Hands Across the Lake Bed

One of the great entertainment shows in America used to take place on Lake Delton Wisconsin, home of the famous Tommy Bartlett water show. Most delighting audiences were the skiing squirrels…bushy-tailed rodents on tiny skis firmly clasping the rope handles with squirrel-like tenacity. When Lake Delton suddenly drained away last week after torrential downpours washed out the dam, the muddy lake bed revealed its secrets. Among the usual detrius, sunken flotsam and jetsam and beer bottles, to their horror, scavengers gazed upon thousands of tiny skis and bony rodent carasses, little fists clenched defiantly as if saying to Tommy Bartlett himself, “I gotta be nuts for doing this…”