Status Updates From When the White Pine Was Kin...

Why were the three chapters I just read weirdly neoliberal, conservative? Out of no where.

As Wisconsin’s lumber industry waned, “left behind were acres upon acres of stumps, ghosts of what had been and would be no more. Most of the lumber companies had taken their money, jobs, and influence and moved on to other places where there were trees to cut and money to be made.”

Sounds about right….capitalism at its worst.

“The liveliest time of the year in the sawmill towns was spring, when the lumberjacks and river drivers returned from the woods and rivers with money in their pockets and a thirst for a rip-roaring good time….brothels did a lively business as well.”

“No baths were taken—it was rather common for lumberjacks to go an entire winter without a bath, and generally without ill effects.”

That had to be one smelly lumber camp come spring. Oofta!