprised of a constant melody and a changing, evolving refrain.

One nightfall the company had made their way into the shallow waters of the fourth great lake. They dropped anchors and slept in their canoes. At daybreak the next morning, a foggy, cold morning, the canoes were spied by a pine pitch-scented native warrior. He was sitting high in a tree on the edge of his tribe’s winter encampment along the sandy shore of the lake. He had been preparing for his wedding day there by fasting for eight days, the last two with convulsions.

The warrior was the son of the Chief of the local Anishinaabe tribe. His bride-to-be was named Kiwidinok. She possessed the most prized skill in the tribe: dispatch of foot. There is no more precious skill than speed for hunting. Most girls commonly ruled over the boys in this ability until the age of ten or eleven. Far different for Kiwidinok who at the age of thirteen was able to chase down a deer better than her older brothers.

At the age of fourteen, because of her gifts of speed, she was invited to accompany a hunting party of twenty men. The party formed a line that was led by the best hunters of the village. Kiwidinok was set into the last spot at the back of the line. The sun was rising as they set forth. The party walked west through shaking aspen groves and cedar swamps tangled with alder trees. When night fell, they bivouacked. The next day, they passed wild rice ponds and patches of partridge berry plants. With the sun high overhead and Kiwidinok was completely lost in her own thoughts, the line ahead of her came to an abrupt halt.

“What game have we found?” she asked the hunter in front of her. “Be patient,” he said.

The front of the hunting party’s line had spotted campfire smoke hovering in and above the conifer canopy just ahead.

A scout slipped ahead a bit from the hunting party and climbed a gigantic Douglas Fir to get a clear view. He saw a massive encampment of their infernal enemy, the Wyandot Tribe, called “Huron” by the French, (Huron is the French word for “Wild Boar” and the name emerged because of the native’s mohawk hairstyle.)

The Wyandot were secretly readying to bring war to the Anishinaabe.

The scout shinnied down the tree and quickly returned to the party and communicated his information. With one hand, he stroked his head from his forehead to the back of his neck to suggest the mohawk hairstyle: Wyandot. He motioned a circle signal with his hand, meaning, “Turn around.” Then he pointed in the direction of home.

The signals about the Wyandot were quickly relayed back through the line.

They had to warn their people.

Now Kiwidinok was at the front of the line. She knew what to do and she began trotting.

But the Wyandot also had scouts who saw their hard enemy’s movement. When they saw the Anishinaabe hunting party’s detect their encampment and turn around they sprinted back to their camp with the news. One hundred of the Wyandot’s swiftest warriors took off to engage the pursuit. They quickly caught up to the rear of Anishinaabe hunting party line and began peeling off the Anishinaabe one by one. Kiwidinok continued trotting, hearing nothing, though quite often looking back to be sure she was doing the right thing. The eerie silence was broken when she heard one faint death scream, and then another, a little louder, and then another, a little louder. It grieved her not to stop and help her cohorts but she knew she couldn’t afford to waste any precious time. She began running like her life depended on her speed, because it did, as did the lives of her unguarded village.

Silence returned. For ten hours, Kiwidinok sped through the woods with agility and purpose, distancing herself farther and farther ahead of what, if anything, remained of her own party as well as creating a widening buffer zone between herself and the Wyandot. Kiwidinok knew that if she failed, an awful fate awaited her family and all the families back in her winter village.

The Wyandot caught up to what they thought was the last Anishinaabe interloper, a warrior of great bravery. He fought with such a defense that that his captors allowed him the honor of taking his own life in order to nurture his return to Manitou.

News of Wyandot’s planned secret attack was safe, or so they thought.

Kiwidinok, guided on by starlight, safely covered the last of the trail back home. It was her finest hour.

The village packed itself up and escaped certain extinction.

Kiwidinok’s reward for her heroism was that when she was of a marrying age, she would be free to marry the most promising man of the village. One year later she was preparing to collect her reward, the chief’s son. While the village was putting the finishing touches on her wedding day the chief’s son was ensconced at the lake’s shore, finishing up his marital preparations of seven days of fasting, the last two accompanied with hunger induced visions.

On their wedding morning, in the foggy light, the warrior saw strange-looking men sleeping in four huge canoes. Initially he thought it was another purposeful fasting-induced vision. But this vision seemed different – it wasn’t “dreamlike,” nor “head-in-the-clouds” stuff. The groom-to-be shuddered: this vision was quite different.

“What is this?” the warrior whispered to himself.

“Could this be this real?”

He hopped down to get a closer look.

It was not a vision.

It was real.

He pondered thoughts such as: Where do you come from? Why is Manitou sending us more reason to pray? He ran to the village.

About the same time Nicolet surveyed the beach from his canoe. The pine tree forest ended about 30 feet from the beach. His instincts returned an alarm. Danger could surely lurk there.

“Reveillez-vous!”

Sounds of yawns and farts filled the air.

He ordered his men to paddle out some.

For a full thirty minutes, they stayed put and listened and watched. Then Nicolet saw brown-skinned people slowly emerge.

“Puans!” he shouted to his men.

Nicolet quickly donned the red robe of Chinese Damask that Champlain had provided for his encounter with the People of the Sea. It was a princely work of ornate art, emblazoned with dragons. peacocks, swords and flowers.

Nicolet ordered the canoes to advance to the shore. He confidently leapt from the front of his canoe, setting foot on the squishy beach. He was sure The Puans would show him to the saltwater highway to China.

A native with a tethered baby bear on his back stared in silence while his dog ran up to Nicolet. When Nicolet bent down to pet it, it tucked its tail between its legs and slinked away a little distance where it turned and began growling.

Nicolet saw a young man with his face painted fiery red and other men, old and young alike, with eyes painted white, yellow, and black. Most of the men wore weighty shell earrings and had noses pierced with bones. The shaman had his head covered with eagle feathers, and he held a fox skin in one hand and a medicine bag in the other. The medicine bag was embroidered with brightly dyed wool yarn strands which were ornamented with opaque and colored seeds that looked like beads.

A woman with a queenly bearing, who wore a two-hide dress, was the first to speak. It was Kiwidinok’s mother. She had frowned when her future son-in-law broke the news to the village of what he had seen. She was forced to interrupt her work of putting on the last touches to her daughter’s elk-tooth covered wedding dress, an enterprise that had consumed her for seventeen hours a day the last six days. The dress needed to be done for today’s wedding.

Kiwidinok’s mother frowned again when she saw Nicolet extend his hand. She said, “What will become of our homes if these men move into them?”

She stepped to her husband’s side and touched his shoulder. The Chief’s face was painted black and red and his head was bald. He wore the scalped hair extensions of an enemy.

Next to the bride’s father stood his sister holding a long and thick parcel that was tied crosswise with leather straps. Inside were the playthings, the clothes, an eight-inch-long lacrosse stick and a lock of jet black hair of her dead baby. Because the baby had not yet learned how to walk, it would not be able to find its way into paradise. Because of this, the baby’s mother helped its soul on its journey by carrying around its representations. She would continue to do this until she concluded that the spirit of the child had grown up enough to be able to make its way to paradise on its own.

A very old man, beaver-pelt suited, sat back in the scrub and used a bone to record a drawing of this event on a piece of birch bark.

Both parties were so stricken by the enormous complexity of the tasks that they faced, that they stood absolutely transfixed. They didn’t know what to name one another and what to call this primal situation.

Nicolet was stunned when saw he was able to communicate in French with the folks there. He was crushed to learn it was the wrong tribe, the wrong shore, the wrong lake: The tribe that stood before him was not Puans.

The Chief spoke his People in a language that Nicolet could not decipher. “We do not have hunger, nor want or misery in our village. Our children are not starving. Our warriors are feasting. Our wives have too much to chew. We have more than all we need. Now is not a time for meanness. We have fat game all around, coming from all directions. Remember the principles of diplomacy and welcome these strange visitors.” Then, he turned towards the white men and introduced himself with humility and dignity in French.

Nicolet beckoned the Voyageurs to join him in introducing themselves to this strange people. Then he knelt on the shore. His men followed suit. He kissed the sand and in his first official act he claimed the area for France. He named it La Baye Verte (Green Bay) because, through the fog, the morning sun had turned the waters green.

The Anishinaabe were impressed by this behavior which they accepted as a solicitous act of honor and respect to them. The native women made way to the village to prepare something to eat from their full stores for these strangers who must be quite hungry. In the center of the village, the Shaman lit a sacred fire.

That night Nicolet learned the original name of these people: “Anicinaabe,” an ancient name, which means in all languages, “First Nations People”.

Story 11

Gathering Forces

Nicolet and his men enjoyed the wealth of the Anishinaabe. The tribe showed them all their hunting, fishing and trapping enterprises as well as their favorite specialties of wild rice farming and maple syrup tapping. They took Nicolet on a hunting party. Before embarking in their canoes at late afternoon, the natives honored the East with acts of homage to remind The Manitou, The Great Spirit, that the Anishinaabe would respect the meat given to them.

Six canoes with four men each were set into the lake as the sun was beginning to set. They paddled for about 30 minutes until arriving at a river’s mouth. They then paddled on the placid river for another half an hour or so until landing on a wide mud bank under a gigantic overhanging weeping willow tree.

Nicolet was told that the hunting party would sit in their canoes and wait until dusk when freshly hatched biting flies would drive the deer downstream to where the canoes awaited.

“Nicolet, when night falls, you’ll see what we do.”

Night came fast. The sky turned pitch black; it was a new moon. The party pushed the canoes out into the river. They lit torches made of tightly bound rings of birch bark and placed them in lanterns in the bows of the canoes. These lanterns reflected beams forward while the hunters hid in the bottoms of the canoes, ready for a coming slaughter.

The white tailed beasts started arriving just as promised, just as they did every year at this time. The deer were mesmerized by the light, advancing towards the flames in hypnotic-like trances. When their sloshing movements jiggled the canoes, the natives rose and let loose a dense clutch of arrows into the herd. A din of high-pitched sounds came from the dying and wounded animals. A magnificent kill was made; after all the centuries of this encounter, deer still did not know how to conduct a counterattack.

Later that week Nicolet fished alongside the Anishinaabe in the bay. After making their offerings, they canoed out their nets. They caught fish in a structure that the later day French-Canadian transplants to the region named a pot net. The pot net was extremely difficult to set. The setting required the pounding of numerous long tamarack poles, sometimes up to 70 feet long, into the bottom of the lake. The poles were then anchored to support the net and its catch.

The pot net consisted of three separate structures. The first structure was the lead net. It sat in deep water and had an opening that the fish entered. From there they swam up to the second structure above it in shallower water. The second structure was a heart-shaped net which funneled the fish to the third structure above it, a square box of a net set in ten feet of water.

There was no escape from the pot net for the impounded fish that remained alive in it until they were harvested. Perch were the most desired fish. Sturgeon and chubs and trout and salmon were also caught. Undesirable fish, those foul to the taste, like whitefish, were boiled and partially dried, then crushed into an oil to help ignite the hearth tinder. Nothing was wasted.

Story 12

The Contest

A celebration was held two days prior to Nicolet’s embarking to continue his expedition. During this celebration a game of dexterity was played by the Anishinaabe. Nicolet observed the game; the game gripped him right from the start.

Well before time was invented this game of dexterity was imagined and created by The Great Manitou, the highest conception of Spirit. The game required two teams of players; a field for play; and, certain structures that stood on the playing field. As an experiment Manitou decided to show the game to the birds and the land animals.

Because birds vastly outnumbered animals, Manitou decided that each team should have an equal number of players.

The playing field was a rectangular shape laid out east to west. (The field, in today’s measures, ran about 100 meters by 50 meters.) It was to be fringed by wide open spaces on all four sides to always provide a clear nighttime view of the Northern Lights.

The structures stood at the far ends of the field, in the center of each end line. The structures were names, “Goals.” Tamarack trees were to be used to construct the goal structure. Each goal was to consist of two twenty-foot-tall upright poles placed apart by two canoe lengths. The poles were to be connected at the top by a crossbar situated at the height of two men.

Each player on a team was to use an l-shaped wooden stick to advance a charred, rounded buckskin covered oak ball through the opponents goal. The game was won by the team that scored the most goals.

The birds and animals had such a marvelous time playing the game that Manitou decided to teach the game to “The First People.” Manitou told them the game would be much more than just a game, that it could cure illness, provide favorable weather, settle family feuds, and, as a surrogate, deter war and that the miraculous byproducts of the game would be solely theirs as long as they taught others how to play.

Nicolet watched as his celebratory contest began with a singer at the center of the field. The song was the one that called the butterflies. The butterfly was regarded as the spirit of childish play. In the song, a child runs around and holds its nose between its thumb and forefinger and calls the butterflies to join in play with him. Butterflies knew this song too and, if not too busy with pollinating efforts, flittered around the children who sang this song.

Right before the celebratory game, Nicolet watched heavily painted men scratch the players with sharp objects, like porcupine quills, to draw blood. These men were shamans.

Each team had a shaman. Shamans used occult powers to help their teams by psyching their players up out of their normal minds. For example, a shaman might provide a hawk’s feather in a player’s hair to give better sight or a cougar skin in a players moccasin to give greater speed. In this way, each player’s weaknesses were fortified with occult powers. he shamans also mixed pain-killing potions for some of the players and activity-inducing potions for others.

A shaman may direct a player to fast before the game to be rendered pure.

Shamans supervised the ritual bathing of his players in sacred waters and cleansed each and every one of them with esoteric ointments before the contest. Some salves were applied to the legs to prevent injuries, and some were applied to shoulders to increase durability.

The shaman may name taro root (which looks like a man) after an opponent in order to bewitch him them through a spell.

A shamans may use a potion to execrate feces and urine from a player exhibiting doubt about victory.

Finally, shamans loaded the l-shaped sticks with supernatural powers.

Nicolet was told that each team in front of him was comprised of separate clans.

A neutral shaman, the only person allowed to touch the ball, stood in the middle of the field holding the ball. The field had been there as long as anybody could remember. Sticks of deceased players were buried in the field so that they could play forever in the sky fields.

The shaman began the game in the middle of the field by tossing the ball high in the air. Score was to be kept by the elders.

Once the game began, the spectators were quite actively involved in helping out their teams. For example, they’d like to toss up and down shaman-prepared “magic balls” in front of their own goals to prevent the opposition from scoring.

So much of the game was all about a contest between the magical powers of the shamans/coaches so that a team’s victory or defeat was laid at their feet. This saddened Manitou whose purpose had been to use the game to teach children about the song of the ups and downs of life and where exactness of outcome was secondary to the melody.

Nicolet watched the game; it lasted two days. There were no time outs. He was surprised to see that women were as proficient as men. Nourishment and toileting were accomplished on the run; players breaking away from the game for any reason left their teams short-handed and vulnerable.

According to the agreed upon rules, the game would only end when so many players of one of the teams were so depleted by injuries and exhaustion that their team could not play on any longer. The game could also be ended if the teams agreed to a tie.

That’s what happened with this contest.

Nicolet got the idea to name the game Lacrosse.

At a congregate meal after the contest, an elder explained to Nicolet: “The game is not the same as in the early days when it was cultivated by The Great Spirit. Now it is said that the game is barely a remnant of the dreams of Manitou. In the old days, in the first days of the world, all wisdom and knowledge came in dreams. We Anishinaabe say that dreams often return us to a previous state of existence when we could see things that had not been seen before.”

Nicolet took notes.

“The morning that you, Nicolet, arrived here in canoes, an old woman named you ‘Whitefish.’ She had dreamed the night before of nakedly fleeing the bay by foot over a bridge of whitefish. Water dreams have great medicine. She interpreted this one as being ready to flee a spirit-devouring monster. This dream opposed our simple belief that a right living spirit guarantees a good, long life.”

(Additionally, it was believed that evil inevitably reacts badly on the offender in the course of eternity.)

Nicolet kept a diary. Besides being the thief of Anishinaabe land and water, and all that was on it and in it, he was also highly critical of his hosts. He decried their language, ridiculed the Anishinaabe for that in all their time on earth they hadn’t learned to shorten their names.

He wrote, “For example: We French say, ‘Nuit,’ for night. They say, ‘Uni Tipa Qkot.’ Who in their right mind has the time to be like these long-winded so-called ‘First Namers?’”

Shortly before leaving Nicolet conducted his second official act, a trade treaty in memory of the late King Henry IV, “The Vert-Gallant.” He enacted a trade treaty with the people he named, “Saulteaux,” People of the Rapids.

(There weren’t any rapids on Green Bay. Nor were there any rapids on Lake Michigan, nor on any of the other great lakes. Nicolet just liked the sound of it, “Saulteaux.”)

The treaty gave France t the rights to all the game on the land and in the air and all the fish in the waters. Interestingly, Nicolet abstained from naming the big lake – there was no profit in “naming.” As Dorothy LaFond would learn, the lake was later named “Michigan,” the Anishinaabe word for “Large Lake,” a lake named by the people that would rapidly vanish.

The Anishinaabe used marks sign all of the treaties. They laughed off the trade treaties as ridiculous. To them there was no hogging of nature; nature was glutton resistant.

The French laughed off their host’s generosity as a weakness to be exploited for the glory of their country.

However, France did leave the Anishinaabe lots of air to breathe.

More than a century later, the United States Government renamed the conquered Anishinaabe People, “Ojibway.” This word is derived from the uncapitalized Anishinaabe word, “odjibwe,” a feminine noun meaning a “puckered” type of moccasin made for children.

Story 13

Brittle Arsenals

Nicolet’s westward quest turned out to be to find a trade route to China was a colossal failure. When he returned to Trois-Rivieres in October of 1639 he learned that his friend and benefactor had been stricken with a stroke that left him paralyzed. On Nicolet’s first visit to Champlain he read from his journal about the flora and fauna he encountered during his 14-month expedition. He told Champlain about the treaties that would make France rich, rich, rich. Champlain made it clear that he was not interested in discoveries or treaties. He wanted to know about the trade route to China and Puans.

“Did you find the trade route?” he asked.

Nicolet cowered and said, quite softly, “No.”

“Nicolet. I didn’t hear you. What did you say?”

“No. I didn’t find a trade route.”

Champlain moaned like he had been prodded with a red hot poker and he cursed Nicolet for being an abject fraud. After a minute or two he asked, “After all I taught you, how could you be such a disappointment to me?”

Nicolet decided not to answer.

“All right Nicolet. What about The Puans?”

A well intentioned lie was needed.

“Yes, we found Puans. Plenty of Puans,” said Nicolet.

“You found them! You found Puans! Great job Nicolet! The hell with the trade route to China. That will come in time,” said Champlain, his face framing a huge smile. The well-meaning lie seemed to immediately comfort Champlain. The visit ended with Nicolet promising to return the next day.

Champlain died that evening.

In 1640, Jean Nicolet married and settled down as an Indian agent and trader at Three Rivers, Quebec. In November 1642, he drowned in an accident on the St. Lawrence River.

“Mother, did father know about all of this history?” asked Dorothy.

“Your father didn’t really seem to care. He said he was on earth to fish and,” she winced, “to drink.”

“That’s sad, Mom.”

“Yes. Sad but true. But guess what? There is a lot more to the story of how we got to Two Rivers.”

“I’m up for it Mom.”

“Let’s kiss your dad goodnight and we can pick this up tomorrow here after Sunday Mass.

Story 14

Barreling Along

The next day at David LaFond’s bedside Katherine continued Dorothy’s history lesson.

“Are you ready?” asked Katherine.

“I’m all ears again mom. I hope father is listening,” said Dorothy.

“Me too,” said Katherine and she kissed Dorothy on the cheek.

“Well then, here we go again.”

She told her daughter about a latter day voyager, Captain Abram Edwards, of Washington Island, Wisconsin. On September 13, 1818 he was sailing south from his home to Chicago along the west coast of Lake Michigan. On several previous trips Captain Edwards had seen Indians (Anishinaabe) in canoes spearing and netting fish at the mouth of twin rivers. The surrounding area was flush with pine trees, seemingly impenetrable; the area looked extremely promising as a fishery in his eyes.

On one return trip from Chicago, Captain Edwards anchored off a promontory there to get a closer look. He liked what he saw.

The next time there he anchored again and shuttled to shore in a canoe. He cut down a pine trees and began fashioning them so that over time he could build a pine board shack on the beach. This was to be the humble beginnings of a fishery.

Captain Edwards was taken in as a brother by the Anishinaabe. They taught him rudimentary sign language. Edwards used the sign language to develop a very profitable partnership with them. He used his business connections in Chicago to obtain tradeable quantities of knives, shovels, whiskey and other goods in return for their help in establishing his fishery.

“The fishery sat very near our cottage, on the north bank of what he named, the East Twin River,” said Katherine.

“My goodness,” said Dorothy.

“He named its sister river, the West Twin River.”

“Mom, was he the one who named the spot, ‘Two Rivers?’”

“Yes, Dorothy. And he was the one who named the spot above the rivers’ mouth ‘Still Bend.’ That became our Rawley Point. He chose that name because he saw that this was where the tumult of Lake Michigan was bent still, or so the story goes.

By 1827, Edwards was there full time. He was richly successful at fishing off of Two Rivers’ Rawley Point. Each cast of his huge twine-constructed gillnet produced one barrel of perch. Each barrel held 100 pounds of fish and, in 1827, a barrel of fish brought 12 dollars in Chicago. He made two trips a week there, each with ten barrels of fish.”

“Mom, that sounds like an awful lot of money,” said Dorothy.

“Yes, that was an awful lot of money for a start-up fishing industry. Captain Edwards knew he could make a lot more money with the right help. He had a cousin by the name of Eduard Beaupre who lived in Trois Rivières, Canada. He wrote to Beaupre about his fishery. Edwards wrote that Two Rivers was like Trois Rivières in the good old days where you could see dense schools of fish just beneath the surface of the water. He challenged Beaupre to come and see for himself.

