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Fish
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True Believers
Once Again
 (News Services) Arkdale, Wis. -- In a case of history repeating itself, growing numbers of people are flocking to central Wisconsin based on reports of an apparition, but unlike the “Miracle of the Sun” event in 1950 when tens of thousands of people descended on this same area in hopes of witnessing the Virgin Mary, the latest sensation involves a weeping Vince Lombardi statue.
The small shrine dedicated to the legendary Green Bay Packer coach is located in a wooded area off County Road D in Adams County. The statue stands inside a sawed-off bathtub near a trailer whose owner chooses to remain anonymous.
“I seen what I seen,” said the shrine’s owner, “but I don’t know if I believe, and it’s tearing me apart.”
The number of visitors grows daily, filling the country road with vehicles and bystanders. A local Kiwanis club sells grilled bratwurst from the plywood booth normally found at the local Mobil Mart, and rumors swirl that the North Central Bow Hunters are planning a competing food stand with twice the cooking capacity, or two grills, and featuring venison bratwurst.
Theories circulate about the statue as well.
“It’s the state of the sport,” speculated one man as he sat inside the rusted hulk of a station wagon near the shrine. “The obscene amounts of money, the childish celebrations, the inability to build a dynasty due to free agency as sanctioned by a league that violates every anti-trust law in our great country. Or it’s the end of the world.”
“That damn Devine ruined the Pack, I’m telling you,” erupted one woman, shaking her fist in the air.
“It’s wet out here,” said another spectator.
Following the end of the Green Bay Packers 2004 season at the hands of the rival Minnesota Vikings, the shrine’s owner confided to a friend at the Irrigation Station tavern in Adams that he noticed human tears flowing from the statue.
“Yeah, I had a drink or two” during the game, the shrine’s owner said. “Who the hell didn’t? Come on, Randy Moss wipes his ass on the south end zone goal post at Lambeau Field,” the man said before pausing, his face growing increasingly flush, “right where Bart went over the top,” he continued, his voice trailing off into the damp evening air.
Purported apparitions are nothing new to central Wisconsin. On Aug. 15, 1950, as many as 100,000 people came to witness the “Miracle of the Sun” as promised by rural Necedah resident Mary Van Hoof. Nothing happened, but Van Hoof did brisk business selling “magic pillows” to attendees. Van Hoof, a spiritualist, urged followers to sign up for a space ship captained by a 1,200 year-old man named Alex who would take the travelers to safe haven in the center of the Earth when the Apocalypse occurred. Later in life she railed against “government mind control” and fluoride. Van Hoof died in 1984.
Religious and Packer shrines are nothing new to the Wisconsin landscape, but this central region seems to have cornered the market on alleged apparitions.
As an Adams County sheriff’s deputy controls traffic between bites of her bratwurst, and votive candles placed near the shrine illuminate the chipped enamel inside the bathtub, visitors wonder if this is another chapter in local lore or something more.
‘That Van Hoof was crazy as a jaybird,” said one longtime resident, “even if she was right about fluoride, but this, this is something else. I guess we’ll have to wait until summer. It’s wet out here.”
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They
say if you want a friend, you better have a dog. Former Green Bay
Packers head coach Dan Devine had a dog. Then it was shot...
Read
The (usually) Untold Story of Dan Devine's Dog.
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