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It was a dry, dry summer, if you know what I mean. Very little rain since early May.
I was living on food stamps and the last gasps of my unemployment. Like the water in the creeks, my cash flow had slowed to a trickle. And due to my detrimental financial situation, I was forced to take a reporting job at the North Country Tattler, a weekly, so-called “alternative newspaper,” published by a sleazy, disingenuous hustler named Bill Crocket.
Crocket had a thing about investigative reporting and exposing scandal—as long as those involved weren’t making him any money. An opportunist, he wanted to make a name for himself by making someone else look bad. I figured I could help him out and make a name for myself at the same time, if I could break something big in his shitty little paper.
The Tattler had already milked dry the local mayor’s problems with gambling and spousal abuse so I had to find new chickens to pluck, new dogs to kick. And then it fell upon me like an all day itch.
I was sitting around my small third-floor apartment drinking cheap beer, smoking Kool cigarettes and listening to old Doors albums, hoping for an acid flashback to ease the boredom. I reflexively grabbed a magazine from the top of a large stack of periodicals my former girlfriend had left behind after she dumped me. Bitch ran off with some insurance salesman who actually had money and a nice car. I hate to think about it because it still pisses me off.
So anyway, there I was, thumbing through the March issue of The New Yorker trying not to think about not-so-sweet Jan. I started reading this article about the search for ritual satanic activity in America, how thousands of such cases have been reported, but none have ever been substantiated, even though all levels of law enforcement—from local cops to the FBI—have worked on the investigations. The thing that really struck home, was that Jan, my ex, had once told me a story about some poor, pathetic soul she knew who’d claimed she was abused as a child in a similar ritual to those described in the magazine.
This girl’s particular satanic nightmare included everyone in her small Wisconsin hometown, from the mayor to the librarian to her parents and older siblings. Allegedly, all these people participated in frequent satanic sexual rituals that took place in the middle of the forest. Jan told me her friend had strong memories of huge bonfires and wickedly dancing flames reflecting off the red satin robes of the possessed participants.
And this got me to thinking about Wisconsin, how I had always felt a little strange there. I was in the habit of spending a bit of time in dairyland from May through October, and I knew the vibes were a little on the weird side at times. Almost as if there was some kind of malevolent presence lingering unseen. Or at the very least, a huge, yawning indifference that could swallow you up without so much as a hiccup.
After finishing the article, I emptied the ashtray, went to the can and then grabbed myself another Old Mil from the fridge. I plopped back down on my sagging maroon couch. The next magazine on the pile was Vanity Fair. I wasn’t holding out much hope for entertainment there, but I started thumbing through anyway, hoping there might be a sexy lingerie ad or a topless photo.
And there it was again: Vanity Fair had a piece on ritual satanic abuse in America. I felt something changing inside me and read the article as fast as I could. The stories and comments were similar in both magazines. I knew this was it—the breakthrough I was hoping for. I could feel the pieces of the puzzle shifting around inside my head: Jan was from Wisconsin. Her friend was from Wisconsin. I visited Wisconsin a lot. There was something else—but I couldn’t quite grasp it at first. It concerned these suspicions that I harbored, things that I felt and sensed. Call it instinct.
I knew I had to go deep into Wisconsin’s north woods.
On Memorial Day weekend, I packed up a duffel bag with clothes, threw my tent and camping gear in the back of my rusty but trusty ’78 Ford and headed for the land that time forgot. Earlier in the week I’d pawned my deer rifle and my golf clubs for two hundred and fifty bucks. I would have to live cheaply, that much I knew. I had a pocket full of food stamps, two cans of Miller Light and a hundred dollars’ worth of Shoreview Palace dinner certificates—my pay from the Tattler for my most recent expose: People Who Lie in Personals Ads and was hoping I could trade the certificates for fifty cents on the dollar to the Wisconsinites if things got desperate. Provided, of course, that the tradees had never sampled the fare at the Palace.
The following are the only legible portions saved from my journal, which was scorched in an unexplained house fire on October 31, of the same year.
