Tamarack River Ghost

by Jerry Apps

  “So, what’s up?” he asked again.

  “Our research proposal to National Affiliated Hog Producers has been approved. Can you believe it? We’re getting the money,” she gushed.

  “Thanks to your hard work,” Randy said, smiling broadly.

  “They were your ideas, Dr. Oakfield. Ideas that for sure caught their attention.”

  The two climbed the stairs to Randy’s office. Randy slid into the chair behind his desk, and Emily sat across from him. They both knew that lots of work lay ahead, for putting together a research project was no small task. They also knew that both of them would benefit greatly from the project—he on his way to gaining tenure, she getting research data for her dissertation.

  Dr. Evans poked his head in. “Congratulations, Randy. I got the news this morning that your proposal was approved. Let me know how I can help further.”

  “Thanks, we appreciate your support. Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us,” Randy said. He looked at Emily when he said it.

  Randy was a little skittish about National Affiliated Hog Producers as a funding source for the project; its members consisted of the major hog producers in the United States, including Nathan West Industries. But Evans as well as the staff at National Affiliated Hog Producers had assured him there would be no conflict of interest. “You have complete freedom to develop the project as you see fit—following the plan you submitted to us, of course,” the NAHP research project coordinator said.

  When Randy had mentioned the potential conflict of interest of the pork industry financing a research project about attitudes toward big pork producers, the department chair scoffed. “It’s dang hard to find financing these days. The federal government is cutting back on research. The state hasn’t got any money. I suppose we could have submitted the proposal to one of the big environmental groups, but they are so biased against big agriculture that you’d have a tough time running the project without them interfering.”

  Randy agreed Evans was probably right. He wanted to say that maybe the big producers might be a bit biased in what they wanted to see as research results as well, but he decided not to bring up the topic. He didn’t want to do anything to prevent the research money from coming in—he needed the funding. In addition to this research project, he was also developing a new theoretical model for explaining the economics of integrated agricultural systems. Data from the new research project could feed into his new model.

  That afternoon Randy and Emily worked on finalizing the survey instrument they planned to use. They’d earlier constructed the questionnaire form and had field tested it with a small group of land owners to detect any problems with the wording. They had been sitting on the project for several weeks as they awaited a decision on funding.

  The project amounted to drawing a random sample of property owners in Iowa communities with large, confined hog operations. They wanted to assess people’s attitudes toward these operations—whether they liked having large hog operations in their neighborhoods or not, what benefits they saw, and what negative features they were aware of. Now, since Randy knew about NWI’s plans for the Tamarack River Valley, they would sample residents in Ames County, with a subsample from people living in the Tamarack River Valley. Questions would relate to what residents thought about the company locating in the valley.

  Randy glanced up at the clock. “It’s past five,” he said. “You have time tomorrow to finish this up—another couple hours should do it.”

  “Sure,” Emily said. “I’ve got time tomorrow. I have another idea. Come over to my apartment tonight for supper. We need to celebrate a little. It isn’t every day that money for a major project comes through. I’ll ask some others to come as well. We’ll have a little celebration.”

  “Nah, I’d better not. You go ahead, though. Sounds like a good idea.”

  “But you’ve got to be there; you’re the project leader.”

  “I’ve got hours of journal reading to catch up on.”

  “Dr. Oakfield, you need a night away from the books,” Emily said firmly. But she was smiling.

  “Thanks anyway. You go ahead and celebrate. I’ve got work to do.”

  Randy felt good. It isn’t every day that an assistant professor landed a major research grant. He could already imagine several journal articles where he would discuss his new theoretical model for understanding the economics of integrated agricultural systems. He thought about the words “associate professor” behind his name, which would tell everyone that he had indeed earned tenure at the prestigious University of Wisconsin–Madison. He also was pleased that he had such an able assistant working with him. Emily was a joy to work with, and she was smart and filled with good ideas.

  Randy, as was his custom, was at his desk in Agriculture Hall by 7:30 the following morning. He was ready to wrap up the final work on the research questionnaire. Emily breezed into the office shortly after eight. She greeted the office administrator and receptionist and walked to her desk. On the way, she poked her head through Randy’s open office door. “Good morning, Dr. Oakfield,” she said. She was her bubbly self—one of her strong features was a pleasant personality. She got along with everyone in the department, which was certainly a plus, for graduate students, whether it was always true or not, saw themselves on the bottom of the academic pecking order. Since she and her major professor had just won a big research grant, she knew she would have to be even more pleasant. Several of her fellow graduate students had little or no funding for their research projects and certainly had a right to envy her good fortune. She now had a half-time salaried appointment to do research, the same research that she could use for her dissertation.

  “When do you want to work on the questionnaire?” she asked. She was obviously all business this morning, with no thoughts of partying and celebration.

  “Give me five minutes to catch up on my e-mail,” Randy said as he typed on the keyboard in front of his computer screen. The two of them worked most of the morning, fine-tuning the questionnaire that they would send to a random sample of landowners in an Iowa county with several large hog operations and to a sample of land owners in Ames County.

  Their research strategy was to send the questionnaires through the mail and then follow up with phone calls to those who did not respond in ten days.

