Fearful Symmetries: The Corona Diaries Vol 42: To pass an evening with a drink and a couple friends

(late November 2021)

Like a fool I'd been putting off using my vacation time. November had crept up on me and I found myself with several days of paid time off to use before 2022 rolled in so I scheduled a few days off earlier this month and planned a trek up north. The Frau's work situation didn't allow her to take a break from her job on short notice so I was to go it alone.

So be it.

I simply needed to go somewhere else, to get away from my workaday life, and have a change of scenery. Last year I'd hoped to make a trek to the northwestern part of the state but didn't manage to do so. I've been wanting to hike the Chippewa Moraine State Recreation Area since 2009 when my Frau and I stopped at the interpretive center there atop a hill and watched hummingbirds drink their lunch as a storm went by to the south. It had been on my to-do list for far too long.

When my dear brother died, it really made me aware of how short life is and put the zap on my brain. We had talked about doing some traveling together, including a trek to New Orleans and The National WWII Museum where we'd check out the exhibits and reminisce about the old man. Our father was a big World War II history buff and responsible for me writing a paper when I was in the 3rd grade about the attack on Pearl Harbor and for my brother being able to distinguish between Mk III and Mk IV Panzer tanks at a glance. But those trips never transpired. Plus, I found some unfinished stories he had written amongst his effects. Too many words left unsaid and too many things left undone and then it was too late.

Carpe diem!

I left home on a grey and cloudy Wednesday morning with my first stop being Osseo, about 160 miles straight up I94. It's a rather nondescript town of 1,700 and I suspect that most people who know of it do so because there's a Norske Nook there. The small chain is known for its pies and Norwegian-inflected menu which includes generous amounts of lingonberries and lefse aplenty.

There is a Norske Nook just outside of Madison so I wasn't there for the food. Instead, I was to meet up with a couple of high school classmates that I hadn't seen in long time – decades, in fact. Earlier this year I had gotten in contact with Jason after finding an old email from a former co-worker with his email address in it. Long story involving baseball nerds. The message was buried deep in my inbox for several years and I fortuitously happened upon it while searching for a different missive.

Jason is the world's foremost authority on baseball in Eau Claire, a small city about 20 miles up the road from Osseo. He is the author of Baseball in Eau Claire and Diamonds in Clear Water: Professional Baseball in Eau Claire, 1886-1912. Furthermore, his expertise was tapped for the documentary about Hank Aaron's brief stint playing ball for the Eau Claire Bears in the summer of 1952, Henry Aaron's Summer Up North.

Jason had recently run into another classmate of ours, Nick, and he committed to joining our little gathering. Rather than being an expert on sports, Nick specializes in backs and necks at his chiropractory or whatever you call it in a nearby town.

As I settled in at my hotel room, a feeling of unease came over me. Osseo wasn't really my quondam stomping grounds as I did not spend a lot of time nor have any traumatic experiences there so it wasn't because of the town itself. I lived and spent my high school years mainly a little to the west and northwest of Osseo. And I didn't feel particularly nervous about meeting old friends. Indeed, I was really looking forward to it. My mind, however, was knee deep in this familiar, though long-buried, sense of not belonging.

I left the area when I was 18 because I knew that small town life in west central Wisconsin was just not for me. This isn't an insult against those who call small towns or that part of the state home, it's simply that I knew that my future did not lie there. I visited the area, though not Osseo, on a fairly regular basis for about 13 years after having moved away so it wasn't like I was returning for the first time since high school. My suspicion is that this was due to the bad old days of high school being so prominent on this visit. My brain must have gotten a few wires crossed and some atavistic teenage feelings seeped into the present to make for an odd emotional palimpsest.

As best I could recall, I'd seen neither Jason nor Nick since graduation when George Bush, Sr. was still president. The three of us were to meet up at the Northwoods Brewpub. I arrived first and didn't see anyone that looked like an old classmate so I grabbed a seat at the bar, opened a book, and ordered a beer.

I'd been to the brewpub when it was located in Eau Claire but not since it had moved to its new digs in Osseo. I just love their Rowdy Rye ale and think it's one of the best beers in the state. Unfortunately, it was not on offer so I went with a Lil' Bandit Brown Ale.

It was quite tasty. Not too sweet and with more of a roasted grain flavor (vs. caramel) than I expected. Good stuff.

After a few minutes, someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up and saw Jason clad in - quelle surprise - a baseball cap. I got up and gave him a big hug. My unease immediately dissipated. He took a seat and we began chatting away. After a short time, someone else approached us. I looked up to see a gentleman with perfect posture. Nick had finally arrived.

Over the course of a few hours, we caught up on what we'd been doing over the past 30-odd years and threw in a healthy dose of reminiscing as well. I explained that I had come up north to do a bit of hiking and just get away from things. Jason remarked at one point that someone in the area had been attacked by a bear.

Gulp! I'd never seen a bear in those parts when I lived there. Well, hopefully I would not run into one in my travels.

I was amazed at how much I had forgotten over the years. As we chatted, memories came flooding back – of teachers and classmates that escaped my mind as well as sundry events that had lain hidden in the dark and dusty corners of my brain until that night.

