The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County by Jerry Apps

at 160 acres and had embraced almost none of the agricultural and cultural advances that were sweeping across the country. But Marilyn thought Adler was a strange old man who was trying to hang on to the past. She had nothing but disdain for him.
    Marilyn remembered when the old gristmill ceased operation, and soon after that, the cheese factory closed. Then it was the hardware store and the lumber yard and feed store that slammed shut their doors. Soon the Link Lake Mercantile stood empty, as did the pharmacy and meat market. The churches struggled to survive. Marilyn recalled attending one-room country school Christmas programs with her parents and watching the little farm kids perform on a makeshift stage—some of them quite good, many not so much. By the mid-1960s all of these schools were closed, and the Christmas programs were no more. Marilyn remembered farm kids in her Link Lake Elementary School classes, bussed in from the country after their community schools closed.
    Two small manufacturing industries moved into the village sometime in the 1960s; one made plastic toys—the kind found in vending machines—and the other manufactured premium airplane propellers for the growing private plane owners. But still the village mostly depended on the nearby farmers for most of its economy.
    Once again, Link Lake was in transition, even though some of the residents had difficulty accepting the changes. The businesspeople surely were feeling the results of the revolution in agriculture that was occurring. Even the Link Lake Tap felt the pinch, especially during the winter months when the tourist trade was slim to none. But their businesses picked up again in summer as Link Lake moved from a farm service center to a tourist town.
    One of the outstanding features of the village was its location on Link Lake, some eight miles long and a mile or two wide and rich with natural beauty, not to mention northern pike, bass, and assorted pan fish. Today it seemed like every month a new condominium appeared on the shores of Link Lake, or a vacation home for the well-to-do from the cities. These developments were good for Marilyn’s business, as many of these new people often ate at her supper club.
    In some ways, Link Lake’s draw for tourist money kept it alive, if not thriving. Some of the former businesses had been able to change with the times. The Mercantile became an antique store. The former pharmacy became the Eat Well Café, the once hardware store a gift shop, the old bank a historical museum, and the lumberyard a furniture and carpet store catering especially to those with high-end second homes on Link Lake and other lakes in Ames County and beyond.
    But when the twenty-first century arrived, the business climate in Link Lake was once more severely challenged. The plastic toy factory, without warning, closed and laid off the thirty people who worked there, leaving behind a vacant building. Six months later, the airplane propeller factory closed and another twenty people lost their jobs. Today, Marilyn knew that the only major employers left in Link Lake were the nursing home and the assisted living center, the school system, and her Link Lake Supper Club.
    By 2007 the Great Recession had begun to take hold, and Link Lake felt it as much or more than most communities. Many of those former employees of the defunct propeller and toy factories had gotten jobs in the Fox Valley, making the long commute each day, but now they were out of work again, surviving on unemployment payments and food stamps.
    Marilyn Jones had seen a 20 percent drop in her income at the supper club as well. But rather than wring her hands and lament the bad luck she and everyone else seemed to be experiencing, she and the mayor called a meeting of the remaining business leaders in the community and organized the Link Lake Economic Development Council.
    â€œGod helps those who help themselves,” she proclaimed at an early meeting of