Reporting from a Small Town

By Carl Croshatch

Carl Croshatch purchased the failing newspaper called The Zipperfinch Lake Buffoon in the early nineteen-nineties and turned it into a relative success though it was read only by local residents. Little is known about Carl’s origins and background, but most people in town doubt he has the journalism degree he claims to have. His skills as a reporter and editor are also suspect.
Since he’s reported on most individuals and organizations in and around Zipperfinch Lake, the origins of the animosity toward him may have taken root in these reports. He’s fled town to an undisclosed location after residents discovered he’d issued these newspaper reports in book form called Reporting from a Small Town.
A newly formed group, Citizens Devoted to Hanging Carl Croshatch, has pooled its resources and hired the Deranged Killers Motorcycle Club to hunt him down, so far to no avail. For some reason, the Zipperfinch Ladies Drinking and Quilting Society, usually a benign group, has also joined in the quest for the reporter.
While reading Reporting from a Small Town, you’ll probably be able to discern why certain people are so upset. Carl is out there somewhere because occasional writings from him mysteriously appear on the internet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carl Croshatch
• Release date: Jul 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311861481

Book preview

Reporting From a Small Town

Carl Croshatch

Copyright 2013 Carl Croshatch

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

ISBN-10: 0991148916

ISBN-13: 978-0991148912

Ebook formatting by Maureen Cutajar

www.gopublished.com

CONTENTS

The Beginning

The Search for the Giant Frog

The Case of the Bigfoot Sighting

The Parachuting Accident

The Arrest of the Star Trek Enthusiasts

The Burglary

The Saga of the Outhouse

The Church Fire

The Global Warming Lecture

Rebuilding the Church

The Mountain Bikers

Snowmobile Season

Big Screen Television

Summer Camp

Zippy’s Café and Hardware

The Green Van

Bob’s Bait and Tackle

The Dating Service

Dreaming of Riches

The Professor

Sneaky

The Visitors

The Candidate

The End

Zipperfinch River

THE BEGINNING

As I peer into the approaching darkness outside my newspaper building, I see what I estimate to be at least two hundred people gathered there shouting, cursing and calling for my demise. What follows are reports I’ve gleaned directly from my newspaper, The Zipperfinch Lake Buffoon, which led to this local uprising when people discovered my plans to widely distribute these articles. My report starts innocently enough with a brief history of Zipperfinch Lake itself which is located in the central Upper Peninsula of Michigan, about thirty miles south and west of the city of Marquette.

Historical origins of the town are murky but it is generally accepted that the first European to view the lake was the famous explorer Father Jacques Marquette. In the fall of 1669, he was taking a cold canoe ride down the Zipperfinch River with his Chippewa guide Tagee, wondering why he’d left his cozy monastery in France. Tagee, on the other hand, was wishing that Father Marquette would go back to his cozy monastery in France. He was also wishing that the good Father would pick up a paddle and do some of the work. It was almost the end of Jacques Marquette following the incident at Zipperfinch Falls but he managed to calm Tagee down after the guide had dried out so it’s hardly worth mentioning here. Marquette did try to explain to Tagee in a loud, excited voice the reason for his sudden panic which led to the canoe overturning and their subsequently being swept over the falls, even though the guide understood very few words in the French language. He claimed to have seen a very large furry creature loping on two feet through the forest along the river. It was at this point Tagee tried to decapitate the priest with a canoe paddle.

The first inhabited building in Zipperfinch Lake was a cabin built by a nineteen year old French-Canadian trapper Alexis St. Martin in 1823. The trapper used the cabin as a base of operations and also as a hideout from Dr. William Beaumont, an army surgeon at Fort Mackinac who’d treated St. Martin for a nasty musket wound. It seems that Alexis and another trapper got into a dispute over a set of beaver traps and St. Martin lost the argument. It took a year for his wounds to heal but a hole in his stomach never closed. The hole was covered by a flap of skin and Dr. Beaumont found that he could push the flap of skin open and view the activities of St. Martin’s stomach. People may wonder why he found this so interesting but you have to remember there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment back in those days.

Beaumont began conducting experiments on Alexis. He forced St. Martin to eat various kinds of foods and observed the process of digestion in Alexis’s stomach. He also dangled a variety of edible foodstuffs on a string into St. Martin’s stomach and later pulled them out to see to what extent the food had been digested. The good doctor found that vegetables were less digestible than other foods. The proof of this discovery can be seen in modern times by observing the foul moods of today’s vegetarians. Dr. Beaumont also discovered that alcohol was a major cause of gastritis. He conducted the alcohol experiments quite frequently because they were the only reason St. Martin kept returning.