JUNE: I’m down here in Wisconsin. Can’t reveal my exact location for fear the wrong people may find out. I’m staying at a campground near several small towns, using it as a base camp. Am currently trying to light campfire without the use of charcoal lighter. Easy for you perhaps, but difficult for me. Just returned from an evening at one of the many Dew Drop Inns to be found in the area, where I was entertained by the sounds of Accordian Agnes and the Raggin’ Bitches. A “riot grrl” band these ladies are definitely not. But on any given night they could easily blow the Oulo Hotshots off the stage. The finale, when Agnes rips off her fringed denim shirt and dances on the bar playing a grunge-reggae version of Lady of Spain, is truly something to behold. Left me speechless.
But the night’s frivolity begins to fade as I contemplate the weight of by mission. After all, this is Wisconsin. Vacationland. Could there really be ritual satanic activity in God’s Country? But then I think maybe that’s why they built all the churches.
Sometimes I feel foolish. But then I remember that Ed Gheen, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the Posse Comitatus called the Dairy State home. I often feel a chill here, even when the night is warm, and sometimes it feels as if someone is watching me. But I see nothing.
The fire is finally going now and I feel a little better. I think fondly of Minnesota. Then something in the flaming logs seems to warn me of upcoming danger. I take a long pull off my bottle of Windsor and move closer to the flames.
Enough for now. I must rest. Tomorrow I continue the search.
JULY: Finding evidence of the devil in northern Wisconsin is proving more difficult a task than I’d imagined. This is truly a strange area: miles and miles of lonely, tree-lined roads winding by an endless string of taverns. I often reflect on what an old drinking buddy once told me: “There is a law in Wisconsin that mandates a minimum of one tavern for every thirty miles of roadway.” In my travels, the statute seems unbroken.
Frequently it seems as if I’m in some kind of time capsule where things haven’t changed in years. A life created in the middle of the great forest where the isms of bygone eras still linger and influence. Racism, alcoholism and religious fanaticism still dominate certain pockets of the Badger State. This is a volatile mix.
In a state known throughout the country for its persistent bigotry toward Native Americans, it’s not uncommon to go out with your buddies on Saturday night, get pig drunk and abuse some Indians, and then show up nice and pious for Sunday church. You can be guilt free by the second after service beer. Thankfully there are many good people here, also. It is upon them that my survival depends.
And, oh yes—beer—the staff of life here. It is generally not considered boozing, I have learned, if you’re only drinking beer. Usually commencing around noon—earlier on weekends—beer consumption is just a part of everyday life. Real, certified drinking doesn’t begin until the cocktail ice tinkles and the “jugs” are brought out. And I’ve been fitting in quite well, considering that I’m from Minnesota.
Tales of satanic ritual under the towering Wisconsin pines, tales of bonfires and sacrifices and horror, tales of entire small towns involved in satanic conspiracies—no one will discuss these things with me. When I bring them up in conversation, the natives only stare at me as if I’m a leper or a homosexual.
Does this kind of thing really exist here amongst the mozzarella and the cheddar or is it just the stuff of kids’ fantasies and the 700 Club’s ravings?
It’s my job to find out.
I think I’ll roll along until I find a place with one of those neon martini glass signs and see if I can lure something up. You just never know. I feel something drawing me to it and I must follow.
AUGUST: I have returned to Duluth exhausted and frustrated and feeling like I should give up. I have traveled from Rhinelander to Racine, Luck to Lucerne, Menominie to Montreal. I’ve spent hours in small towns and even longer in small town bars. Listening, learning and drinking cheap beer have been my disciplines. My questions got no answers. On many nights I hollered into the darkness offering to trade my soul for twelve cold Heinekens or a good-looking woman—but nothing happened.
And now my landlord just took all my money for back rent and my unemployment runs out next week. My apartment is musty and full of mildew and there’s an awful smell in the fridge. Perhaps those old crappie fillets...
My discouragement runs so high and my energy runs so low. I can only sit around and mope and battle with the curious malaise that has overtaken me like a bad case of the clap. All I can do is watch television and listen to classic rock radio. My friends say to me: “What’s the matter with you, Elton? What’s with all this Satan shit? We’ll come around at twelve with some Two Harbors girls just dying to meet you. We’ll bring a case of beer and let ‘em fool around—you know—like we used to.”
And I wearily answer in a low rasp: “It’s been an endless stream of cigarettes and warm beer and string cheese, Brewer’s scores and knotty pine paneling. But I must go back; that sly, slippery serpent Satan mocks my every step. I will not give up, despite the fruitless chase he’s led me on.”
At least not for a while.
