Stephensville squeals of delight

Barbara and I were returning from a trip to Rhinelander and decided to take the longer way back to Milwaukee, by taking Hwy 76 from Bear Creek to Greenville.  We were hoping to find something interesting to slightly extend our short weekend mini-vacation.  We were not disappointed. 

Stephensville, Wisconsin has a couple of bars and a couple of churches. As luck would have it; the 41st annual Stephensville, Wisconsin “Round-up” was being held Sunday, August 14th, 2011 at (150 year-old) St. Patrick Catholic Church.  The main street shut down for a parade that began in Tony Lauer’s field on County Road MM south of Stephensville, and apparently we had narrowly missed it due to the strategically positioned lawn chairs and gaggles of beer-drinking onlookers who still lined the curb.  Massive crowds had also turned out for a chicken and pork dinner, silent auction and live music, but what made the two of us investigate faster than you can say “oink” was yet another totally one-of-a-kind, small town, uniquely American experience; but more on that in a bit.

St. Patrick Church was founded by 15 Irish families who fled Ireland during the potato famine of the 1840s. The first Masses here were held on family farms, including that of lifelong member Leonard Tennie, 83. He remembered how families had name plates on pews in the church and "people always sat together in the same pews with their family."

Early Masses, it is said were also held at a local hotel, owned by the Pew family, and older present parish members still recall parish meetings at one of the two taverns that still operates in town.  The first settlers arrived in what they first called New Dublin via the Oshkosh to Ontanogan Trail. That trail was used to drive cattle up to copper miners in Upper Michigan. Early photos show split rail fences surrounding the church to keep the cattle from running into the building.  That church, with its 90-foot steeple, was built mostly with parish labor from oak logs cut at a nearby sawmill. Since the parish was a mission church for most of its history, it was first served by priests who arrived by horse, horse and buggy and even by steamboat from Oshkosh up the nearby Wolf River.

This year’s Round-up began as you might expect; with an 8:30 a.m. Mass followed by a local favorite, broasted chicken/pork dinner from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The parade began at 1:30 p.m. with a featured a theme basket silent auction from 1 to 5 p.m. and quilt, cash and prize raffles, as well as children’s games for all ages, refreshments, a beer garden and music from 4 to 8 p.m. by the Honky Tonk Twisters.and a pig wrassle at 2:30 p.m.   Pig wrassling is simple. Pick up a muddy pig and get a portion of its body over a barrel in less than 45 seconds.  Organizer Glen Van Handel said up to 39 total groups could register to get in the mud. He said they sold advance tickets for the three sessions.

"It's the big draw for my church," said Bruce Learman, co-chair. "We'll raise $1,800 to $2,000 just from the pig wrassle and about $20,000 overall." St. Patrick's Sister Pauline Feiner and Father John Kastenholz both have taken turns chasing pigs in the mud-filled ring in past years; to the amusement of their parishioners. "We were fools, but we did it," said Sister Pauline, parish director.

In the 41 years St. Patrick's has held the fundraiser, it has included the wildly famous pig wrassle about 33 times, said Fran Van Camp, one of the wrassle organizers. Handlers watch carefully to make sure wrasslers follow the rules of not dropping pigs and always keeping their snouts above the mud. The 38 pigs from a local farm were rotated in the ring, and each was hosed down afterwards.  According to the locals, the event got the attention of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) in years past, which prompted organizers to be even more vigilant. "We're very careful about the pigs," Van Camp said. "We want to get them back to the farmer safe and sound."

While that whole hog thing was quite weird and oddly unsettling, what made my skin crawl even worse was the antique tractor area.  As I walked up a small grassy knoll to check out the spectacle of color and noise; I was instantly dumbstruck and just stood there staring.  Barbara asked me what was wrong.  I could barely even describe the potential liability horror I was witnessing. Apparently to the residents, this type of configuration involving old farm implements parked unbelievably close together with their gasoline engines running and their respective power-take-offs whirring away was ho-hum commonplace.  To me, the large menacing rubber belts, zipping away between old John Deere and International Case flywheels to ancient mechanical devices (with absolutely no guards to conceal their decapitational potential) was in alarmingly stark contrast to the OSHA-dominated world of safety I existed in. 

One tractor-powered device was sawing wood while another was making ice-cream and all I could do was mutter and point as I witnessed a little girl being strong-armed by a large woman in period costume, into helping her shove corn cobs down a finger-threatening wooden chute into a gnashing de-kerneler.  It was all too unsetting, so I quickly pulled Barbara away to the blissful ignorance of (no witnesses) distance.  I silently said a prayer for the wee girl on the tractor platform that she would be OK and that sanity would quickly return to the ill-advised, demonstrating adult woman.

A calming walk through the silent auction tent slowly helped me to forget the terrifying tractor area, and suddenly; seeing the pile of fluorescent green flyers on an auction table advertising the upcoming St. Denis (6^th annual world championship) Cabbage Chuck to be held September 17^th in Shiocton Lake Park made me positively giddy with Roads Less Traveled blog potential.  Could this be our next big investigatory stop?  I mean c’mon…there is a possible “world record cabbage chuck attempt” at 5:00 PM and it’s only three bucks to get in!