Tooling along one of southern Wisconsin’s two-lane highways a week ago Friday, the radio station I happened to be tuned into – I’m not giving up terrestrial radio on road trips – introduced a new song by Alice Cooper, with a few words from the artist himself. That got my attention. Alice Cooper, shock rocker of my adolescence, is still making records?
He is, at the fine old age of 75. I never was a big fan of his, except of course for “School’s Out,” but I was glad to hear that all the same. Keep on keeping on, old guy.
For my part, I kept on driving, passing the greens and golds of high corn and the utilitarian buildings that support farming, intersections with gravel roads, hand-painted signs and, now and then, another vehicle. It was an obscenely pleasant July day, clear and warm and not nearly as hot as much of the rest of the country.
The new song came on. Title, “White Line Frankenstein.” Remarkable how consistent Alice Cooper has been through the years. What does he sound like, now that he’s a senior shock rocker? Sounds a lot like young Alice Cooper. A good showman finds something that works and sticks with it, and there’s no arguing his showman abilities.
About half way through the song I was inspired to pull off to the side of the road near where a rail line crossed the road, and take pictures.
Missed the last half of the song, but oh well.
Near Beloit, Wisconsin – close to the town of Shopiere, but not in any town, is a spot called Turtle Creek Parkway, a Rock County park. At four acres, it’s the rural equivalent of a pocket park, with its star attraction across a field next to Turtle Creek: the Tiffany Bridge, or the Tiffany Stone Bridge, vintage 1869, which as far as I know is still a working railroad bridge. (Tiffany is another nearby town.)
More than 20 years ago, I visited the bridge, accompanied by small child and pregnant wife. It wasn’t a park then, just a wide place in the road to stop. Enough people must have stopped there for the county to get a hint, I guess, and acquire and develop the land by adding a boat launch on Turtle Creek, a small rental event building, and a small parking lot.
Regardless, it’s hard to take a bad up-close picture of the structure.
Just a hunch: the arches are too sturdy to destroy in a cost-effective way, so it abides.
Rather than return to the Interstate right away, I headed out from Shopiere onto the small roads where I eventually heard about Alice Cooper. Not long before that encounter, I spotted a tank in the hamlet of Turtle, Wisconsin.
Another former Wisconsin National Guard tank, an M60A3.
It’s part of a plaza honoring veterans of the area. Interesting to run into another tank in southern Wisconsin so soon after the last one. I decided to keep an eye out for tanks on the rest of the drive, and sure enough I spotted more as the drive progressed.