Compline in Mauston

If I were Hunter S. Thompson, I might say that I'm in ringed-bag-hunter-dragonfly country. Well, close anyway. I had cranked up Reservoir Tales by The Treats and, before I knew it, I found myself up nort. I'm in lovely Mauston, Wisconsin, USA. Back in the 1840s one General M.M. Maughs of Galena, Illinois took over the local mill and the town was named Maughs Mill. General Maughs platted the town in 1854 and it was renamed Maughstown which eventually got corrupted and became Mauston.

I walked into the motel and my nose was immediately accosted by the smell of chlorine from the pool. Upon checking in, I was informed of a fee for the use of the safe in the room which I could have removed from the bill at check out. No matter. I'm here on business so I'm not footing the bill. My job today (and tomorrow) was to lend an IT hand at the Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center which is home to the Dairyland's finest sex offenders. They come here seeking rehabilitation.

Turning onto North Road, I saw a brace of cranes on the horizon which towered over the facility. Entering the parking lot, I saw what seemed like miles of chain link fence topped with razor wire. The front desk was manned by a gentleman with whom you'd not want to fuck. He was tall and very stout. If you were shooting a movie about ancient Rome but didn't have the money to CGI up yourself some lions, you'd throw the Christians to this guy. After he saw my badge and I had told him that I was an IT geek, it became apparent to me that he was an old softy. If I'd poked him in the belly, I bet he would have giggled like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. My contact came out to get me and I was led back to the IT office.

My hotel is right next to the Park Oasis Restaurant. I've eaten at this family establishment many a time although it's been 20+ years since I've stepped foot inside. You see, my family would stop there on our summer treks to my parents' cabins up in Stone Lake. Mauston is more or less the half way point between Chicago and that gem in Sawyer County. (My sources say that no one really knows how the town got its name.) I remember very well pestering my dad with "How close are we?" as our pine green Econoline van charged up the interstate. It's funny that I should be near the Park Oasis thinking about family trips. This past weekend I was driving around and running errands to the strains of Son Volt. Trace is one of the best driving albums ever and it was in my car, leftover from my drive to Chicago a couple weeks back. "Windfall" is blatantly catchy and uplifting – a perfect way to start any journey. "Live Free" gives the first sign of electric guitars. Despite being a "loud" song, I've always felt this sense of yearning underneath all the rock trappings. Next came "Tear-Stained Eye" which is one of my favorite songs by any musician or band. Plaintive acoustic guitar, the lilting banjo and steel guitar, and Jay Farrar's less than dynamic voice which somehow manages to cut to the bone anyway all conspire to something special.

So there I am driving down Aberg Avenue singing (if you can call what I was doing that) along – "Like a man said, rode hard and put away wet" – and tears begin to well in my eyes. When I get to "you'll find it's better at the end of the line", I'm ready to bawl. I just can't listen to that song anymore. Not alone. Not driving a car. This is because I listened to it many times while driving home from Louisiana after my father's death. There I was speeding up I55 along the Mississippi with a bag of ashes in the back seat and I was cranking Son Volt. Hell, I probably had "Tear-Stained Eye" playing as I passed the exit for St. Genevieve. I never wanted to be home so badly in my life. Too many memories with that song.

Still, Jay Farrar deserves credit for writing great tunes. Even if his lyrics are on the opaque side, I love the way he draws on Midwestern Americana. Drive down I55 sometime by St. Louis and you'll see signs for place names mentioned in his songs – St. Genevieve, Cahokia, Sauget. I also love how he doesn't try to ape old timey music. His songs may be rooted in the past but he's firmly in the present.

We had to check out some computers "out back", i.e. – in the units where the offenders, er, patients live. You leave the administrative building via two doors until you're outside and then get buzzed through a gate. This outside area is like a DMZ. There are people watching from either building but otherwise it's just a big space. Entering the unit, you swipe your ID card so your movement can be tracked and get buzzed in by some guy in what they call a "bubble". I prefer "panopticon" because it sounds cooler and Gallifrey had one in Doctor Who. They are these circular rooms with windows nearly the whole round. The employees are clad in purple polo shirts with "Sand Ridge" emblazoned on them in big friendly letters which rather make them look like concierges at a resort in the Dells rather than those who watch over sex offenders. We looked over PCs in the low and intermediate security wings where the patients were "free" to roam. Some were using computers on a LAN exclusively for them while another guy sitting at a table busts out singing. Sand Ridge is all men – no wing for the fairer sex – and I'm not sure there is such a facility for women. Probably not. It is we men who do the vast majority of the sex crimes. Why is that? There are those who think that our patriarchal society is to blame. You know the mantra – boys are raised to think of women as being sub-par objects whose vaginas are there to be seized when the feeling strikes. Personally, I think it has more to do with testosterone. Our primitive ancestors didn't survive because they sat around wearing tie-dyed fig leaves while listening to the Stone Age equivalent of a Scarlet—Fire jam. Let's face it, we've got angels on our shoulders yet we still wear the old gods horn. And some people are just plain sick fucks.