I can feel the influence of the beast growing around me now as I rest and recuperate. The Great Prevaricator is casting his net ever closer. Here in Duluth, the school board has banned the wearing of baseball caps in school as an anti-gang measure. Only a demonic presence could be behind this. A child wearing a baseball cap is a symbol of America’s greatness and the glory of the “grand old game.” And I can remember when the school board made sense. Seen but not heard, I think.
Elsewhere in Minnesota women are holding hands and lying on the ground in groups and humming. Supposedly to get back in touch with the earth. What kind of madness is this?
My throat constricts when I contemplate what’s going on across the bridge in Superior. It is there, on Wisconsin’s northernmost tier, that some loathsome creature has been trying to abduct kids in broad daylight. Fortunately, the kids have all watched enough violent movies in their lifetimes and seem skilled in the methods of escape and defense. Because no child was actually taken, you may think that Satan lost this battle—but you’re wrong. Now the parents in Superior are frightened and make their kids stay inside all day. And if that ain’t hell, I don’t know what is.
A thought... an idea... a destination... something is climbing to the surface of my brain now. It’s something I’ve felt for awhile, an ever growing awareness. Something you might get if you read a lot of newspapers and remember things—like I do. If you remember a lot of little crime blurbs over the years, after awhile you get to thinking it’s kind of odd how such a small spot on the map can have so many weird and terrible things going on in and around it, and over such a long period of time.
It wasn’t so long ago that they found that poor little girl lying in the ditch, beaten half to death. No suspect, no motive, no clue. Was right around the time the feds popped a big amphetamine distributor right in the middle of the bucolic downtown. And strike three: a friend recently told me he bought tennis balls in a tin can in that same downtown.
The name burns on my brain. I can see it when I close my eyes like I’ve been staring too long at the sun: Shell Lake. I’m beginning to get strong feelings about the place. You may scoff, but the industrious among you can check the public records of the last twenty years—and then you’ll understand what I’m saying. Simply examine the name: Shell Lake. Take away the S—which could represent Satan—and your left with Hell Lake. Need I say more? August 28.
September rolled around and I had pretty much resigned myself to defeat. I stuffed my journal in my sock drawer and left it there.
Then one day I was over at my Aunt Ethel’s little house north of town, mowing the lawn for a little extra cash. I’d thought about pawning my stereo, but only a junkie would do that. Auntie Eth always tried to help me when she knew I was low on funds. It was kind of a little game we played. She knew I’d mow the lawn and wash the windows for nothing but she’d always slip me some money anyway. And then I’d give it back to her and say, No, no, that’s not necessary. And she’d give it back to me, insisting, and I would put it in my pocket and give her a hug.
So anyway, I was out in back by Ethel’s withered, stunted corn crop when I heard this voice coming from the middle of it: “Go—and they shall be there. Hell Lake is the center. Go and they shall be there.”
Well, I knew I wasn’t hallucinating, because I’d been straight for so long, so I ran out of there and got into my car and drove immediately to the office of the Tattler, walked right in on Bill Crocket. The man was talking on the phone and I heard him say something about the paint on his BMW before he hung up and turned his attention to me. He smoothed down his off-white, tropical-weight sport coat with the palms of his hands. A big gold ring with a single diamond flashed on his left hand. He leaned back in his chair on wheels, put his right hand on his upper lip and eyed me warily.
I spilled my guts and my story to Crocket like a strung out crack addict trying to cop a plea to a hanging judge. I begged him for an advance so I might make one last foray into Cheeseland. Promised him this time I would corner the followers of the horn-ed one and expose them to the penetrating light of investigative journalism. Elton Kirby had a mission.
Crocket looked at me like I’d been huffing Carbona. He shook his head. “You haven’t written a goddamn thing that’s worth a shit all summer, Kirby,” he said, opening up his humidor and pulling out a foot long cigar. “That journal, or diary, or whatever the hell you call it, is kind of cute, but I need some real news. I need somebody’s nuts on the table where I can crush them.”
“I think I’ve got something this time, chief,” I said in desperation. “If I’m right, we’ll have an entire town by the nads. The mayor, the librarian, the sheriff—we’ll have them all. Please, this is big. A small advance is all I ask”
“The mayor, you say? The sheriff?” He waved the cigar in a big circle and his eyes grew moist. “That’s more like it Kirby. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do. I’ll give you fifty bucks cash and twenty certificates from Sun Seekers—those things are worth at least fifteen bucks a crack.”
