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Tuesday Funnies



I saw this today in "The Onion" (http://www.theonion.com) and had to
pass it on...

AREA MAN WAY TO INTO LOCAL COUNTY HISTORY

      LEWANAHO COUNTY, WI--Gary Pavlik, an assistant librarian at
the public library in Vida, the seat of Lewanaho County, is way too into
local county history, sources reported Monday.

      "Up until about 1890, Lewanaho County was famed across
north-central Wisconsin for its sugar-beet production," said Pavlik, 37,
the
county's unofficial historian. "But two factors put an end to its
predominance: a blight which wiped out much of the beet crop in 1891
and 1893, and a growing interest in cranberry farming, which was ideal
for
Lewanaho County's vast tracts of marshy land. Incidentally, I should
mention that the blight was bacterial in origin, and not a fungus, as
some of
the old-timers in our community would have you believe."

      Vida resident Eleanor Sloane, 66, who has known Pavlik since he
was
a boy, said he has always had a passion for Lewanaho County history.

      "At first, I thought Gary's hobby was a positive thing, since
girls didn't seem much interested in him and he needed
something to occupy his time," Sloane said. "And it still is positive,
in many respects. But numbering and cataloguing each plank
of wood in the Swilley's Creek covered bridge off Highway PD, then
determining which sawmill each plank came from? That's
just sad."

      Said Pavlik: "An interesting thing to note about the covered
bridge at Swilley's Creek is that it was built by a construction
company that was once owned by the third cousin once-removed of the
great-grandfather of--you guessed it--Eleanor Sloane.
I should also mention that at the time the bridge was built, 1892, the
cousin, Ekvind Solberg, had sold his company to Alfred F.
Griebel, who would later become county supervisor. Upon its sale, Ekvind
joined his brother Anders to manage his grain
elevator in nearby Plovis, which did a modestly successful business
before eventually shutting down in the early 1960s."

      Pavlik's latest project is studying the life and work of Leopold
Berlot, Lewanaho County's first Belgian and the inventor of
an early prototype of the modern bicycle, a five-wheeled, hand-pedaled
contraption called the "pentacopede."

      "Sadly, Leopold's invention failed to catch on among the general
public, and he soon returned to farming," said Pavlik, who
has tracked down and interviewed more than two dozen descendants of
Berlot. "Holder of some 30-odd patents, good old
Leopold was one of the more colorful characters in Lewanaho County
history, that's for certain."

      Pavlik is also an avid preservationist, having saved more than 75
volumes of court dockets, some dating back as far as the
1870s, from the Lewanaho County Courthouse upon discovering that they
were earmarked for incineration. He subsequently
donated the dockets to the Lewanaho County Historical Society.

      "We were touched by Gary's generosity, but, unfortunately, we
really didn't have a place for them," said Catherine Ernst,
director of the Lewanaho County Historical Society. "We've been
hard-pressed for space lately, and Gary's donation of 77
thick, oversized leather-bound ledgers only complicated matters."

      Pavlik said citizens of Lewanaho County "can rest well" knowing
that he is hard at work preserving their rich heritage.

      "It's astonishing how many notable things have taken place right
here in our own county over the years," Pavlik said. "The
best part is, there's always something new to learn."

      "Gary knows everything about us," Vida resident Dick Switzer said.
"Where and when we were born, what we did for a
living, who we married, how many children we had. It's really pretty
creepy."

      Pavlik's latest book, the 968-page A Short History Of Lewanaho
County, Wisconsin, published by Pavlik Press, is
available at the Lewanaho County Historical Society and nowhere else.

--
Kathleen Hertel
Archives and Manuscripts Department
Consortium Library
University of Alaska Anchorage
3211 Providence Drive
Anchorage, AK 99508
907.786.1849

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