For instance, a comment about our typing teacher reminded me of how what was surely tens of thousands of dollars of computers remained in boxes and so we were relegated to learning our keyboarding skills on old electric typewriters which were, as a technology, on the way out and had also been used to teach many of the parents of my classmates. And then something else rattled things up in the grey matter and I remembered a friend and I being chased by a kid in the grade behind us. For reasons I cannot recall, he was angry at us and was intent on expressing his anger with a shotgun. Someone drove us away at high speed and the chase was on. We eventually got enough distance between us that we could be dropped off next to a corn field fairly close to home unseen and we made our escape by running through it into some woods.

Ah, the good ol' days.

It was great to pass the time with such wonderful company. While I wasn't quite sure what 30+ years would do, for my part, I found it quite easy to slip into a loose, laid-back rapport with my former classmates. A few decades didn't seem to have diminished our abilities to enjoy one another's company. Looking back, I find it funny that none of us took any photos. In this day and age of everyone having a camera at their disposal at all times, the thought didn't even cross my mind. Perhaps next time.

The day had been overcast when I arrived in Osseo and it was pouring that night when we left the brewpub. My plan was to walk a stretch of the Buffalo River State Trail the next morning figuring that the rain would depart overnight so that I could get a nice, early stroll in before heading north again. Well, that didn't quite work out as planned.

It was still raining when I awoke and the end of it was not forecasted to be until late in the morning. I saw that the trail had some large puddles bordering on ponds so I decided to forgo that hike and instead take the long way to my next destination hoping that the rain will have at least dwindled to a drizzle by the time I got there. And so, I aimed my car west and took off down Highway 10.

Driving by my old high school, I was reminded of how one of my English teachers, Ron Harper, told me that John Steinbeck had driven this very stretch of highway when he was out searching for America in 1960 on a road trip that he would turn into Travels With Charley. I've never read the book and don't know if this section of Highway 10 was, in fact, part of his route. A cursory internet search leads me to believe that the exact route he took is unknown and that it has been left up to Steinbeckophiles to try and deduce it from clues in the text.

Here's a photo of a map of his purported route at the National Steinbeck Center:

That bit of dotted line with turkeys just to the north may very well be the stretch of Highway 10 that runs by my old high school. Someday I will read Travels With Charley and try to solve this mystery once and for all.

The school itself seems to have doubled in size since my time there. I am told this is because the elementary and/or middle schools were thrown into the mix and not because the area has seen any population growth. Plus, there was a new football stadium. At least the giant cardinal still stood atop the main entrance.

Turning onto Highway 93 in Eleva, I drove by the Family Farms offices/factory where, I assume, the very tasty bacon-wrapped chicken breasts that I buy here in Madison are made. I must admit to being quite surprised at finding something from Eleva at my local grocery store when I first spied them in the freezer.

The drive north on 93 is quite scenic. This part of my route is in the driftless area so it has a wonderful topography full of wooded hills overlooking green valleys. I didn't get any photos but have snagged this one from The State Trunk Tour:

It felt odd driving part of the route that I traveled many times in a school bus. Zipping past various intersections, I could recall the bus turning down those roads to tack the winding country lanes in pursuit of the next student. I contemplated going to look for ruins of Hadleyville but the rain put the kibosh on that venture.

Hadleyville was a town about a mile from my family's home in southwestern Eau Claire County. I am not sure when it was abandoned. When I worked at the Wisconsin Historical Society, I discovered a cache of historical aerial photos and found one showing the outlines of foundations of some Hadleyville buildings. Back in the late 1980s, there was a store at the intersection of county roads HH and F where we'd stop for a soda on our bike rides and I believe that was the last remnant of Hadleyville except for the cemetery. That store is, I am told, long gone.

Instead I drove through the towns of Cleghorn and Brackett which are due east of where Hadleyville once stood. They are very small, as in no stoplights small. But that area in southwestern Eau Claire County is just so scenic. I simply love driving through it – over hill and dale.

I caught Highway 53 at Brackett which is a sleepy two lane road until you get to Eau Claire, 10 or so miles to the north. On the south side of town you enter a roundabout and voila! – you are suddenly on a four lane freeway. My destination was about 40 miles farther north – the Chippewa Moraine State Natural Area.

When I arrived, the rain has tapered off to a hard drizzle. I stepped inside the interpretive center hoping that the precipitation would stop for my hike. Plus, all of the rain made me need to use the restroom.

It's a pretty neat place with some taxidermied examples of the wildlife in the area.

Other displays gave a brief history of the Native Americans who called the area home as well as the European settlers who have largely displaced them.

Large maps such as this one explained the topography of the area, what a moraine is, and how Mother Nature lovingly sculpted the region into the gem known as Up North.

Eventually I decided it was time to seize the day and hit the trail, rain be damned.

Walking out, I noticed a stuffed and mounted beaver in the entryway that I had missed earlier in my haste to find the men's room.

Stepping outside, I found that the drizzle had lightened and that the cloud cover had kept things relatively warm. I put on my boots and hit the trail.