| November
2004 Issue
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The Write Stuff
Author Michael Perry Captures a Slice
of Rural Wisconsin
Unassuming in his appearance and
bearing, Michael Perry was mistaken for a convention center workman
by an electric cooperative staffer as she ushered luncheon attendees
to their tables. “He just looked like a regular guy; I had
no idea he was our guest speaker and needed a place to sit,”
she lamented.
For author Michael Perry, being
identified with average working Joes is nothing to take offense
at; in fact, connecting with hard-working, salt-of-the-earth folks
has been a focus of Perry’s lifestyle and literary energies
for years. The experience has provided inspiration and material
for Population 485, a highly successful book that captures life
in the small, northern Wisconsin village of New Auburn.
Impressed by the novel, Wisconsin
Electric Cooperative Association Manager Dave Jenkins figured
Perry would be just the sort of speaker to keynote a recent luncheon
attended by several hundred directors and staff of rural electric
cooperatives. “There’s no writing that I’ve
read that more clearly, honestly, and sometimes both humorously
and with profound sadness expresses what it’s like to live
in rural America,” Jenkins told the electric co-op crowd
gathered at the La Crosse Center as he introduced Perry.
Simply garbed in blue jeans and
a black POW/MIA t-shirt, Perry mounted the stage and began by
expressing appreciation for being scheduled at a mid-day function.
Since Population 485 came out two years ago, he’s been steadily
on book tours, occupying several hundred days each year. “I’ve
had a couple of stretches like last October where I was in 29
cities in 30 days covering both coasts. Right now I’m doing
20 speaking engagements in 19 days,” he told the group,
relating that on the current tour he does his own driving, meaning
he often has to hit the road at 4:30 a.m. to speak on morning
radio talk shows and Kiwanis breakfast meetings.
“I tend to do my writing from
about 7 p.m. and go to 2 or 3 in the morning,” he continued.
“So I have come to appreciate speaking engagements that
take place after 12 noon.”
Perry intersperses readings from
his book into the 40-minute presentation, selecting passages that
give the audience a flavor of the humor and insight found in his
writing. From near the beginning of Population 485, he reads:
I do my writing in a tiny bedroom overlooking
Main Street in the village of New Auburn, Wisconsin. Population
485. Eleven streets. One four-legged silver water tower. Seasons
here are extreme. We complain about the heat and brag about the
cold. Summer is for stock cars and softball. Winter is for Friday-night
fish fries. And snowmobiles. After a good blizzard you’ll
hear their Doppler snarl all through the dark, and down at the
bar, sleds will outnumber cars…Every day the village dogs
howl at the train that rumbles through town, and I like to think
they are echoing their ancestors, howling at that first train
when it stopped here in 1883. Maybe that’s all you need
to know about this town—the train doesn’t stop here
anymore.
The audience responds, nodding at familiar images.
In an interview following his talk, Perry observes, “This
is my kind of crowd—folks I relate to and I grew up with.”
Indeed, raised on a dairy farm on
electric cooperative lines, Perry told the crowd he remembered
the old Willie Wiredhand REA sign that adorned the front yard.
“I also remember the day my brother and I painted it over
and turned it into a gravestone for an old buck sheep that died.
I wish I hadn’t done that,” he laughed. “But
we didn’t know about E-bay back then.”
Plugging Away
Perry lived in New Auburn from age 2 until graduating
from high school in 1983. He attended UW–Eau Claire, earning
a degree from the School of Nursing in 1987, and he then worked
for a surgeon and in a rehabilitation unit at an Eau Claire hospital.
After a couple of years, he decided to shift career directions.
“I just realized that if I
was going to take a serious shot at this writing thing, it would
be all-consuming,” Perry said, pointing out he still maintains
his nursing license, “just in case.”
Embarking on freelance journalism,
he wrote articles for local and Midwestern magazines, medical
and legal textbooks, and advertising promotions. “I was
able, after 7 or 8 years of plugging away, to get a few pieces
in some national titles like the New York Times Magazine. I was
constantly writing poetry, learning how to write essays, reading,
hanging out with writers and professors who taught writing, getting
as much out of them as I could,” he said.
