What Is a Ghost Town?

I hope that my readers had a good weekend. Travalon and I were kind of tired on Friday evening, so we just went to the Cherokee Country Club for fish. Saturday we slept in, then we went to a new coffee place called Finca on Rimrock Road. It has very cute Salvadoran décor and delicious South American treats on the menu. We drove out to Sauk, where we saw two eagles sitting in the tree on the island, and we took a long walk on the riverside path. We drove back to Merrimac to check out the view of Lake Wisconsin from that park again, and I took a bunch of photos. There were a surprising number of boats out – I mean, it was a relatively nice day, but kind of cold if you didn’t keep moving. Then we drove up Highway U, checking out some gorgeous views of the lake and the river, ending up at a remote spot where we could see a large island out in the river called Lib Cross. Then we took the ferry back across the river, since this may be our last chance this year – it stops a week from today. We had been listening to the Badger game in the car, and right when we passed Okee it was halftime, so we stopped into Fitz’s and watched the second half there with some very friendly regulars. No random tourists (other than the two of us) this time of year! The Badgers won! We had dinner there after the game was over and then headed home. What a wonderful day!

Yesterday after Mass, Travalon, Richard Bonomo, the other bass from our choir, another guy from our parish, and I tried to go to brunch at Rockhound. Unbeknownst to us, they had just decided to stop doing Sunday brunch that week due to staffing issues, so we ended up at Lakeside Café. It was crazy there, but we did find a big enough table downstairs, where we had interesting conversations. Travalon and the other bass are both big fans of prog rock, which is not my favorite genre, but I do like some of it, like Jethro Tull. Travalon and I went for an invigorating hike at Blue Mounds State Park, which was icy but not too cold. (For once, the weekend was nicer than Monday – it is so cold today!) We tried to find another ghost town too, but there is literally nothing left of it, so we weren’t sure which cornfield it was under. It was called Pokerville, and there are some things named after it in the area, and after the founder, a guy named Brigham. The thing is, when I think of ghost towns, I picture those places out west with empty buildings and not a soul around. There are plenty of people living in what used to be Pokerville, it’s just they are on farms and not gathered into a town, unless you count Blue Mounds, which is a little to the east. I just think I have a fundamental disagreement with what this book is calling a “ghost town,” and who’s to say which of us is right? When we got back to town, we had dinner at Amber Indian Restaurant, and then we went home to watch the Packers game we had taped. We had been careful not to find out the score, but as soon as we turned on the TV to watch the recording, it was set on the NFL channel, and a banner ran across the bottom of the screen giving the final score of the game. So we already knew the Packers won, but much to Travalon’s amusement, I still kept yelling at the players: “Move! You’ll get sacked! Tackle him! Are you even clear on your job here?” Of course Joe Buck was announcing the game, and he hates the Packers so he wasn’t even the least bit neutral, so I was badmouthing him and also Jimmy Graham “the slow white man,” who is generally a useless player, although he did have a good play yesterday. I guess to me half the fun of watching football is keeping up a running commentary, which makes it really embarrassing to watch it in public. I kept catching myself yelling at the screen at Fitz’s too – well, maybe the Badgers need my advice as much as the Packers do!

Famous Hat