“And the timing was perfect because the Trois Rivières waters were being fished out. So, Beaupre and about 15 French Canadians migrated to Two Rivers in the early 1870s. After a while your father joined the migration. It made sense to him to do so; LaFonds had followed this occupation for as long as anyone could remember, even before emigrating from Bordeaux, France.

“When Beaupre moved to Green Bay in 1881, he sold his mackinaw to your father. That mackinaw was quite unusual in those days because it had been built with only one mast, and it could be easily unstopped. Before then, mackinaws were always built with two permanent masts. With that design their macs were unable to go back and forth under the Seventeenth Street Bridge. The single, stoppable masted mac of your father set in motion the copying of the design and the establishment of the fishing village on Rogers Street.”

“Wow, Mom. We are really important here!”

“Yes, and even more so with another big event that occurred in later 1881.”

“I know that one Mom. That’s when you and father were married.”.

Katherine Geimer was 16 years old when she married David LaFond.

Their marriage took place at St. Luke’s Catholic Church. The wedding reception took place at Geimer’s Washington Tap Room.

Everyone, nearly everyone, was there. The list of the gifts the couple received covered ten pages.

The LaFonds moved into a one bedroom rental on Washington Street. They lived there until the Geimers helped them get a house of their own on the East Twin River.

David LaFond’s smoke fish were the best in town. And, although he was not the first town drunk in Two Rivers, but he became the best known.

Story 15

Swooned

David LaFond never moved a muscle for the two months before he died. Katherine and Dorothy also sat long hours. Sometimes, without knowing it, their senses would turn from David to the asylum’s decayed sounds and fetid smells.

Next door to David’s room was a fellow who had drank and notched 30 years as a pourer at a Two Rivers foundry. He never missed a day ladling molten iron into castings. Beer was a very good mate for the charred air that was thick with poison. Alcohol blackouts kept everyone floating around the foundry’s coal-fed hellish furnaces. One day, though, the fellow’s mind veered off course and he stopped going to work.

He chose the homebound route. His wife took care of him and he drank beer as if he were still working. Six months into this routine, he developed loutish behavior. Impatient and intolerant, he began berating his wife for her solicitude. While not exactly afraid of him she was concerned enough to call Dr. Weld who, after visiting him, spoke with his spouse. He prescribed a short stay at The Asylum.

“I will go along with whatever you think is the best. Telling him may be difficult. May I leave that to you?”

“Of course, you may. That is part of my job,” said Dr. Weld.

When Dr. Weld informed the fellow of the prescription, the patient predictably became incensed. He clenched his fists, screaming, “Weld, you are the crazy one! What do you mean, ‘short stay?’ No one ever leaves there alive!” Hearing the turmoil, his wife intervened and quickly ushered Dr. Weld out of the home. On the porch she told him she would have to think this over but was already planning on a different intervention.

She returned inside their home and told her husband that she agreed with him that the doctor was nutty.

“I want brandy now!” When she brought it he quarantined himself in their bedroom.

Their routine was now cast in stone. His wife would leave outside his door meals and cheap brandy (mixed with the laudanum that Dr. Weld prescribed, to keep him sedated) for which he exchanged the dishes from his previous meal, and his offal-soaked laundry. A decomposing stench eventually coated the entire home like paint. She tried sleeping on the stiff living room sofa. That didn’t work very well. Several nights she collapsed on the floor.

Then one day the fellow stopped taking in the food and drink. His fingers had curled up and his skin had shriveled. Matted remnants of waste gathered in his bushy grey chest hairs; nightfall coaxed out of him bombastic delirium.

Finally, at her wit’s end, his wife asked Dr. Weld to come over again, promising him that her husband’s physical condition had deteriorated to the point that he was no longer a threat to anyone. When the two of them entered the bedroom, they found him on the floor chattering away with idiosyncratic childish gibberish. His wife stroked his cheek to comfort him and when she looked away for a second, he bit her thumb straight down to the bone.

Dr. Weld stitched up her thumb. He then sedated her husband and arranged his transport to the asylum. After her husband was gone she went into his room and opened the draped and shuttered bedroom window, releasing the incarcerated air. The suffocating mass, like the disease which infected it, spilled out of the bedroom window. The vapor was lofted up by a gentle breeze to the afternoon sunshine that metabolized it, converting the toxic swarm to a cheery draft as it flowed out to Still Bend.

Across from David’s room was a man whose drinking had landed him four times in the state mental facility, The Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane. Since grade school that gentleman had fancied himself to be an acrobat. He became a circus-type entertainer, a natural doing things like walking on his hands. And, disinhibited by beer, he could balance upside down on the flat of his head with his arms akimbo and sing all sorts of songs poised like that. However, when highly intoxicated, he did his most ardent work in the nude.

The acrobat had only recently been discharged to his home in Manitowoc when he made another spectacle of himself on an early Sunday morning. He rode his bicycle with no hands in his birthday suit down the middle of Marshall Street while juggling four ivory cue balls. Parishioners exiting services at St. Mary’s Catholic Church were horrified and one of them hurried to the nearby police station to complain that the man should be arrested, clothed and put away once and for all.

At the end of David’s hall were two roommates anecdotally referred to as, “The Divorcee,” and, “Mary Careful.”

At the age of 26, The Divorcee totally fell apart five months after the birth of her consumption-afflicted son. Her alcoholic husband blamed her for the baby’s illness and left them both. Alone and saddled in Two Rivers like this, she decided to kill herself by jumping from the 17^th Street Bridge into the icy waters of The East Twin River. But, thank goodness, in the midst of climbing over the handrail to do so she was restrained by a passerby Good Samaritan.

Two weeks later her husband was arrested for starting a fight in a tavern in Sheboygan. At his booking his marriage history came to light. He was remanded to the Manitowoc County Jail where he stood trial. The Divorcee, holding her baby, testified. He was quickly found guilty and sentenced to 10 months in the County Jail for abandoning his family. After the verdict, the Divorcee walked the four blocks from the Court House to St. Bonafice Catholic Church and knocked on the rectory door. Monsignor John Landowski answered the door and she collapsed with her baby into his arms. The good Monsignor called the police and she was admitted to the asylum, “for help.”

After a nine month stay at the asylum, for “Observation,” the Divorcee was certified as incurable. She became quite ancient there over the vacant years while her baby was raised by the nuns of St. Bonafice.

She kept herself busy there by making scrapbooks of newspaper photos of children that she said were hers. She told stories about these photos to anyone who would listen while her roommate pleasured herself by always contradicting the Divorcee’s stories.

The Divorcee’s roommate was a 51-year-old delusional mother of four real children. The children’s history was as follows: "First born, a son, was eccentric and hung himself; second child, a daughter, was raped and murdered by a stranger; next child, a son, died from complications of alcohol use; last child, a girl, was kidnapped at age 10 by uncle and never heard of thereafter.

However, the most disturbed patient at the Asylum was reputed to be Mary Careful. Mary was Anishinaabe. Although very dark skinned she had been adopted as an infant by a loving, childless Two Rivers couple. They had her baptized Catholic and raised her to be God-fearing, Christ-like, and to always turn the other cheek. Mary grew up quietly this way, to the astonishment of her parents, despite being the recipient of constant harassment and torment by towns folk. Mary coped by depersonalizing, by constructing an alter ego whereby she binged internally on concocted fantasies of vengeance for each and every bedevilment while on the surface was considered by her parents to be on her way to Indian sainthood. That is, up to one public occasion on Good Friday.

Mary was at St. Luke‘s Catholic Church in Two Rivers for this most solemn service of Catholicism. She was kneeling in the pew in front of the altar to the right of the main aisle. It was the only place she felt protected. She was at peace, praying and meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Above the altar’s tabernacle hung the crucified image of Christ. It was covered by a dark purple cloth that represented the blood shed for all. Mary had been there over an hour and a half already, well before the church would fill beyond capacity on this most sacred day. She went early to get her regular spot so that her face would be visible only to the priest and altar boys.

At three p.m., the purple-robed priest looked out from the sacristy to the congregation and said to his entourage, “It’s time.”

Three altar boys, outfitted in black cassocks and heavily starched purple surpluses emerged from the sacristy. Two of them carried lit candles. The priest followed, holding with two hands a heavy purple shrouded metal crucifix that was just about his height. The seated congregation rose. The altar boys genuflected in front of the elevated altar and took three steps backwards. The priest stopped in front of them, bowed to the altar and turned, towards the congregation. The congregation knelt. The altar boys and priest solemnly walked away from the altar through the opened communion rail. The procession turned left on the main floor moving past Mary who knelt with clenched hands, closed eyes, and bowed head.

Mary inhaled the sweet beeswax from the burning candles and heard the swish-swish shuffling of the cassocks. Otherwise, the darkened church was perfect in religious silence. The priest turned right at the side aisle and halted below the large wooden carving depicting the scene of the First Station of the Cross, “The Agony in the Garden.” The iconic portrayal was fastened high on the church wall between two stained glass windows that leaked no color from the late afternoon grey sky.

The priest handed the crucifix to one of the altar boys, then signed himself to begin the service: “In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen.”

Before he could utter another word, there was tumult in the back of the church. The havoc was caused by a woman well known to the parishioners as a fallen woman, a Mary Magdalene to be sure. The woman was obviously quite drunk yet she managed to dash all the way up the long center aisle of the church. She stopped right up in front of Mary and began to curse her, slap at her, assail her ancestry and blame her for the murder of Jesus, wailing, “You killed him!!”

The congregation and clergy were a little surprised but not at all shocked by the interruption caused by the woman‘s ferocious attack of Mary. This kind of abuse, and scores of other such perverse things, had never seemed to bother Mary. Once the woman stopped her attack this episode would quickly pass as had all the others. Then attention would return to the Passion of Jesus.

But, when the woman spit in Mary‘s face, Mary, for once, did not turn the other cheek. She leapt over her pew, foam spewing from her mouth, and set loose upon the woman with an unworldly response, pummeling the woman unconscious to the floor in the wink of an eye. Mary seemed to gain momentum from the job she had started and she continued to assail the limp floored figure with savage blood-letting bites to her head, and using her long, hardened fingernails to claw deep scratches into the woman‘s neck and face.

Quite the First Station on Good Friday in Christendom!

It took the altar boys, the ashen-faced priest and six male parishioners to pry Mary off the woman whose hair and teeth, not to mention her flesh and blood, littered the aisle with what could have represented some derivative Old Testament sacrifice.

The incident suspended the service. The police came and arrested Mary who was spent and dazed. They put her in handcuffs and took her away. The barbarity of what happened left a terrible pall over the scene. While everybody acknowledged that something very complex had happened, nobody really felt much of anything for Mary, except scorn. For her part Mary realized that her private method of fitting in had come to an end and that the time had come for her to express her feelings in public.

Mary refused to do well in jail. She declined to eat for the three days leading up to her trial. She fasted to prepare to say some startling things. On the witness stand, Mary testified that she was becoming a Windigo (a terrifying mythical figure that feeds on human flesh). She asserted that by nature of her transformation, she had a right to do what she had done.

“That whore caused me a hunger that would eat me if I didn‘t eat her,” she told the judge.

Mary Careful was found guilty of assault and battery. She was remanded to The Wisconsin State Hospital for the Insane in Madison, Wisconsin. Twelve months of good behavior there led to her transfer to a halfway house in Madison. For six months she stood in good grace there with cleaning the kitchen, the bathrooms and the common areas and cooking and doing the laundry for the other residents. At her parole hearing, despite all her progress and stability, Mary was ordered to remain there for another six months. Then, if all went well, she would be allowed to have another hearing.

One early autumn morning Mary was awakened by what she knew was a native voice. “It is time to go home,” said the voice. It was harvest time, after all, and the urge to go home had grown in her with each shortening day. In the dark Mary quickly dressed and covered herself with her heavy grey shawl, spreading her long white hair out and over her back. She walked out the door to begin her 150-mile journey back to Two Rivers. When the halfway house staff discovered that she was missing they notified the police who began looking for her.

Mary would not be hard to spot. Her success at eluding capture, however, became legendary. She walked and walked and walked. She made sure not to drink or eat anything at all, fearing that if she did, she would begin to turn into a Windigo before getting back home.

Mary stopped only once to rest. Many years later, a man summed up his experience with Mary during her rest in his home.

“Mary came to my parent’s house one night and knocked on our door. My father did not hesitate to welcome the strange-looking woman inside. My mother put soup on the stove and the kettle on the stove and my father put more wood in the fireplace to warm her. But Mary did not eat. My parents invited her to stay overnight and she was happy to stay with us.

“The next day, as we sat around the kitchen table, she told us her whole story. There was a heartiness in her that is hard to explain even after thinking about it all these years. She did not complain about her circumstances. She was so interesting in her disposition that we wanted her to stay on with us as long as she wanted.

“The next day she told us that she had to leave. My mother gave her fresh clothes. As Mary was changing into the clothes upstairs there was a knock on the front door. My father opened it and saw two police officers. He invited them into the kitchen and offered them coffee.

“While they drank the coffee, they gave Mary’s description to my father. They asked him if he had seen her. Before he could answer, Mary bolted downstairs to the kitchen, wearing her new clothes and her old shawl. She did something I still remember as if it just happened.

“She pointed her finger at the officers and she became invisible. We never saw her again after that. That‘s what I saw and I want it to be known just like that.”

Mary travelled north, sometimes through the shelter of pine woods, sometimes in the culverts along the road.

The next day, north of Columbus, Mary came upon some hunters in a brown corn field. Her movements from the edge of the woods drew their attention. They formed a row and started shooting in her direction, thinking it was a deer. When she waved and they realized it was a woman, they stopped shooting and started calling out to her to find out if she was okay. When they realized she was the woman that was wanted by the authorities, they started running towards her in efforts to capture her. They pulled up dead in their tracks when they saw her turn into a Raven and then turn back into herself. The hunters didn‘t bother her after that.

The next day, a very sunny day, Mary was walking on the bed of a railroad track. She came up to a train tunnel. She heard a voice from inside the tunnel saying, “Mary, my namesake. Come in.” Mary entered, recognizing the voice as the native voice she had heard in her Madison halfway house.

Could it be my real mother?

Mary entered the tunnel where the voice promised her that she wouldn‘t have any more trouble on her journey and that she would be safely home very soon.

Mary was barefoot by the time she reached Two Rivers. She had gained so much Windigo Power that she could summon the winds and thunder by puffing her cheeks. The only thing that could stop a Windigo was another Windigo.

The authorities decided to abandon the search for Mary Careful.

Story 16

The Hair of The Dog

Dorothy LaFond went on to marry industrialist Henry Clark. He was, along with William Baetz, the most powerful man in town. They joined forces on several business deals and admired each other.

Clark was the plenipotentate at William Baetz’s 1927 ceremonial induction as the first member of the newly formed Two Rivers Professional Liquor Dealers Hall of Fame. During his speech he said, “To William Baetz is due more credit than any other man in establishing the prominence of Manitowoc County. His brew put us on the map!”

Story 17

An Angel

William Baetz was born in Prussia, on the Rhine River, in 1857. His father, Heinreich, acquainted his son with the neighborhood custom of brewing beer. At the age of ten, William built his first still on his parent’s back porch where he polished the metal daily.

William’s still worked so well that his father sent samples of his son’s product to maltsters in the area. They all encouraged Heinrich to continue to support his son’s work and he did so with increasing pride.

Heinrich sent his son to study brewing at the Technical Institute of Munich where William graduated with honors. He was certified as a Bavarian Master Brewer, the most distinguished class of brewers. Acquiring capital, he settled in Munich where he married and began dreaming of leaving Germany to engineer his trade in America. When he wrote to his to his father and to his uncles about this ambition he learned that there was a cousin named Ralph Baetz who lived in New York City.

William wrote a letter to Ralph, introducing himself as a distant cousin. He described his experience with malt and his dream to immigrate to America. He asked Ralph for help in searching out the right place to make his brewery fortune in America. Ralph wrote back about a fledgling beer industry in the nascent Lake Michigan town of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. William liked the sound of the word “Wisconsin,” incorrectly surmising that the word came from the French, “Ouisconsin,” meaning, “Where the waters come together.”

Ralph invited his cousin to come to New York City and then subsequently use rail services to Chicago and then to Milwaukee.

On a stormy evening in August 1879, Baetz broke all his life-changing news to his wife with less than 20 words while damping the wick on the nightstand lamp that separated their beds. He said, “My work is completed here. In 30 days, we’ll be shipping out to America to make our fortune.” He pulled the covers up over his beard and fell fast asleep. For the rest of the night his wife sat next to their infant daughter, Inge’s, crib in an adjacent room and rocked the crib while she worried over what fortune was worth this upheaval. Mrs. Baetz loved being around her parents and her three brothers in Munich and they loved the addition of little Inge. But, what husbands wanted, husbands got.

On September 24, 1879, Mr. and Mrs. Baetz and their bundled infant daughter left Munich by rail for the port of Antwerp where they had four days to prepare for their voyage to New York City on the sailing vessel SS Rhynland. They had been told that each adult was allowed only one bag of personal belongings, not including bedding. The ship would provide the food. Baetz’s bag included his hope and his treasure, one pocket-sized cake of yeast. He knew just how to wrap it up to ensure its viability throughout the long journey, regardless of conditions, so that it would serve to ferment his success.

A few days after leaving Antwerp, the Rhynland encountered a terrible storm. Two masts were broken off. Powerful waves poured over the decks. The passengers were quickly enlisted to assist the crew to save the ship. Baetz remained taciturn and reticent while ferociously yoking himself to man a pump. At this bleak hour he thought of nothing but keeping his yeast dry at all costs lest he lose any future stake of prosperity.

Somehow, by remarkable chance and just in the nick of time, another passenger ship, the Belgenland, passed by the SS Rhynland on its way to Antwerp from New York City. The Belgenland was able to use lines to catch hold of the Rhynland and tow it back to Antwerp. The yeast was saved.

Five weeks of round-the-clock repairs in the Antwerp Harbor returned the Rhynland to seaworthiness. During the repairs no one had been allowed to go on shore for any reason except to replenish their food stores.

The Rhynland once again departed for New York City. The supply master, a hopeless drunk, had failed to properly store up enough food rations for the two and a half month long voyage. Perhaps it was due to the storm that savaged the Rhynland? On any account, with about 28 days remaining before harboring in New York City, the food provisions ran dangerously short. The state of affairs was readying to compromise the health of everyone on board. In fact, Baetz’s infant daughter had been the first of many to die and be laid to rest in the depths of the sea.

Word of a food shortage got out and sent a rolling panic among the travelers.

Baetz went to the ship’s Captain and made a heroic motion.

“Captain, I know how to stop the panic and solve your problem.”

The Captain sat up in an, “I’m all ears” position.

“I would suggest that only you and your sailing crew should have full, daily rations. Because if you become too weak to perform your duties, and if your crew is too weak to keep us afloat, then we are all doomed.”

“Well, that’s true enough,” said the Captain. “What about the passengers?” he asked.

“Any one over the age of 14 should receive half rations every other days; anyone under the age of 14 should receive half rations daily.”

“That’s all upside down,” said the Captain, referring to the time worn tradition that, on the sea, similar dire food shortage situations would call for the exact opposite; children would be the last to be deprived of food while adults would be the first to be rationed.

“Captain, I know it’s painful to consider shifting food from those least likely to do well without it to those able bodied seafarers involved in securing our safe passage for all, but, why should all die if you can save the few?”

The Captain still seemed to be listening.

“Captain, if not for this,” he said, “you and you alone may be responsible for losing all the lives on board. Because starving people do inhumane things to one another. And there is already dread and dismay on board with full food allotments. And I will document all this and I’ll be sure to wrap and stow my documentation in such a way that the authorities will see how you failed your post.”

The Captain did not like the tone or insinuation of Baetz’s threat. However, given his involvement in the initial near sinking of the Rhynland, he knew that his decision-making was cause for close scrutiny and, perhaps, legal action against him in any future scenario.

“Mr. Baetz, I agree,” said the Captain. “I will order up your motion.”

Almost one month later in early December, the S.S. Rhynland made quite a scene after it arrived in New York City. Mr. and Mrs. Baetz were almost the first passengers to disembark and leave insanity behind. Cousin Ralph Baetz was waiting for them as planned. They rode in his buggy to his home on West 24^th street where Mrs. Ralph Baetz provided a hearty meal and delicious desserts. Respite came in time for the almighty yeast cake.

The next few days William’s wife’s grief over the loss of her daughter was stoked as she watched her husband’s cousin’s wife dote over their one-year-old son. The quietly grieving mother had become enormously adept during her marriage to project stoicism, a characteristic which Baetz admired. To him, his daughter’s life and death was an open and shut case, a necessary sacrifice for the good of her father.

After one week with his cousin’s family, the couple embarked by rail to Chicago and then again by rail to Milwaukee.

During a five-day stay in Milwaukee, William window shopped and shook hands with shopkeepers along busy and amazingly clean streets, absorbing as much as he could about the condition of the malting business there and in the state. He saw that there was a very strong set of brewers in Milwaukee, and that it would be very hard to get his foot in the door there. In a downtown saloon he heard about a small town up north, a very thirsty blue-collar town on Lake Michigan with no local brewers. The name of the town was Two Rivers.

That settled it. That evening William told his wife, “We’re moving to Two Rivers.”

“William Baetz, did I hear you right?” she asked. Similar words from him had rent her soul with shock and trauma. “Did I hear you say we’re not staying in this fine city? What in the name of God is a two rivers?”

“Two Rivers is a small town with two rivers. It’s about 80 miles due north. Much more important is that it’s the place where my yeast cake will grow us a fortune!”

Where to him meant somewhere for him and his yeast. Where to her meant somewhere bereft of her life and the life of her daughter. She had finally come to rest with her decision she had no more moves left.

But, just for fun, she asked him, “How will we get there?” They both knew that Lake Michigan navigation had closed for the year.

“We’ll walk,” he said.

“No, William Baetz. You’ll walk! I am staying in Milwaukee.”

