Little Short of a Miracle

A very interesting fact is that George Washington was never formally educated.  He was raised, instead, within the domain of military striving and achievement, so much so that he was nearly a failure during his shorter stint as an officer and commander in the French and Indian Wars decades previous to the Revolutionary War because he was so ambitious. He made costly mistakes based on vanity and craving for acclaim.  In one more example of a twist of historical fate – and one that Washington probably carried with him all the way to his grave – was that his one chief goal as a young officer from Virginia was to become a British Regular!  In colonial America the Redcoat would have symbolized the epitome of a professional soldier and very few American military personnel ever

received papers of qualification.  Washington tried anyway but was denied by a subordinate military administrator who barely listened to him, turned his back on him and dismissed him as nothing more than a young upstart out Virginia.  Later, at Yorktown, 1781, when the British surrendered, Washington did not allow Cornwallis's men to march away from the scene in the commonly practiced dignified manner allowed for in battles at that time, but instead the Regulars (and German Hessians), had to lay down arms and slink away like beaten dogs from their entrenchments.  At the beginning of the siege, Washington was sure to fire the first symbolic cannon shot to begin what he felt and probably knew to be the final battle scene of the war.


It had been six and a half years after the battle at Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston.  Since that time, the Revolutionary War had taken many brutal turns. Campaign seasons came and went, winters crippled both sides, disease decimated troops, and what seemed like red hot causes in the beginning of the war turned to the more cold hard facts of living day by day.  After the British was defeated severely at Saratoga in 1777, politicians concluded that they could no longer sustain so many small defeats in the northern theater and turned their attention to the southern colonies where their primary trade resources resided and where, as they hoped in theory anyway, many more Loyalists (loyal to the King) lived – they simply needed to be stirred into action.  As always, the British troop numbers and discipline made its mark, bombarding and taking Charleston, as well as other coast sites, but something changed in this war at this point and the 'locals,' now called partisans, began to take up the challenge and turned the Revolutionary War – a war sometimes thought of as set field battles – into guerrilla warfare, a style that the British were ill-prepared to win.  Nathaniel Greene, chosen commander (by Washington) in the south, pulled Cornwallis into a cat and mouse chase around the countryside, exhausting them, devastating the British troops with not only exhaustion and lack of supplies but malaria, for example, a sickness which South Carolinians were immune to, but not the troops from a small island in the northern Atlantic.  The British had to eventually retreat back to the safety they perceived at Yorktown Virginia

by the sea, where they felt they held dominant sea power.  They were beat down, trapped, no escape route, and little loyalist support.  Engineered entrenchments and other standard battle structures no longer mattered.  Outnumbered, outmaneuvered, nearly seven years after Concord and Lexington, the Americans literally bombed the living daylights out of the British until one morning a British drummer could be heard tapping the chords of submission.  Washington, the overlooked officer of so many years

before, had persevered not so much as a charismatic leader, but one of a quiet, strong, extremely disciplined leadership. He had rarely, if ever, left the side of his Continentals throughout the hardships of the Revolutionary war, and thereby kept the loyalty of the men, the country and the cause for independence.  One historian commented accurately that most of what we think of today as 'American' values were set during the actual course of the Revolutionary War.  Where the British depended upon a rigid stratification in ranks (officers positions were often literally bought), the American Army was one of an extremely diverse and mostly democratic system.  Washington never stole power. He purposefully kept his Army run by the civilians in Congress.  He did not serve a monarch, but an idea of a governing body spread among many states.  When the war was over, he was astonished of victory.  He didn't feel entitled to it.  He had the presence of experience to admit victory was nothing short of a standing miracle.  America was born.  

 

Zama



The first time Merle saw them he never thought he'd jump in with them.  He had taken a short break in between buffet prep for the tour,

this his first executive chef job away from the Sweet Shack up in Florida, and was sitting on the catamaran net bent over the side dipping only half a finger

into the blue watercolor water. The catamaran was now five minutes off the shore of Porto Aventuras, Playa del Carmen on the way to the beachfront Mayan ruins at Tulum, what the local Mayans called Zama, or the magical 'City of Dawn,' because it faces the sunrise.