“Tanning certificates in fuckin’ September, Bill? It’s still summer for chrissakes.”
“That doesn’t matter. Find some chicks, waitresses or something—they’ll trade’em for food, maybe drinks if they like you. Just tell ’em how much of a shame it would be to lose that nice summer tan so soon—that’ll get ’em.” Then he turned away from me, grabbed a plastic lighter off his large antique desk and began shuffling some travel folders.
I took the money and the tanning certificates and left.
The day was sunny and breezy as I rolled onto the John Blatnik Bridge. Although my sinuses were a bit clogged and my stomach was a little queasy, my spirits were high. I stopped at the Hammond Spur station for some of their chicken, my favorite fast food. With the rhythmic snapping of the red and blue plastic pennants on the fuel pump island bidding me farewell, I dipped my fingers into the greasy meat and drove out onto the street.
Soon I was traveling down Highway 2, rolling along with the sunny sky and the semis. Past the sweet corn sellers and the melon stands, the empty motels and the muddy Nemadji River. Past the rusted railroad bridge and the President’s Bar in decaying East Superior, and then on to the four-lanes of Highway 53.
A few miles down the road I turned off at the Spooner exit and headed south. A more beautiful stretch of roadway you would be hard pressed to find. It just begs you to speed and I obliged.
Really moving now I rolled past the Middle River, the inevitable road construction and the Lake Nebagamon turn-off. Cattails the size and color of Havana cigars swayed and waved in the ditches. The Jayhawks sang on the radio as I hurtled by the junkyard at Bennett. The roadside became a blur when I blew by Stone Chimney Road and Smithy’s Supper Club. Tires hummed on the warm pavement through Solon Springs then out again past the Village Pump and the Douglas County forest—which resembles a garden of telephone poles—followed by the Poodle Inn, Gordon, Wascott, Two-Mile Lake, the Deer Farm Bar at the entrance to Walleye Land, the road to Dairyland, the Totogatic River, and then Minong, home of the Link Brothers famous store and the highest rate of mobile homes per capita in the region. Back on the open road I breezed across Stuntz Brook, the road to Lampson, The Little Silver Inn and a farmhouse made entirely of stones.
The countryside began to change, pines and sand giving way to rolling hills and hardwoods. I was in farm country. By the time I got to the statue of the giant rodeo cowboy outside of Spooner, the Spur Station chicken was lying in my gut like a tungsten football, and my sinuses were so clogged I was snoring while awake. I decided to find a pharmacy and seek relief.
When I plopped down the bottle of maximum strength Pepto Bismol and a packet of SudaFed Allergy-Sinus pills, the kid behind the counter at Pamida was grinning like he’d been sampling the amphetamine suppositories.
“Do you take plastic?” I asked in a nasal drone.
“Sure,” he said, “Visa and Mastercard.”
“No,” I said, “not credit cards, I mean these.” I pulled out a handful of Bayfront Bluesfest tokens from my pocket and showed them to the pimply teenager. “These are collector’s items, man—what can you give me for them? Or maybe you want some tanning booth certificates instead. Good for the complexion, I understand.”
“Those tokens are way cool, dude,” said the boy. “They from that festival up in Duluth where the colored people come and play old music?”
“The very same, kid.”
“Give you fifty cents a piece for them.”
After we concluded our deal the clerk was still grinning and I was hurrying for the door. Soon I was on the road.
A few miles outside of Shell Lake a strong wind came up and I began to notice an increased lushness in the roadside foliage, as if the drought had not existed around here. The local corn crop was over five feet high and fat while everywhere else I’d been, the scrawny stocks barely reached three feet.
A voice echoed in my head: Go there and they will come. Hell Lake is the center.
Was about this time that the antihistamines started kicking in and what follows is a little hazy in my memory.
I was walking around in one of the prettiest small towns I’d ever seen but I still couldn’t shake this omnipresent feeling of unease. Why was I here? Answer: Some half-assed, hair-brained ideas about satanic cults and a voice from a cornfield. The realization made me feel small and foolish and just a little crazy.
The blue-green waters of Shell Lake washed soothingly at my feet as I stood on the closed and empty public beach. Momentarily disgusted with myself, I turned up toward Main Street and went in search of beer. The best way to get to know a town is from its bar people.