“That, of course, is your choice,” he said without missing a beat.

Baetz purchased a heavy cashmere/wool blend overcoat for the journey. At the crack of dawn the next morning, he donned a set of cotton long underwear, a heavy linen shirt, a knitted wool sweater and overalls. He placed the yeast cake in his middle overall pocket to keep it somewhat chilled in the air while also protecting it from freezing. Last on was his new overcoat and a woolen cap and gloves.

Baetz left without saying goodbye. He left a note for his wife about his other worldly belongings: “You can give these away to charity.”

Milwaukee was just beginning to stir. He took the corduroy road that covered the distance of 15 miles to the first town along the way: Port Washington. The December weather was surprisingly calm and the rising sun was resplendent. The dense, bare hardwood forests wore a brilliant hoarfrost coating.

Baetz made excellent progress with no wife nor infant to slow him down. He made Port Washington just before sunset. Hungry for food and information, he spotted the austere village saloon and made his way inside. He dropped his load at the door and sat at the bar where he was welcomed with warm pretzels. Baetz asked for a beer, and then had a second as he was telling his tale of discovery to the bartender. Lo and behold, a fisherman at the end of the bar who had overheard some of Baetz’s story bought him a beer. After another round, courtesy of the bartender, the fisherman invited Baetz to stay overnight in his small beech shanty on the lake.

The next morning Baetz woke before dawn to get on his way. His stirrings woke the fisherman. The fisherman told his guest that it was too early to leave. “You will need daylight to find your way because there are no trails north anymore. You’ll have to make your way along Lake Michigan’s beach, and that can be a risky enterprise.”

The fisherman made coffee and served smoked chubs. At daybreak he said, “Mr. Baetz, you should leave now.” He gave Baetz several spare pairs of pants. Baetz looked puzzled.

“They are for the water ahead,” he said. “Good luck to you.”

The morning sun was magnificent like the day before and there was no wind at all. By late afternoon Baetz reached the small settlement of Sheboygan without incident. It took him a while to find what may have been the only available lodging for the night -- a cold attic space in a rooming house.

“Perfect,” said Baetz to the hotelier.

“Merry Christmas sir,” said the hotelier.

Baetz fell to sleep immediately, a good thing because the next day would prove to be most difficult.

Baetz rose at daybreak. There was no time for breakfast. He headed for the lake. He found this beach to be wildly different. It was stony, not sandy. It was not wide but very narrow. It was sliced through by a number of creeks that ran freely out to the lake due to the relatively warm weather of the last few days; each creek had to be crossed by wading.

At the first creek Baetz pulled out his precious yeast from his overalls. He gave it a little kiss before placing it in the middle of his bundle of belongings that he raised high over his head. He waded out carefully into the lively seven-foot creek. Frigid water washed up to his knees. When he had safely crossed, he changed into one of the pairs of dry pants.

This pattern was repeated again and again. However, he managed to feel good about making satisfactory progress. That is, until he ran out of dry pants, leaving him vexed and annoyed, wet and cold, and hungry. An hour later, a freaky early afternoon nor’easter struck. Baetz held up in the pines above the beach until the whiteout passed as quickly as it had struck. He still had a couple of daylight left.

He crossed a walking bridge over the Sheboygan River and stopped in the town to procure, what else, dry pants.

No time for food.

Daylight was long gone by the time he made about 30 miles north of Sheboygan where the moonlight guided him across a rickety foot bridge over a river (The Manitowoc River.) By his calculations he knew he was closing in on his target and that nothing that could stop him short of Two Rivers, only about seven miles to the north.

He pulled the yeast cake out of his breast pocket. “We’re almost home,” he said. to cake of yeast.

Fate had already gone before them to prepare the way. He was no longer alone. Some Anishinaabe spear fishermen on the headwaters of the Manitowoc River saw Baetz walking along the beach, likely heading towards what natives called Neshotah. They stowed their spears and paddled their canoes home along the lake where they spread the word about a white man who was walking their way along the beach.

A little over two hours later, Baetz, the immigrant, arrived at the mouth of two rivers where their grey waters joined in a fomenting union. He was astonished when he was met and greeted by a party of Anishinaabe and white townspeoples.

“Merry Christmas!” rang out.

“Is this Two Rivers?” asked Baetz.

“Yes, it is,” answered Captain Abram Edwards. The two men exchanged names while they excitedly shook hands. Baetz smiled and tapped his pocket above his heart where the yeast cake remained quite alive.

“Mr. Baetz, you must be cold, hungry, and exhausted. Come home with me,” Captain Edwards said. Mrs. Edwards had prepared hot cider, smoked fish and fresh bread as well as a warm bedroom.

Baetz ate and slept for two days until he regained his strength. Then he rapidly began the business of building Manitowoc County’s first brewery.

By the summer of 1881, the William Baetz Company was established.

Nine months later it was destroyed by fire.

Never deterred once again, Baetz built a second facility that was twice the size of the first. It opened in June 1882. He spoke at the sequel’s opening and said, “It’s better to build bigger for the business that’s going to come.”

Story 18

A Sip of Welfare

“Thank you for coming to the first Two Rivers Professional Liquor Dealers Hall of Fame installation dinner,” said Henry Clark. “And, it is so entirely appropriate that our beloved William Baetz will be in the charter class.” Clark smiled at the cheers and applause that followed.

“Gentlemen, I want to recount how William Baetz made it to this point this evening.”

More applause.

“You all know Mr. Baetz won the 1883 Milwaukee Oktoberfest Golden Stein Award when he was only 26 years old.

“1884 was another big year for his involvement in three enterprises. The first was his financing that produced the building of two roads to extend the availability of our fishing and brewing products. One road was the plank road from Two Rivers to Green Bay. The second was the macadam road between Two Rivers and Sheboygan, and from there, the use of the rail line to transport these products to Milwaukee.

“And it wasn’t long before our products began to make their way east from Milwaukee Lockport, New York and to other points on the east coast.

“The second enterprise for him in 1884 began with his election as a Trustee of the Manitowoc County Board. His philanthropic zeal persuaded the Board to create a committee to investigate, at his expense, the cost of constructing a housing shelter for unwanted infants and otherwise orphaned children. The exploratory work was completed, and the project was authorized. Manitowoc County apportioned $25,000.00 of tax money to match the figure donated by William Baetz.”

“And matched by you, Mr. Henry Clark,” cried out William Baetz from the first row.

“Now, now, Mr. Baetz. It’s your night, isn’t it folks?”

“Praise the Lord,” someone shouted.

Once again, the room was filled with applause cheers.

“The County purchased fifty-seven acres of farmland southwest of Manitowoc and Mr. Baetz agreed to being appointed Superintendent.

“Within six months, a three-story frame structure had been raised on the heart of the property. It was named, ‘The Home.’ Somehow, he found the time to not only run his own flourishing business but to oversee the intense bidding on contracts that involved everything down to the bedding for the children and their washstands.”

Polite applause.

“The Home was staffed by volunteers, women from the County who believed it was their Christian duty to care for unfortunates. A schoolroom building was erected so that the children could receive formal education, perhaps for the first time in their lives.”

Polite applause.

“On January 17, 1885, the first Manitowoc County children began arriving. There were no records regarding their previous situations or how they became orphaned. This project ran so smoothly that the County Board sought to expand its scope. It applied for and received state funding to construct housing for a different population on the same site, at a distance, of course, from the Home. The facility would be a place of safety, a desperate port for men down on their luck, men that society branded as derelicts, drifters, vagabonds or idlers. The building would also

house those men afflicted by alcohol.

No applause.

“The third enterprise, and for us tonight the most important one, was his formation of The Two Rivers Professional Liquor Dealers Association. Soon after its creation just about every man in Two Rivers had become a member of the League.

“At that time Leagues were forming all over Wisconsin. Our chapter was one of some 3,000 well-organized local community societies that took part in representing legitimate drinking concerns. This was no big deal -- Wisconsonians just naturally imbibe more alcohol per person than any other state in the country.

“The League’s first collective action was in response to a bill being debated in Madison. The bill that would restrict the number of saloons in each community by making it illegal to open new saloons in any locality without the consent of a specified percentage of the neighbors. Goodness gracious already! The state legislature had already acted that year to create saloon licenses at the annual rate of $200.00 for saloons in cities and $100.00 for saloons in towns and incorporated villages. This was on top of the previous year’s law prohibiting saloons from being located within 300 feet of a church, or schoolhouse, or within one mile of an asylum.

“Now, two weeks ago, there were debates about enacting ‘The Sunday Closing Law.’ This law would prohibit the sale of alcohol on Sundays.”

An outcry ensued: “Shit no!”

“How about our First Amendment Rights!”

“We have a right to be happy!”

“We have a duty to safeguard First Amendment Rights for our children!”

“Well said everyone,” said Clark. “Look at all you salooners do! You promote employment, you sponsor charitable giving events; and fund raising events; you sponsor fish fries and block parties. You are much more than a League. You here tonight as citizens who run businesses. You don’t need campaign money or lobbyists. You, yourselves, have the remarkable ability to organize as one big happy family to get what you want because what you want is good for all of us.

“And the politicians in Madison know that tavern owners vote more regularly than any other group of businessmen. In general, who do the voters trust? The local legislator who in Madison at least half of the year? Or the neighborhood tavern owner, the man you grew up with, whose parents and yours and grandparents and yours all grew up together?

“Plus, don’t ever forget that tavern owners enjoy support from both sides of the aisle because drinking enjoys bipartisan support.

“When tavern owners vote ‘Aye,’ things get passed. When tavern owners vote ‘Nay,’ the thing dies. The league publishes an annual ‘Report Card’ about legislators’ voting records so the voters could see who voted what on bills that affected drinking.

“Yes, and it works. I have proof of that. Two days ago, in Madison, the debate about ‘The Sunday Closing Law’ was quashed after testimony by none other than our very own William Baetz.

“A final note: Mr. Baetz’s business acumen brought Joseph Koenig here to start up the aluminum industry and we know what that has meant for not only our community but for the whole country.

“And our pocketbooks,” shouted out a laughing voice from the rear.

“Yes, all of our pocketbooks. That’s true. Touché! All from one cake of yeast. Mr. Baetz has become a Master Brewer of people. After all of that, it is my honor and privilege to introduce to you the inaugural member of the Two Rivers Professional Liquor Dealers Hall of Fame, Mr. William Baetz.”

Story 19

Combing It Out

To a standing ovation Baetz ascended the dais.

“Thank you, Mr. Clark. I am so happy to be here. America truly is a place to realize your dreams. And in that regard, I’d like to start by asking Mr. Joseph Koenig to stand up and take a bow. I hope I don’t embarrass you Joseph but I’d like to share with everyone a little of your story.” Koenig rose, nodded and smiled; he pulled out an aluminum comb from his breast pocket and waved it around.

Joseph Koenig was born in Berlin on April 21, 1858. He was born the first child of nine. While attending public school, he fell in love with science. His father, a brilliant engineer, tried to convince him to pursue a career in any field other than science. On his dying bed in 1873, the senior Mr. Koenig pleaded with Joseph, “Please son, for me, find something practical. There’s no future in science.”

About a year later, Joseph’s mother shipped the family to America, to the German enclave of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There he completed the course of study for the Milwaukee Seminary for Teachers, something practical for him as his father urged.

He moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and found work as a high school teacher. Joseph taught for three years while studying law at the University of Louisville. After completing law school, he moved to Wichita, Kansas, where he was admitted to the bar. He practiced as an attorney for two years while also speculating in real estate and acquiring a small fortune. His dad would have been very proud.

Then, seeking bigger fish, he moved to Chicago. His dormant affair with burst alive when he attended an exhibit at the Chicago History Museum called, “Metal of Kings.” He was hooked when he saw a display of aluminum homeware from Russia.

Koenig vowed to create and corral a market for aluminum in the United States.

He shuttered his thriving law practice. He spent days studying aluminum at the Chicago Public Library. When he felt confident that he was up to speed, Joseph used his law license to begin a business importing and selling aluminum novelties, especially combs like the one he had just displayed.

He requested and was granted permission to exhibit his aluminum wares at the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. His display created quite a buzz over the bluish silvery-white metal, the newly developed aluminum technology, and the commercially viable production process for aluminum. Koenig had created a niche.

Story 20

Trail Blazing

“On August 28, 1893, I set off for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago on the Hiawatha Trail along the Milwaukee Road tracks,” said Baetz.

“Did you know that railway trails were named after the engines that rode their rails? The Hiawatha Steam Engine was designed for a speed of one mile a minute. That is really fast!”

Who was Hiawatha? Hiawatha was said to have lived in the mid-1400s; he was Chief of the Onondaga Tribe. He had three daughters until his eldest daughter suddenly became ill and died. Not long afterward, his second daughter died of what seemed to be the same illness. The Tribe gathered to console Hiawatha, to help him share his great sorrow. To ease his pain, one of the warriors suggested a game of lacrosse.

During the game, Hiawatha called out to the last of his daughters to go and fetch more water. She picked up the empty water jug and made her way the short distance to the Manitowoc River. She seated herself on a rock in the shallows of the river and began filling the jug. She was enjoying the river’s sound when she caught sight of a beautiful many-colored bird perched in a tree across the river. It seemed a vision to her and she was jubilant over her fortune of seeing such a heavenly creature. She set the jug aside and got up. She then turned toward the village so that she could call her people to come to look at the bird. Behind her back the creature made a violent swoop down towards her. It passed over her and its talons tore open her shoulder. She was stunned. The bird circled back for another attack. Bleeding, hyperventilating and dizzy, she began running away over the mossy slippery rocks. The bird was on her again, ripping open the top of her head this time and causing her to stumble and fall, squarely hitting her forehead on a massive rock.

On the field Hiawatha was feeling better. The game of Lacrosse was lifting his spirit. He was sweating the grief right out of him. When he stopped for water, there was no jug.

He didn’t see his daughter. She should have been back by now.

He had reason to be worried given all that had happened to him. He stopped the game yelling, “My daughter went down for water, and she hasn’t returned.”

Someone said, “Let’s head to the river. She’s probably taking her sweet time getting water for us.”

Even so, there was a sense of urgency inherent in their dash to the creek.

The tribe saw her lifeless body face down in the river. They saw the bird creature raise its head and fly off of her. The bird headed towards Hiawatha and dropped a piece of her scalp at his feet. Consumed by sorrow Hiawatha left his tribe and walked south for days on what became known as the Hiawatha Trail.

Story 21

Tinsel Town

“When I arrived in Chicago I checked into the Palmer House,” said Baetz. “Then I hopped on a trolley and rode to the Columbian Exposition. I was astonished by the grandeur and tumult of the Exposition that went way beyond the stuff of ‘Big-City-Chicago.’

“The Exposition covered 633 acres, more than the area of the city limits of Two Rivers; there had to have been at least twenty-five thousand people, twice the population of the city of Madison, Wisconsin, on the grounds when I got there in the early afternoon. All I did that afternoon was take one glorious ride on the Ferris Wheel. After that I hopped on a trolley back to the Palmer House bedded down for the night.

“The next day, over breakfast, I learned that the Columbian Exposition was to sponsor a week-long annual convention of the International Labor Congress (ILC.) I was obviously very interested in labor so I took the trolley to see what it was all about. At the Exposition I followed signs pointing to the ILC site. I found it in the largest tent I had ever seen, or even imagined. I went in and found a seat near the back of the venue. There must have been roughly one thousand people in front of me. They were listening to the keynote speaker, Samuel Gompers, the President of the American Federation of Labor (AFL.) I strained to hear Gompers because of the constant murmur of the crowd. Suddenly, he cried out over the microphone, ‘I champion business unionism! I champion better wages! I champion better working conditions! And, comrades, this means political reform!!’

“The crowd roared its approval.

“I felt uncomfortable, disoriented and I left, brushing past and around scores of standing spectators at the rear of the tent.

“I walked the Midway asking myself if Gompers had any real life idea how difficult it was to start and run a business? I mean, who could afford to not only start a business but to stay in business on that radical’s terms? Right now, there are plentiful jobs and steady employment. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

There was applause from the audience.

“On my way out, I passed a beautiful white building, the Women’s Building. I stepped inside and read that a lecture on Temperance was being given in the main hall. I said aloud, ‘Temperance? Temper for what? Temper the freedom to imbibe? What is this country coming to?

“I left the Women’s Building and continued walking. I stopped at a food emporium and was introduced to a new food: The Hamburger. A good Germanic name, Hamburger. I liked it. I had not one but two. The Hamburgers made me thirsty.

“I found a beer tent. There were plenty of them. This one highlighted, ‘Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer: Brewed in Milwaukee.’

“I found the beverage distasteful, and I spit it out then emptied the cup on the ground.

“I walked some more. There were interesting things to see everywhere. Then I found a nice stone bench at the East Lagoon. I closed my eyes and meditated on, ‘Work.’

“My best friend over there, Henry Clark, well, his first job was harvesting and selling ice. You know how hard and dangerous it is to cull ice in the winter. From December to March, when the weather permitted, Mr. Clark would walk out over the frozen East Twin River. All day long he’d wield a pond ice saw to cut out chunks of ice and then use a pickaxe to pull them up and drag them to shore. There, a team of horses and a wagon were waiting to lug the ice to underground pits that Mr. Clark had dug himself. The pits would keep the ice frozen all year long. It was quite an ordeal. However, if you do it right, selling ice is especially profitable in the summer when fishermen would pay practically anything at a saloon for an ice cold beer. And, the Rogers Street Fish Market always begged for ice to pack fresh fish bound for Chicago.

“Then Mr. Clark entered in the lumber business. He put his ice business profits into purchasing a hemlock lot that ended up producing the best lumber in town. His hemlock was renowned for being knot free. After felling a tree, he’d split the select pine down to staves for barrel makers. Sometimes he’d use a draw knife to shave the staves for shingles for roofers. When his shaving took off one of his thumbs, he didn’t give up. He branched into design. He copied David LaFond’s smoke fish shed and went on to have scores of them built in Two Rivers.

“You have to keep at it to succeed. You get rewarded for all the dangers and hardships that you face. Getting ahead is never promised. All that the customers want is the product and they’ll pay top price for what you make if you make the best product. They don’t care how you make it, or who makes it. That’s your business, not theirs.

“I got up from the lagoon, my musing over, and passed a smallish tent exhibit advertising, ‘The Aluminum Exhibit.’ Now, that was something I knew exactly nothing about. I went in and listened to a man extolling the virtues of the element, aluminum. He talked up aluminum products then invited folks to come up and see a display of his aluminum ware. After his talk I went up and handled a variety of aluminum combs. I tapped one on the table and ran it through my hair.

“The man said, ‘Very curious merchandise, isn’t it sir? My name is Joseph Koenig.’

“I shook his hand and introduced myself.

“I was quickly impressed with Mr. Koenig’s dashing personality and sales acumen. It was clear we shared a zeal for invention. We agreed to meet for dinner that evening at the Palmer House. Over steak and beer, average tasting beer, Mr. Koenig asked me if there was anything I could do to help him manufacture aluminum combs. I said I would sleep on the proposition and meet him for a hamburger the following day.

“Early the next morning I wired Henry Clark. He was fascinated by the idea of researching a new business. He proposed to provide Mr. Koenig a free warehouse and free materials for the development of his aluminum enterprise in Two Rivers. Mr. Clark told me to tell Mr. Koenig that he would do all of this in return for a 50% share in the royalties of the fruits of his labor.

“That afternoon I told Mr. Koenig about the offer. He pounced on the proposal and immediately agreed to it with a handshake. ‘Let’s find a saloon and celebrate,’ he said.

“After one year of his experimenting with the making of aluminum combs, aluminum utensils and aluminum pot ware, Mr. Koenig convinced Mr. Clark that aluminum fabrications would be a resounding commercial success.

“And, as you know, boy was it ever!

“And, I almost forgot, I accept your nomination to the Two Rivers Professional Liquor Dealers Hall of Fame.”

Story 22

Anonymous Light Within the Light

In 1894, Mr. Henry Clark provided the venture capital for the incorporation of the Aluminum Manufacturing Company.

Aluminum cookware was introduced in 1913.

The rise of the automobile industry created a market for aluminum hub caps; in 1915, Dodge, Studebaker and Buick purchased all of their automobile hub caps from Clark’s renamed company, the Aluminum Goods.

In 1917, the Goods received a contract from the United States Army to provide millions of aluminum mess kits, aluminum meat cans, aluminum cartridge cases and aluminum canteens for use during World War I.

On July 4, 1925, at the height of his success, Henry Clark, giddy with success, proposed marriage to his high school sweetheart Dorothy LaFond. They had been friends ever since grade school.

“Yes, Henry, I will marry you, though, with two stipulations.”

Henry was bemused. Conditions? Was this a contract?

“Dorothy, dear, what are your stipulations?”

“First, you vow never to drink alcohol.”

“Okay,” he said. He was a lifelong teetotaler, so this stipulation was easy.

“Dorothy, what is the second condition?”

“The second stipulation is I won’t have any children.”

While Henry was not so sure about the second stipulation, he was so very much in love, he said, “Yes, Dorothy, I agree.”

Henry hadn’t brought a ring. He had gotten on a lark, uncharacteristically ahead of himself, but was downright ecstatic that he had been spontaneous. The two sealed the deal with a handshake. That evening, the eve of the Two Rivers Fourth of July Snow Festival, the couple told Henry Clark’s parents and Dorothy LaFond’s mother the news of their betrothal.

Story 23

Just the Sound of The Emptied Chimes

Sixteen years later, in 1941, on the eve of the Fourth of July Snow Festival, the town held a special dedication ceremony. The event marked the placing of the David LaFond Mackinaw on Clark Town Square. Dorothy Clark had been asked to say a few words.

“Thank you everybody,” she began, “for inviting me here to say a few words to commemorate the work of those men whose bravery and sacrifices helped build the solid foundation of our town.