Perry also traveled widely, living
for a time on a Wyoming ranch, hitchhiking across Europe, and
taking odd jobs (he tells of working as a roller-skating Snoopy
at one point) to pay the bills while developing his writing skills
and amassing completed works.
The last time he “punched
a time clock” was in 1992 when he quit his job as a proofreader
and, as he is quick to mention, began to pick up the whole tab
for his health insurance.
About the same time, Perry got what
he describes as his first “break,” authoring an essay
for Newsweek. The piece recounted Perry’s experience helping
a car-accident victim who was HIV-positive. “After that
ran, I could go to an editor and I could say, ‘Well, I had
a piece in Newsweek.’ That catches their eye.” However,
he estimated that 98 percent of the stories he would send to magazines
and publishers got rejected.
Going Home, Reattaching
“The book Population 485
is about going home again,” said Perry. “I was away
from my hometown for 12 years and I came back.” That was
in 1995, and it was a decision that had practical overtones.
“Part of the reason I moved
to New Auburn was the low cost of living. Low overhead has really
been a secret to my surviving as a freelance writer,” he
laughed. “I could live on next to nothing and often had
to. It’s not a sob story; it’s just the way it was.”
Perry commented that when he left
New Auburn he was a farm boy and had been an athlete. “I
came back 12 years later a long-haired writer with soft hands
and a nursing degree. So there was a certain amount of street
credit to recover with my pals in the gun-rack crowd,” he
smiled.
He went about re-forming attachments
by volunteering for the New Auburn Area Fire Department. The subtitle
of Population 485 is “Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at
a Time,” and much of the book is framed around fire calls,
EMT responses, and ambulance drives that Perry took part in. “I
met old friends, rediscovered old territory,” he said. “Some
calls are hilarious, some calls are heartbreaking, some calls
are both.”
Shoveling
Maintaining that he learned everything
he ever needed to know about surviving as a freelance writer from
cleaning his dad’s calf pens, Perry asserts, “Keep
shoveling until you’ve got a pile so big someone has to
notice.”
Eventually he accumulated enough
material and distributed it widely enough that one of his articles
was spotted by another writer who showed it to an agent. The agent
called from New York City asking Perry if he had other examples
of his work. “But even after I got an agent it was a good
two years before I got a book deal,” Perry said. “So
when my book came out, I had been writing for close to 14 years
before I signed anything with a publisher.”
Perry was able to incorporate his
stories and observations about New Auburn and its dwellers into
an entertaining package bought by publisher Harper Collins. He
admitted, however, there are dangers in writing a book with such
a local, personal focus. “You could make everybody look
like hicks, or you could portray them as the noble working class,
struggling in the good fight,” he said. “My thought
was I had to come somewhere in the middle of that where I’m
honest about peoples’ faults, honest about the town, and
maintain a tone of respect.” He said he thought the passages
about death—a hard reality in the firefighting and EMT business—turned
out to be “painfully honest.”
Rolling off the presses in October
2002, Population 485 began earning good reviews and Harper Collins
put Perry on a daunting series of tours to promote the book. These
days, Perry mostly arranges his own tours, and they remain time-consuming
but successful. In hardcover and paperback, the 234-page book
has sold about 50,000 copies so far.
The Next Gig
“Things are going so well
for me, and I’m very grateful, but I still don’t know
where my next gig is coming from,” Perry explained. “This
book did well, but the next two books I pitched to my editor were
rejected. So it’s not like once you get in it’s a
free ride.”
He has a collection of essays coming
out next April and other projects in development. Recently married,
Perry tries to strike a balance between time for family, writing,
and promotional touring.
“Fortunately, I can write
just about anywhere. I attribute this to just growing up on a
farm and knowing how to work,” he said. “So I pack
my trunk full of books and I hit the road. And I do this kind
of thing a lot because the speaking fee helps, the books I sell
helps, and it all helps market my work.”
Finishing his talk to the electric
co-op leaders, Michael Perry gratefully accepted their enthusiastic
applause and made his way to the lobby, where luncheon attendees
held him for nearly an hour, buying autographed copies of Population
485 and chatting with the author.
