SOMEPLACE BETTER THAN GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME

 

A TALK BASED ON THIS WAS GIVEN ON MAY 29, 2023 TITLED “SOMEPLACE IS GOOD ENOUGH” by Tom Jablonski

Hello and Welcome to Frederic, all you readers (or readers to be) of Eddie Emerson’s latest book Liberty Moon.  Eddie asked me if I would give a 4 minute and 22 second talk, on the subject  - “Someplace Is Good Enough” .  I hope this talk I am going to give is “good enough” and not too long, and not too short.  And since Eddie couldn’t get me a teleprompter, I hope you don’t mind if I read my talk, so I stay on topic, and mostly on time.  I did add a few minutes to my talk, but hopefully taking that liberty won’t distract you from the celebration of Liberty, the book. 

For those who don’t know me, my name is Tom and I am a recovering former government bureaucrat.  I now have the luxury of calling myself - a discovering Bum on a Pension, despite my addictions of past, present, or future.  I moved to Frederic 5 years ago, after a fairly extensive search of Northern Wisconsin for someplace good enough to retire to.  My goal was to try to grow as much food as I could, so that I would not have to go back to work, to earn money, to pay for food.  

On my trips wandering around the streets of Frederic in between turning my yard into food, I had the good fortune to cross paths with Eddie now and then.  At our first meeting, we realized our paths had crossed in a previous life, back when we both lived in the “Driftless Area” of South Western Wisconsin.  Eddie was the City Administrator for the Village of Hillsboro, and I was the WI DNR Area Water and Wastewater Engineer for Vernon County.  Back then we had met once or twice to talk about Hillsboro’s sewer and water utilities, which were always intriguing topics for me back in those days.    

Fast-forwarding back to Frederic of recent past, I found Eddie and I had some other common interests beside sewage, and Eddie shared a copy of his pre-Liberty Moon writing with me, which included his book of poems – THE HERMIT AT FOUR COURNERS, and the prequal to LIBERTY MOON – WOUNDED WING.  Eddie’s early writing perked my interest in his work as a writer, and I looked forward to getting a copy of Liberty Moon.  And so, I was quite excited to delve into his latest book, which he handed to me while I was in the middle of shoveling the latest batch of what seemed like another foot of wet heavy snow from my driveway.  

The receipt of the new book was preceded by an explosion that occurred before Eddie showed up with the book. That big bang happened when the wet snow caused the electrical transformer a half a block away to explode, causing the power pole behind my garage to burst into flames, and knock out my neighbor’s power for the day.   So, I paid special attention to Eddies gift of Liberty on that snow-full, explosive day in March. 

Regarding paying attention, I wonder how many folks noticed the Bronze Plaque on the Large Stone next to the bear carvings next to the sidewalk to our South when you walked up to the Pavilion here this morning?  I noticed the plaque the first time I came to Frederic as I walked around town to try and get a sense of what the community was like, before deciding if I should put an offer on the house, I now live in.  The plaque begins with the heading “Frederic – The Village Named After A Boy”.  It then goes on to explain how in the later part of the 19th Century, the boy Frederic’s Father William Starr, had purchased 12,000 acres of the surrounding land from the Cushing Land Agency.  Cushing had bought 30,000 acres of the Land from the US Government in 1846 for the bargain price of a buck and a quarter per acre.  

The plaque remains mute on how much of the proceeds from the sale went to the survivors of the original owners of the land, the remaining Indian Tribes who had been forced on to nearby Reservations.  It is interesting to note the author of the Plaque, local historian Leona Cummings passed away 2 days before I got my copy of Liberty Moon from Eddie.

Back to Starr, his plan for the land was to cut down the trees, so he could have them turned into logs, and then cut the logs into lumber, which he could then sell, and increase his fortune.  But for that plan to come to fruition, he first needed to get the Soo Line Railroad to come to the area, and he needed to build a sawmill, and he needed to get workers to come to the work here as well.  As Leona Cummings told it, those things were “the nucleus of the birth of the Village of Frederic”. 

As a result of Starr’s motivations and labors, the railroad came to town, the Village was platted; the sawmill was built, and a host of other businesses and services set up shop, and created many “good jobs” for the immigrant population moving to the area, - who were trying to start new lives, in the land of the free, and home of the brave.  All of this progress was of course made possible by the latest and greatest technology of the day - like the steam engine, electricity, and new infrastructure like the railroads and electrical wiring.  Of course, you couldn’t have development like this created out of nothing, but needed the capitol and genius of the likes of Frederic the boy’s wealthy dad William, who would profit quite handsomely from his investments, and then move to Maryland as I understand it.

Leona Cummings concluded her one-page brass cast story of the Village with a shout out to Numerous Local Organizations who “worked hand in hand to preserve our past while building a brighter future for our community” and reminded the passing reader that “The past should always remain a part of our future”.  Leona obviously didn’t have the luxury of having 4 minutes and 22 seconds worth of text space for her bronzed version of the story, which likely explains why she left out some of the darker consequences that occurred before and after the creation of Frederic, the Village Named After A Boy.

 One of the things I like about Eddies 265-page update to the Frederic creation story, is that he has the luxury of being able to highlight a much more detailed version of the story of the near-term future of our Village, from a much larger range of perspectives.  Most of the characters who tell Eddies story, are the just plain common folks who unlike William Starr and his boy Frederic, actually live in the community.  These are the small business owners, the small farmers, the librarians, the waitresses, the retirees, the people who come to town for the “good” jobs, the people who serve the Lakers, and of course the occasional teenage runaways, who get mixed up in drugs, and unscrupulous older men with jobs as bass players in rock bands, as ways to find better lives, and perhaps escape their demons.

From the perspective of these fictional, and not so fictional characters we learn that future Frederic, or Someplace, is really not that different from the Frederic of the past.  We find wealthy elites living elsewhere, who pool their resources, form Limited Liability Corporations, and find new ways to extract resources out of Northern Wisconsin.  They market their new technologies and gadgets as tools to finally bring us the good life we have been waiting for.  The latest marvels of electric cars, clean and green solar farms, cell phone towers, and other assorted gadgets are sold with the same old ideas of bringing so called “good jobs” to town, and of course come with the hidden cost of land bought up by highest bidders.  Resources (both human and natural) will be consumed to turn the corporate tycoon’s capital investments into increased stock values.  And the residents who remain struggle to make a living in a land where the surrounding ecosystems are converted to capitol with little regard for the future consequences.

And now to get back on track and time, I better end my tale of “Someplace Is Good Enough - for me” with a thank you to Eddie for his wakeup call and conclude with one of the poems from his earlier book of poetry THE HERMIT AT FOUR COURNERS, which was inspired by another guy who spend some time passing through the Driftless areas of SW Wisconsin.    

The poem is called -

This Is What Black Hawk Said.

Once upon a time

before the White Man came

to build his roads,

and bridges

and cut down trees

People got on along the way

that seemed – natural …

Touching Earth,

Knowing Sky.

People who long for big houses

always work,

and rarely find time

for Spirit.

One begins to lose

faith and trust

the minute they taste the fat

of money.                                    

This reminder of Eddies, that comes from the past, might just be a hint about what we really need to do to find that brighter and perhaps more sustainable future – that is better than just good enough.