“I am very grateful for the many things they did to give us such a rich history. I am very proud to be here with you today for this dedication and to have an opportunity to remember my father, David LaFond.”

Dorothy looked out over the crowd and saw familiar faces and in those faces the faces of those who were missing and this made her feel sad but not regretful.

“I want to tell you a story that I think captures the extreme highs and lows of fishing. One winter night when I was nine or ten, my father’s Mackinaw, that one right across the street, floundered off Point Beach. My father lost 300 pounds of fish! You know that was a remarkable haul at that time of year!! It would have kept us fed and paid the bills for a month or longer. Father nearly froze to death walking on the beach the 12 miles back home!!” Over the heavy silence of the rapt crowd was heard a rhythmic metallic sound that lifted up a collective shiver from the crowd. They knew it was a nautical sound but the timing of it had ear markings that there was something, “out there.”

“That sound,” said Dorothy, “is coming from the metal pulley clanging against the top of the metal flagpole over father’s LaFond Mackinaw. He always got in the last word!”

Story 24

No Self Left for The Self to Protest

Back home, Dorothy started fiddling through a pile of correspondence in her second floor office. Because she rejoiced in acts of beneficence, and endeared herself naturally to the poor, and the unfortunate and the suffering, she received lots of letters thanking her for her help and asking for her money.

She came upon one thick envelope with a two-month-old postmark from Berlin.

“What is this all about,” Dorothy asked herself. She felt the quivering stirrings she had associated with her visits to her father at the asylum. Clutching the envelope, she got up and moved from her desk out to her porch. The evening was still warm, and it met her with a summery breeze. Below her stretched a glorious floral scene of a butterfly garden replete with a wide display of zinnias, lavenders, delphiniums, butterfly weeds and butterfly bushes, encircled by a border of milkweeds.

Seated, Dorothy opened the envelope. It took her three readings to fully get the gist.

“My God!” she exclaimed, “It’s an inheritance notice regarding a LaFond property outside of Bordeaux, France!!”

Story 25

Something from The Beginning

“Henry! Henry!!” Dorothy shouted as she hustled downstairs to find her husband.

Nothing came back to her but the smell of his sweet cigar smoke told her he was somewhere nearby. The parlor? The living room? The back kitchen?

“Mr. Henry Clark, where are you? Are you hiding?” she called out with moderate frustration.

“Dorothy,” he replied from way down the hall, “I’m in the library,” he said.

When Dorothy came into the library, he barely looked up at her over the newspaper he had been reading.

“Hello, Dorothy. How did your speech go?”

“If you had been there instead of reading your Wall Street Journal you would know it went rather well. But that’s not what’s on my mind.”

“What, then, is all this hullaballoo?’ he asked, dropping the paper in his lap, looking chagrined.

“Henry, I need your complete attention.”

“You’ll have it dear in a second.” have it dear,” he said. “So, what’s this all about?” He got up and walked to the potted palm where he crushed out his cigar. Then he rubbed his hands together and was ready for business.

“Henry, I have received a legal notice via The Belgian Consulate in Paris,” she said as she waved the paper in the air.

“What did you say Dorothy? Did you say you received a legal notice from the Belgian Consulate? I mean, why, that’s implausible, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Henry; I mean, no, Henry.”

“What?” asked Henry, taking a seat on the sofa. “Please Dorothy, start over for me.”

“I have in my hand a legal notice from The Belgian Consulate.”

“What does it say?” he asked.

She sat down next to him. “The notice stipulates that I have received an inheritance from my deceased great uncle, Marcel Beaucheau. The inheritance is in the form of property in Bordeaux, France. The property consists of a manor house, other buildings, and vineyards.”

“May I see it?” he asked. After reading it he said, “Good gracious, Dorothy. Think hard: Had you ever heard anything about property in Bordeaux?

Dorothy sat mute.

“For example, did your mom or father ever mention anything about property or an estate?”

Dorothy nodded, slightly, feeling a long-quieted anxiety rising with her breathing.

“At the asylum, the day before father died, mother and I were talking about family history things at Father’s bedside. There was a piece about a man named Etienne Pepin. Mother said that to her knowledge, he is our most distant ancestor, from the 16^th century. He owned property. That was about it. It meant nothing to me back then. It never came up again and there was nothing to pursue so that was that. But now, though, I wish I had done asked something about it. This news has taken me by such force that I’m feeling a little light headed.”

“Okay, Dorothy. Let’s take this just one step at a time,” he said.

“Henry, my mouth is so dry. I need to get a glass of water.”

“Let me get it for you,” he said.

When he returned, he sat on the sofa next to her where she was locked into reading the notice again.

“Dorothy, here is the water.”

“Thank you.”

“My dear, this is legitimately very big news.”

“Is there something I should do?”

“How about for starters we find out where Bordeaux is in France?

“Okay,” she said.

On his way to the bookshelves he past his humidor and reached in for a cigar.

Henry walked over to the humidor on his desk and clipped off one end of a cigar.

“Henry, could you not smoke that right now? I’m feeling a little sick.”

“Of course,” he said. Dorothy.

At one of the bookshelves Henry pulled out a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, the “A-B” volume.

He took the book to her on the sofa and leafed through it until he found an entry on Bordeaux.

“Bordeaux is in here Dorothy, a very small section with a map.”

Henry read the entry aloud then continued, “Now, let’s see what we can do to find out about this inheritance that came to you from across three centuries, two continents and an ocean.”

“What do you have in mind,” Dorothy asked.

“You should write a response to The Belgian Consulate,” he said.

“You’re right Henry. If this is all on the up and up I feel it’s my responsibility to claim the property before it gets taken away by the state as stipulated in the notice.”

“Bravo Dorothy!” said Henry. “You know what is really odd?”

“Odd?” she asked. “You’re kidding right” This whole thing is very odd.”

“What I mean by odd is that when you were calling out to me before I was reading about how dangerous it is over there in France.”

“You were?” That is quite a coincidence,” she said.

“I read that Bordeaux is in a part of France called Vichy. It’s supposed to be a sort of safe enclave granted by Hitler compared to what he has done in the rest of France.”

“Henry, I really haven’t been keeping up with the news.”

“And, you know what? Last week I received a cable telegram from a Jewish customer in Chicago who had just came back from a business trip to Bordeaux. He told me how things may look good on the surface there but they are getting more rotten every day.”

That’s a great starting place Henry, but I have already made up my mind. There’s no question about me going to Bordeaux. It’s my duty to claim the property before it gets taken away by the state. I’ll need your help in figuring out what to do with it.”

“Bravo Dorothy! Now, please, just a minute. When you called out for me before I was reading about how dangerous it is over there in Vichy France.”

“Vichy,” she asked. “Vichy, France?”

“Yes. Bordeaux lies with the part of France that is known as Vichy France.

“Henry, Vichy, Feeshy: If this thing is legitimate I’m going to Bordeaux.”

That’s how her father used to dictate to her mother -- without ambivalence: “Katherine, I’m going out.”

“Okay, Dorothy,” said Henry. “I see your LaFond mind is made up. No children; no alcohol; and now, just like that, off to Vichy.”

She smiled and put her head on his shoulder and said, “Henry, you really are a very good boy!”

“Thank you dear. All I want now is a cigar.”

Dorothy went back upstairs to her study. It was getting late, but she rolled up her sleeves and composed a response to the notice and began to concoct her plan.

Story 26

The Affect Is in the Mother Tongue

At sunrise the next morning, Dorothy had already been quite busy in the kitchen. She used two hot pads to carefully pull from the oven her specialty, a butterscotch merengue pie.

Big occasions like this one required a butterscotch pie. The last one she made was for Henry’s birthday. She got the recipe from her mother who got it from her mother.

Henry smelled the brown sugar aroma as he came down the stairs. He clapped his hands as he entered the kitchen, the soft, sweet smell of caramel filled the room.

“I knew you would!” he said. “Butterscotch pie! You know that’s my favorite.”

She placed the shimmering pie in its round aluminum pan on a big wooden cutting board that was set in the middle of the kitchen table.

“Now, Henry, you know it needs to cool. How about some oatmeal?”

“Gee it smells so good! Can’t you put it in the ice box for a quick minute?”

“Absolutely not. You know that would spoil the merengue. How about you do some of those dishes in the sink while I make us oatmeal and then, maybe, after breakfast, the pie will be ready for us?”

“Okay, Dorothy, you’re the boss.” And it was true. While Henry called the shots in his company, Dorothy was in charge of the home.

Henry finished the dishes at about the same time that the oatmeal was ready to eat. Dorothy scooped it out into shallow bowls.

The couple sat at the table, folded their hands, bowed their heads and together, they prayed, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Hold Ghost, Amen. We thank Thee, Heavenly Father for all your loving care and for the food you give us, receive our grateful prayer. Amen.”

Henry wolfed down his oatmeal to get to the pie as soon as possible. Dorothy ate hers at a leisurely pace, all the time talking about her feelings about the notice. Her husband’s ancestors ,over many lifetimes, in small, cumulative ways, had not meant to put her in this situation.

France, known for romance, was now in the crosshairs of annihilation.

“There’s so much to do to prior to any trip,” said Henry.

“I know Henry. Can you help me with this?”

“Yes; look: first, you’ll need to write to The Belgian Consulate your response about receiving the notice to the. Then you’ll receive a response from the Consulate asking you for certain things like proving that you are the party of the notice. Once you are validated, you’ll receive much more information about the terms of the notice. Then, if you are satisfied with the terms, you’ll respond in kind. Then, the Consulate will send you finalizing papers for review and signature. After you send back this paperwork the property will be yours. At least is the general format for contracts I conduct outside the United States.”

“Touche!” said Dorothy.

“You are speaking French already!” said Henry. “Now, how about the pie?” he asked.

“Just a second Henry. Last night, before you came up for bed, I had written my response.”

“That’s great Dorothy. If all goes well, you’ll be home and finished with this whole thing by Christmas. And that would be a wonderful Christmas gift, don’t you think?”

“Christmas, huh? Growing up, Henry, it was never a happy holiday for me. I may have told you a little about it,” she said.

“”Yes, you did, a little,” he said. Then, almost as an afterthought he asked, “Tell me, what was Christmas like for you?”

Dorothy felt her heart attacked from within. She coughed, shrugged her

shoulders, searching for composure, and said, “It was really okay Henry. But, don’t you think it’s about time for pie?”

“Oh, yes! Oh, yes!” said Henry, his tummy shutting down his brain.

With the care of a surgeon, Dorothy cleanly cut out the first piece of pie and placed it on a plate for Henry. He dug his fork effortlessly down through the merengue and butterscotch filling to the fragile pastry crust. Excising it, he smiled and rolled back his eyes in his head and “Oohed” and “Aahed” after his first and every succeeding bite of unearthly delight.

Dorothy bit into her slice and wolfed it down like it was ordinary, tasteless. The faraway look in her eyes was quite different than Henry’s. She wasn’t transported by a knockout heavenly texture and taste. Rather, she threw her slice down to fill an empty place. That didn’t work so she said, “Henry, Christmas was terrible! Father would come home so drunk that he’d tear the house apart and scare me and my mother half to death. Christmas literally killed him. My mother, she didn’t drink. And I don’t drink because I don’t know what it would do to me.”

“Dorothy,” said Henry, “I wish I had something to say to comfort you. Maybe another slice of pie would help?”

Now she was the one not able to hear.

“Well then, Dorothy, pretty please,” said Henry. “May I have a second slice?”

“Certainly,” she said. “There may not be another pie for a while.”

“Dorothy, you are doing what you need to do to fulfill yourself just as I am going to do with my second helping.”

PART II

Story 1

From Kristallnacht to Crystal Day

Twenty-three-year-old Eric Seelig was Germany’s Middleweight Boxing Champion in January 1933, when Adolph Hitler came to power. In the ring, Seelig punished his opponents, sending all to various depths of a fuhrerbunker.

Seelig was in Berlin on July 14 of that year to defend his Middleweight Title in a match the next day, which happened to be his birthday. He was looking forward to another win, another year of viability. He knew that the faster they fell to him. the faster they would give him another Aryan to fight.

That meant that he had viability. Winning would at least keep his name alive for another bout.

Seelig’s good friend Aaron Schmidt was on the undercard. The two had gotten to know each other though finding common roots much deeper than boxing. He and Schmidt were both from Breslau, Germany, where they had been members of the White Stork Synagogue. Their fathers had been founding members of that congregation and were instrumental in helping erect the synagogue on the former site of the White Stork Inn. Their father’s two businesses had been liquefied as a result of the incipient disenfranchisement of German Jews from German Society.

Seelig and Schmidt shared a hotel room near the boxing venue. Four hours before their fights two brown-shirted men burst into their hotel room and threatened Seelig and Schmidt with death if either one entered the ring. The interlopers were Ernest Rohm, the head of the Sturmabteilung, and Edmund Heines, Rohm’s Deputy.

That was all they had to say. Seelig and Schmidt agreed they had to go underground and flee to France. Can you get over deciding to leave your home to save your life while leaving your entire life behind?

On July 16, 1933, the German Boxing Association announced that Seelig had abandoned his title.

Two days later Rohm and Heines were themselves arrested on direct orders from The Fuhrer during the Night of the Long Knives. Rohm, a career staff officer in the army since World War I, had been Hitler’s sponsor from the beginning. Rohm had given Hitler his first job in the army as a spy and, with Hitler, was front and center in the founding of the Nazi Party. Heines was Rohm’s protégé. They both thoroughly enjoyed and exploited a very close personal relationship with Hitler. Even with all of that, according to Erich Kempka, Hitler’s chauffeur, Hitler wanted them dead for failing to keep a lid on their homosexual liaison.

Once in France Selig and Schmidt parted ways. Seelig settled in Paris and set out to repair the infamy of being stripped of his titles. He began training again, thumping the hell out of the heavy bag and shredding the speed bag. And, doing lots of sparring where he found the fire he feared he had left behind. But it was a different fire this time. He focused everything on staying alive and with that avoided the numbing angst of fearing death.

Seelig won each and every one of his Paris fights. He moved up the ladder of contenders to Number One. He was offered a Middleweight Title match with World Champion Marcel Thil, one of the most talented middleweights to ever come out of France. Despite clearly outscoring Thil it came as no surprise to Seelig that he lost the bout by a split decision to the Roman Catholic Thil. Three months later Seelig suffered a second loss in a rematch. This time he knocked down Thil twice. However, Thil was awarded the victory thanks to a unanimous decision in his favor, another barbaric act celebrated by the referee and two miscreant judges. at their finest.

Early in 1935, Seelig immigrated to Cuba and then to New Jersey where he slipped on the boxing gloves once again.

Aaron Schmidt’s exodus ended up in Bordeaux, France. He came with fledgling French which he quickly strengthened and, because of his fluency in Yiddish, and German, he was able to quickly learn English. He was then able to converse with just about anyone about just about anything. His strengths led to a job as a chauffeur for Thomas Cook’s Travel Agency in the UK.

Story 2

Completely Out of Rounding Out

What, if anything, was propitious about Bordeaux for Aaron Schmidt?

First of all, The Edict of Theodosius of 392 decreed that Christianity was the only legal religion in the Holy Roman Empire. The Edict also decreed that Jews were not human.

On Good Friday in 848, a Jew was publicly slapped in the face in Bordeaux by the Catholic Archbishop as punishment for his people’s betrayal of Jesus to the Romans. This Eastertide custom would continue for the next 900 years.

By 1100, Jews were considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be born of the devil and in need of drinking the blood of babies in order to retain their human appearance. In 1171, two months after Passover, the entire Jewish Community of Bordeaux was accused of a ritual murder. The charge was that a Christian infant had been crucified in order to obtain blood for the Passover Seder. This called for the first blood libel trial of its kind in France. On May 26, 1171, thirty-three accused men, women, and children were tried and convicted of infanticide and were bound and burned in the city center.

In 1348, the Black Death raged in Europe. Jews everywhere across Europe were accused of poisoning water wells and causing the plague. In Bordeaux, six Jews were tried and convicted of this crime and were burned to death on a wooden scaffold built over a huge garbage pit.

Voltaire, the French philosopher and champion of the Enlightenment, wrote of the Jews: "They are, all of them, born with raging fanaticism in their hearts, just as the Bretons and the Germans are born with blond hair. I would not be in the least bit surprised if these people would not someday become deadly to the human race."

Voltaire condemned Jews for, "their stubbornness, their new superstitions, and their hallowed usury."

Addressing the Jews directly, Voltaire wrote, "You have surpassed all nations in impertinent fables, in bad conduct, and in barbarism. You deserve to be punished, for this is your destiny."

France’s surrender to Germany on June 22, 1940, came as a major shock to everyone. The speed and severity of blitzkrieg had stunned the French people who had been assured that the French army, buttressed by the Maginot Line, was more than strong enough to repel a German attack.

Germany gained direct control of about three-fifths of the country, an area that included northern and western France and the entire Atlantic coast. Because Germany’s army was stretched very thin in those days it allowed France to administer the remaining section of the country though Hitler maintained absolute veto power. This area became known as Vichy France and the government, based in Vichy, was administered by Marshal Henri-Philippe Pétain. The 83-year-old Pétain was France’s greatest World War I hero and in the early days of Vichy his reputation and leadership brought with him some stability and legitimacy.

Pétain opposed Charles de Gaulle’s call to continue the fight against the Germans. de Gaulle believed that collaboration with the Nazis would be a sign to Germany of Vichy’s good faith. He also believed that buying time this way would be the means by which all of France might secure a better place in Europe once peace had been established. Pétain reasoned that regardless of what many thought of collaboration, the Vichy Government was still French, and the Vichy Unoccupied Zone would assure the safety of the French citizens residing there. Pétain swore that he would not protect the Jews who had lived there for centuries let alone those like Schmidt who had recently fled there.

On October 3, 1940, Pétain pressed the Vichy Government to pass his initiative, “The Statut des Juifs,” (“The Anti-Jewish Laws.”) This legislation went far beyond a mere collaboration with the Nazis. It included a far stricter definition of who was a Jew than even the Hitler’s criteria. Under Pétain, anyone who had two Jewish grandparents or a Jewish spouse was defined as Jewish. This statute also called for a drastic cutback of Jewish involvement in French society. Jews were to be excluded from the army officer corps, all noncommissioned officer posts, top government administration positions and any other job that influenced public opinion.

The Anti-Jewish measures forbade the free negotiation of Jewish-owned capital and prohibited any changes of residence; radios in Jewish possession were to be confiscated; and, a Jewish curfew was established. Any resistance to these ordinances would result in arrest and severe penalties including immediate execution.

How would fate spin for Schmidt in Vichy? Would he be spun about like a dreidel or like a gragger?

Dreidels are tops that are spun as toys at Chanukah. During the original Festival of Lights, Jews played the game as a cover to avoid being caught praying by the Greek army.

A gragger, or noisemaker, is used during Purim to drown out the villain, Haman’s, name. It is twirled in the hand by an axle through its bottom.

Would he be wiped away top down or bottom up? Either way, things looked very bad for him.

Story 3

Protocol

Dorothy Clark was nervous and cold as she boarded the Hiawatha. Snow had fallen throughout the previous day and most of the night and by daybreak the early December Nor’easter had hidden the train tracks. The engineer opened the throttle and the train jerked to life on the Hiawatha Trail. The huffing and puffing of the engine caused scores of sandhill cranes to hop off the covered railbed and effortlessly bound over the culverts into the snow-covered prairie grasses of the otherwise vacant, frozen wetlands.

Dorothy sat at a window and watched the Hiawatha discard sheets of snow to its sides in swirling chutes. The top part of her window framed a cobalt sky that held a few puffy, loosely-formed white clouds. The air must have been just the right temperature, the clouds’ moisture must have been the right content, the sun’s position on the horizon must have been perfect, but whatever the divination of factors Dorothy saw each gauze-thin cloud imprinted with a faint stenciled rainbow. Not the distinct well-defined single arc, or proud double-swathed columns of color mind you that Dorothy had seen all her life above the lake in the eastern sky. o

The momentous vision quickly faded, but it had held on long enough to imprint a subconscious endorsement to her yearnings for a favorable undertaking. In two winks of her eyes the clouds returned to commonness and Dorothy’s concentration returned to the Hiawatha Trail, a magnificent pathway in its own right.

.

Story 4

Dew, Hidden in The Ground

Henry slept badly the night after Dorothy left. He tossed and turned in bed as he wrestled with a dream scene most likely prompted by her absence.

He dreamed that he was around eighteen or nineteen and he was finishing up breakfast at home with his father. “Son,” his father said to him, “I have a gift for you.” He reached down under his chair and handed the box to Henry.

“What is it dad?”

“Open it and see for yourself,” said his father.

Henry opened the box. Inside was a pair of shoes.

“Thanks dad. But why shoes?”

“Henry, those shoes are very special. The shoemaker made them to my specifications. They are built for pure speed, son. Don’t rely on anything else.”

“They look quite ordinary to me,” said Henry as he inspected them.

“Go ahead and try them on.”

Henry went ahead and slipped into them. The fit was perfect.

“They feel great dad. You said they were good for speed? Speed for what?” he asked

“You’ll soon see son,” said his father.

“Okay father. Thank you. I really must get ready for church. I don’t want to be late for mass.” Henry left, wearing his new shoes, heading off to St. Luke’s Church where the priest was just beginning the mass with, “In nomine patris et filii, et spiritus sancti.”

After mass, Henry crossed The 17^th Street Bridge to East Street. He was on his way to propose marriage to Dorothy. (Since the sixth grade Henry and Dorothy began to believe they were meant to be together, forever. For Henry, it was more than Dorothy’s smile; he relished the simplicity of their chats. As time went on he felt increasingly comfortable about the way she kept her feelings to herself. Nothing could shake her. He was like that too.)

Henry knocked on the LaFond front porch screen door. No one answered. He entered the porch and knocked on the front door. Nothing. again

“That’s odd,” he said.