There were at least seventy of them swimming fifty yards from the boat in what looked like a pod, enormous shadows seemingly barely moving in the distance. Two or three others swam right along the great hull of the 70 foot catamaran. He could see the brown tinted,

almost leopard skin glisten just under the surface, the dorsal and back fin waving back and forth as if mechanically.  He had only seen large fresh water fish in the shallows before, a much more manageable size for the human eye to comprehend.  A creature twenty tons and 40 feet long looked more like a partnering boat.  The whale shark was the largest known species of fish on earth, and here,

along the Mayan Riviera, they swam as if to enjoy a vacation themselves and the occasional feeding.  Two boys jumped in with snorkel gear and paddled over the slow moving mass of the shark whales as if it were nothing more than a casual swim.  One boy hooked his hand over the dorsal fin and was slowly dragged along the surface, his body a small tan speck compared to the shark.  Something came over Merle – he was a bold chef, but held a deep fear of open water, an even deeper fear of creatures lurking below, let alone ones as large as the boat itself – but he slipped on goggles and let himself ease in over the side of the boat.  Toward shore, once at eye level with the surface, he could see a sea turtle rise to the surface, the waves pushing and pulling

as if it were nothing more than a lost fishing bobber. Merle swam directly over the hull of the whale shark.  It was shaped something like a small airplane.  It's skin was cool to the touch, a wet thick leather, yet he could feel it move barely as if it were a giant muscle, bending gently at creases for propulsion.  Where his back drew up over the surface he could feel the hot rays of Mayan sunshine.
It was unusual, he knew, but the sun and the shark and the blue salt water made him think of the taste of his dishes to come.

Merrimac or Bust


Taking off was sure easier than landing Kat thought. As she sailed by Devil's gate

for what she hoped would be her last tentative circle around the lake – the Cessna's fuel still at well over half on the indicator – she looked down and could see the patch of open space extending from the ridge line through the woods where folks back in the 40's used to toboggan on weekends

as a past time.  Her grandfather had told her that this was in fact the very place that he and Kat's grandmother first met, both of them one particular sunny but freezing day stepped away from their separate groups and took a dare to run

what they could easily see was a wickedly slick track, not knowing either what the landing might be like.  Runners could move upwards of 40-50 miles per hour it was estimated, and some spills at the bottom were notorious for leaving sleds in splinters.  Kat channeled grandma and grandpa and quickly entered into her memorized sequence, checking brakes, mixture, flaps, applied carb

and tilted to her advised 45 degree angle towards the road strip.  Tree tops passed in a blur and the lake that had looked like an abstract mass of blue now became quite smaller, more immediate.  She pulled back the rpms to 1500 and pitched for 75 knots.  The critical part, she remembered, was not to use too much inside rudder.  Stories of skidding, stalling and spinning were far more frequent than she cared to realize just now.  What felt like mere inches off of the ground, yoke pulled back, a snap of crosswind jerked. She skipped initially off the cement too hard and jumped, but luckily with nose well upwards, several feet in the air.  She had a quick choice.  Pull back again and flatten out for a more hopeful landing at a lower speed or ramp up.  The road ahead turned slightly right and out of sight. She pulled at the yoke, increased speed and rose slowly up into the carved out space of the forest above the road, off to Merrimac or bust!

Clam Chowder

To enter into the realm of chowder making is like eating right from history itself.  Going back over old references to 'chaudiere' (French for cauldron), 'jowter' (old English for fish peddler), and recipes dating to the middle of the 18th century, you can see the time-tested standard pattern of the ingredients of seafood, some form of pork, potatoes and cream, all well-seasoned.  No matter how you tweak these main ingredients, it seems safe to say that the spoonful of clam chowder today shares a similar taste to what the fisherman's family relished along the coastline villages of Cornwall England

hundreds of years ago.  The key to getting started on this recipe is to see to flavoring a lot of milk, heavy cream and potatoes.  You start with diced bacon – save the oil – and sautee onions and celery in that for veggie texture in the base stock. Add this to milk and heavy cream and let two diced potatoes cook for 20 minutes until the potato cubes are soft but still hold their form.  Add bacon and as much clam meat

as the soup eaters can handle and taste to see if the base is seasoned well enough or if the consistency needs more milk.  Or, as the oldest known written recipe (1751) for chowder suggests for finishing, "Then season well with Pepper, Salt and Spice; Parsley, Sweet-Marjoram, Savory, and Thyme, Then Biscuit next which must be soak'd some Time."  So we did.  A fresh loaf of bread happened to be sitting on the 

counter.  We cut slices into large cubes then sprinkled that with flakes of parmesan cheese and let them sit over the top of the soup to soak some time.  A bit of the sea and a bit of the fields in this soup, a sort of ancient broth of sustenance.