  “We should get at least a 75 percent response,” said Emily.

  “That seems pretty high to me,” Randy said. “If we get something over 50 percent, I’ll be happy.”

  “We’ll do better than that, a lot better than that,” Emily said.

  12. Big Hog Farm Coming

  Large Hog Operation Planned

  Farm Country News, October 20

  Nathan West Industries (NWI) of Dubuque, Iowa, this week has announced its plans to build a major hog production center in Ames County. This third-largest agribusiness firm in the United States has purchased the former Tamarack River Golf Course for its operation. The land has stood vacant since the golf course and condominium development recently declared bankruptcy. NWI has worked out a favorable purchase agreement with the bank, which held the mortgage.

  NWI plans to build a complex of buildings and operate a farrow-to-finish operation, which means pigs will be born and not leave the facility until they are shipped to NWI’s slaughterhouse in Dubuque. NWI plans to house 3,000 sows at this state-of-the-art facility, and farrow some 75,000 hogs a year. The operation will be similar to other farrow-to-finish outfits the company owns and operates in Iowa and North Carolina.

  Oscar Anderson and Fred Russo sat at a table in the back corner of Christo’s in Tamarack Corners, a small village about fifteen miles from Willow River, on the banks of the Tamarack River. The building housing Christo’s, once known as the River View Supper Club, was built in the 1930s for the tourists pouring into the area from Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, and other major cities. It had done well until the early 2000s. A fellow from Milwaukee, a chef by training, name of Alexis Christo, and his wife, Costandi
na, bought out the place in 2010, renamed it Christo’s, and completely remodeled it. The tourist crowds began finding the place once more, and so did the locals who had driven by without stopping in recent years. Alexis left the old bar part of the supper club mostly the way it was. Here one could find pickled eggs floating in brine, pickled pork hocks, enormous dill pickles, and a tray of fresh cheese curds—fresh most of the time. Since Wisconsin passed its smoking ban, the smells inside the saloon had changed from secondhand smoke and stale beer to a subtle tangle of the stale beer and the various pickled things on the bar.

  Fred and Oscar liked to meet at Christo’s for their regular Wednesday-morning coffee. They had refused to join the old-timers’ group, largely made up of retired valley farmers and other retired guys who’d moved back to the valley in recent years. The group met every morning at 8:30 and drank coffee and lied to each other until noon. Oscar said one time, “If that’s all I got to do, drink coffee every morning, you might as well stuff me in a coffin. Besides, those guys are as old as dirt.”

  Truth be known, both Fred and Oscar were older than but one or two of the guys in the old-timers’ group. These two old friends enjoyed coffee once a week; that was enough. Fishing took up much of their other free time.

  Costandina took care of the coffee crowd each morning, and she had even made a little wooden “reserved” sign that she placed on Fred and Oscar’s table every Wednesday morning. When she saw the two come through the door, she knew to pour two cups of coffee, black, and put a fresh morning bun on a little plate in front of each of them.

  “How are you this morning, boys?” she asked.

  “Fair to middlin’,” Oscar would say. “Still walkin’ around,” said Fred.

  She asked the same question every Wednesday morning, and she received the exact same replies each time she asked. No surprises, no break in a long-established routine. Fred and Oscar liked it that way. One of the advantages of country life was its predictability, from the seasons changing, to coffee and morning buns on Wednesday mornings. Change disrupted the quiet predictability no matter where you lived these days, though, and change was coming to Ames County, dramatic change.

  “Fred, did you see the Farm Country News this week?”

  “’Course I saw it; carried it from the mailbox to the house.”

  “I mean, did you read it?” asked Oscar.

  “You didn’t ask if I read it.”

  “Well, I’m asking now. Did you read it?”

  “Read some of it—always read some of it. Sometimes I read all of it. Depends on how much time I got. I’m a pretty busy guy, you know.”

  “Fred, you’re just about as busy as I am, and that ain’t busy at all. We’re just about the laziest old coots livin’ in the Tamarack River Valley.”

  “I rescind that comment,” said Fred.

  “Resent, Fred, resent. Not rescind.”

  “What?” Fred had a perplexed look on his face. “I did read about this big hog company buying the defunct golf course with all those fancy log condoms.”

  “Condos, Fred. They’re called condos.” Oscar smiled. He’d made the same mistake himself.

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it? Well, anyway, what do you think about that?”

  “About what?”

  “About all those pigs coming to our neighborhood?”

  “Don’t think I like it much,” said Oscar. “Pigs stink. They stink to beat hell. I raised pigs when I farmed. Had forty or fifty of them around most of the time. Pig manure stinks. Stinks like hell in the summer. Stinks in the winter, too. Stinks all the time. There’s an upside to raising pigs, though. Always made some money selling pork. Yes, I did. ’Specially during the war. Made lots of money on my pigs then. Paid off my mortgage. Yup, that’s what I did. Paid off my mortgage with those fifty hogs I sent to market every year.”

  “Well, what should we do about it?” asked Fred.

  “About what?”

  “About all them pigs coming to our neighborhood. Paper made it sound like the deal was all signed, sealed, and delivered,” said Fred.