The front door to the cottage was unlocked and he let himself in and called out, “Hello? Hello? Mrs. LaFond? Dorothy? Anyone home?”

Nothing. It occurred to him that something was wrong here.

Henry walked back to the kitchen and found a crumpled note on the floor. It read: “Dear Mom, I am off to see the world. I’m going to Europe first. Please, please don’t worry about me. I’ll write you soon, I promise. Love, Your Dorothy.”

He needed to catch up to her right away. Leaving the cottage, he sped through town in an instant, then zipped along the lake, covering the nine miles from Two Rivers to the Manitowoc Train Depot in seconds. He had time enough to leap aboard the lurching Hiawatha that was departing for Chicago. He wiped his brow as the engine hurdled off, shooting sparks from its wheels like his shoes had done for him.

“I can’t believe I made it,” he cried. “Thank you, father, for these shoes.”

Henry walked up and down the aisles of all the cars: the train was completely empty.

Henry took a seat in the first car and, as he looked out the window, he started to panic.

“She must have left yesterday,” he said.

She was one day ahead of him already.

Henry panicked. He knew he couldn’t live without her. He lost his breath. He took off one of his magical shoes and smashed open his window. He stuck his head out the broken window and closed his eyes. His hyperventilating blocked all that fresh air. Then he heard a piercingly loud train whistle. He opened his eyes to see a train coming full bore in the opposite direction right at him. He was benumbed. waiting for the impact. Instead of that, a creepy, cold sweat feeling woke him in his bedroom and brought him back from his dream to his longing for Dorothy.

Story 5

Near the Surface

Dorothy crossed the Atlantic Ocean on the SS Lamoriciere, a paquebot, that was brought into service in 1920. It was not lavish, fast or long. It lacked cheer, but it got the mail delivered, week after week, month after month.

It anchored around noon in Bordeaux. It was December 24, 1941, almost eight years to the date that the German Reichstag bestowed dictatorial powers upon Adolph Hitler.

The depth of the Garonne River made Bordeaux accessible even to ocean liners. The river’s wide mouth narrowed as it swept into the harbor. Sparkling casts of classical architecture awaited the passenger from Two Rivers, Wisconsin. There was nothing statelier along the East Twin River than Henry Clark’s mansion on Washington Street.

Two Rivers was the aluminum capital of the world and Bordeaux was the world's glass bottle wine capital. There would be no chance for a merger.

The passengers were directed to stay put on board until all the cargo was unloaded. A man with a thick German accent told Mrs. Clark that this was a security precaution because it was far less likely that a bomb would be detonated on the ship if the packager was still on board.

Once the unloading was finished, passengers were allowed to proceed to customs. Dorothy passed through without a hitch. Her attention was drawn to a wall with a large copy of a painting by Edouard Manet titled: “The Harbour of Bordeaux, 1871”.

“Enchanting,” she whispered.

The port was bustling though there was very little conversation. Dorothy noticed a blue-suited man with dark hair and a full beard holding up a sign that read, “Dorothy Clark.”

Aaron Schmidt had been given the name of his passenger and the destination. He was told that she was American but was given little else information by the agency except her point of origin, Two Rivers, Wisconsin: the less he knew, the better.

She approached the man and said, “Sir, I am Dorothy Clark. You must be my chauffeur,” she said.

Aaron Schmidt bowed in obeisance to the woman he would immediately and consistently refer to as Lady Clark.

“Yes, Lady Clark. My name is Aaron Schmidt. I am at your service. It’s wonderful to meet you. I apologize but I must suggest we not tarry here. It doesn’t take long for suspicious eyes and ears to see and hear things that simply were not seen or said. Please let me get your bags stowed away. The car ride to Vichy is about four and a half hours. And we’re in luck because the driving weather is very good for this late in December. We should have daylight for nearly the whole drive.”

Schmidt located and loaded Dorothy’s luggage onto a cart. He pulled it by its handle, walking ahead of her to show her the way. They stepped across the curb that opened to a wide, busy street. When traffic cleared, he pulled the freight car across the cobblestones and into the parking lot. The sky was the color of milk and the air was brisk.

Schmidt was surprised as he noticed he had more energy than he had in a long time. He was about 50 feet in front of his passenger by the time he reached his car. He left the cart by the car’s trunk and hurried around and opened and closed the rear passenger door for Dorothy.

“Lady Clark, may I wish you a Merry Christmas?” he asked.

“Yes, you may, Mr. Schmidt,” she answered politely. “Thank you. And Merry Christmas to you,” she said, returning the greeting.

“Thank you,” he said in the same polite tone. He strode around to the rear of the car to load her luggage and then hopped into the driver’s seat. He instantly started up the engine of the white 1938 Peugeot 402 Coach.

As they pulled into traffic Dorothy noticed a store sign with the name, LaFond’s. “Mr. Schmidt, look at that sign I was born a LaFond!”

“There are lots of LaFonds around here,” said Schmidt.

“That is so ironic.”

“Ironic, Lady Clark?”

“What I mean by ironic is that you have lots of people named LaFond here and we have lots of people named Schmidt in my hometown.”

Aaron’s stomach betrayed his overwhelming need to dig into that, but an impermeable boundary line kept him from exploring such a casual comment.

“Mr. Schmidt, are you a French Schmidt?”

“No, I’m a German Schmidt.” Aaron was a little shocked to hear that someone could mistake him for French. Maybe Lady Clark was just being circumspect or diplomatic. He always felt he did stick out as “Non-French,” with his German last name, his subtle accent, his dark, black beard and hair. He wanted to say more about his name but explaining would breed more questions and then conversation could blur the way for either or both of them.

What if she was anti-Semitic? What if she reported him? Then what good is a German name pronounced in French? He had enough to deal with just to get her squared away safely to her destination. So, he took the conversation in a different direction.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Schmidt, if you don’t mind me asking,” she said.

Without missing a beat, having inured himself to guarding his privacy at the price of his life he said, “I came here for work.”

“Marvelous,” she said.

“Yes, Cook’s Travel hired me because I speak four languages. For example, I can say my name in four different languages: ‘Schmidt;’ ‘Schmidt;’ ‘Schmidt,’ and ‘Schmidt.’

Dorothy laughed. Schmidt is funny and resourceful, that’s for sure.

Schmidt’s heart fluttered as the car’s engine whirred: four languages and no home. He had recently heard that all of the Jews of Breslau had been arrested by the Gestapo. He knew his parents were not safe.

“That was very funny, Mr. Schmidt,” said Dorothy.

“Thank you for your laughter at my silly joke Lady Clark. I wanted to ask you how your ocean crossing was?” It was finally time for a gentle topic. Besides, he wanted to hear the joy of the impossibly free life he assumed that she was leading.

“It was absolutely problem-free and decidedly uneventful. I must admit I was a little worried about it, given the scale of the unfolding world events.”

“Lady Clark, there is no way to overestimate how much ships like the Lamoriciere mean to the French people.”

“Mr. Schmidt, you say the Lamoriciere was very important. Pardon me but, Really? I didn’t see anything very important about it. I mean, the stars were very beautiful at night and the sea barely rippled the entire crossing but, to me, it was a very ordinary ship.”

“Lady Clark, it’s hard to explain how receiving mail from the outside world is so very special to the French, and all of Europe, except by saying it reminds the people that they are not alone.”

She knew what “alone” could do; after all, her father, alone with alcohol, meant death.

“Well, Mr. Schmidt, I see. And, there sure was a lot of mail on board! The cargo was really mostly mail -- not many passengers at all.”

Schmidt’s jaw tightened. He knew this reflex was from his training as a boxer, not from his training as a chauffeur. He exhaled as if he were still a fighting man, readying to deliver a blow. “Lady Clark, Nazi spies are always on board,” he said, looking at her in the rearview mirror. “Lots of them.”

“Did you say Nazi spies? Oh, my goodness,’ she exclaimed, looking from the back seat directly at her driver in the rearview mirror. “You mean I was in great peril without even knowing it?”

“Oh no, Lady Clark,” Schmidt affably dissented. “Actually, quite the opposite is true. Having spies on board is very good for the life of a ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean these days.”

“Sorry Mr. Schmidt,” she said, “but I’m a little confused. How is something bad good?”

Aaron knew something about the paradoxes in life, having punched through a few. Some people needed help in understanding a paradox even after going through one. He gave her few moments to think it over.

“Oh yes, I see it, now,” she confidently answered. “It’s like a parasite on a fish whose removal causes far more harm than the cost of leaving the parasite in place.”

“Yes, Lady Clark, that’s exactly what I meant.”

“My goodness Mr. Schmidt. What a world we live in!”

More than she’d ever know at this juncture.

“Lady Clark, now that you can look back on the trip with that in mind, do you think you ran into anyone that seemed unusual?” he asked.

She put her gloved finger to her mouth, ready to review the voyage in a different context.

“Well, I don’t think so. I mean, I spent my time on my own. I did speak several times over breakfast with one charming man. The first time we met, I was reading and enjoying my coffee. He was a very well-dressed and polite older man and he introduced himself to me. He declared interest in my book, “Moby Dick.’ Then he asked if he could join me. I welcomed the company. After some small talk about the ship and the weather, and my book he asked me if I’d ever been to Bordeaux. I told him no. Then he asked me if I’d like little preview of the region. There was no reason to decline his generous offer. I found his overview to be rather plain though it was full of interesting information. And, it is always nicer sharing coffee with someone.”

“Yes, it is,” said Schmidt.

“Well, the next morning, he again asked to join me and this became the routine for the rest of the crossing. He entertained me by telling me about many of his adventures as a business entrepreneur though I must admit he never told me what kind of business he represented. I never really figured out if he was retired or not. His pleasant demeanor reminded me a lot of my husband, except for the slight German accent.”

“He seemed quite sophisticated,” said Schmidt.

“Yes, he was quite the bon vivant really.”

French makes even heathens sound gallant.

“So, towards the end of the journey, he knew I was from Two Rivers Wisconsin and that my husband’s business was in the aluminum industry. I didn’t think twice about all of his questions because most people find aluminum to be a highly fascinating subject. I felt quite comfortable letting him in on everything I knew about it. He laughed when I told him that everything that we started out with in our business we learned from a German. He seemed especially attentive about our company’s involvement in the Pacific war effort.”

“My goodness Lady Clark!” exclaimed Aaron. Then he collected himself and said, “I apologize for my outburst but I’m sure you were talking to a saboteur.”

Another French word came to Dorothy’s mind: Espionage.

Feeling shame and remorse she asked, “Are you absolutely sure of it, Mr. Schmidt?”

“Yes. This same man, the one you described, had befriended another of my American clients who was a newspaper man about a month ago. My client told me how interested the man was in learning everything he could about using print for propaganda purposes.”

Dorothy was furious over having been duped.

“Mr. Schmidt, I need to file a police report and have the man apprehended and questioned.”

Seeing her dismay in the rearview mirror, Schmidt told her, “There’s no need to worry. There’s no way that the Nazis could carry out an attack on your husband’s aluminum industry in Two Rivers. It’s just too far away and your country is heavily protected. Nazis have enough killing to do on this side of the ocean. That’s all there is to that. You and your husband and town are safe.”

“Whew,” sighed Dorothy, “It’s good to know that Two Rivers is safe!”

“Yes, to be sure. That’s why all of Europe longs to go to America.”

“Mr. Schmidt, not to change the subject, but what brought you here?”

“Lady Clark, I assure you I’ll tell you more about that a little later, but first I’d like to tell you a little about this region. It’s part of the tour,” he laughed as he felt increasingly at ease with her.

“Yes, of course, the tour,” she laughed as she felt comfortable with him.

Schmidt presented points about the area, sounding like he had lived there all of his life. “Bordeaux is quite famous for its ancient Gallo-Roman ruins as well as some quite remarkable Romanesque churches from the 12^th century. Perhaps you saw some examples of this from the ship at Bordeaux?”

“Yes, I did see some of that in the harbor,” said Dorothy.

“Bordeaux has a remarkable harbor. In the surrounding countryside there are numerous castles and manors, orangeries and dovecotes, many of which are still standing from the 16^th century although they are all now in danger of becoming state property.”

“Mr. Schmidt, that’s why I am here. The property has been in my family forever. I am on a mission to rescue it, obtain it, ransom it, or do whatever it takes to keep it in the family. That’s why I am here.”

“So, you are on a mission,” said Aaron.

“Yes, that’s true. I am a missionary of sorts. The Belgian Consulate notified me right out of the blue that I had inherited property. I was flabbergasted. While my family comes from this region, it left long ago, seeking better fortunes and leaving the property in the hands of caretakers. When my father passed away, I remained the last link to the property. He owned what he never knew existed. I decided to come here and meet the present caretaker and figure out what to do with the property.”

“Lady Clark you may come up against Hitler; Hitler wants you property.”

“I’ll see about that and cross that road when I get to it,” she said, remembering her very successful history in diving in after lost causes.

Schmidt wished it was as simple as leaving it up to tourists to secure Europe and free its assets, its people.

“Lady Clark, if you don’t mind, could you tell me a little more about your hometown? I always like to ‘reverse travel’ like that.”

“Yes, I will if you swear you are not a spy,” she joked.

“I swear I am not a spy,” joked Schmidt.

“Two Rivers is a very small town that sits on a peninsula in the state of Wisconsin.

“Wisconsin, oh yes, Wisconsin.” responded Aaron. “In French that means a place where the waters come together.”

“It’s true there’s a lot of water in and around Wisconsin, and a lot of fish in those waters now that my father’s gone.”

“I am sorry he is gone. Was your father a fisherman?”

“Yes. Thanks to the French influence going all the way back to the Voyageurs.”

The LaFonds of France!

The Schmidts of Two Rivers?

Not asking Dorothy about the Two Rivers Schmidts was becoming almost unsustainable. He needed to forget it and continue his tour. After all, she was his employer and he was there to take her where she wanted to go and show her what she wanted to see.

Not the other way round. He was saved by her query: “Mr. Schmidt, what’s that light over there on the right?”

Story 6

Bleeding Ashes

“The light over there to the right? That’s the blush of the cognac distillery furnaces working day and night. It’s like that six months a year.”

“I would like to hear more about cognac,” she replied. “We don’t have any of that in Two Rivers.”

““Lady Clark, I just happened to be was reading up on this subject just the other night. Now I can make it part of this tour.”

“Very good,” said Dorothy.

“Cognac is a type of brandy,” replied Schmidt.

“Oops,” said Dorothy, “I was wrong. There’s tons of brandy in Two Rivers.”

“Cognac is unique because of two factors. First, it is made from white grapes that have to come from this region while brandy comes from fermented fruit juice and can be made anywhere. Second, it goes through a process of double distillation. Two distillations give the product a brownish color. There’s a legend about this.”

“Please, Mr. Schmidt. I’d very much like to hear it. I come from a legend-laden area.”

“Of course, Lady Clark. It goes something like this: It is said that a 16^th century knight by the name of Sir Jacques de la Croix Maron had a dream. In the dream, God was ready to give the secret of cognac to Archangel Michael to take to earth when Satan showed up. Satan said he wanted the secret. God said the two archangels should fight with the prize of the secret going to the winner. The archangels fought a bloody match in front of God. Michael won out. Satan was furious and fled and sent a fireball up from hell that boiled the country’s wine down just as God had planned, leaving an exquisite golden brownish distillate: cognac.

“God never punished Satan for his sin of revenge.”

“I know if my father was here,” Dorothy replied, “he would have been quite ready to put that cognac to a taste test for himself.”

“I’m sure he was a man of fine taste and excellent character.”

Dorothy was feeling a growing sense of a homecoming of sorts, a strain and a relief all at once. Aaron’s casual comment about her father’s putative past poked her with the truth that, without the heartbreak of her childhood, she would not be on the road here for a second chance of sorts.

The color in the sky had turned rosette.

“Mr. Schmidt, you see the sky?”

“Yes, I do Lady Clark.”

“In Two Rivers we say, ‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight’.”

Story 7

Pipe Dream

Dorothy was turning sleepy. It had been such a very long day. The drone of the car’s engine was flushing the day out of her mind. But she fought the drowsies; she didn’t want to seem rude. So, she picked herself up with her favorite topic.

“Mr. Schmidt, fishing is the main industry along our Lake Michigan coast,” said Dorothy. “Back home in Two Rivers, almost everyone in Two Rivers, myself included. I come from a long line of fishermen.”

“I imagine that is a very hard life,” he said.

“Yes, it is, and for the entire family too.”

“I have never fished. Here and around Bordeaux, Lady Clark, oyster harvesting is a big industry.”

“I’ve never had an oyster Mr. Schmidt. They’re eaten raw, correct?”

“That’s correct. You may not be missing much Lady Clark,” said Schmidt. “I had them once and I avoid them now. Please tell me about how your fish are prepared.”

“A lot of my family’s catches were smoked.”

“Smoked? What does a smoked fish taste like?”

“It has a salty taste. It’s a meal all its own on Fridays, served with potato salad, coleslaw and one slice of buttered rye bread.”

“That sounds delicious. But why the rye bread?’

“To wash down any hidden bones!”

“Oh my! That sounds like it could be dangerous.”

“It sounds worse than it is. The bones are thin and short and some inevitably will get past the fillet knife. When you eat smoked fish, you kind of whoosh the bite around in your mouth and, if you should feel a bone, you just pick it out with your fingers. Nobody considers that impolite. It’s part of the culture. And if a bone gets past all of that, the rye bread will capture it and down it goes. To be truthful Mr. Schmidt, we’ve never lost anyone choking on a bone,” she chuckled.

“That sounds so tantalizing. I’d love to have the chance to try some of your smoked fish,” he said.

“Certainly, Mr. Schmidt. You and millions of others would like that chance,” she said.

Truer words were never spoken.

Story 8

Sailor’s Trope

There were no other vehicles on the road. Dorothy felt alone, a little uncharacteristic of her. To perk up her spirits she began to melt some more ice with her driver,

Mr. Schmidt. would you mind if I asked how long you have been a driver and tour guide? You are remarkably knowledgeable.”

“Thank you, Lady Clark. I haven’t been at this all that long, really. But I’m the kind of person who throws himself totally into whatever he does.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what did you do before this?”

“I don’t mind tit at all Lady Clark. I worked by day as a clerk in a bookstore and trained for boxing at night.”

“That’s quite a unique mix, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that it is, on the surface, However, I found that escaping in reading and escaping in boxing have some similarities.”

Escape? Escape, from what? Dorothy realized that asking that was way too personal a question. She looked at Schmidt’s hands on the steering wheel. For such a young man his fingers did look gnarled, his knuckle joints did look large and his hand’s skin did look old.

“Mr. Schmidt, you said boxing. That’s the roughest sport of all. How well did you do?”

“Pretty well. But my career was cut short.”

“Did you get hurt?”

“Yes, in a manner of speaking.”

“I’m so sorry that something like that happened to you. But maybe the injury was meant to keep you from far greater harm. In my country, there are deaths in the ring all the time.”

“Thank you, Lady Clark,” he said politely. “You are very encouraging.” He shrugged off distracting memories about the bobbing and the parrying of his life back then. He wanted to delve into learning more about Schmidts of Two Rivers. his hands steady on the heel.

“Lady Clark, is there boxing in your Two Rivers?” he asked.

“Yes. In fact, my father at one time was a sort of town champion. Although the Germans in the town insisted that the real champ in town was one of theirs, a man by the way with the same last name as yours: Ralph Schmidt.”

Adrenaline rushed through Aaron’s body, occluding his ability to speak. He looked straight ahead but saw nothing but the dazzle of this moment of “Aha.” Then a few hard raindrops hit the windshield.

“Looks like our December red sky is turning on us,” Dorothy said.

The road was turning a little slippery with ice crystals forming on the asphalt. The weather reminded Dorothy of home.

“Mr. Schmidt, are we driving north?”

“Yes, Lady Clark.”

“The north is home to me,” she said.

Aaron swallowed the obvious counterpunch: “The west is everything to me.”

\Complete strangers sharing some common tempo.

The thumping back and forth of the wiper blades became too loud to ignore.

“Mr. Schmidt, is there something wrong with the car?”

“No Lady Clark. The car is fine.”

It’s the world that is the problem.

Story 9

Keeping Time

Schmidt slowed the car when he saw a shape’s dim outline slowly came into view.

“Lady Clark, do you see that”? he asked.

“Yes. What is that?” she asked.

“That, Lady Clark, that is your estate.”

Schmidt dropped his passenger off in front of the structure. Dorothy bounded out excitedly. She waited for him as he opened the trunk and unloaded her belongings. She followed him as he carried them up the front porch steps and set them on the porch. He bowed and seeing this she said, “Please come in out of the rain for a minute. I don’t know what awaits me and I’d deeply appreciate your company.”

“Absolutely,” said Schmidt. For the trip was ending way too suddenly, the way many good things come to an end. Schmidt knocked on the country home’s front door while trying to figure out how to bid her adieu. The estate’s lone tenant, the caretaker, opened the door. With a wide, warm smile he extended both hands out to Lady Clark.

“You are so very, very welcome here, Mrs. Clark. I have been expecting you in the finest way. My name is Gilles Chasseray.

“Thank you very much. Nice to meet you. Merry Christmas to you. This is my driver, Mr. Aaron Schmidt. May I call you Gilles? I know I will absolutely trip over trying to correctly pronounce your last name.”

“Yes, Mrs. Clark. Of course, you may. Please come into what has been called, seemingly forever, ‘The LaFond Chateau,’ your chateau. I am overwhelmingly happy that they found you,” said Chasseray and he bowed as Dorothy stepped inside and Schmidt brought in her luggage.

“First of all, let me wish you a very Merry Christmas,” said Chasseray.

Dorothy looked around and saw what was to her to her more like a simple chalet rather than, ‘The LaFond Chateau.’

“Please follow me to the back kitchen where I can set out some refreshments for you. Oh, dear Lady Clark, I hope my English is serviceable,” said Chasseray.