  

Augusta House

A river town means motion.  It means transportation – people and goods especially.
La Crosse today is a small city but it's at the crossroads of a river, an interstate highway, a railroad, and an airport.  Although La Crossites often make the claim that they settle here for the stability of living in a smaller urban center, there is a transience here that is also felt today much in the same way it was experienced nearer its inception, "La Crosse was in these days (c. 1850) a mecca for transients who were looking for locations or were on their way to Minnesota points; the hotels were many and in the summer were reported as being full."  Amazingly, for a town so small in population, there were eleven hotels in 1856, and another being built.  One reporter counted seeing sixty-one "prairie schooners"

(covered wagons) arriving here in one day in June from the east and departing across the river by ferry.  "The same month a traveler counted between here and Mauston, a distance of 70 miles, 357 covered wagons headed westward."  Steamboats 

brought folks here and pushed lumber out along the river; stages carried more into the city until – in a bit of local irony – "The La Crosse and Onalaska Plank Road and Bridge company was incorporated…to build a solid road across the swamp to North La Crosse and thence in a direct line to Onalaska, thus saving two and a half miles over the customary route."  

On a recent frigid January day, kids released from school because of the dangers of wind chill, we ate lunch down on Pearl street in an old building with a new name.  Afterwards, we walked across the street to the Pearl Ice Cream Shop, located on a historical strip of eateries and retail shops.  This would have been the very hub-area of early La Crosse, right off the water and in the center of the hotel district, where thousands of fortune seekers, homesteaders, and hopeful farmers would have paced in activity.  One visitor, the anonymous 'Viator,' who visited in 1857, wrote of this very spot in his diary, "La Crosse, further up the river, is the most important river town in Wisconsin.  It presents a fine appearance from the river.  Its finest Hotel, the Augusta House, 

looms up like a fairy palace, as the eye almost wearies with the wilderness of prairie grass, and overtopping bluffs and blooming flowers, of the regions above and below.  The appearance of the buildings at this point denotes a more permanent and enduring state of things than most other towns along the river."  As we stood at Front and Pearl long enough to see the closed sign on the Ice Cream shop, due to inclement weather, we could see that the Holiday Inn parking lot across the street was packed; traffic spun up and down front street; a crack of the frozen river peeked through the opening between the Radisson Hotel and La Crosse Center; and up behind us, in the background, loomed the leafless winter trees of the bluff line.  

Access

The gift of geography surrounds La Crosse, one could say is La Crosse.  Neighborhood backyards often turn to hiking trails; vistas from atop most hills of size will likely offer views of a blue or white river depending on the season.  Coulees hold deep and quiet ravines; small creeks form because we are blessed with elevated topography.  Outdoorsy-ness in all varieties is a vital part, if not the defining part of the culture.  Few places capture the idea of abundant access more than Hixon Forest, a 750-acre parcel that has had a mixed past, (partially became a shooting range back 1948, to keep teenagers organized and out of trouble!) one that probably, in its own right, provides a good example of this area's historical struggle between the options of land consumption and land use.  Owned by a group of quarrymen originally in the middle of the 19th century, there's little doubt that to a 'rock' man, our bluffs looked more like gold than limestone.  The next owner must have seen this portion of our bluffs as more a prospect as well according to brief records, but quite soon after other interested and wealthy citizens began to consider this as something more of a designated region for recreation and viewing. The Bliss (main road up the bluff named after the family) family, the Loseys, and finally the Hixons all pulled together to buy the woods and adjacent bluff (Grandad Bluff cost $600 in 1910),

and with the help of the Parks and Rec. dept eventually turned this to a permanent zone of preservation.  October 8, 1976 a series of trails were dedicated here and the rest is history: one of the great hiking systems in the midwest has become the 'natural' heart of the city.  On a sunny day even at the edge of February, zero degrees, the trails offer both challenge and starkly glowing scenery.