As I walked, questions floated in and out of my mind like lazy black flies. What was that odd monument in front of the new school? What was the “Shell Lake Advantage” being touted on all those signs? Why was the corn so fucking tall? Would the bar have Leinenkugel’s?
Inside the Water View Lounge, it was clean, very clean. A pleasant looking blonde woman in her mid-thirties stood behind the long oaken bar. At the table by the front window sat a lady of considerable girth wearing a purple bowling shirt. At the far end of the room, near the pool tables and the bathrooms, three old-timers were dipping snoose, drinking beer and staring at the big screen TV.
Having learned that drinking Bud gets you accepted in Wisconsin bars, I ordered one. Then another. About halfway through the second beer I noticed a paper sign on the wall behind the bar: WE HAVE BLACK STAG! MADE LOCALLY—TRY IT! A hand drawn rendering of a large stag leered out from above the copy.
“Let me try some of that,” I said, pointing to the sign.
“You want to try some of that?” said the bartender, her voice now deeper than I remembered. “It’s on special today, three shots for four bucks.”
“Must be my lucky day,” I said. But shots? I don’t do shots anymore. Used to have some bad habits, you see....
“Every Tuesday is Black Stag Day here,” the bartender said.
“Cool,” I said, and without my consent, my right hand came out of my jeans pocket with a fiver in it and laid it on the shiny bar.
I watched the bartender bend down below the cash register and open a cooler door. She lifted out a large crystal decanter filled with an inky, black liquid.
Now three jet-black, two-ounce shot glasses sat full to the brim in front of me.
“People around here like to down all three, one after the other. That is, if they’re man enough,” piped up the huge woman in the hideous purple bowling shirt. “We call it a triple.”
A triple. How original. Man enough you say? Down the hatch number one: vile, radioactive licorice. Number two: cough syrup with a mule kick. And number three: What is this shit? I almost gagged and my face got flushed. I looked around the room and everybody was staring at me but then they turned their heads away.
Soon we all became friends. Fellow denizens of a small-town Wisconsin drinking establishment. A wiry guy in camo pants and his square-headed, jut-jawed buddy came in from the sunlight and joined the fun. We all laughed. When I snuck in questions about the crime and violence in the area they brushed me off, preferring instead to spin tales of the Harper family—some kind of local icons or something. And my fellow denizens all kind of smiled and nodded when the camo dude said: “Just about everyone around here is related to the Harper’s in one way or another. It’s true, really. Almost everyone. Ain’t that right Julie?” He looked at the bartender.
“My cousin Mimi is married to a Harper, so I guess I qualify,” Julie the bartender said.
Now I was feeling so warm and fuzzy that I decided to be honest. Come right out and tell these fine people what the hell I was up to. “You know,’ I said with a beaming smile, “I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.” I felt like I could whip George Foreman and not break a sweat. “And to think I came to town here on assignment, trying to find cults and satanic ritual and shit.”
And then the room started spinning and the stag on the sign behind the bar began pulsating with life. I turned on my barstool and scanned the room. The three deer in the outdoor scene painted on the back wall were dripping blood. Then the blonde bartender came out from behind the bar, and horror of horrors, she had the rear end of a horse. A goddamn Centaur. Then the young men closed in around me, and my god, they were satyrs. Desperate now I searched for someone to help me but saw only weaving, spitting skeletons approaching from the back of the room. The fat lady in the purple bowling shirt was grabbing her crotch and howling like an elephant in heat.
My head pounded; my heart was in my throat. Sweat dripped off my face like a rainstorm. Nausea gripped me. I was about to puke. The floor undulated as they surrounded me. The heat of their bodies was unbearable and the smell of their breath abhorrent. I was weak and my throat was so very dry. Then I heard it, hideous and horrifying: The Demonic Chillin’ Choir shrieking in unison: “WHAT DID YOU SAY, BOY?”
With a last gasp burst of adrenaline, I charged at the circle with my head down, ramming my shoulder full tilt into a toothless old harpie. He fell backward on his skinny ass and I went stumbling and crashing out the front door. The sunlight hit my eyes and I was reeling. Life out on the street seemed normal as I staggered toward my car. It was parked in front of Tony’s Tap, a bar that had recently been closed down by federal marshals for amphetamine trafficking. I was feverishly working my key in the lock of my Ford when the front door of Tony’s opened up and a tall distinguished looking man with light brown hair and a receding hairline stepped out. He was wearing high-toned, formal clothing, looked like a butler or something.