Alexis St. Martin didn’t find the experiments nearly as interesting as the doctor did. He frequently ran screaming from Fort Mackinac and disappeared. It was during these frequent absences that he hid in his tiny cabin on Zipperfinch Lake. It is understandable why he didn’t want to participate. Since operating room lights were unknown at the time, some physicians assume that Beaumont used lanterns and candles to peer into St. Martin’s stomach. This theory is further substantiated by St. Martin being known in trapping circles as the one with no hair on his chest.

This brings us to the modern day inhabitants of Zipperfinch Lake. The following reports will document the foibles of some of these inhabitants. In writing these reports, I followed the newsman’s code of today which is to tell the truth or get as close to it as possible. Outright lies are also permissible if consumers of the news can be made to believe them to be true.

While the people of the town may be a little quirky, they are generally good folks, many of whom try their best not to excel at anything. I prefer to think of them as practical. For example, the post office will only accept first class mail or higher. They used to handle the usual circulars, advertisements and catalogs but they decided they had too few employees to be bothered with sorting them. Before they instituted the policy, Lefty Clayborne, the local mail carrier, would dispose of them anyway before he started his route. He never told anyone what he did with the junk mail but I've been warned, by more than a few people, to never drink any water from the old well behind the post office.

The Post Office

They don’t fly a flag on the flagpole in front of the post office. That's because they don't have one. It seems that every time they put one up, Butch Bloodshot and his cousin Skeeter, the local juvenile delinquents, would steal it. Gladys Clump, the postmistress, finally gave up on the flag but I understand that Butch has quite a collection of American flags up in the attic of his parents' garage right next to his road sign collection.

These are just a couple of examples. What follows is the real story or as close to it as I can get.

THE SEARCH FOR THE GIANT FROG

Over the years, many people have reported sightings of a Zipperfinch Lake sea monster. Many of these witnesses are credible while others are naturally prone to seeing strange phenomena every day. All of the observers, however, described the same type of animal. People used the words sea monster when they were explaining for the record what they'd observed but, from all the descriptions gathered, the Zipperfinch Lake monster doesn't fit the usual preconceived notion of what a creature of the deep looks like. Witnesses say the Michigan monster resembles a giant bullfrog. Some people say the frog theory would help explain the very loud, eerie sounds that emanate from the lake during the traditional bullfrog mating season. No one can even be sure if there’s a single giant frog or multiple ones.

Ethel Rumor of Saginaw, who has a vacation home on Zipperfinch Lake, told authorities last year that a large creature came hopping out of the water and ate her pet Pomeranian. There was no doubt that her dog had vanished but the authorities are skeptical of this sighting because Ethel has reported many strange events that have happened to her during her visits to her second home. One summer morning she ran screaming into the township hall in Zipperfinch Lake and accosted the constable complaining that strange beings had abducted her and taken her aboard a space craft. She said the beings transported her to a planet somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy.

Most town residents didn’t believe her because they are sure that no such place as the Andromeda Galaxy even exists. Her numerous Bigfoot sightings are legendary and she once reported seeing Elvis at Zippy’s Café in town. Residents scoffed at her Elvis report because nearly everyone in Zipperfinch Lake has not only seen Elvis but considers him a friend and have had him over to the house for dinner on numerous occasions.

On the same day and at about the same time that Ethel Rumor claimed to have witnessed the horrible event, Oscar Jones, a reliable witness and town constable, relayed to this reporter that he'd seen what looked like a giant frog's head sticking out of the water in the lake. He described the frog as generally olive green with a brighter green upper lip and a pale lower lip. Oscar said that the amphibian seemed to be gagging and spitting out something that resembled dog fur.

Sounds like a bullfrog to me, I said, not having a clue what I was talking about.

A group of area residents conducted what they reported as being the first credible search for the Zipperfinch Lake bullfrog monster. I don’t consider the few residents that went out in three boats and rowed around the south side of the lake yelling, here froggy froggy as a credible search but some townsfolk disagree with me.

Word of the possible existence of a large frog in Zipperfinch Lake somehow leaked to the outside world. Conventional wisdom says it was Ethel Rumor who released the story since most people in town are pretty tight-lipped about happenings in Zipperfinch Lake.

During the annual meeting of the Michigan Association of Restaurant Owners, discussions about the frog ensued. They decided to finance a concerted effort to locate and capture the reptile to use for breeding purposes. The group hired a salvage company that had access to midget submarines and other submersible machinery. The University of Michigan also sent a small experimental submarine to assist in the search, hoping to discover some ancient unknown species that could be researched for thesis papers written by graduate students or for professors badly in need of government sponsored research projects.

Excited residents watched as the large armada rolled into town aboard trailers pulled by trucks. The group even drove a crane in to hoist the sophisticated craft from their trailers that eventually were parked down by the lake near the public boat launching ramp.