Sand Ridge holds about 300 patients and the cranes outside are part of an expansion which will double capacity. (But all the beds will be for medium and high security facilities.)

On my way to the motel, I drove by several folks standing on the sidewalk holding placards which declared that family planning causes mental illness and perversion. I can't recall the phrases verbatim but I presume that "family planning" is ChristianRightSpeak for abortion and that they think it leads you down a path towards patient status at Sand Ridge. Or something like that, anyway. Their logic escaped me and I had to wonder just how much family planning those men in vestments who carried out their own wanton, perverted liturgies with young boys did. I darted my eyes to look for a Planned Parenthood or small town equivalent but didn’t see one.

I turned and quickly made the decision for a pitstop at the Dry Gulch Saloon. It was nice to be able to smoke at a bar again and felt like meeting a long lost friend. (However, I'll admit that being able to smoke at the restaurant where I took lunch was just plain weird.) It was hot outside and the air was heavy and sticky. To make matters worse, the AC on my car doesn't work. Not seeing the likes of Spotted Cow on tap, I went with MGD. Despite being a microbrew aficionado, American pilsners can be palatable, especially on hot, humid days. I went with a glass (vs. a mug) and got several ounces of rather bland but extremely refreshing suds for 80 cents. There was just something comforting about being at a small town hole-in-the-wall where you can get a shorty beer for under a buck and enjoy a post-work smoke.

After a couple beers, I made my way to the motel. Upon entering my room, I proceeded to make it cold. I relaxed a bit and perambulated the short distance between the motel and the restaurant in the rain instead of taking the skywalk. The drops of water on my face were refreshing and, in their own way, cleansing.

Crossing the threshold into a childhood memory, I found that the Park Oasis Restaurant hadn't changed very much since I was last there. It had the same log cabin look and the large sunroom seating area. Finding a booth, I was soon greeted by a waitress who called me "Hon". I love that kind of thing. "Are you ready to order, Hon?", "Are you doin' OK there, Hon?" It makes me feel like I'm in an episode of Alice. Plus the gal took no (visible) offense to me calling her ma'am. Waitresses here in Madison take such stabs at politeness as fightin' words. If you are reading this and happen to be a waitress here in Madison, please understand that the dorking looking guy with a Porcupine Tree t-shirt means no offense when calling you ma'am. He doesn't know you from Eve and so he refrains from addressing you by your first name. Please understand he grew up a long time ago when people showed respect by addressing total strangers as "sir" or "ma'am" instead of immediately launching into a completely fake and meaningless attempt at being on a first name basis. In addition to the interior décor, a couple other things hadn't changed since I was there in the mid-1980s. First there was the music. "All I Need Is a Miracle" by Mike and the Mechanics was followed by Pure Prairie League's "Amie". Whoever was responsible for the tunes had apparently stopped paying attention to pop music shortly after my last visit.

To round out the trifecta of timelessness was the menu. At first glance, it seemed that no concessions had been made to the previous 20+ years of dietary trends, fads, and general attempts to make people view eating as evil instead of life sustaining. Vegetarians wouldn't have liked it but they could have eked out a meal with the salad bar and an appetizer. On the other hand, vegans would have taken one look at the menu and felt persona non grata before fleeing. No insets declared fried items to be trans fat free nor was there a Heart Smart logo anywhere as I'm sure no picture of a heart suitable for this menu could accurately portray clogged arteries or do justice to myocardial infarction. Most of the items on the menu were organic inasmuch as they were derived from or formerly part of a living entity but none of the entities were raised locally so locavores would have been out of luck. Aside from the prices, the only sign that the menu had been altered since the Reagan era was, to my surprise and delight, the beer menu which included no less than five Leinenkugel's offerings as well as Capital's Amber and Island Wheat.

I went with the walleye in tribute to my dad and because it's quite tasty. While even Rachel Ray has nothing to fear, it was a warm meal. Back in my room, I continued reading Chalmers Johnson's Blowback. At some point in the coming days I'm sure I'll write about it, but for now, I want to merely say that it is a very interesting and humbling read. One reason this should be so is that Johnson dwells on his specialty – East Asia. Reading the book serves to show just how ignorant I am about Japan, China, Korea, and other East Asian countries. Quite apart from the author's views on American foreign policy, Joe and Jane Six-Pack ought to read this book for the background material alone. Although still woefully ignorant, I'm a thousand times more informed about China and its motivations than I was before I started the book and I'm only about two thirds through it.