I AM THE FORCE

Ed Gein's Plainfield, Wisconsin, property is for sale on Ebay. Governor Doyle, are you paying attention? What would say Wisconsin better than a state-run tourist attraction for the father of serial killerdom. Maybe we could buy it with taxpayer money, but have Adelman Travel actually own and manage the property.

Why have Milwaukee and Plainfield done so much to wipe out traces of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein from the landscape? Serial killer buffs all over the world would flock to a reconstruction of the home created by Augusta Gein, and then the serial tourists could continue their Wisconsin visit in Jeffrey Dahmer's Milwaukee. If we have historical markers for the founders of Boscobel's Gideon Bible, shouldn't we also highlight our more interesting and macabre history?

And Mark Gundrum could author legislation to assure that the revenue from these Wisconsin historical sites would go to faith-based institutions working to stamp out filth and depravity in Wisconsin. Come to think of it, neither Gein or Dahmer were married were they? But that's neither here nor there, and I, for one, trust Reresentative Gundrum to work out the details.

Raise money for the state, promote tourism, highlight Wisconsin history, and stop filth and depravity. What's not to like about this latest land deal? Jim Doyle and Jim Holperin -- the time to act is now.

SOME BACKGROUND ON WISCONSIN'S ED GEIN

Ed Gein grew up on a farm a few miles outside of the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin. His father, George, was a hard-luck farmer with little talent for working the soil and with a taste for alcohol. He also had a tendency to be quick with his fists after he had been drinking, but as rough as he was, he was no match for his wife, Augusta.

Augusta had been raised in a fiercely religious home and with this sort of influence, developed into a raving opponent of anything related to sex. All around her, she saw nothing but filth and depravity and how she managed to become pregnant with her two sons, Eddie and Henry, remains a mystery. Shortly after Ed's birth, she forced her husband to leave the "sinkhole of filth" called LaCrosse and moved to what she believed to be a more righteous location, Plainfield. However, this small, God-fearing town turned out to be no better, at least in Augusta's eyes. She considered the place to be a "hellhole" and kept her two sons on the farm and away from anything she considered dangerous or of a sinful influence, namely whorish women and the wickedness of carnal love...

The stunned and sickened officers immediately called for reinforcements. A short time later, more than a dozen lawmen were combing the farm and exploring the contents of what would become known as Ed Gein's "house of horrors". What they found that night was like nothing that had ever been recorded in the annals of American crime.

Soup bowls had been made from the sawed-off tops of human skulls. Chairs had been upholstered in human skin. Lamp shades had been fashioned from flesh, giving off an eerie and putrid glow. A box was discovered that contained nothing but human noses. A belt had been made from female nipples. A shade pull had been decorated with a pair of woman's lips. A shoe box under a bed contained a collection of dried, female genitalia. The faces of nine women, carefully stuffed and mounted, were hanging on one wall.... and there was much more, including a bracelet of skin, a drum made from a coffee can and human flesh, and more. A shirt of human skin, complete with breasts, had been fashioned from the tanned torso of a middle-aged woman. Gein would later confess that he often put the shirt on at night and pretended to be his mother.

To make matters worse, the refrigerator turned out to be stocked with frozen human organs and a human heart was found in a pan on the stove. The local sheriff estimated that the various body parts added up to fifteen women, maybe more.