the new/old normal

Coming back from a new pizzeria in Wheatland – Luisa’s, which is in a hollow that speeding fibs pass when racing to Lake Geneva – we were always interested and for once we decided to try it out.

Didn’t buy the owner yelling to the hostess to give us the best table in the house (non-smoking) as it was in the middle of the room in front of the big screen TV. I would have preferred the second best – the empty one by the window. But liked the place it was a bar with a restaurant attached where around here we get eateries pretending to be restaurants or take-aways with a couple of tables in a strip mall. It was a place that locals hang out in again endangering the roads of western Kenosha County when they have to drive home. It had things that would bring me back to make snaps both formally and for the street furniture– horseshoe pitch, playground.

Driving nostalgically back through the lake district it was too dark to make any snaps so I made my usual note to myself to return to make some snaps.

Surprisingly I did just that to-day. After the usual stop at the post office in Bristol, I headed over to Silver Lake not ready to photograph Luisa’s – still in big city mode where suspicion abounds and since they lived above the place, didn’t want to have to explain why I liked their scoreboards. Headed to a forlorn playground with a basketball court in the middle of a field and the most frightening duck rides I have ever seen.

There is a reason why – while the most mendacious of us prefer cities that have more people than most provinces – I like places that would fit into St. Pat’s ball park. Left the machine open while wandering along the river, people who passed did the Wisconsin version of the Newfoundland nod – it involves waving.

I slowed down. Utility people said hello, and nice day and didn’t worry about the safety of their electric lines. I could stop every place simply pull over get out and wander.

Did it three times. Stopping in front of taverns – the Riverview and Uncle George’s for the buildings but for how things were arranged around them. Another basketball court, again in a strange place – miss a shot and get it by the passing delivery van.

While wandering downtown Silver Lake by default, I kept going a bit further when something caught my eye, was stopped by a lady who was out getting her post.

She was curious and oddly proud that someone would walk about here town. She had lived there 52 years taught at Westosha Central and Wheatland Middle told me the history of every building in the village. She sits on front porches for their sociability disdains back decks. In talking about Silver Lake she was telling the history of most small towns – post office now out of town, bank closed – now a restaurant, where there were two grocers now she has to go to Paddock Lake. A group still meet in the morning at the Citgo for coffee before heading off to start the day. People waved as they passed, she’d crane her neck to see who was in the machine.

Finding people who have time made me have time. At the beginning of the chat, I was trying to check my watch – like I had things to do – but an hour later when she had to go back and feed her cat, I had the sense of mind to make a snap of her as if I were in the true north. Acclimatised now, I wish that I had stopped at Luisa’s.