“You are just in time for happy hour, sir,” he said to me. “We have Black Stag on special today. Won’t you join us?” He smiled at me.
His teeth were brown decaying stumps.
I popped the door lock on the Ford, jumped in and jammed the key in the ignition. Unlike the movies, the engine started immediately. My intestines had a life of their own as I squealed out of the parking space and hot-footed-it out of town.
A few minutes later I was running scared down the highway at eighty miles an hour when I popped over the crest of a small hill and saw a construction zone that I didn’t remember being there on the drive down. And about thirty yards in front of me, a big red Mack truck was pulling out from a side road on the right. And another big red truck was bearing down on me from behind, thing doing about sixty in my lane and throwing up dust like a stagecoach on “Death Valley Days.” Before long all I could see in the rearview was a large, gold grille and the word MACK. Big red truck crawling up my ass now. They had me boxed in. My mortality was as real and immediate as a January morning in Duluth—right here, right now.
I swerved the Ford to the right to avoid the large hole in front of me, hurtled off the bank, flew twenty feet in the air and slammed hard onto the new roadbed. I came out fishtailing but got her straightened out. Gaining speed I rocketed off an up-sloping piece of hardpan like a four-wheeled Evel Kneivel, flew forty feet in the air and hit the old highway with tires spinning. Behind me, dust filled the air and my tormentors could not be seen.
As my heart rate returned to normal I began to wonder if the color of the trucks held any significance. Red trucks... Nah...
Now the road ahead was clear. I sped on. Five, ten, fifteen miles. I had the thirst of a thousand slaves and a headache that a crate of aspirin wouldn’t touch. Then I heard a siren.
I pulled over for the cop, figuring I had no choice. He seemed like a normal small town officer: slightly paunchy and slightly sleepy. He approached slowly along the shoulder as I rolled down the window.
As he requested, I showed him my license.
“Do you know that you were going too fast, Mr. Kirby? What’s the hurry?” His dark aviator sunglasses hid his eyes.
“The devil, made me do it.”
“Speeding is nothing to joke about, sir. What is your business in this area?”
“Just down here visiting the Harper family in Hell—er, ah—Shell Lake, sir.”
“Oh... I see... well then, you can go. Have a nice day.” He gave me back my license, turned on the heel of his jackboot and went back to his patrol car.
It’s so good to be on the road again....
I was singing along with the radio—yeah—but the skin on my face was the color of a lily pad and nature was making all of its calls at once. I needed a roadside rest area, bad. And then, as if by magic, one of those blue signs appeared ahead of me. Half mile later I angled off into the oasis and pulled up next to the facility.
Coming out of the little toilet shack I saw two geeks standing next to my Ford. One was wearing an orange Sunkist T-shirt and a matching, sweat stained baseball cap, while the other had on a gray, grease stained work shirt and a blue cap. Both wore blue jeans sagging below their pot guts. Beavis and Butthead gone to seed. I could see no vehicle anywhere. They stared at me, croaking in unison like a two-headed lamprey on PCP: “What the hell are you doin’ here, you longhaired, big-city faggot? We don’t like your kind around here. We’re gonna mess you the fuck up.”
I jammed my hand through the open window of the Ford and grabbed the Penthouse magazine I’d purchased at Hammond Spur for those lonely moments. With a quick flick of the wrist I sailed the skin mag onto the grassy area in front of the john. As my two new friends dove for it, I jumped in the Ford and got the hell out of there.
What seemed like hours but was really only minutes later, I began to feel safe. By the time I could finally see Lake Superior, the whole thing seemed like a dream. And I’m still not really sure what happened.
Is their ritual satanic activity in Wisconsin? My conclusion: probably not. Nothing organizes this demon; it thrives on emptiness and mind-numbing boredom. Lack of love is it’s siren’s call. Does the devil live in Dairy Land? I really can’t say for sure, but if the Packers make it to the Super Bowl, ask me again.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In the late nineties, one of the largest Internet child pornography rings ever investigated was traced to a man who lived just outside of SHELL LAKE, Wisconsin.