Cream, Wisconsin
There is a windswept intersection in Buffalo County called Cream. I drove through it one day, lingering where State Hwy. 88 meets Cty. Road E. All the
buildings, a clustered handful, are painted the color of cream. On a blue sky day they are like clouds pulled to earth and given wooden skeletons. Pristine as sea salt. The crimson of even a lone cardinal’s wing would look garish against all that white.
But imagine the road in the photo turned to dirt, picture it in the year 1872 when Buffalo County’s first fair was held right there in the street. Those stark cream frames a melee of horses, buggies, oxen, pigs and dusty-booted pioneers. Animal grunts, piles of manure and a table set with berry pies and cornbread.
One of those buildings housed a dance hall in 1903, and in its time it held masquerades, turkey shoots and medicine shows. It was the Broadway of Buffalo County.
The clot of dwellings was once called Eagle Valley, which is strange because Cream and Buffalo County are now home to hundreds of golden eagles that never used to live there. Bald eagles are native, goldens are not. No one knows where they came from. Scientists presently stalk them, to band their thick legs and follow them home.
As I drove through Cream and turned around and drove back again, I slipped my Cream-the-rock-group CD into the dashboard player (truth!) and listened to their tune, “Crossroads.”
Surreality.
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