Those hushed coulees echoed with a variety of woodpeckers hammering at cold wood, as other robust wintering birds flittered about fallen limbs for anything worthy of eating.

To reach the top of the limestone vista, the snowshoer has to cross-country a bit, following the more even trails of previous deer traffic up the frozen rock.

but once to the top, the natural history of La Crosse becomes more obvious and remarkable than from any street or even backwater slough.  Railroads pass through marsh regions.  Streets form a certain grid, but not to be outmatched by what has grown there originally, making our designation as a tree city an understandable feat.

Potato Leek Soup



There is taste, and then there is texture.  When you find both in cooking then everything turned out alright.  By the time I ladled this soup into the bowl, I knew I had the texture – a soft puree that I had purposefully left chunky – but on tasting, it was exciting to realize that the taste was excellent too.

Comfort food doesn't really get better than this!  The recipe starts with a bunch of leeks, six cups, sliced

 up the stem to where the white begins to turn dark green.  Add the leeks and sliced onion into a stock pot to sautee for fifteen minutes and soften. I added a pinch of salt because I knew that the broth and potatoes that were coming is definitely a liquid and veggie combination that can take some seasoning.  From here simmer the leeks, onions, potatoes, broth and salt for another fifteen, then, once cooked, take over to the blender to puree. This is the point where you can decide as a cook whether to liquify or hold as chunky.  I love the texture of cooked potatoes, so a 2-3 second pulse works very well.  Take the pureed soup back over to the pot and add a shredded cheese you like; the recipe called for blue cheese, but that is a drastic flavor, so I chose what is called a cru cheese, or what I suspect is not much more than a farm cheese, fairly mild, but great texture.  A touch of dried mustard into the pot, a dash of paprika onto the finished bowl, come up with your own version of bread,

and this is a flavorful, beautifully textured soup, unlike anything I have tried before.  Potato soup without a 'zing' factor, can be bland; some add bacon or lots of butter; leeks and onion in this batch add a variety and depth that is warming and tasty.

A-Z

Advantages:  Living in La Crosse for a long time, it becomes extraordinarily easy to take for granted the geographical advantages we enjoy here in the coulee region.  Surrounded by the contours of the drift less region – the long spine-like plateaus of the bluffs, and the equally long dugout of the world's second largest river – we are literally always in the middle of something geographical, some forest, some coulee…some golf course…and hunters are rarely more than a short jaunt away from a reasonable placement of a tree stand.  If anything, living in the coulee region leaves the native simply wanting more like it, but perhaps on a grander scale, so is willing, when time allows, to trip to the western mountains where the elevation reaches 10,000 instead of 1,000, and river water might turn to a dramatic kettle moraine.  The geography determined the fate of La Crosse as a trading hub where so many rivers meet, at first by foot and canoe, but later by steamboat

and then railroad, fur and lumber the resources that gathered pioneers around the prospects of fortune, such as Myrick himself, a fur trader and our non-Indian founder.  La Crosse has obviously grown since its establishment by settlers, but it retains, in its native element, its blue collar roots.  La Crosse is not a fancy city; it even shows, sometimes, somewhat of a collective loathing towards extravagance.  One of the most famous restaurants in town, the Freighthouse, succeeded so well because it captured an acceptable tone of gritty elegance – located in an old railroad station, it harkens back to our pioneer days and the visitor can see quickly that not every corner of every railroad boxcar is sparkling.

The steaks, fancy if you want them, are thick, filling, and had better not be overpriced – another geographical value that reveals a sort 'if you don't do it right, I'll do it myself' mentality that pervades the roots of the La Crosse area.  All said, despite some corporate flourishing, three colleges and two hospitals, La Crosse is a blue-collar town, in which metal fabrication and printing leads the list of industry.  A new merging of new trends in the city, such as 'Buy Local' (which is actually just an old and common sense way of going about business), with the old structures, rituals, and recreations, gives La Crosse its own brand of personality.  Blue Collar La Crosse is an attempt to collect history, herstory, food, travel, and daily experience from the perspective of a native, assembled by the hopefully successful device of the alphabet.  To know La Crosse, the first thing that has to be considered is geographical advantages.