  “Paper did say that, but we can still raise a little hell, put up a little stink of our own. That is, if we want to. They gotta hold some meetings, tell us their plans. They gotta get permits from the DNR, gotta get the zoning changed. They can’t just come in here willy-nilly and plunk down a bunch of stinkin’ pigs without first jumpin’ through a few hoops,” said Oscar.

  “Think it would help if we raised a little ruckus?” asked Fred.

  “Won’t hurt. Gotta do something to keep the Tamarack River Valley from going to hell. Been a good place to live. Good place to farm, too. Don’t think we need any of these big operators comin’ in and changing ever’thin’. Don’t believe we do.”

  “I agree with you there,” said Fred. Costandina came by with coffee refills as the two old friends munched on their big morning buns.

  “Too damn bad we’re still livin’ to see all this stuff goin’ on. Too damn bad,” mused Fred.

  “That sure ain’t no way to be thinkin’, Fred. No way at all. We gotta let folks know about this. Put in our two cents’ worth.”

  “Don’t think it will help one damn bit.”

  “Well, we can still give her a try. Let the big shots know that old codgers don’t just roll over when some big-assed new idea comes floatin’ along. We gotta stand up for what’s right, which means letting them know that this place has a history. Ain’t just some bankrupt golf course on the river,” Oscar said.

  “Yeah, lots of history in the valley, that’s for sure. Wonder if these big shots know about the cemetery in the corner of the golf course, the one where the Dunn family is buried? Wonder if they know that?” asked Fred.

  “Expect they don’t. And I’ll bet these guys wearing their fancy suits don’t know about the Tamarack River Ghost either. They get their operation up and going, they’ll find out right quick, I’ll bet.”

  “That they will. That they will,” said Fred. “I heard that’s why that big fancy golf course with its fancy houses went under. Some of them folks said they heard the ghost dog’s bell tinkling on quiet nights. One fellow, he’d just bought one of the biggest log condos, and was spending his first night there when he heard singing coming from the river. Somebody told him he’d heard the ghost. Scared the hell out of him. He never spent another night there.”

  “Wonder who’s gonna tell these fancy hog company people that there’s a ghost hanging around this river. Wonder who that’s gonna be,” pondered Oscar.

  “Also kind of wonder what effect a big hog farm is gonna have on Tamarack Corners,” mused Fred. “Just got this old supper club all fixed up and doin’ good. Wonder what that pig smell is gonna do to Christo’s business.”

  “Wonder that, too,” said Oscar. “Tamarack Corners ain’t changed a whole lot since we was kids, has it? Always had the Methodist church across the road. Always had the Tamarack Trading Post with the barbershop in back. Barber only works three days a week, but he’s still there. Yup, be a shame to see these places disappear because of the smell of pig manure and hog trucks clogging up the road. Dirty damn shame. Hardly know what folks would do without the Trading Post—they’d have to traipse way off to Willow River to buy a quart of milk or a six-pack of Leinenkugel’s. Same for the barbershop. Who wants to drive fifteen miles for a haircut? Nobody. Not one person.”

  13. Dinner Date

  A conservation warden’s job can be a lonely one, even more so for a young woman in a place where gender roles have been carefully defined and agreed on for generations. Ames County was one of those places. Men did their work; women did their work. When the lines began blurring, eyebrows lifted and people raised questions. For some jobs it didn’t matter much. People generally accepted women as doctors, foresters, even attorneys and veterinarians, but female firefighters and police officers took some getting used to, especially for the old timers. And whoever heard of a lady conservation warden? After all, weren’t conservation wardens s
upposed to enforce the game laws of the state, and weren’t most of the hunters and fishermen men? How could a woman, especially one as petite as Natalie, put the collar on a 250-pound guy who’d just shot a deer out of season? One flick of the big guy’s muscular arm, and she’d be on the ground with a bloody nose and he’d be on his way. Yet, slowly, Natalie had gained the respect of Ames County citizens, especially those who had a history of bending and occasionally breaking a game law or two.

  As a result of her hard work, though, and also because so much of what she did amounted to late-night stakeouts, weekend patrols, and unexpected circumstances—such as a car slamming into a deer at midnight, killing three of its occupants—her free time was not predictable. Thus, she essentially had no social life. This was clearly the downside of her job. Living in the Willow River community didn’t help matters, either. Not many single young people lived in this town of just over three thousand people. When they graduated from Willow River High School, most young people left the community either for college or to find work in the Fox River Valley—Oshkosh, Neenah-Menasha, Appleton, Green Bay. Or in Milwaukee, Madison, or maybe La Crosse or Eau Claire, on the other side of the state.

  A few stayed behind to farm with their parents, work in the forestry business, or become part of the small but steady tourist business that tripled the county’s population during the summer months. And a handful, like Josh Wittmore, left for a few years and returned.

  Josh’s phone jingled twice before he picked it up.

  “Farm Country News, Josh Wittmore.”

  “This is Natalie Karlsen. You got a minute?”

  “Sure,” answered Josh, warily. He remembered her accusing him of tipping off Dan Burman, and he’d decided to avoid her if possible.