Orion's Photos: places - Wisconsin - east_troy - 2002 - 07_2002
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The family (Tom, Troy, and Paula Lawlor) and I visited East Troy, Wisconsin
from July 4 to July 8, 2002. Dad grew up in East Troy, and his 35th
High School Reunion was Saturday night, so we decided to enjoy the
holiday there.
We visited Alpine Valley (picture 1), one of the only, and hence most
popular, ski resorts in the midwest. Dad worked summers at Alpine Valley
doing landscape work and construction--he'd nearly killed himself several
times driving delapidated dump trucks down the main hill. Troy and I
climbed the main hill; the view was spectacular, but I'd left my camera
back in the car. Alpine Valley has a large amphitheater, where the
Grateful Dead are supposedly scheduled to start their (post-Garcia)
comeback tour.
One of the main attractions at East Troy is the carnival (pictures 2, 4,
86-104) and gigantic beer tent (pictures 3 and 85). As usual, the
music in the beer tent was painfully loud.
We stayed each night at the house of my great-aunt Charlotte Lawlor (picture
155), wife of Joe Lawlor, my paternal grandfather's brother (pictures
156-157). She lives in a duplex (pictures 5-10) just off town square.
East Troy's town square (pictures 11-21), as with many rural towns, appears to
exist in a time warp--it's still 1950 there. On Saturday, we drove into
Milwaulkee for the music, food, and spectacle of "Summer Fest" (pictures
25-77). Saturday night in East Troy had a very impressive fireworks show
(pictures 86-104). Sunday afternoon they had an excruciatingly long
parade (pictures 120-150).
The real reason for coming to East Troy, though, was to see all Dad's old
hangouts. We saw his elementary school, now a home (picture 107); the slough
where he used to fish (picture 108-109, 170-171); the corner of county roads
ES and N where several Lawlors used to live (picture 110); the house on route
N that Grandpa built and Dad grew up in (picture 114-116, 168-169); the old
Lawlor farm Grandpa used to raise mink in (picture 117, 167); the stucco
bar/junkyard great-Grandpa Lawlor built (picture 160); and great-Grandpa
Lawlor's old machine shop (picture 163-164). It was fairly impressive how
many Lawlors there were in the town, and how many buildings had been built by
Lawlors.
All images taken by Orion Lawlor
and placed completely in the public domain.
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