Somewhat unprepared for the response,
Perry observed the co-op crowd cleaned him out of every paperback
and half the hardcover books he had brought with him.
The sales would leave him short
of books for a speaking engagement he had to get to that evening—150
miles down the highway in Monroe, Wisconsin.
But for a working writer, there
are far tougher things than leaving readers wanting more.—Perry
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The Long Wave Goodbye
The Navy’s ultra-low frequency radio link is no
more…
Some saw it as standing proof
of a Doctor Strangelove obsession with nuclear war. Others considered
it a big electronic insurance policy, needed to persuade heavily
armed adversaries that nuclear aggression against the United
States would be a terrible mistake. Retired from service the
last day of September, Project ELF guaranteed communication
with the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet for 15 years and
controversy in the North Woods for more than twice that long.
While Wisconsin’s electric
cooperatives didn’t directly serve the ELF (Extreme Low
Frequency) transmitters, they were not uninvolved in the project’s
development. Three co-ops modified their distribution systems
to accommodate its operations, but with ELF now a Cold War artifact,
they will be re-engineered to conventional design.
A co-op manager with a firsthand
view of ELF’s history says the work can be phased in over
time. Carl Melchiors, general manager at Bayfield Electric Cooperative,
said it will take about a year to bring the affected parts of
his distribution system “back to normal.”
About 20 miles of the Bayfield system
were altered. Price and Jump River Electric Cooperatives modified
about 40 and 200 miles of their systems, respectively, and will
also return them to standard configuration.
Underground Radio
It could be argued that Project
ELF was on its way out almost as soon as it was proposed. It
shrank from a 21,000-square-mile antenna grid to 150, ending
up as a few dozen miles of crisscrossing cables. Incredibly,
even its price tag dwindled, from well over a billion dollars
to a few hundred million. None of which made the end result
a small thing.
The theory behind Project Sanguine,
ELF’s name as first proposed in 1958, was that the granite
bedrock under Northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula would assist transmission of long-wavelength radio
signals deep into the world’s oceans, letting submarines
receive orders while well-submerged and safe from detection.
The boats would thus retain their capability to launch retaliatory
strikes in the event an enemy—as a practical matter, the
Soviet Union—sent nuclear missiles against the United
States. Under the defense doctrine of the time, ELF put the
“assurance” in Mutual Assured Destruction.
The physical apparatus today consists
of two transmitters and a pair of antenna systems running for
miles through Northern Wisconsin’s Chequamegon National
Forest and Upper Michigan’s Escanaba State Forest. The
Wisconsin antenna forms a cross with arms of equal length: 14
miles in each direction, mainly above ground, with the heavy
conductor strung on 40-foot poles.
Project Sanguine, later “Seafarer,”
was pondered for a long while before there was anything to see
out in the woods. By the time the Navy began construction in
1968, the giant antenna had also become a giant lightning rod
for protest groups calling it an environmental menace and a
trigger for nuclear war. Opponents claimed alternately that
it would provoke a Soviet nuclear strike on Northern Wisconsin
and that it was intended to set up a U.S. first strike against
the Soviets; that it would boil the fish in area streams, fry
the earthworms underground, and both attract and intensify thunderstorms.
Trying Times
All of this was entirely in context
with the times. In October 1969, a University of Wisconsin Engineering
School magazine article severely criticizing ELF shared space
with an editorial condemning the United States as an imperialist
power and claiming the American military roamed other nations
“to shove democracy and the American dollar down the native
throat.”
To the limited extent that they
went on record concerning ELF, the Wisconsin Electric Cooperative
Association and its member co-ops took a different view. In
1981, with the project still incomplete, the WECA annual meeting
adopted a resolution supporting ELF.
Among the resolution’s main
points were ELF’s ability “to provide highly reliable
communications,” making it “a vital part of national
defense policy.” Also cited were the “time, effort
and expense” put into it by WECA member systems which,
in addition to their own engineering adaptations, had helped
in testing to determine the environmental and operational suitability
of the ELF system.
Individual co-ops had already
expressed similar sentiments. In 1980, the directors of Jump
River Electric sent off a resolution advising President Jimmy
Carter that testing up to that point had resulted neither in
adverse effects on people or wildlife nor complaints from co-op
members. It asked him to finish building the ELF system.
