Advertisement It’s as if the same note had been put up 1,000 times -- well thumbed you’d call it.
“Down to Zzip Stop,” the note said.
The doghouses, outhouses and wooden tables outside the Hobby Shop looked lonely. Well made, but lonely.
Mean-while, down the street at the Zzip Stop, Ervin Gudgeon sat drinking a cup of coffee with Gary Hagen.
Ervin Gudgeon (left) and Gary Hagen have a cup of coffee at Zzip Stop in downtown La Farge. (Matt Johnson photo)
Gudgeon has a cane, but is spry -- of wit. Ask him his age... “I’m just past 21.” Really, that’s 81.
Gudgeon was born just outside of La Farge and has lived all but six months of this life in Vernon County. He had farmed for a while by Sidie Hollow.
“The Good Lord shined lightning on me and told me to stop farming,” Gudgeon said. “So, I did. I probably have more money now than I did then.”
In 1991, he started running his fix-it shop in La Farge. He lives in the village. If he’s not at work, or home, he’s likely at the Zzip Stop, La Farge’s convenience store/gas station/center of the universe.
“I’m here at 5:30 a.m., 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. every day,” he said stretched out in a booth, one hand on a cup of coffee, another resting on the back of the seat.
What’s the best thing about living in the Kickapoo Valley?
“It’s home, just as simple as that,” Gudgeon said.
Hagen, 62, answered the same question.
“I’ve been here too long to leave now, I guess,” he says.
Both men laugh... Saturday afternoon at the Zzip Stop.
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