A 1915 Northwoods Wisconsin resort, where John "Snake Eyes" Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and other underworld gangsters had a shootout with FBI agents before escaping. Bullet holes can still be seen in the dining hall. There are photos of the gangsters and a display case with baby powder, hygiene items, clothes, and the other personal effects they left behind - including a book entitled, Business English. |
Little Bohemia
Heather and I decide to cycle the Boulder Junction area. Our mission: to ride to Little Bohemia in the town of Manitowish Waters. After a hearty breakfast of eggs, English muffins, and fruit salad, we gear up and head out. Our ride takes us through roads less traveled by--through pine and birch forests so dark and primeval that the occasional car that pass by (and reminds us that we are in the 21st Century) has head lights turned on. We ride past spruce swamps, cranberry bogs, and pine forest. The only sign of civilization is the paved road. The forest shivers as if it was a huge, natural woodland orchestra--with the clouds as a passing audience, dropping change of water drops upon the earth in appreciation. As we ride the forest crackles from deer darting for safety. We see a coyote sneak across the road from the forest walls.
Family Legends, Bonfire Camaraderie,
and the Starry Night
That evening we have dinner at Jen's cabin. She has made a rustic feast of bratwursts, corn, and caprice salad. I can't even begin to say how excellent home cooking is after several days and weeks on the road. After roughing it, sustaining one's journey on the cram of country delis and road gas stations, processed food gets quite old. Most of my road rations consist of root beer and granola, though of late I have discovered peanut butter and honey spooned out upon wheat. So when Jen sets the table and I see grilled bratwursts (first introduced to my top ten list of favorite foods by my Aunt Dottie in Grand Rapids, MI), corn on the cob, and two types of salad, I have to restrain myself from jumping with joy and digging into real food. During dinner they tell me about their grandfather.
Milton Shadur, or Pap, graduated high school at 15 and college at 18, and then joined the Navy in 1941. Before Milton shipped out, he met his future wife Eleanor at a movie theatre. There, while sitting in the row behind her and stroking her hair he told her he would marry her. Enroute to war, and deep in the bowels of a naval vessel, by virtue of his photographic memory, he won several hands of poker, winning enough cash to help pay for a ring worthy of the love and beauty of his life. After serving in the Pacific during WWII and surviving a kamikaze attack, he came back to the states and married Eleanor. He then went on to the University of Chicago, where he studied law and as legend has it earned the highest ever grade point average in his field. Milton Shadur, despite retirement age, continues to serve his country as Federal Judge.
After dinner their friends and neighbors come over. It is nighttime and the Shadurs are about to inaugurate their bonfire site. We roast marshmallows and make smores and make merry into the night.
At midnight we come back to the Milo Lodge on White Beach Lake and watch the stars. We scan the north hoping to catch a glimpse of the Aurora Borealis. Shooting stars sling across the nightscape, tails of star dust sparkle and fade as meteors flash and burn.
 
Sunrise Over White Beach Lake |