Two years earlier, Carter had
directed the Navy to abandon the project in its Seafarer configuration,
which included 2,400 miles of antenna in the Upper Peninsula.
Seafarer was itself a scaled-down version of the original Sanguine
concept, and Carter ordered it further trimmed. It was President
Ronald Reagan who ultimately ordered the project done, and the
Reagan administration was over with before it was fully operational.
ELF remained a protest target
after it was finally energized in 1989. Numerous arrests occurred
over the years that followed, some for sawing through poles
in efforts to disable the system.
Like Nothing Ever Happened
Bayfield Electric’s Melchiors
told Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News part of the co-op distribution
system had to be reconfigured because nearby lines would be
subject to interference in the form of induced voltages from
the ELF antenna. In the absence of abatement procedures, the
interference would have shown up in the form of flickering lights
and television screens. “In effect, it’s an ungrounded
system” where the co-op lines are in proximity to the
antenna conductor, Melchiors said. Now, the distribution lines
will be “changed back to a normal configuration.”
Making those changes will involve
“lots of work,” Melchiors said, but it won’t
burden the co-op because it can be done gradually and the Navy
is expected to cover the expense of the conversion.
In fact, Melchiors noted, the
Navy has had agreements with the co-ops for many years, reimbursing
the higher costs of building and operating modified systems.
This was never a “cash cow” for the cooperatives
but it did allow them to break even, he said.
General Manager Marilee Opresik
of Price Electric said the shutdown came with little notice.
She learned of it from a radio news report just a few weeks
before the system was switched off, she said.
Ironically, Price Electric finished
rebuilding about seven miles of affected distribution lines
shortly before hearing that ELF would cease operations, Opresik
said. “Now we’re just waiting to see what they [the
Navy] come through with on a new contract,” she added,
noting that the co-op has had a series of five-year agreements
which the Navy has customarily renegotiated on an annual basis.
“There needs to be something
in place to cover what has to happen,” Opresik said, anticipating
the Navy contracts will continue until the system is fully restored,
a process she said would require about a year.
The relationship with the Navy
has meant significant maintenance and new construction issues,
according to Lori Larsen Mikunda, general manager at Jump River
Electric Cooperative. She agreed that the additional revenue
and the additional obligations that came with it have tended
to cancel each other out.
Mikunda said lots of details remain
to be worked out concerning restoration of her co-op’s
distribution system, but she had no complaints about the Navy.
“They’ve been very fair,” she said.
Area communities may be more likely
than the individual co-ops to feel an economic impact with the
project ended, Melchiors said. Jobs associated with the ELF
operation won’t be there any more, he noted, adding that
area residents “liked having the project here and they
liked the people who ran it.”
At the end of September, while
protesters turned out to celebrate the shutdown and claim a
role in the project’s demise, an Associated Press story
quoted 74-year old Clam Lake resident Jerry Holter referring
to activists who opposed ELF as “screwballs running around
in the woods.”
Despite being out of operation,
the antenna structures will stand for some time. The Navy plans
to dismantle them over the next three years.—Dave
Hoopman
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Editorial
by Perry Baird
Alas, Activism Required
Electric cooperatives and credit unions are the
only two types of organizations granted permission by the Federal
Elections Commission to bring in consumers as part of their
political action committees. The reason, CEO Glenn English of
the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association recently
told a group of co-op leaders, is that the commission recognized
that consumers are, in fact, the owners of those organizations.
“As owners, they should have the same rights
as do directors and employees of the co-ops,” English
said at a meeting of the Action Committee for Rural Electrification,
the political-action arm of the rural electric program.
His pitch to the co-op delegates was to enlist
their help in recruiting consumers to take part in political
action on behalf of electric co-ops and associated issues that
come before elected officials. English’s message, however,
revealed some broader insight into the condition of politics
today.
Rough and Tumble
“Today, politics is not kinder or gentler.
Politics today is rough and tumble,” he asserted. “Politics
today is pitting the two political parties against each other
in a very partisan way.” The decision to play things this
way, English said, is driven by the American people themselves,
who are reacting to politics the same way many of them manage
their diets.