“Oh yes it , it absolutely is,” Dorothy responded. “I am so happy to finally be here. It took me so much to prepare for this. Refreshments sound wonderful and then I’d like to relax for a bit and take it all in slowly.”

“Of course! You must be quite exhausted after such a very long day,” he said as he led her past the dining room through the kitchen. They entered what was called a back kitchen, a small square room with an oak table and four oak chairs. In a corner was a short, scraggly pine tree decorated with strings of popcorn and cranberries.

“That’s my Christmas tree,” said Chasseray.

“It’s cute,” said Dorothy.

Schmidt remained standing while she sat at the kitchen table, “Lady Clark. I apologize that I can stay only for a minute or two,” he said. “I’m sure you understand that the fog and rain require a quick turn-around for me.”

She nodded him but was taken by the kitchen table, a very fine oak table, that had a beautiful blue inlay piece in its middle.

Chasseray brought out plates of cheeses, sausages and bread that he spread over a table. The smells reminded her of her own kitchen nook.

“Mr. Chasseray, this inlay piece is truly remarkable,” Dorothy said as she touched it.

“Mrs. Clark,” said Chasseray, “that is the emblem of the area, the cagouille, the snail. The snail’s pace is just that, the snail’s pace, and it knows no better way to suit itself. We’re slower in our work here in Cognac, than the rest of the world is these days.”

“And, Mr. Chasseray, what about the copper cows?” asked Dorothy

“The cows are the supporting cast of the show.”

“What do you mean by supporting cast?”

“Our first specialty here in cognac and the second specialty here is ice cream.”

“Alcohol and ice cream,” said Dorothy. “How could it be have that I would go to the other side of the world only to find that I have really come home!”

Story 10

A Matter of An Allergy

“I want to provide you with as much as possible of a marvelous homecoming celebration,” said Chasseray. “Please, Mrs. Clark, dig in, have something to eat.”

Aaron fidgeted. He was, actually quite hungry.

Noticing this he said, “You too Mr. Schmidt, eat, please eat.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chasseray. I will have a bite or two.”

Dorothy seemed to be getting a second, or even a third, wind. She took off her coat and began filling her plate.

Chasseray went back to the kitchen and returned with a tray holding two clear bottles, one with water, the other with a fabulously rich color, and three tulip shaped cognac snifter glasses and three water glasses.

“What do you have there?” asked Dorothy.

“Cognac in one bottle for toasting and water for thirst in the other,” he said.

“Please, I’ll just have water,” said Dorothy.

Chasseray filled Dorothy’s water glass and then filled two of the snifter glasses, handing one to Schmidt who was really in a quandary: hungry and stressed, yet, polite by nature.

He received the glass with a smile and raised it to Chasseray’s toast. “May good fortune continue to shine on ‘The LaFond Chateau!’” he said.

The men downed their toasts; Dorothy quaffed her water.

Aaron hiccupped, quietly.

“Gilles, your Camembert and your Brie are so delicious. I have to admit that your cheeses are creamier than what we have back home. I should know about cheese: my mother’s father was a cheese maker in Wisconsin.”

“With that compliment in mind, I’d like to toast you, Mrs. Clark. May I call you Ms. LaFond, just one time, for old time’s sake?”

“Yes, of course you may,” Dorothy said and nodded. “I am still a LaFond by heart.” A traumatized heart but a heart indeed.

With this refilled he refilled the two snifters.

Chasseray raised his glass towards Dorothy while placing his other hand over his heart. “Ms. Dorothy LaFond, I honor you with all my heart for all the effort you have put into coming here to rescue your home.”

My home? Having seen what she had seen and having heard what she had heard all in a day rescuing already seemed far out of the question to her. The thought had dawned on her during the legal formalities just to obtain a visit to “her property.”

The three had their drinks.

Dorothy and Chasseray smiled. Schmidt’s face registered red. His eyes widened. He took on a baffled look. Seeing his reaction to the alcohol, Dorothy’s genes exploded as if she were the one who had thrown down the libations.

“Mr. Schmidt, don’t be fooled by the small glass,” said Chasseray. “A 1936 decree standardized cognac as 40% alcohol by volume and it looks like you, Mr. Schmidt, got the whole 40%!”

Dorothy had always been able to get past alcohol swimmingly by avoiding drinking occasions altogether. But she grew quickly uncomfortable around these men who began to look and sound like they had one too many. Her father’s drunks rose from her subconscious like a tempest. She felt her sweating. She daubed it with a napkin. She was sure she heard sloshing inside her head.

Seeing her condition Chasseray asked, “Mrs. Clark, was there something wrong with the cheese or sausage?”

“No, not at all. They are exquisite. Please excuse me for a minute. I feel just a little lightheaded so I’m going to step outside for a minute and get a breath of fresh air.”

Both men rose. Chasseray went around and opened the back door for her. Dorothy stepped out to a small porch. She settled into a wicker settee. She inhaled for fresh air and got a good dose of air that smelled like the stacks of drying plywood that The Eggers Company put out along the East River back home.

Everything seemed so déjà vu. Dorothy took another deep breath.

How did father carry on so long with it? Look what happens to me just being around it. Just thinking that cleared her head. She got up and returned to the men at the kitchen table.

Story 11

The Smell of It

“What was that odd smell out there?” asked Dorothy.

“Mrs. Clark, that’s called the ‘La part des anges.’ “

“Pardon me, I don’t speak French,” she said.

“Lady Clark, that means ‘the angel’s share of the distillery process.’”

“That’s right Mr. Schmidt. Hey, you are pretty good! Bet you didn’t know that the angel’s share is about three percent of the stock that is lost through evaporation but is still palpable, obviously, in the chemical interplay between the tannins and the air.”

“No sir. I didn’t know that,” said Schmidt.

“Quite palpable indeed,” said Dorothy. She sat and munched on bread.

“Here Mr. Schmidt. You didn’t finish your drink. Chasseray poured him a third but he had convinced Schmidt that it was his second.

Schmidt drank it down. He immediately felt dizzy.

“Mr. Schmidt, are you feeling all right?” he asked.

“Yes. I rarely imbibe and when I do, one is more than enough. And now, I’ve lost count.”

“Maybe, maybe it’s because you are Jewish?” suggested Chasseray, snickering with the ease of casual assuredness that getting a dumb Jew drunk was pure in the cards fun.

Alcohol: the great disinhibitory agent.

“Jewish? What’s so funny about ‘Jewish?” she asked.

Drilled back to remembering his place as chalet occupant and Dorothy’s as chalet owner, Chasseray fumbled around to, “Mr. Schmidt, please let me make a toast to you.” He filled his own snifter, held aloft his libation, struggled to find the right words, then said, in what could have been heard at best as an insincere tone, “Mr. Schmidt, may you have a long and happy life.”

Schmidt knew that Chasseray was mocking him; he knew that Schmidt’s life was daily in jeopardy.

The jabbing returned Schmidt to his senses. He promised himself that he would live out his life the best way he could regardless of how much more time he had left. What good would it do to knock Chasseray out? France was full of Chasserays.

Dorothy was livid. “Gilles, I hope that it is only the alcohol talking because you must know that Mr. Schmidt is in imminent danger.” Chasseray smiled and said, “That’s his business.”

Chasseray went into the main kitchen. He brought out a plate of chocolates that he placed in the center of the table.

“Mrs. Clark, these are splendid cognac chocolates.” He picked out a droplet shaped dark chocolate piece and aimed it at his mouth.

“Ms. LaFond, you are in for a treat,” he said while he chewed the taste out of it. “And, Mr. Schmidt, I’d like to toast you with this chocolate spectacle,” he said, picking up a round milk chocolate and biting into it to reveal its cream filled interior.

Dorothy had had enough.

“Gilles, you’ve done more than enough toasting for one night,” she said, hitting the table with her palm, reminiscent of her father’s trademark stroke.

“You know the Nazis are exterminating Jews. Mr. Schmidt’s life hangs in the balance. And all you do is toast and toast and toast. Shame on you! Pack your bags and get out, out, out!” She bristled with LaFond anger and surprised herself by its force.

Stunned sober, aghast at this prospect of homelessness, Chasseray said, “I deeply apologize Mrs. Clark to you and Mr. Schmidt. I did let the cognac carry me away a little.”

“It carried you back to your brutish heart,” she said. “Apology? Hmmph!! It’s wat too little and way too late! Get out, and take your apology with you.”

Chasseray smiled, poured himself another cognac, picked up the bottle and left the room.

“On my way out, I will let the Nazis know a Jewish sympathizer has taken refuge in my property, The LaFond Chateau, which I will now bequeath to Hitler.”

Story 12

Aerial Footwork

Back in the car Dorothy said, “Mr. Schmidt, that awful man came at you in such an unexpected way. I am so sorry for what happened.”

“Lady Clark, the way things are he did nothing wrong. I found the situation ridiculous, actually totally ridiculous – him drunk, attacking me, your driver, in your home.”

Schmidt rubbed the back of his neck, feeling relief in the freedom to speak honesty. “I left Germany to save my life. A friend and I escaped just in time, but I fear there was no escape for my family.” He had nothing more to lose by talking about himself. There was great safety in the fact that he would never see her again.

“Lady Clark, you are on your own perilous mission here and I don’t mean to load you down with my personal story. But I owe it to myself to say that the Nazis are exterminating German Jews, not one by one, or family by family but town by town and city by city, county by county. Now they’re coming to Bordeaux where I have been in hiding since leaving Berlin. The full weight of this waiting for the end is all I have left to carry.”

“Mr. Schmidt, you have done admirably well here under the circumstances,” replied a nonplussed Dorothy. Her trauma was quite different than his. Even so, or maybe because of it, she felt his pain.

“Yes, Lady Clark. This job has enabled me to survive. Yesterday, however, another brand-new Vichy Ordinance came out. It prohibits Jews from any direct contact with the public and that includes employment in travel agencies and transportation fields.”

“If I am understanding what you are saying that means your job. Who came up with that one?” asked Dorothy.”

“That is the work of a man by the name of Maurice Papon. He had a very successful military career for France during the First World War but was not immune to being manipulated by the Germans when they invaded France. They saw how to bend his ego for their murderous purposes. They made him secretary general of police in Bordeaux. Papon was not political nor was he especially anti-Semitic, but they stroked his vanity. He became a pliable bureaucrat and the more he was rewarded, the greater tasks he was given. I experienced him first hand.”

“How,” asked Dorothy.

“I drove for him once. He was in charge of what the Germans named, ‘The Jewish Question.’ He excelled at rounding up and arresting Jews. Papon looked at me oddly and talked to me about his desire to save what he called, ‘Interesting Jews.’ He asked me if I knew any. My blood ran cold. I was sure he was on to me the way he looked at me. I told him in my best French that I’d keep my eyes open for him. Just last week, he sent four trains full of Jewish children to the Drancy Holding Camp north of Paris.”

“What’s a holding camp?” asked Dorothy.

“It’s a death camp Lady Clark.”

“Dear Almighty God, have mercy on you, and all of us,” said Dorothy.

“Lady Clark, please forgive me but I need to get back to town. I have another job early in the morning. That is, if I still have a job,” he said, not looking for sympathy, just stating a fact.” He rose from the table and stretched out his hand to her for a goodbye, mustering, as cheerfully as possible, “I have found that it was very nice to have known you.”

“Mr. Schmidt, is there anything I can do for you?”

He looked straight at her as if he had never seen her before. Could Lady Clark know how “anything” failed to matter to Jews since Kristallnacht? How could he dare to even imagine that getting to America would be as simple as answering with a simple, “Yes. Please take me to America.”

But he dared to ask for everything anyway, “Yes Lady Clark. Please get me to America.”

“Okay, Mr. Schmidt. Consider it done,” she said, rubbing her hands together to signify end of discussion.

Of all the ways to be traumatized, this time he was traumatized by the promise of a good deed, a very good deed, a deed beyond understanding. All Schmidt could do was respond with what he had rehearsed to himself scores of times, sometimes in front of a mirror, sometimes when falling asleep.

“Lady Clark, for me, a Jew, to leave France I would need what is called ‘Sponsorship.’ Sponsorship would enable me to immigrate to America.”

“Mr. Schmidt, would you please tell me what sponsorship is?”

“It’s a term outlining a legal relationship between your United States Government and France involving the promise of sponsoring a Jew’s exit from France.”

“Like a promissory note,” asked Dorothy.

He s gathered himself and sighed with rare feeling, “Yes, a promise to save someone’s life.”

She smiled and said, “You mean all I have to do is sign a paper to save your life?”

“Yes, Lady Clark. That would be the case.”

“What has this ghastly world come to?” Dorothy asked, wincing at the notion of saving a life as being nothing more than a release of paper, like releasing a bar tab at her father’s saloon.

“Do you have the Sponsorship Paper with you?”

Aaron wished it was that easy. But all there was no such thing as an easy escape for a Jew from Nazi-festering Vichy.

“Lady Clark, the papers have to requisitioned.” His voice trembled. He knew he needed to clearly state what she was getting into for herself and her husband.

“Okay. How do I do that?”

“Lady Clark, am I going out of my mind or do I hear you agreeing to be my sponsor?”

“Mr. Schmidt, I agree to be your sponsor, but with one strict caveat,” she said.

One strict caveat? He would agree to anything. Besides his life he had nothing worth saving.

“Yes, Lady Clark. Whatever it is I will do it,’ he said, nodding his obeisance.

“Mr. Schmidt, I will be your sponsor only if, henceforth, you allow me to call Aaron!” she said, with the firmness of a hearty handshake.

“OY VEY,” he exclaimed. “Yes, Yes, Yes!” he said and he started to drum the steering wheel with his palms to emphasize his readiness to allow the rejuvenation.

“Enough, enough, already Aaron. Please drive with both hands on the wheel and get us safely to Bordeaux,” she said.

“And, Lady Clark, to many fine points beyond!” he said.

Story 13

Cutting Bait

“So, Aaron, tell me all I need to know about Sponsorship.”

“Lady Clark, this will take some time but I will be gratified to tell you about all the red tape,” said Aaron.

“Lady Clark, the Nazis have made it nearly impossible for Jews to leave Vichy and all of Europe. First, as I mentioned earlier, the only way out of Nazi-held territory begins with a Sponsorship Affidavit. It’s a legal writ that needs to be requested by someone in the United States who vows to sponsor a Jew. The affidavit declares that someone in the United takes full financial responsibility of a Jew for up to two years, unless the sponsee finds suitable employment before the two years are up. Once the sponsee returns the Sponsorship Affidavit it needs to be reviewed and approved. Then another type of affidavit is sent to the sponsee.”

“Such Affidavit mumbo jumbo,” said Dorothy. “Okay,” she sighed, “Please go on.”

Aaron continued. “There are two kinds of this affidavit. The first kind is called a Family Affidavit. Lady Clark, you could help me so much, more than I could ever expect, by finding out if the Schmidts of Two Rivers are Jewish. If they are, and if they are willing to sponsor me, I will be free to leave for Two Rivers.”

“Quite unfortunately, Aaron, the Schmidt families that came to Two Rivers one hundred years ago from Germany are all 100% Lutheran.”

“Well, okay, Lady Clark,” said Aaron, “The second form of affidavit is called the Friendship Affidavit.”

“Yes, Aaron, we are now officially friends,” she said.

“Wonderful, thank you,” said Aaron. “Lady Clark this is the one relevant to us. The terms of sponsorship are the same as the Family Affidavit. It’s only when all this is completed can a person receive an Exit Visa from the Vichy government. As soon as that visa is stamped, the person is free to leave for America.”

“Aaron Schmidt,” said Dorothy, “how do I go about requesting the Friendship Affidavit? And, be the way, my husband needs a new driver.”

Aaron thought to himself, my name is Aaron Loeb Schmidt. Loeb translated to English means Lion. I am a Jew soon to be condemned to die. And now, I am freed to live.

“Lady Clark, I have been living on a day-to- day basis, sometimes hour by hour, sometimes minute by minute. Any planning for a future seemed vain, hollow, and selfish. I am not worthy of your miraculous kindness and your miraculous offer of a stay execution. And while I say this, and want this more than anything, I hate myself for being the one rescued while infants and children with so much more life to live for will end up in trash pits.”

“Aaron, what in the world do you mean you’re not worthy of this?” asked Dorothy, smiling and frowning, struck by her heart’s identification with the guilt that peppered her very own childhood.

“Please forgive me, Lady Clark. I don’t mean it like that. Oh, dear God, no. It’s just that your benevolence overwhelms me.”

“Is that all?” she asked.

She was not naïve. She was Lady Dorothy Clark and her husband was the richest man in Northeastern Wisconsin and that made her a compelling counter point to whatever stood in her way.

“There’s one more requirement. Because I am not your relative, the affidavit would have to include your last income tax return as proof of your financial ability to sponsor me. “

“They want everything and don’t trust anyone those accursed Nazis. But, they won’t get smoked fish!”

“Oh, Lady Clark. How you can flip bad to funny I don’t know,” he said.

“I wasn’t always like this but terror now brings out the best in me.”

And, apparently, the funniest part too.

Aaron, wondering if she had some trouble, sometime, maybe big trouble, remained silent for a few seconds to bless her past. Through with that he said, “Lady Clark, once the affidavit is received there will be countless delays before it is authorized. Only when the last obstacle is removed will I be issued a Visa.”

“Okay. But I’m chagrined, if that’s the right word, over the Germans naming this a ‘Friendship Affidavit!?!’ Can you believe it? No wonder we call boiled cabbage sour kraut!”

Aaron had never heard this before and he laughed heartily.

“Aaron, I have given you my word. My husband and I will take care of all of this for you. Now just get me all the information that I will need to get this started.”

“Lady Clark, how can I ever thank you?”

“You’ll figure that out in Two Rivers; driving there can be quite hazardous with all the drunks on the road!”

“As long as there aren’t check points I will cheerfully stay clear of them!”

“Ha! And Aaron, I also have to thank you.”

“Thank me, Lady Clark? I don’t understand. Can you please explain what you mean by that?”

“You may not understand but I can say it like this: you’ve given me a perfect chance to do good. I promised a long time ago that I’d do something good like this, something undeniably good. Now, not only have I kept that promise, but I’ve also tied up the loose ends in a chapter of my family history book.”

“So, in place of your Chateau property you have taken a mortgage out on me,” he said.

“Come on, Aaron. I’m happy to have left that place to the rats,” she said.

The last thing accomplished on the memorable drive back to Dorothy’s hotel Bordeaux was an exchange of addresses even though Bordeaux was no longer Aaron’s home. At his apartment he learned he had a job for at least another day.

Very early the next day Aaron delivered flowers delivered to Lady Clark. On the bouquet was a letter Aaron had received from his rabbi a long time ago assuring, “To Whom It May Concern,” that Aaron Schmidt was honest and reliable. That evening, after his driving assignment, he wrote a letter to the Consul General in Bordeaux requesting an application for the Friendship Affidavit.

On February 4, 1942 Dorothy Clark returned to Two Rivers. The next day, Henry Clark posted a letter to Aaron Schmidt that said, in part; “…My wife returned last night and told me of her business with you. We will surely vouch for you…”

On April 5, 1942, Aaron received Henry Clark’s letter. That night he wrote back. After the greeting he wrote: Things have turned immeasurably worse for France and me. As I expected, I have lost my job. My heart was broken to learn that the Nazis had firebombed and leveled my White Stork Synagogue in Breslau. On top of that, I learned that my family was taken to a work camp at Buchenwald. What sadness I will bring with me to America. But you have given me hope for my freedom. I have a meeting with the Consul General regarding the Friendship Affidavit scheduled for July third and this is what keeps me moving forward.”

While walking to post his letter, Aaron was spit on by a child walking hand in hand with his father.

Dorothy received Aaron’s mail on Henry’s birthday, September second. She received another from Aaron shortly after that. It shocked her out of herself when she began reading it: …Yesterday morning I thought all was lost. Police burst into my apartment and placed me in handcuffs. They said they were taking me into ‘Protective Custody.’ I was transported to the central jail and thrown to the floor inside the front door. I looked around and saw on the office walls framed pictures of skeletons swinging in trees, of children hanging upside down from electrified barbed wire fences, of naked bodies of women floating in outdoor latrines. A desk official told me that I had been sentenced to Buchenwald and that I would never come back from that place. The vision of seeing my family there one last time crossed my mind before I fully realized what they meant. I was numb as they lifted me from the floor. They ripped off my shoes and dragged me behind the desk to a door that revealed several holding cells that were bursting with prisoners. They tossed me headfirst into one of these cells and I tripped over the bodies of men lying on the cold cement floor of the cell. When I raised myself up, I saw that these were bodies of men who were not dead in the mortal sense but possessed such blank stares that I threw up. Along the walls men stood, shoulder to shoulder, men that had the look and smell of the dank grave.

Then, some hours later, I heard my name come over the loudspeaker. Four jailers came back and got me. They didn’t have to drag me this time. I walked out with dignity because I was holding on to the insane possibility of being sent to the same camp where I may see my family. The goons escorted me all the way out through the office, out the front door and out to the street. They threw me in the back seat of a vehicle between two SS officers who were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.

I don’t know why I asked them, “Where are you taking me.” because it was obvious I was going to be executed. But I did and they did no more than laugh at me as they blindfolded me before driving off.

The driver answered me with a question, “Where else would we take a dirty Jew?”

After a helter-skelter ride through town, with my thoughts firmly fixed on the beyond, the vehicle came to a screeching halt. The three of them ripped me out of the back seat by my hair and arms and dragged in that fashion up concrete stairs. One of them punched me in the face. They threw me to the floor and ripped off my blindfold. I waited for my eyes to acclimate to the light and then I saw I was in the Office of the Consul General. I began laughing at the preposterous thought that they were actually going to take the time to draw up a formal death sentence for me.

The rear office door opened and out popped none other than Maurice Papon. He came up to me and stood over me. He told me with high dudgeon in a childishly mocking voice that he had received a Friendship Affidavit in triplicate on my behalf.

