The Long-Delayed Conclusion to the Lent 2010 Fast Food Fish Sandwich Tournament

The tournament so far: Introduction | Local Qualifier | Regional Qualifier | Round 1 | Round 2 | Round 3 | Round 4 | Round 5 | Round 6

Back in the late 1990s, I’d heard a rumor about an abandoned farm house deep in the wooded area just down the hill from the legendary Belltower House, another abandoned farmhouse southeast of Auburn. The Belltower’s legend came from its numerous late night ghost stories, surely fueled by excessive teenage consumption of alcohol, but also its architectural magnificence. An old book I found at the State Historical Society identified the Belltower House as one of the finest examples of neo-gothic architecture in the midwest, and that was in the 1950′s. By the 1990′s, the house’s arched windows, sliverishly acute peaks, spiral staircase and lookout tower were that much more amazing, especially considering the condition in which the house stood long after it had been abandoned.

But everyone knew about the Belltower House. It sat maybe 30 feet from the road in plain view. And as spooky as it was, I quickly had my favorite Belltower ghost story not for what it said about the house, but what it said about the surroundings.

Classmates and locals would tell the story of the ghost of a woman who would walk up and down the hill from the Belltower House to the house at the bottom of the hill. I’d ask some variation of “What house at the bottom of the hill?” Nobody really knew or cared, because the important part of the story was the ghost lady. Nobody I knew of really went down the hill, because all that was down there was a thick wooded area and some rickety old bridges.

But there was a barn down there, which stood where a lonely little roadside field was surrounded on three sides by the woods. So one afternoon, a friend and I took the ghost story and rumors of a house in the valley as our motivation and headed into the trees. Working our way in from the barn, we slowly started finding more traces of an old farmstead — some little shacks, an old plow, a windmill that had been partially consumed by a tree — and then deep in the woods, beside a creek, we found another barn. One of us — I forget which but the who isn’t important anymore — made a comment like “We’ve seen so much of this farmstead that if there were a house here, we should’ve seen it by now.”

And then there it was. Uphill from the barn, obscured by decades-old “new growth” trees but framed majestically by the thicker older ones, was the house. The aging of the wood and emptiness of the long-broken windows allowed this massive house to blend in with its surroundings to a point where, even here in broad daylight, we were unable to see the thing when it stood probably no more than 50 feet away from us.

I don’t remember going inside that day. More than likely, a fear of snakes and falling through rotten floors kept us (me) out. But two years later, a project for my cinematography class lent itself to a return to the house. I’d had a short movie idea floating around in my head for several years, and I’d decided that house would be perfect. I picked up another friend in town and we headed back out to check on the condition of the house. Two years tacked onto decades of survival should be nothing for a house like that, but since my previous visit, the Belltower house had been destroyed. Some thought it was kids who’d been smoking in the house; others said the landowner torched it to put an end to the trespassing. My theory had been lightning. I’d dreamt that I was standing in the Belltower house but was unable to see any of the walls on the same weekend of a massive thunderstorm in southeast Nebraska. The bricks directly below the lookout tower were also the only bricks in the whole rubble pile with any sign of charring.

It had been raining for several days when my friend and I went to check on the status of the secret house. We entered from the west this time, thinking it might be a more direct and less muddy route to the house. Unfamiliar with that side of the woods, we wandered for a while in vain, worrying that this house suffered a similar fate as the Belltower, when one of us let his worries seep through and say “I think we would’ve found it by now if it were still here.”

But then there it was. The rain had turned the aging wood a much darker color, leaving little to draw it out from the bark of the trees around it. It appeared that the two years absence had not been kind to the house, and I concluded that it would be good for exterior shots and nothing else. If I was too scared to go into the house two years ago, I was too smart to do it this time. But as we wandered around the grounds of what would’ve been the old yard, we stumbled upon something that has never been fully explained — a grave marker for a four-year-old.

The discovery of that grave marker kicked off a crazy summer of spooky activity. It turned out the house was in much better shape than I’d thought — the wetness of the wood made it look much worse than it was. I ended up shooting my project there over two separate days. Friends and I made several more expeditions into the area, always making a conscious effort to respect the farmstead and its underground inhabitants. I spent several days talking with former residents of the area about the rumors and mysteries of the farm and its former inhabitants. Quite a bit of unexplained (and in my opinion, unexplainable) things happened to us while we were at that house (my favorite is still the old rotted child’s shoes that appeared on the back doorstep). And every time we visited — at least on a half-dozen additional occasions — we literally could not find the house, no matter the time of day, until someone made a comment about how we should be there by now. It didn’t matter if it was fifteen minutes into searching or three. Someone said it, it happened.

Until that December, when I was back home over Christmas break. I was telling three high school classmates — including the friend who was with me on the first trip out there — about all the unsettling weirdness that had happened out there. We decided to leave Pizza Hut and make a late-night trip out so they could see it themselves. We wandered through the woods for several minutes, taking what, by that time, I knew to be the most direct path to the house. But we weren’t getting there. Knowing the rules, I said “We should be there by now.” But we still weren’t.

And then I saw why. The house was gone. In front of us was a hole — what was left of the old foundation, filled with a mound of ashes.

I was reminded of this story several times throughout the Fast Food Fish Sandwich Tournament, for reasons and metaphors that will probably be lost on every reader, but I am totally okay with people thinking they just read all of that stuff about the abandoned house for nothing because there was simply no way I was going to make “Hardee’s wheat bun makes the sandwich taste homemade!” and “Runza’s fish fillet looks like it came from a fish!” interesting for the umpteenth time. So if you got something fishy out of that story, great. If you didn’t, look at the bright side — you didn’t have to read those same descriptions again!

Hardee’s put up a great fight. During the championship round, my sandwich held together much longer than usual. I thought to myself that it was actually staying together, only to have the fillet immediately slip out. I put it back and finished eating. Runza didn’t disappoint. I feared that it was a seasonal sandwich and that my inability to consume one on Good Friday would doom the tournament, but those fears were for nothing.

In the end, I have to give it to Runza. This is simply a great fast food fish sandwich. No doubt — when I need to eat a fish sandwich next year, Runza will be my #1 choice. Hardee’s will be an easy #2 (ahem).

I had always relied on the BK Big Fish and the McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish in the past. I honestly don’t think that’ll happen much in the future, other than when determined by necessity. Don & Millie’s was much better than its early exit would suggest, and I anticipate a Lent 2011 visit there. Arby’s had no business getting as far as it did. Bronco’s was my biggest mistake, and I have learned to no longer be so easily seduced by the crunch. With any luck, I’ll be able to maintain my Long John Silver’s rule. I’ll stick to burgers at Culver’s. I think the only one I haven’t reflected on yet is Wendy’s. I’m okay with that.

Thank you to everyone who followed this tournament. I created it to amuse myself, but I was happy to learn that so many people took such an interest in it! I cannot imagine doing this again next year, both because the commitment to the tournament was a huge Friday drag (see: ruined birthday, annoyed wife) and I can’t really imagine that these sandwiches will change much over the next ten months. The influence of the tournament has already been seen elsewhere, and that’s fantastic. I will happily bequeath this tournament next year to anyone who’s willing to stick it out (and include the unfortunately forgotten King’s Classic and Sonic).

As far as that abandoned house goes, as the twentieth century gave way to the twenty first, the entire farmstead disappeared. The barns, sheds, old cars, windmills, wells, massive trees and other relics of a century-old farm were all dozed and cleared out to open up more farmland. So if anyone still tells that story about the ghost lady, she now walks back and forth from this empty hilltop to that empty corner.