“We’re getting a lot of ‘fast
food’ with regard to political campaigns and the information
you get,” he continued. “People want it fast, they
want it simple, they want it made easy for them to decide. Hey
want a quick read on what’s good and what’s bad.”
Responding, the political parties have gone to simplistic, black-and-white
campaigning that defines issues and candidates in ways that
paint them as basically good or evil, English said.
According to English, who served 10 terms in the
U.S. House of Representatives, the result of this political
polarization is that activists—who are likely to be the
most partisan and in many cases on the extremes of both political
parties—are the individuals who have the most influence.
Red Meat, Dead Meat
“They’re the only people in either
political party that you can rely on to give the money, to go
out and do the work, to turn out the vote,” said English.
“And to get the activists out there, they’re being
given ‘red meat.’ They’re being told to go
out and fight against the evil on the other side.”
One political insider told recently told English,
“If you’re in the middle of the road, you’re
roadkill.” Noting the truth in that statement, English
observed,” You’re expected to line up on one side
or the other and you’re not expected to adapt the position
of your party or find a sliver of value in the other one.”
For better or worse, English said, it means political
success these days necessitates political action organizations
develop their own roster of activists to engage in the fray.
Hence, he urged the co-ops to enlist people—including
consumer members—to work for, contribute to, and get out
the vote for candidates based on whether they are for or against
electric cooperatives.
That type of singular perspective is “the
reality of politics today, whether we like it or not,”
English stated.
His observation harkened to a time nearly 70 years
ago when rural pioneers took up the cause of rural electrification
with similar passion and commitment.
“When the lights first came on, those people
were activists,” English said. “Now we need folks
to take their place.”
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Making Merry at the
Miller Farm
Before the inevitable whirlwind
of a stressful Christmas rush sets in, we suggest a relaxing
day that offers a lovely drive in the country, provides a jump-start
on your holiday mood, and lets you make a real dent in your
gift list. To do all three, turn your auto toward rural Janesville
and take in “Christmas at the Miller Farm.”
From late October through Thanksgiving
weekend, Rock County Electric Cooperative members Hermes “Herm”
and Joanne Miller (a.k.a. Mr. And Mrs. Claus) open their country
home to shoppers seeking unique gifts and decorations, along
with a heaping helping of Christmas spirit. This year, Christmas
at the Miller Farm is celebrating its 12th anniversary, promising
to be bigger and better than ever.
From small beginnings, the Millers
have steadily added to their month-long event to now include
hand-crafted gifts and décor from nearly 50 artisans
based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, South Dakota, Utah, and
many other states. The entire first floor of the couple’s
home, including the kitchen and a new room for quilts and rugs,
is decorated with a dazzling array of holiday cheer. Many Christmas
trees are hung with hand-crafted ornaments, while walls are
hung with wreaths, floral swags, and Christmas hangings. Every
available surface holds Santas, angels, and other types of home
décor, including many non-seasonal items—finely
crafted lamps, wind chimes, and other gifts. Stuffed toys beckon
to those who need one-of-a-kind gifts for tots. Clever lawn
ornaments are propped here and there, ready to adorn buyers’
front yards with whimsical season’s greetings. In all,
the Miller Farm held more than 3,000 different pieces for sale
last year. Shoppers from several states make Christmas at the
Miller Farm a yearly outing, and some visit the extravaganza
several times annually to complete their holiday buying.
According to Joanne Miller, “Santa
and Mrs. Clause aren’t getting any younger,” so
they start early—September 5, this year—to move
furniture from their rooms, put up the many trees, and organize
the crafts. Their “special elves,” daughter and
son-in-law Sherri and Don Watson, live in nearby Janesville
and help with the planning, selection of crafters, and setup.
Sons and their wives living in Illinois come when they can to
help out with the computer, manning the register, and many other
tasks. Even grandchildren get in the act.
By the time the annual event opens
its doors to shoppers, the home has been miraculously transformed
into a Christmas fairyland—and you’re all invited!
Whether you’re an avid shopper or just a person in need
of a healthy dose of holiday spirit, you won’t be sorry
you traveled “over the river and through the woods”
to Christmas at the Miller Farm.—Linda Hilton
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