I tasted the blood from my bleeding nose. I could not think. I could not respond. What do you say to that after expecting the worst?

Papon waved the paperwork in my face. It was the sweetest breeze I had ever felt.

He ordered me to stand at attention. I saw something else in his other hand. It was my precious Exit Visa. Papon opened it to show me that the Visa was stamped with a large red “J”.

“Kneel!” he ordered. I had never knelt before a man. They kicked me behind the knees so I made an exception in this case.

By order of Dr. Wilhelm Frick, Minister of Interior, I am now baptizing you with a new Christian name. Henceforth you, jew boy, will be known as ‘Otto Smith’. Then he spit on me, I guess for the holy water, and invoked, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” At that, all of the Nazis there guffawed and said, “Amen.”

Their stupidity underscores the irony of the moment: Otto is a palindrome and means, backwards and forwards, “a man who will never come back.”

Aaron Schmidt as Otto Smith was driven straight to the American Consul with his new name, his freedom papers and drying blood on his face. That evening, he left France by train to Brussels where, as directed, he presented himself to the Belgian Consulate from where, ironically, his licensing for freedom had begun.

On May 24, 1942, Aaron Schmidt as Otto Smith crossed the English Channel with one small bag of clothing and arrived in Dover where he was welcomed, as Aaron Schmidt, by British Customs and Immigration Officers. Next up was a train ride to the Kitchener Camp, a former Prisoner of War Camp, on the Southeast coast of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Lang, had persuaded the British government to open the camp’s gates to throngs of European refugees, among them, 5,000 Jewish men, none of whom minded living in prison-like army barracks, working without pay on physically demanding projects, and sleeping on thin mattresses on wooden frames.

On June 24, 1942, Aaron received his Immigration Visa during a meeting at the American Embassy at Grosvenor Square in London. Six days later, he boarded the Britannic of the Cunard-White Star Line in Liverpool. He had accumulated one bag of clothing possessions.

Passengers had been told that there would be multiple daily lifeboat exercises and they were to wear life vests around the clock. As a matter of protection against U-boat attacks, a warship followed the Brittanic.

An officer on board, a third mate, introduced himself to Aaron showed the way to his cabin. As Aaron turned to enter his cabin, the third mate said, “I don’t think there’s any reason to worry, but, on our last trip, a man committed suicide in your room.”

Aaron didn’t feel anything one way or the other. He was numbed to death, barren of empathy, unable to come up with anything suitable other than, “That’s bad.”

Attributing Aaron’s dispassion to exhaustion the mate continued with, “And, Mr. Schmidt, inside your cabin there’s a package waiting for you. It’s from a Mrs. Dorothy Clark in America. We had to open it as a security precaution. It’s a package of smoked fish. We wrapped the package up again; it’s as good as new and it’s sitting on the table next to your bed.”

No response.

“There was also a letter in an envelope with it that we didn’t open.”

“Thank you,” said Aaron. Once inside his cabin he dropped his bag and flopped on the bed then fell fully fast asleep.

Hours later the Brittanic lurched heavily in the turbulent sea and flipped Aaron out of his bed.

Was that a U-boat attack?

He got up from the floor and opened his door to see what was happening. He overheard the third mate explaining to another passenger that the ship had hit a patch of rogue waves and not to worry because everything was okay.

Aaron closed the door and opened the package. The smoked fish were half eaten. Dorothy’s envelope and letter were crumpled and oily from the smoked fish.

The letter began with a warm greeting and good wishes, followed by news about the town’s weather and the Clarks’ building excitement about Aaron’s homecoming. Then, Dorothy shared some concerning news: Aaron, the whole town is so shaken up right now. One of our favorite people has been murdered, shot to death. Something like this never, ever happens in Two Rivers. I’ve included the newspaper report about it:

Police Officer Hugo Ehrlich Gunned Down.

The family of Police Officer Hugo Ehrlich is in shock as is the entire town over the murder of Officer Ehrlich.

Five years after starting with the Two Rivers Police Department Officer Ehrlich was promoted to Overnight Patrol Officer. At about 3 am, on his first shift at the Fire and Police Station, he answered the back door’s bell.

When he turned on the light over the door and looked out the door’s small window, a gunman fired one debilitating shot, hitting Officer Ehrlich in the throat. The 30-calibar rifle bullet had been fired through that small window.

Officer Ehrlich fell to the floor. His throat had been hit. He was unable to call for help so he pounded his billy club on the floor to alert the firemen quartered in the basement. Fire Chief Arthur Rahn and Firefighter Stanley Grund found Officer Ehrlich who attempted to talk, but could not, because of his wound.

Officer Ehrlich did not die peacefully. His eyes were widened with terror and horror.

He reached up with prayerful hands as he was aspirating on his own blood.

He wanted to cry out: “I want to see my wife and children.”

Then the officer’s hands dropped and he coughed for the last time before the arrival of Dr. Weld.

The next morning the news of the murder circulated throughout the community. Crowds of onlookers gathered at the station and trampled over any remaining physical evidence. One man, however, spotted crushed out cigarette butts alongside the building, evidence that the killer was chain smoking outside the rear of the station, working up the nerve to ring the bell and carry out the ambush.

The police put the cigarette butt shell in an evidence bag.

The gun was not recovered.

Aaron, Officer Ehrlich was loved by everyone; he was so kind. He was like a favorite relative to everyone in town.

Several leads on potential suspects for the crime are being investigated. The first lead came from an incident about fifteen months earlier. It involves a man who had during his jury trial quite publicly threatened Officer Ehrlich. This man had been arrested by Officer Ehrlich in Neshotah Park during The Snow Festival. He was charged with disorderly conduct, public intoxication and, by far the worst charge of all, public indecency. The defendant had been seen leaving the beer tent at Walsh Field prior to the fireworks. He staggered across County Highway O where he was nearly hit by a truck. He drifted into the woods of Neshotah Park where, he testified, a bunch of drunks ganged up on him, and beat him up, tore off his trousers and shirt, and threatened him with worse if he didn’t keep this all to himself.

Embarrassed, disoriented and pantsless, the man testified that he decided to hide in the scrub pines behind Neshotah’s concession stand until after the fireworks so he could return home under the full cover of nightfall. A woman testified that she and her little girl were taking a shortcut home through the park and nearly tripped over him. She said she picked up her daughter and ran home to call the police.

It was Officer Ehrlich who responded to the call and searched the park, then found the man right about where the mother said they would find him. He arrested and handcuffed the unconscious nude man, covered him with a blanket, and hauled him to the back Police Station where he was jailed.

At his trial the man attested to his innocence. No one on the jury believed his story. A guilty verdict was reached and the judge imposed an 18-month prison sentence. On his way out of the courtroom, he shouted a threat at Officer Ehrlich: “Someday, somehow, I’ll get even with you Ehrlich!”

The second lead involved the time Officer Ehrlich was threatened by a man who he had arrested for a bootlegging operation. This man happened to be the very same bootlegger that Officer Ehrlich had arrested when he lived and worked in Coleman, Wisconsin. The judge found the man innocent in a bench trial when the evidence of the bootlegger’s still, “disappeared.” As the man left the courtroom he said over his shoulder, “Ehrlich, you’ll get your day in court too,”

The third lead harkens back to a reveling incident from last year’s annual, “Thanksgiving Night’s Salute to Thanksgiving Day.” A convoy of drinkers, self-named “The Bypass Club,” were making unheeded speed driving in an ice rain storm. The goal of this club was to patronize all 32 taverns in town while bypassing police detection. They always succeeded in avoiding any notice from the police. The police, of course, were quite aware of this tradition and turned a friendly blind eye to the cavorters.

Last year year’s convoy was crossing The 17th Street Bridge, having already stopped at Payette’s, The Labor Hall, Curly’s, The Waverly, and The Washington House on the south side of town. Suddenly, at the east end of the bridge, the vehicle leading the convoy, an Oldsmobile with three occupants, skidded west off the bottom of the bridge and tumbled down the embankment bridge, flipping over and catapulting right into the East Twin River.

The other vehicles of the convoy vanished into the night.

Word of this calamity got around to the police the next morning. Not sure if this a joke or not, the sergeant sent Officer Ehrlich and another police officer to check out the story. When he saw skid marks leading into the river Officer Ehrlich called and notified the station.

The police hauled the police rowboat to the scene. Officer Ehrlich and his partner were assigned the heinous job of dragging the river.

“Why don’t we use the Coast Guard Lifesaving Unit?” he asked.

“We need to keep this very quiet,” replied the sergeant.

The dragging process involved them using a long pipe with closely spaced triple hooks. They began at Rogers Street, methodically dragging the tool across the river bottom from side to side, working their way downstream. By that time word had spread and crowds had formed around and The 17^th street bridge.

Suddenly the rowboat lurched when it hooked into something quite big. The brave police officers braced themselves for what the hooks were going to bring to the surface. They pulled up a body in a fetal position. It was one of the three men who perished there.

It was a monumental chore to get the body out of the water and into the boat. The officers rowed back to the Roger’s Street dock and had a devilish time struggling to move the corpse out from their boat onto the dock where its face was quite visible to the crowd gathered there. Officer Ehrlich covered the face with his jacket and the two officers carried it to an awaiting ambulance.

And, wouldn’t you know it? The son of the victim was in the crowd. He was a young man well known to the police due to a number of problems he had created at saloons. He was heard to swear that he would get even with Officer Ehrlich.

The fourth lead was from a cab driver who said he had driven a fare, a stranger, from Manitowoc to Central Park in Two Rivers about 10 minutes before Officer Ehrlich was shot. The cab driver also reported that when the passenger exited, it looked like he had waved to someone standing to the side of the Police and Fire Station.

Aaron, we just wanted to give you a sense of things here in our small town. Of course, it is really nothing at all compared to what you have been though.

My husband’s good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Stangel live in New York City and will meet you at the harbor. They will be holding a big sign bearing your name. Please stay safe and we will see you soon.

Story 14

On the Right Course at One Time or Another

Aaron arrived in New York Harbor on July 14, 1942. The Stangels met him as planned. They had arranged Greyhound Bus transportation for him from New York City to Chicago, and then train transportation on the Hiawatha from Chicago to Manitowoc.

Aaron was a robust sight to Dorothy and Henry at the Manitowoc Train Depot. Henry was so excited that he immediately grabbed Aaron’s hand and began shaking it like it was a rag. “Mr. Schmidt,” he said, “I am very happy to finally meet you.”

Aaron bowed towards Henry, then towards Dorothy. The first thing he said was, “I am so sorry for the loss of Officer Ehrlich.”

“And we are so sorry for what you have been through.”

“I don’t know how to express my deepest, heartfelt, gratitude to you, Mr. Henry and Mrs. Lady Clark.”

“You are welcome, Aaron,” said Henry. “And I do know one way: I hope you are ready to go to work as my driver,” he joked.

“I am ready today!”

“Not today, but a drive will be nice one of these days,” said Henry.

“Let’s go home,” said Dorothy. “What do you say, Aaron?”

The only thing that Aaron could say, not at all meaning to minimize or demean her beautiful invitation, was, “I can’t wait to try your smoked fish! I’m sorry, but the fish in your package didn’t quite make it to my palate.”

“We’ll have some for dinner,” said Henry, with a weak smile, knowing they had smoked fish the night before.

“It’s just a short ride home Aaron,” said Dorothy. “I’ll take the wheel for now.”

Aaron felt awkward not driving but this feeling was soon cleared away by the sunny drive north along Lake Michigan’s shore. The lake was decked out in its finest cobalt blue in his honor. Entering town, Dorothy pointed out some of the major sights: Rawley Point, the mouth joining the West and East Twin Rivers, and The 17^th Street Bridge. Pointing to the bridge she said, “That’s the East Side over there; that’s where my roots come from.”

One block farther on Washington Streets she announced, “That building is Henry’s baby, The Clark Manufacturing Company.” Aaron was impressed by the three-block-long, four-story-high brown brick building.

“Congratulations on your tremendous success Mr. Clark.”

“I couldn’t have done it without Dorothy,” he said.

Dorothy turned left off of Washington Street and crossed The 17^th Street Bridge. Then she turned left and pulled up at the Suzie Q Fish Market. Henry got out to purchase five pounds of smoked chubs. When he returned, Aaron could smell the fish through the brown paper packaging.

As they backtracked and turned right on Washington Street Dorothy pointed out the town’s favorite business, E.C Berners’ Ice Cream Parlor. “That parlor is where the ice cream sundae was created.”

Charmed by the name Aaron asked, “Lady Clark, what is an ice cream sundae?”

Henry laughed.

“Aaron, it’s one of the greatest things in the U. S. of A,” he said.

“Henry, he will find out firsthand soon enough,” chuckled Dorothy.

On a Two Rivers July Sunday afternoon in 1881, a customer, George Hallauer, asked Ed Berner to add a chocolate topping to his dish of ice cream. He loved it; it was delicious. Hallauer did not keep the mixture his secret. He spread word about the dessert. Everybody wanted to try it. Once tasted it quickly became the rage.

Berner named the dish “Sundae” and he decided to only serve it on Sundays.

Berners’ became the place to go after church on Sundays.

The populace clamored for more. Berner stuck to his resolve for quite a while until he gave in to popular sentiment and made the novelty a daily staple of his business.

“And Dorothy,” piped Henry, “Just wait until Aaron hears about The Snow Festival,” said Henry.

“Maybe we should wait on that dear. He’s seen and heard so much already.”

“You’re right dear,” said Henry. He was so excited to talk about his hometown; it was as if he and Dorothy had brought home an adopted son.

Dorothy parked the car in front of their home.

“Here we are Aaron. Welcome to our home,” said Henry.

To Aaron the structure was much more than a “home.” It was a white, two story colonial house with a wrap-around porch and a widow’s watch tower.

It was the only domicile on the entire block.

“You have a lovely chateau,” quipped Aaron.

“And no one’s going to take this one away from us!” said Henry.

“Gentlemen, why don’t you get out here and I’ll drive around back to the garage and meet you onside,” said Dorothy.

Aaron grabbed his bag. The men were met by a helper who carried Aaron’s bag inside behind the men. Dorothy’s shoes clicked on the paved walkway as she hurried through her garden past the bronze embedment she had made to honor her parents. She felt for her gold chain necklace upon which rode a huge golden ring with a garnet stone in the setting. She grasped it. It had been her father’s. He had huge thick stumps of fingers. Sometimes she felt more linked to her past than her present. She recalled her mother telling her the story about the ring. The ring’s setting originally held a giant diamond, a glorious diamond, a one-of-a-kind diamond, that David had inherited from his father. David always wore the ring and it bathed in fish guts, or in beer foam, or in his blood, or in someone else’s blood, or in ashes from his smoker oven, or whatever other substance he was working in at any particular moment.

He called the ring, “My Lucky Charm.”

Dorothy’s father wore the ring until his hand had become so withered at The Asylum that it slipped off into Katherine’s hand during a visit. She showed it up close to Dorothy and then put it in her pocket for safe keeping. At home Dorothy asked her mom about the red stone. “Mother, is there meaning to the red stone?”

Dorothy remembered her mother’ word for word telling her about the red stone as if it were yesterday.

“Sweetheart, there was a giant diamond in the ring before there was a red stone. One late night or early morning your father had returned home from a night of drinking. I had kept his supper warm for him, beef with gravy and potatoes. He dug in like he hadn’t eaten in days. And even though his hands were smothered with gravy, I noticed his ring looked quite different. I saw that the setting was empty.

“I became very upset. I told him to look at his ring finger. Your father looked at the gravy-covered ring, licked it clean and exclaimed, ‘Katherine, my God! My diamond! It’s gone!’ And then he went back to eating.

“I asked him what ever happened to it. He told me in a nonchalant tone that the diamond must have ended in the belly of a carp.”

“What?” I asked

“He said there was nothing he could do about it except finish his dinner in peace.

“I had a hunch about its loss too. My guess was verified later that week by my father who saw the diamond, so easily recognizable, in the setting of the silver ring worn by The Waverly’s owner wore.”

Dorothy had said, “Mom, I am again so confused. Did you say grandpa saw the father’s diamond in the silver ring of The Waverly’s owner?”

“Yes, Dorothy, I did. Your father had exchanged the diamond for drinks and to settle a bar tab he had at The Waverly.”

Dorothy felt old time gloomy as she opened the back door to her home, remembering that her mother had the ring reset with a garnet stone, David’s birthstone. But she smiled with the memory that her mom had a golden necklace made for the ring and gave it to Dorothy when she became engaged to Henry.

Story 15

Carbonated Water

For supper, as promised, the Clarks served Aaron smoked fish flanked by mashed potatoes, asparagus, rye bread and sauerkraut. Before long, it was bedtime for everyone.

For breakfast the next morning, Dorothy had prepared a round sweet coffee cake with white frosting. Finishing his coffee Henry said, “Aaron, I’d like to go for a ride.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Clark, but, I don’t have a valid license.”

“That’s not a problem here in Wisconsin,” said Henry. “The other non-problem is drinking and driving.”

“Mr. Clark, the one time in my life that I imbibed, I very easily could have missed Lady Clark’s life-saving effort on my behalf.”

Dorothy made eye contact with her husband and nodded in agreement.

“I have henceforth sworn off all forms of alcohol. I will never touch another drop of it!”

“The three of us are quite alike in that regard,” said Henry.

Aaron backed the Clark’s 1941 Lincoln Custom Limousine out from the garage. He shifted into neutral, applied the parking brake and hopped out to open the back door for Henry.

“Aaron, I’d like to take a ride out of town. I’ll tell you how to get us out to Point Beach State Forest.”

They drove east across the 22^nd Street bridge past a tiny iron-fenced cemetery. Aaron noticed a Star of David on the closed gate. They headed past Walsh Field and out on County Road O to the entrance road for Point Beach State Forest. They proceeded on it to a large, crushed gravel parking lot overlooking the sandy beach of Lake Michigan. Aaron parked the car. From the windshield, he saw the lake’s blue color highlighted by a hanging white froth above the sharp edged whitecaps.

By the time Aaron got out of the car to open Henry’s door, Henry was already out and walking toward him.

“Aaron, look around at those majestic pines, the reds, the whites, the balsams and Douglas firs.”

“They are grand and stately,” said Aaron. “And the pine scented air is beyond compare.”

Something else a bit to the south caught Aaron’s eye: a very, very tall metal structure loomed over the trees. He pointed to it with an expression of curiosity.

“That’s our lighthouse,” said Henry, now the tour guide.

“I’ve never seen one like that before,” said Aaron.

“Tell you what, Aaron. What do you say to our walking to it, climbing the stairs, and me telling you all about it from the top?”

“I would like that Mr. Clark.”

Story 16

Restoration

Both men were a little out of breath when they reached the top of the lighthouse where they were greeted by two men with binoculars.

“Gents, how’re things looking,” asked Henry.

“All quiet on the western front Mr. Clark,” laughed one of the men.

“Just lots of fishing tug traffic,” said the other.

“And of course, each one has its own entourage of gulls,” added the first man.

Henry and Aaron sat on a bench along the lakeside railing. They could feel the sun on their backs from above the pines and it made for a picture-perfect experience of Lake Michigan.

“Spectacular view,” said Aaron and he took a deep breath of warm sweet air. “This is simply sensational Mr. Clark. Do you ever get used to this freedom?”

“Yes and no Aaron. Just like anything wonderful you have to appreciate tings day by day and not get absorbed by it.”

Sometimes moment by moment; sometimes lifetime by lifetime. Both men shook hands in tacit agreement.

“Aaron, my best friend, William Baetz, is responsible for this metal behemoth. He purchased the lighthouse at the close of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Since then, it has been a constant lifesaver. Its Fresnel beam and its booming foghorn warn navigators to steer wide and clear of the very treacherous Rawley Point below to the south. There’s another good side to this lighthouse, a side that involves the metal tower itself and not the beam or foghorn.”

“I’d like to hear about it.”

“Good, because I like talking about it. On June 23, 1939, the United States Congress passed the Coast Guard Reserve and Auxiliary Act. The purpose of the Act was to ensure the security along the beaches and shores of the Great Lakes. The Act created 14 districts corresponding to the existing 14 Coast Guard districts. Each district would erect a steel observation tower, and this would create a continuous and overlapping perimeter.”

“Why was security a concern around here,” asked Aaron.

The two men with the binoculars had been listening in on Henry’s tutorial. They chuckled when Henry answered Aaron with, “Oh, you know, to keep an eye on things.”

“Mr. Clark, is this tower a part of the perimeter?”

“Yes. Our lighthouse was already in a perfect place, so we were way ahead of everyone else. We quickly received our federal authorization as one of the 14 observation towers.”

“Congratulations,” said Aaron, though he didn’t exactly feel celebratory because there must be a potential for danger to require such an act.

“Aaron,” continued Henry, “the Congressional Act also created The Coast Guard Reserve. Training schools were established to provide ordinary citizens with skills to perform the duties in the job description for reservists. Thousands of volunteers came forward to secure the Great Lakes against U-boat attacks while freeing up the enlisted Coast Guard for service overseas while.”

Aaron felt the familiar, immediate, awful rush of adrenaline.

U-boats?

In the heartland of America?

Hunting Jews?

Aaron clenched his hands. His forearm muscles rippled, his stomach turned, his ears rang and his saliva dried. A few minutes ago, he was enjoying the absolute luxuries of sunshine and fresh air with nary a care in his world. Now Henry’s narrative whipped up his old worry and woe.

Henry read Aaron’s behavior and said, “Aaron, it’s okay. We are safe. These two gentlemen, with their binoculars, and their compatriots in the 13 other Great Lake watchtowers are on guard to identify and report any evidence of the presence of U-boats.”

Aaron loosened his grip on the bench. He knew all about defense, the first principle of which asserted that being tense only improved the opponent’s chances.

“In no time at all, the Coast Guard Reserve grew and thousands of active-duty Coast Guard personnel were freed up for service overseas.

