The ribbon-cutting ceremonies continued apace, the politicians working their way ever southward. At the Northfield stop they were greeted by square-dancers. At another, the lieutenant governor was presented with an archer’s bow and arrows. From atop one dais a local mayor reportedly got a laugh when he turned the tables on the assembled dignitaries and instead designated the accumulated citizens as “the most distinguished guests” because “I can assure you they’re going to be paying for it.” At various stops the lieutenant governor was assisted in his scissoring by a Strawberry Queen, a 4-H Queen, an Indianhead Princess, and a petite girl of ten known as “the Christmas tree girl.” In some cases the phrase “ribbon-cutting” was euphemistic: In Hixton suspense was high as a “bevy of beauties” presented the lieutenant governor with a series of keys, only one of which opened the lock on a fence across the roadway; at Northfield he “took a half a dozen whacks with a mighty wire clipper” before the barricade dropped.
The final ceremony was held in Black River Falls. Here the Leader reports the lieutenant governor was “decked out in a crimson wool hunting shirt” and greeted with “a first class pow-wow.” As he approached the final fluttering barrier, “Winnebago Indians danced to the thump of the tom-tom and chant of the singers while around 2,000 persons happily chomped on venisonburgers.” Snip, and at 3:48 p.m. the last ribbon fluttered earthward. It would be another year before the interstate was open border to border, but Tom Hartwig’s farm was now officially cloven.
It could have been worse: In the original plan, the ’dozers were aimed directly at the barn. At this Tom pitched his most resolute fit, and the bureaucrats rerouted the destruction, if only by a few feet. It was Tom’s only victory, really. He nicked them in the ankles now and then, gummed the works some, wangled a few loads of free sand, and still has an old push broom one of the state crews left behind, but when the final piece of heavy equipment clanked from view and the last politician tootled through en route home from the ribbon-cutting, well, then, without apology America came pouring down the meadow in a tin-and-windows blur of rubber-borne hurry running ceaseless to this very instant.
I can make no special claim on Tom Hartwig. The path to his door was well worn by a parade of feet other than my own before I first crossed his threshold, and so it is right through the present. I visit him whenever I need a piece of iron cut, bent, or welded. Sometimes I visit in the company of my wife and two daughters; we bring food and stay for supper. Sometimes I visit to drop off a dozen eggs. Sometimes I visit just to visit. I rarely come to Tom seeking anything more than ten minutes of his time and a size-sixty-eleven welding rod. He is not my mentor, I am not his acolyte, we are simply neighbors. And yet with each visit I accrue certain clues to comportment— as a husband, as a father, as a citizen. (I also accrue certain clues regarding the fabrication of cannons, the rebuilding of Farmall tractors, and how to run a sawmill, although due to my profound mechanical ineptitude, any observations I might make in these areas should be regarded as anecdotal rather than instructional.)
During any visit with Tom, there is no ignoring the roaring four-lane that splits his lifelong home. A man could go sour for the mortal duration after suffering an intrusion of this magnitude. And truth is, you won’t have to prime the pump much to get an earful of Tom’s abiding disdain for the government and its bulldozers. But then just as quickly he will shift gears and happily update you on this year’s wild grape harvest (“Thirty-eight pounds, destemmed!”) or spring from his chair to show you the heron his father shot and stuffed in 1920. He is not one to forget; neither is he one to fruitlessly linger.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to:
First and foremost, my parents—anything decent is because of them, anything else is simply not their fault.
…the people in and around “Nobbern” who make it my favorite place in the world. Members of the NAAFD, past and present. The Chetek ambulance and fire crews, Bloomer ambulance and fire crews, and the “Silver Star” crews—it’s a privilege to be out there with you. Frank, clear back to Galloway. The Bruce for early seeds, late rumbles. Magnuson, for garage rants and intercession. Jayne, cool and true. McDowell family. Mrs. Rehrauer. John Hildebrand. A, B, and C. Racy’s, for much coffee. Kris and Frank, for food and football. Shimon Lindemann (Whitelaw Johnie and his Mystery Date). Bill and Wilda. Adrienne Miller, Darcy Frey, Ilena Silverman, Susan Orlean, Karen Croft, for a hand along the way. Everyone who came to the readings over the years. And in the big city, Lisa Bankoff, Alison Callahan, Patrick (he of Obscure Powers) Price, and Liz Farrell.