The size of Zipperfinch Lake is slightly over ten thousand acres which is a large area for these research vessels to cover. Since the average depth of the lake is only twenty feet and the maximum depth is thirty-two feet, it's so shallow in most places that the machines spent much of their time resting on the bottom with their decks and undersea cameras still above water. Observers aboard one research vessel equipped with a small remote controlled underwater robot reported seeing what looked like large reptile prints on the bottom of the lake. That sighting wasn't photographed or confirmed by other searchers.

With all the activity on the lake, there was only one accident and no injuries occurred. The throttle on one of the smaller vessels stuck open as it sped toward the experimental submarine. It hit the University of Michigan’s vessel with such force that it punched a gaping hole in the side. The submarine sank to the bottom but the graduate students standing on its deck only got wet up to their waists.

A large contingent of Zipperfinch Lake residents gathered at the marina to observe the search. One member of the crowd was Ethel Rumor who stood at the end of the dock armed with a twelve gauge shotgun, vowing to avenge the untimely demise of her Pomeranian should the creature, as she put it, show its ugly face above water. She'd blasted three surfacing robots and the University of Michigan's submarine with buckshot before Oscar Jones disarmed her and sent her home.

How was I to know? she yelled over her shoulder as she stomped angrily up the path toward the road. I'm wearing my reading glasses, not my seeing glasses.

The remaining members of the crowd were evenly divided between the pro-froggers and the anti-froggers, with those that were against the frog being the more vocal faction. Soon, protest signs began popping up on both sides and sporadic fighting broke out between the more adamant members of the opposing groups. Later in the afternoon, a riot developed and Oscar Jones called for reinforcements from the state police to help break up the melee. The crowd finally dispersed and neither side suffered any serious injuries. The people went home but an undercurrent of animosity continued for weeks afterward.

The group searching for the giant frog gave up their quest after scanning as much of the lake as they could, loaded their equipment onto trucks, and went home. With them went the hopes of the restaurateurs of ever developing very large frog legs for their menus. Members of the pro-frog contingent applauded from the side of the road as the armada headed out of town.

Quite a few individuals have sighted the bullfrog since then but there have been no other signs of its existence except for the unconfirmed reports of an occasional missing water skier. The skiers were usually found sipping a bourbon in the Lakeside Bar and Grill.

THE CASE OF THE BIGFOOT SIGHTING

Unusual things have been happening in the Zipperfinch Lake again. A strange creature has been observed in and around town by residents and visitors alike. Although I did report on the Father Marquette observation, the first recorded sighting of the frightening apparition was in 1942 by Elmo Fernwood, a distant relative of current vacation home owner, Ethel Rumor. What the creature people claim to have seen is known in different parts of the world by various names such as Yeti, Abominable Snowman, Bigfoot, Sasquatch or, as Zipperfinch Lake residents refer to it, that big, hairy fleabag.

At this juncture, I’d like to point out that there is absolutely no validity to the claim by many that the only people who believe in these creatures are lonely individuals who get up in the morning, sometimes brush their tooth, pull on their coveralls, don their John Deere caps and go out and sit on their porches with their favorite flea bitten hound by their side. Sometimes their husbands join them. This is a fallacy. I personally have conducted scientific experiments many times where I’ve walked some urbanite far out in the woods under some pretext, usually to point out to him or her some wild marijuana plants I’ve found growing. I’d never get them out there if I told them the truth about the plants being non-existent in the area. When we were deep enough into the woods, I’d point to a dark tree stump or some kind of shadow and yell hysterically, Sasquatch! Run for your life. The next thing I’d usually see would be a flash of urbanite crashing wildly through the forest, heading toward town. So, deep down, they must believe in these creatures, too.

It was Orville Bloodshot who first gave the creature the fleabag name after he'd walked out of Lakeside Bar and Grill back in 2005 and saw it lurking in the darkness in the woods. Orville, who'd had a touch of the grape to ward off the fall chill, originally mistook the creature for his wife whom he assumed had come to drag him home by his left ear. Upon closer observation, however, he knew he didn't recognize the fur coat. When the creature stood straight up, Orville realized he was witnessing something abnormal. He also realized it was something that might devour him at any moment.

Sobering up instantly, he broke all local speed records running back into the bar. Astonished patrons asked him what was wrong and, after downing a triple bourbon, he stammered, b-b-big, hairy f-f-fleabag. People assumed he'd seen his wife coming for him so they marched him home where they found the lights out and his wife snoring loudly in the back bedroom. Dismissing the whole event as nothing more than a slight aberration, the townsfolk headed back to the tavern for last call.

The next day, local children out playing in the woods came