“Well, so here is some exceedingly good news. Yesterday, the newspaper reported that reservists saw three submarines right from this spot.”

Good news?

U-boats being good news? Aaron’s began dissociating again.

All this way from France for more of France?

“Mr. Clark, please forgive me but what can be good news about U-boats right out there? asked Aaron.

“Not U-boats, Aaron. Submarines,” said Henry.

“With all due respect, Mr. Clark, that’s just a semantic difference, isn’t it?”

“No, Aaron, it’s not. Germany makes U-boats and Manitowoc makes submarines.”

The men with the binoculars were bemused by Aaron’s incredulity, letting out gentle chuckles over Aaron’s tangling the two together. The men’s reactions jolted Aaron into problem-solving mode.

“Mr. Clark, so, Manitowoc makes submarines to hunt and kill U-Boats?” he asked.

“Yes, indeed, Aaron. Let me tell you about the submarines of Manitowoc,” said Henry. He pulled out a cigar and bit off the end then spit it out. With a smile he took his time in lighting it up. Dorothy hated his cigars. Henry hadn’t had a pleasurable smoke outdoors in some time.

“The Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company has already built 20 submarines for the United States Navy. What those Coast Guard reservists saw from this exact spot were Manitowoc submarines on a training run.”

“Mr. Clark, is there that much danger from U-boats on Lake Michigan?”

“No.”

“So why are submarines being built in Manitowoc?”

“The Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company is the best shipyards in the country. Knowing this, The United States Navy contracted the shipyards to build submarines. The company is located right along the Manitowoc River. The Manitowoc River is the ideal launching point for submarines meant for the Atlantic and the Pacific.”

“Mr. Clark, I’m not that up to speed about U.S. geography Mr. Clark. I did look over a guidebook on the train ride here. Aren’t the Great Lakes landlocked?”

“Everyone thinks that in the beginning. Here’s how they do it. Once they are built they are side-launched into the Manitowoc River. After they are outfitted and crewed they make way out to Lake Michigan, and then south to Chicago to the Chicago River. From there, they use a system of waterways and floating dry docks to go through the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal then down the Illinois River to the Mississippi River, then to the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.”

“That’s simply ingenious,” exclaimed Aaron.

“Aaron, the launchings are marvelous occasions! They are done with great fanfare from ironworkers and their jubilant families, as well as ordinary citizens. Right before the launch, the Two Rivers Marine Band holds everybody at attention while it plays the National Anthem.”

(Four of the Manitowoc submarines, USS Golet, USS Kete, USS Lagarto, and USS Robalo, along with 336 Great Lakes-bred officers and enlisted men, were lost at sea.)

“The efforts at the shipyards were very, very personal,” said Henry. “There were constant rumors, stories going around all the time, about U-Boats landing here and there on the shores of one Great Lake or another. One rumor had it that a U-boat was discovered abandoned, about two miles south of Port Washington. Allegedly, inside the U-boat were cans of food and packages of bread all made in the United States indicating that the occupants had been going ashore to buy groceries.”

“Nazis that near Mr. Clark?” The thought of this shrouded everything again for Aaron, once more shutting out the blue from the lake and the light from the top of the tower.

“Yes, But, Aaron, those Nazis were scooped up and jailed.”

Anxiety lined Aaron’s face. Was it always going to be this way? That every time an association was made to his trauma, even slight ones or imagined ones, was Arron going to be plucked back to dangerous Vichy? Or the concentrated killings in Berlin?

Aaron knew intellectually that his anxiety was displaced, that he was far safer right now than he could have imagined a few short months ago. However, watchtower safety wasn’t going to keep his senses from exhuming some form or another of complete vulnerability?

“Aaron,” said Henry, seeing Aaron’s dismay, encouraged him with facts, “I didn’t mention this earlier, because it seemed incidental to our conversation. But now it fits. The Coast Guard Auxiliary and Reserve Act created manpower. The coast guard reserve was structured like the U. S. Navy Reserve, except that it allowed for temporary sailors on a partial basis. This generated a huge response from our Great Lakes, an unbelievable volunteer force of ships, estimated to be between 4,000 and 5,000 strong.”

Aaron fully back from dissociation listened on.

“The fleet consisted of mackinaws, motorboats, rowboats, yachts, sailboats, tugs, canoes, and kayaks, all with the purpose of scouting out U-boats. This flotilla had no law enforcement authority, no formal chain of command, no administrative structure -- just a lot of home-grown firepower. Volunteers could spend as much or as little time as they wanted on their own sea-crafts patrolling any and all waterways, looking for suspicious activity that would suggest the infiltration of saboteurs.”

“That’s very reassuring Mr. Clark.”

“And there was something very oddly funny about this. Because the volunteers often had trouble telling the good guys from the bad guys because uniforms were not part of the operation. For example, some reservists sported outfits consisting of exotic insignias embellished with paramilitary accessories and the like. But most reservists were everyday fishermen in overalls and sportsmen in working clothes who were liable to top off a lively Friday Night bender with a lake foray and then end up accidentally accosting one of the upper-class skippers in all of his finery.”

Aaron, smiling, mock-wiping his brow with his hand, and said, “Whew.”

“How about an ice cream sundae?” asked Henry.

“An ice cream sundae?” asked Aaron. “But , sir, it’s not Sunday.

“Every day is Ice Cream Sundae in Two Rivers,” said Henry.

“Really?” asked Aaron, not at all sure what he was getting into.

“Look, I’ll race you down to the car,” said Henry. “And, the loser buys!”

Aaron took off, his training rising as he dove down the stairs two at a time. Henry crushed out his cigar and stiffly rose, reaching for the handrail to descend the lighthouse.

The reservists had thoroughly enjoyed this diversion from their duties.

“Good luck with that one Mr. Clark,” said one of the men as they both saluted him upon his exit.

Story 17

Spools of Color

Early the next day Aaron visited the town’s tiny Jewish cemetery that he had seen the day before. It was about a 45-minute walk east from the Clark’s home. A brisk wind riled up the East Twin River’s silt as Aaron crossed the 21^st Street Bridge. The river could look mucky, chestnut brown one minute and jade green the next. Whatever its humor, it was always cold.

After crossing the bridge, Aaron stooped down and picked up two smooth, round, cream-colored stones and put them in his pocket. His pace accelerated and he was nearly jogging by the time he reached the silent, very old, and very plain cemetery. He entered it by way of a gravel path that bisected the rectangular plat and looked over the small field of grave markers and headstones. He drifted forward, the crunch of his shoes underscoring the peace of the place, reading the names on the headstones: “Graff;” “Sigman;” “Brandeis.” His neck hairs rose when he saw “Schmidt” etched on a small, square, aged granite grave stone lying flat in the ground.

“Schmidt,” he whispered.

“Schmidt,” he said aloud.

That’s all there was to say. He knelt next to it and moved his hand over it. It elicited the memory of his father’s cold bony hand when he last held it to say goodbye.

“Father, do you know that I’m here and safe?” he sobbed.

“Mother, do you know there is still love in the world?”

He placed one of the two stones on the marker. The other he left deeply tucked into his pocket. It was a revitalizing thing to do -- one stone to let others know a Schmidt was still around, the other stone in his pocket to remind him that he was still around.

Aaron rose feeling he had been captured for a second or two above time and place.

Time to go home.

Story 18

Sand Print Journals

Home.

David LaFond thought he was bottoms up altogether connected to the peninsula. But not so long before him natives had the claim to it, for a while.

Under the Treaty of 1831, the Ojibway (Anicinaabe) Tribe “ceded” to the United States Government all the land east of Green Bay, from the Fox River and Lake Winnebago to Lake Michigan. A concession allowed tribe members to remain on the peninsula, farm the land and raise cows, as long as no White Man came around and laid claim to the land. In return, each Ojibway received a “Peace and Friendship Medal” from President Andrew Jackson.

Nevertheless, many, many Ojibway, “Migrated.”

An 1855 Treaty promised the remaining Ojibway a thirty-square-mile reservation. But while they were escorted to the area, something “went wrong” with the treaty. All they received was a silver medal marked, “President Franklin Pierce.”

All they really had left was the drum to keep away the evil spirits. It is said that’s why we have eardrums -- to bring us all together.

Story 19

The Driving Kind

Early the next morning, while Aaron was still sleeping, Henry and Dorothy drove to the A&P Grocery Store where they picked up ingredients for a butterscotch pie. Dorothy knew the ingredients by heart:

Ingredients

Baked pie crust shell

2 Tbsp.’s flour -heaping

2 eggs, separated

1 Tbsp. butter

1 cup brown sugar unpacked

¼ tsp. salt

1 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla

4 Tbsp.’s sugar

Aaron slept for another two hours. When he got up he took a long bath. When he came downstairs he went to the library where he found Henry.

“Good morning Aaron,” said Henry. “Please go into the kitchen. Dorothy has a little surprise for you.”

Another “little surprise?” There was nothing little about their help, their “surprises.” I have nothing else to repay them with but, “Thank you.” And I have already said it so many times that I don’t believe it means anything anymore.

But that’s all he had. So, he gave all he had. Henry followed Aaron to the kitchen where Aaron was introduced to butterscotch pie. “That’s so beautiful!” he said. “I’m getting fat on your benefactions.”

“Aaron,” said Henry, “I’m going to help to help you on that score. I’m going to put you to work!”

“Great!” said Aaron. ” I would be honored to work for you today. “Where to Mr. Clark?”

“West and South. South of Green Bay. I’d like to show you something there,” said Henry.

“Terrific,” said Aaron, “But, sir, before we depart, I do have one request.”

“Certainly, Aaron. What is your request,” asked Henry?

“I’d sure like a piece of that pie before we leave.”

“Aaron, you can have two,” laughed Dorothy. “It is all for you.”

Story 20

A Crazy Quilt

The Clark limousine was the only vehicle on State Highway 310. This time Henry sat in the front seat. Bright sunshine was starting to warm the vegetation along the West Twin River. They passed a riding stable and fields of old apple orchards.

“Aaron, turn right on that gravel road just up ahead.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Clark,” said Aaron, smiling as he turned the wheel to the long witch-hazel lined driveway. Soon the gravel gave way to asphalt.

“I want to show you something up ahead,” said Henry.

Several pickup trucks were parked at the end of the road.

Aaron wondered what the trucks had to do with what Mr. Clark wanted to show him.

“Aaron, park behind them. The tucks belong to our hunters/conservators. Today they are hunters here helping to cull the deer population.”

A very loud gun shot rang out. Aaron crouched behind the steering wheel.

“Don’t worry Aaron,” said Henry. “That is the work of deer culling.”

“Mr. Clark, Why are they culling deer?”

“To save wildflower plants for the butterflies.”

“I don’t understand,” said Aaron.

“Come on, Aaron. Follow me.”

“Mr. Clark, Can we sit in the vehicle a little longer? I’m not quite ready to get out yet.”

“Certainly, Aaron, I understand. Let me tell you more about what’s going on and how it came to be.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Aaron.

“Aaron, this area has always been a destination on the flyway of migrating Monarch Butterflies. They love the milkweeds, coneflowers, goldenrod and several other plants that grow naturally here. Dorothy had lots of time on her hands while I was working and she took daily strolls all over the place. About ten summers ago, she came across this area. She was immediately taken by the density and grandeur of the butterfly flocks here. She fell in love with the little critters. So, she took on a, hah, a little restoration project.”

“Mr. Clark, to me it seems that Lady Clark does nothing on a little scale,” said Aaron.

“Well, Aaron, maybe not so little. She had a vision. And competition.”

“Competition? What kind of competition way out here?” asked Aaron.

“Well, look around and you’ll see a bounty of apple orchards.”

“Yes, I see them,” said Aaron.

“The soil here, the dune’s soil, is a perfect setting for apple orchard sprawl. Deer also found the area’s orchards a splendid place to live and multiply. After a few generations of munching on apple blossoms, apple leaves, apple shoots and, of course, apples the deer population grew fat and sassy. Autumn was a deer’s favorite season because the first freeze caused tons of apples to begin to fall to the ground. Deer relished them. They seemed to get drunk on them as they feasted.”

“I understand the townsfolks here imbibe the apples too,” joked Aaron.

“Yes, so very true! Our townsfolks competed with the deer for the fallen fruit in order to turn it into fermented apple cider.”

“Hard apple cider!” said Aaron.

“Very hard!” laughed Henry. He was having a great time again, sharing his roots, revisiting home through Aaron.

“However, Aaron, it was inevitable that the apple orchards would age out and, when this happened, the hordes of deer were in deep trouble. They made supplemental foodstuffs out of everything -- farmers’ corn fields were pillaged; hayfields were levelled; family Christmas tree farms were nibbled down to the ground. That wasn’t enough. The deer invaded backyard gardens and front yard lawns. In short, they ate anything and everything.”

“So, what could be done about it? It sounds to me like a losing battle with nature,” said Aaron.

“Well, yes, something was done in an attempt to restore the balance. The Two Rivers Liquor Dealers Association came up with the idea of advertising deer hunting. It did so by inviting hunters to come to the dunes, bag as many deer as they wanted and the Association will pay for all the costs of dressing out the carcasses, filleting out the meat and mounting antler trophies.”

“Did that work?” asked Aaron.

“Yes, the promotion worked quite well. Tourism jumped off the charts. Rooming houses and saloons were kept full; gun dealers were bursting with profit. But while the deer were becoming scarcer and the vegetation was reviving, the community was happy, but the Association was becoming poorer all the time. The good idea turned sour the promotion was rescinded. Once the hunting stopped, the herds quickly began rebuilding and the same problems resurfaced. Then another idea was proposed.”

“It seems like it would take almost a miracle to turn the tide on Mother Nature’s hold on things,” responded Aaron.

“Aaron, you’re right, but when my best friend William Baetz stepped into the fray, for Dorothy’s sake, the scale was turned in our favor.”

“What did he do Mr. Clark?”

“William used his influence with the Manitowoc County Board to draft and pass an ordinance creating one annual day for local deer hunters to bag as many deer as they wanted in one specially designated area.”

“And was that designated area was right here in the dunes?” asked Aaron.

“Yes. Correct. It started here and was bounded by the West Twin River on the east, County Highway on the north, VV and to the west by State Highway 310. It’s not a big area so hunters really had to be sober and careful.’

“Of course,” said Aaron.

Calm and dispassionate triggering.
“In exchange for one-day-a-year deer hunting privileges, the hunters had to provide one-day-a-year work on this very spot, The Dorothy Clark Butterfly Garden. Hunters were delighted for this opportunity to be almost surely guaranteed to bag not one but several bucks (and does.) And this without all the hassle of getting licensed, driving a hundred miles up north to maybe bag a buck, and then having to report and register the kill with the local Department of Natural Resources. The garden benefitted by having a one-day volunteer corps of farmers and tradesmen to work on projects such as establishing and repairing fences, building a boardwalk all the way across the marsh to the West Twin, and removing invasive species like purple loosestrife and buckthorn. This made them special hunter/conservators.”

“Thank you, Mr. Clark. I am now quite ready to get out of the car.”

They walked towards a group of men seated on picnic benches outside the garden. Many of these hunters/conservators happened to be Clark’s employees. When they saw Henry and Aaron and Some were loading their shotguns, some while drinking a little beer. When they saw Henry, they waved to him and greeted him with loud welcomes and hailed salutations. One of the men pointed his shotgun up into the air and discharged both barrels.

Aaron’s jumped.

Henry saw this and rubbed Aaron’s shoulder to help him get back down to earth. The fellow who discharged his gun saw Aaron’s reaction and said, “Mr. Clark, it looks like your new driver never heard the retort of a real gun.”

“Something like that,” said Henry. “Something like that,” he repeated and the man felt shamed because he knew, by Henry’s repetition, that something else was going on there. To get back on Henry’s good graces the man said, “Mr. Clark,

you look great.”

“There is no better employer than Mr. Henry Clark,” said another.

“Three cheers for Mr. Henry Clark,” said a third.

“HURRAH! HURRAH! HURRAH!”

After the blandishments, Henry said with a broad smile, “Gentlemen, I expect to see each and every one of you tomorrow! And, I’d like to introduce to you Mr. Aaron Schmidt. He’s my new driver.”

One man approached Aaron and extended his hand. He asked, “Are you related to the old Schmidts of T.R?”

“I think all Schmidts are related in one way or another,” said Aaron shaking the man’s hand.

“Good luck with your culling gentleman,” said Henry and he led Aaron past them to The Dorothy Clark Butterfly Garden. The garden was protected by a ten-foot tall, heavy, steel mesh wire fence that was topped by barb wire. It was daunting in deflecting deer raid parties.

Aaron opened the garden gate for Henry. Bees hummed in the wind as they fetched pollen from viable zinnias.

Inside the men took a seat on a cedar bench. Henry showed Aaron the small brass tag on its back dedicating the bench to Dorothy’s parents. That helped Aaron square himself for the frivolity of a butterfly garden in a world earnest for destruction. But he saw hope for next year in the milkweeds bending low to the ground, overwrought with half-opened black pods the size of small zucchinis, the seeds waiting for a wind tossed dissemination.

“Have you ever been to a butterfly garden?” asked Henry.”

“No, Mr. Clark. Never. But, I once ate a Monarch Butterfly.”

“That’s must have been some awful experience,” said Henry.

“Yes sir, quite true. I’ll never forget the taste. It happened on the morning of my eighth or ninth birthday. I was out digging for worms for bait on a sunny but very cool morning in my aunt’s garden because I was going out fishing later that afternoon with my uncle and cousin. I saw a butterfly perched at eye level on a milkweed. It just sat there motionless. I thought it was odd that it didn’t move.”

“It couldn’t move Aaron. It was probably paralyzed in the chilly morning air,” said Henry.

“Oh, now I see. Back then, for whatever reason, I didn’t think twice about grabbing it and putting it in my mouth. I thought it would probably taste like butter or something sweet like that. When I bit into it, the taste was so putrid, I spit it right out Mr. Clark, then ran inside, pointed to my mouth, and told my aunt what I had done. She told me, calmly smiling, that Monarch Butterflies are a little poisonous. I asked her if I was going to die? She laughed, hugged me and reassured me that I was not going to die because she had the perfect antidote on hand: chocolate milk, and lots of it. That sounded good and it took the bad taste away. I asked my aunt, ‘Auntie, why does it taste like poison?’ She said it’s from the chemicals of their food source: milkweed plants. The chemicals build up inside them to give butterflies a poisonous defense against predators like frogs, birds, mice, and lizards.”

“And little boys!” added Henry.

“I swore to my aunt that I’d never eat another butterfly and that I’d warn my friends about them too.”

“That’s some story Aaron,” said Henry. “Dorothy has scores of books about butterflies. I enjoy looking at them in the library every now and then. There are wonderful pictures, and very interesting, detailed information. For example, the name, butterfly, comes from the Old English word, ‘buterfleoge,’ a word that means what it sounds like, butter flying.”

“That’s funny,” said Aaron.

“Yes, it is. And, even though butter doesn’t have wings, butterflies made Wisconsin’s dairy industry soar with success. We are known as ‘America’s Dairyland,’ due in large part to the butterfly pollinators. Dorothy thinks butterflies are the most wonderful animals in the world.”

Before Aaron had a chance to respond, he flinched and ducked his shoulders at the sound of two thundering pop-pop explosions from the extraction event.

“I am sorry Mr. Clark. There are some things I’ll never get over.”

“Aaron, this garden is here because Dorothy wants to leave something beautiful behind her. Maybe you and I will be able to leave something good too.”

“Mr. Clark, that was beautiful. I’d love to leave my wounds behind to help someone else.”

Another set of pop-pops and the men rose and walked to the car.

“Aaron, I do have one more excursion for us.”

“Please show me the way,” answered Aaron.

“Okay! Pull out on State Highway 310 and turn west. Keep going until you see Highway 141 North,” said Henry. They drove past 35 miles of farms, barns and silos. Crossing the Fox River, Aaron spotted a now familiar sight.

“Mr. Clark! Over there? That steel tower? Is it one of yours?”

“Yes. It’s one of the Coast Guard towers. That one’s our neighbor. That’s where we’re headed.”

Once again, they climbed a tower’s steel stairs, Aaron without pausing, Henry at a much slower pace. At the top, there were two binoculars on a table but no volunteers. Aaron’s breath was taken away, not by the climb, but by the sight. In every direction was a “God-Would-Even-Believe-In-God” sweeping view, 40 miles of autumn woods, of shoreline and of a green bay.

From 60 feet up, everything seemed, for once, to be in exactly the right place, a stability that Aaron craved without knowing it. He went adrift on the muscle memory of sound. Nothing but stillness. Could it be from the ancient Anicinaabe Village that this Tower stood over?

Aaron closed his eyes and held his breath to listen harder. Then he heard something far away, something kind of screechy. He turned to the west. Henry saw him turn. “No, Aaron. It’s not coming from the east.”

Aaron turned and covered his eyes with his hands to better listen.

It was getting louder. It sounded like the squeal of train brakes.

Enough to scare a cat.

The air vibrated.

The tower seemed to pulse.

Aaron’s hands felt electrified.

It was the sound of something you’d have to identify if you were intended prey.

Is the north shedding cinders?

Are the lacrosse players taking the field?

Is there no direction left for dissent?

No.

Just the play of an uncut prehistoric sound overhead.

“What is it Mr. Clark? I’ve heard all kinds of unearthly wailings before but never anything like this.”

“Aaron you’re reading way too much into this. It’s just sandhill cranes, migrating, like they always do this time of year. That’s your last surprise today. I love coming up here and wishing them well,” said Henry.

Another win for the peninsula!

Aaron reached into his pocket for the beach stone he had reserved for himself. He dropped it down over the side, wishing birds and men well. Things don’t always turn out well. Most times what is left is left undone.

A mild plop was heard behind them, and then to both sides of them, then all over the deck.

Henry shouted, “We need to cover our heads! It’s raining poop!!”

Greg Scheuer

06/11/2023