…Esquire, Salon, Hope Magazine, Orion, Troika, Word, Brevity, No Depression, Discovery Online, and The World & I, for publishing essays from which some of the material for this book was drawn.
…the volunteers everywhere, and to the professionals who do it every day, setting the bar for us amateurs.
…the memory of Robert Jones and Waylon Jennings.
If I missed you, drop by. But do announce yerself….
About the Author
Michael Perry lives in rural Wisconsin and online at www.sneezingcow.com.
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Praise for Population: 485
“Swells with unadorned heroism. He’s the real thing.”
—USA Today
“In the best tradition of books that pay quiet homage to community service, place, and the men and women who live there. A perfectly pitched celebration of small-town life.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“This is a quietly devastating book—intimate and disarming and lovely.”
—Adrienne Miller, Esquire
“I have been waiting for thirty years for a fresh and talented voice to rise out of the volunteer fire service in America, and finally it has arrived in Michael Perry’s Population: 485. Perry is a firefighter/EMT and he makes you feel you are responding right along with him to fires, auto wrecks, even suicides, and his hard work is told with the thoughtfulness and gracefulness of a first responder who cares about people, his town, our country, and the world we live in. But this is more than a book about a small-town fire department. It is a literary venture told on the cusp of service to his community—all written with a soft human touch by an intuitive writer with a distinctive and refined American style. Firefighters and EMTs will be talking about this book for a long time to come. And so will all readers who have a love for American literature. This is a small-town story in the big tradition of Sherwood Anderson and James Agee.”
—Dennis Smith, author of Report from Ground Zero
“My heart goes out to anybody who knows—and writes as well as Michael Perry does—about rural small-town life. His book is often funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but always full of life, characters, and the tangled web of small-town history, daily drama, and strain of occasional weirdness that make country living such a challenge and an adventure. New Auburn, Wisconsin, sounds a lot like Pleasant Valley, New York, except colder in the winter, so I felt immediately at home reading Population: 485. If there’s one thing I admire more than a man who can go home again, and does, and happily, it’s a volunteer firefighter. Mr. Perry’s account of firefighting is scary, inspiring, and renews my gratitude toward our own, to whom I owe much. He has written a joy of a book, as gnarly, stubborn, courageous, and full of eccentricity in all its forms as country life itself.”
—Michael Korda
“Minnesota has Garrison Keillor…neighboring Wisconsin has Michael Perry. If you read one nonfiction title this autumn, make it this one. It’s that good.”
—Sunday Oklahoman
“Population: 485 is bound to be one of the best nonfiction books of the year…. Filled with moments of tenderness, humor, and just plain goofiness as it takes us into the lives and homes of the inhabitants of one small town…. Makes for riveting reading.”
—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“Part portrait of a place, part rescue m
anual, part rumination of life and death, Population: 485 is a beautiful meditation on the things that matter.”
—Seattle Times
“Finely crafted, hard-to-come-by honesty.”
—Hope magazine
“With self-effacing humor, stellar wit, and phenomenal writing, Perry gives an intelligent, articulate voice to small-towners…. Powerful, engaging, and often hilarious.”
—The Phantom Tollbooth
“Somewhere between Garrison Keillor’s idyllic, sweet Lake Wobegon and the narrow-mindedness of Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street lies the reality of small-town life. This is where Michael Perry lives.”
—St. Paul Pioneer Press
“May simply be the best book about small-town life ever written.”
—Wisconsin State Journal
“Humorous, poignant.”
—Chicago Tribune
“A remarkable new book, sometimes comic—sometimes sad.”
—Los Angeles Times
Also by Michael Perry
Truck: A Love Story
Off Main Street
Big Rigs, Elvis & the Grand Dragon Wayne
Why They Killed Big Boy…and Other Stories
Never Stand Behind a Sneezing Cow (CD)
I Got It from the Cows (CD)
Credits
Cover photographs © 2003 by J. Shimon and J. Lindemann, Photographers
Copyright
This is a work of nonfiction. In some instances, names, locations, and other identifying details have been changed to protect individual privacy.
POPULATION: 485. Copyright © 2002 by Michael Perry. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JULY 2007 ISBN: 9780061852978
Version 07132012
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