Chapter One

Frederic Wisconsin, is a small town with almost a thousand people, and several deer. A small red fox runs across the state highway by the gas station around 4:30 every morning. The town has a restored railway station which is very authentic. There’s a caboose on a siding, a semaphore signal, a metal-wheeled cart with wood barrels and a bright yellow track-section car. A chain-saw carved wooden bear, stands near the roadbed where the metal tracks once ran.

The station anchors Main Street, which is about a block and a half long with diagonal parking. Frederic has a smattering of small shops: a hardware store, two bars, a library, and the usual shops that sell ‘antiques’ and knickknacks to tourists and used furniture to the locals.

Leaving town on the state highway you will find a gas station with well made waist-expanding doughnuts a car dealership and a tidy golf course with another bar. It is a cute town with a nice cafe and a second rate self-service car wash. The people in the town are fairly reserved but will speak with you if you speak first to them. A few of the people will wax nostalgic about the glory days of the railroad and the daily passenger train.

When first told of the twice-a-day train schedule, I knew I had missed something by being born 20 or 30 years too late. Of course, the tracks are gone except the siding with the caboose but the roadbed is now a merged bicycle/snowmobile trail. The bicyclists park by the bakery and the snowmobile folks park at the bar on the corner. Much to the towns confusion, the bakery has been closed for several years from a fire. Now they only sell wholesale and the main street side windows are covered up. There has also been a fire next door above one the bars. A fire no-sale. Two for the price of 4. Soon next year, the two buildings, which were destroyed, will rise from the ashes become one. A patio for patrons of the bar and bakery will finish the project. As I write this there is still windows and doors to install and the insides finished. The town is excited about the project.

There are five churches of the usual preferences, and even a small Amish community on the edge of town. Their carriages and the clip-clop of the horses add charm and fertilizer to the main street. The small town chugged along pretty well and the years brought the expected changes. A late night two dollar store and an old department store now selling secondhand furniture and dishes. There are treasures worth searching for: top line toasters and old hard-bound books. The two dollar store has a red box for last years latest movies. I always wonder why everything anyone buys from those quick two dollar stores smells like laundry detergent.

The early-morning men gather every morning, parking in the same parking spots and sitting at the same table. sipping passable coffee and eating good sourdough toast. The restaurant on the corner was named ‘Beans’ and now is known as ‘The Tin Shed.’ It is an early morning place of connections and warmth on winter days.

On those snowy winter days the village sweeps while its people sleep, the snow and drift removal goes on with the metallic rasp of shovels and the diesel snort of the plows. Some merchants shovel other store-front sidewalks because they have hearts for it. There is camaraderie in the winter, a hunkering and shared misery too: dead car batteries, ice on the roofs and leaking roofs in downtown with all the flat roofs common in row-house shops.

The down-town sometimes appeared like an old man with teeth missing. There were too many empty store-fronts. The draw of the big box stores about 25 miles south takes a toll on local merchants. A small town can only support one antique store or one that has used books, Jackets and couches. Frederic had a burned out bar, a bakery with no public access, an empty appliance store and an excellent hardware store. One old one with everything you need a new pharmacy and clinic. There is a friendly grocery store with a deli and things the big box does not handle. My favorite is Lingonberry jam. There is an exit power door that sticks open slightly and that is a reminder that the wholesale grocery business operates on a rather slim margin. It still works but keeps the entryway nicely cool in the winter.

There is a food truck that shows up in the summer by the old railroad depot with great gyro sandwhiches. A tow behind coffee business is faithful a block up the main street parked at the laundromat lot. Great coffee.

A curious thing in small towns is an almost precognition of most things happening that are interesting and tasty to the tongue. An event gossiped about at the corner cafe would instantly be the new topic at the library’s world- problem solving group of men gathered in a circle of comfortable chairs, or at the local bar next door over cups of morning coffee. The hand cut Jo-joes come later. Worth the wait. Real burgers as well.

Then one of the closed store-fronts was suddenly transformed from an appliance business into a prayer room. No one in town knew what a prayer room was; it sounded beneficial but odd. A few speculations were made, but no one went in when the lights were on and music was heard. It was often quite loud, with drums and piano and even a violin and people singing.

There was beautiful hand-carved lettering visible from the sidewalk claiming prayer for the town’s county and even the county to the west which encompasses the river named Holy Cross. (St. Croix Falls) my family were the musical staff with myself on the fiddle. It was pretty good. The last ‘set’ was beautiful. It started at 7:20 and ended at 7:20 The clock had stopped. It was definitely a good sign.

“It’s some kind of new church!” was a popular speculation. Simply put, the songs also had scripture being sung along in various music styles. We were mostly hidden behind a partial wall. We were in there quite a lot and we were known as friendly and there was prayer now and then in the stores for people in town. One of the bakers down the street was healed of a lifetime of headaches; this was news. “When does your free clinic open?” “What denomination are you?“ A few sidewalk questions came over the years. Once in a while I would put a chair out on the sidewalk while live music and prayer was visible on a computer screen through the window. It was a simulcast of a prayer room in Missouri.

Indeed there was a mystery with this small-town House of Prayer. How did it get there? And after four years, where did it go to? And of course, the town’s biggest question: what was it? No one really had the answer to all these puzzles except for us, a handful of people who built it and staffed it. For after all, there was no pulpit and no preaching. To quote Leonard Ravenhill, “Preaching affects time, Praying affects eternity.” There was a call from eternity and to most people, it didn’t make sense. At best, it seemed to folks like a Salvation Army storefront. They wondered,”why here?”Why not? The presence of the Living God Jesus, was strong and joyful. We miss it and some locals do too.

Small town America, the heartbeat of faith and freedom for everyone. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe