Willow Leaves, May 24

Water Ball Contest The Willow Mills Volunteer Fire Department has announced the addition of a Water Ball Contest to the festivities for Memorial Day this year. A grudge-match challenge was issued by the Laketon Volunteer Fire Department and was readily accepted by hometown boys (and girls). The contest will be set up on South Main next to the fire station and will commence at 2:00 p.m. on Monday the 31st. To help round out a full afternoon, the Roann and Sevastapol volunteers have been invited to make it a double elimination tournament. “The only thing now,” said Chief John Townsend, “is to hope for a good hot Memorial Day weekend!”	Suspicious Activity County Sheriff Deputies investigated reports of suspicious activity near Anderson Beach this week. Ted Anderson, owner of the property, reported finding signs that someone had been using the walnut grove surrounding his sinkhole as an unauthorized campsite. Investigators were unable to determine the precise length of time since the site was used, but reported that the number of unrusted beercans and fairly fresh cuts on a stash of firewood indicated that it had been used “recently.” The possibility of a vagrant using the sheltered area was being considered. “I think the kids around here know that I’ll give permission for them to camp if they ask. I only ask that they clean up the area after they’re finished,” said Anderson. “That’s why I think this is a stranger hiding from something.” Deputies were unwilling to comment on the possiblity of a danger to the community, but asked that if anyone sees a person not known in the area, or observes suspicious behavior, please contact the Sheriff’s office for investigation.

The Story of Anderson Beach

I have to tell you about Ted Anderson’s beachfront property. Now aside from that sandy bottom stretch of the Eel River where the Baptist Church is, you and I both know that there are no beaches in this part of the country. There are a lot of little ponds though. The Lake in String Town is one of the bigger ones, but most all the area farms have at least one sinkhole on them.

Well, Ted Anderson owns Anderson’s Floor and Carpet in Wabash. For years he’s lived in one of those fancy housing projects on the east side of town where they cut up a cornfield into little pieces and built houses almost the same size as the lots. I hear you can reach out your bathroom window and borrow the soap from your neighbor’s shower. Well, Anderson decided he had done well for himself, and he deserved a country estate, like the Honeywells had. That was about the time Drew Fergusson, Angus’s uncle passed on and Angus decided to sell off the homestead and eighty acres of cornfield and woodlot. He added another hundred acres of pasture to his own property.

The charm of a hundred-year-old homestead with cornfields and a woodlot was just what Ted Anderson wanted, and with the proceeds of that sale, Angus doubled the size of his dairy herd and modernized the milking operation.

One feature of the woodlot was a sizable sinkhole surrounded by a small growth of maple and walnut trees, and a fair number of black locust and ironwood. It was just enough to inspire great dreams in Ted Anderson. He could just see where he’d be building his summer cottage, and where he’d add a sandy beach so he could watch the grandkids swim in the summer and skate in the winter.

Anderson sold off six nice walnut trees for a price that made Angus wish he’d kept the whole homestead. He had the stumps ground out and declared the resulting cleared area to be Anderson Beach. Then he had his delivery boy at the store rent a fair-sized truck and pick up a load of sand from the gravelpit.

It took only one load to realize that this was likely to be a fulltime summer job for the kid at the rate he could load, transport and shovel the amount of sand it would take to make a beach. So Anderson scouted around and found that he could rent a farm truck with a dump on it and sent the kid off for more loads of sand. The work went much faster this way and on Friday afternoon, after fifteen dumptrucks of sand, Anderson declared that one more load would do it; and if the kid could deliver it and work into the evening smoothing the sand out so the beach was ready for the Anderson grandkids Saturday morning, he would earn a fifty dollar bonus.

The kid was industrious if not too bright, and he hightailed it to the gravelpit to get the last load before they closed that afternoon. Then he stopped and called his girlfriend. He told her all about the beautiful golden sand beach he had built, and that if she would help him rake it into shape instead of their usual Friday night movie, he’d spend the fifty dollars on dinner with her Saturday night. Maybe they’d go all the way into Ft. Wayne to eat at a fancy restaurant. She agreed and he picked her up on the way back to the farm.

They set to work in the sweaty heat that July evening, dumping the last load of sand, then working with rakes and shovels to spread and smooth the beach into pristine beauty. It was a hot night, and as they worked, they kept shedding bits and pieces of clothing until they were wearing only the bare essentials, which consisted mostly of leather workgloves.

They finished the work and stood looking at the beautiful beach they had created and then at each other. Then nature took its course, and as the last few bits of clothing came off and they turned to head for a skinny-dip in the pond, they felt the earth move. The kid thought it was his knees shaking at first, but his girlfriend grabbed his hand and turned him around to run just in time.

They were about fifty feet away from the water, where he’d parked the truck when they heard a crack and a big sucking sound. They turned to see seventeen loads of sand, and two trees, sucked down into the sinkhole and disappear beneath the water. They hopped into the truck, naked as they were, and gunned it all the way back to Wabash where they sneaked into his house and got dressed without ever having fulfilled their wild fantasies on the beach at Anderson Lake.

To all of their credit, I have to say that even though any mention of “Anderson Beach” around Willow Mills will bring guffaws of laughter, Anderson did pay the kid his fifty dollar bonus. The couple went out to dinner Saturday night in Ft. Wayne and he proposed to her. She accepted, and on their honeymoon at the Indiana Dunes State Park on Lake Michigan, they fulfilled all their sandy beach fantasies and have become fine citizens and residents of Willow Mills.