George Hesselberg

A daily newspaper reporter for 42 years, George Hesselberg has chased stories from every angle on every beat in Madison, Wisconsin. Tornadoes? Inept crooks? Missing cats? Boa loose in your back yard? Peculiarities that defy ordinary fact-finding? Hesselberg has tracked them all for the Wisconsin State Journal as a crime, investigative, feature, political and just general get-out-there-and-cover it reporter and columnist. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Hesselberg speaks and reads Norwegian. He lived in Oslo for a time, where he studied philosophy, logic and language, and has worked as a bartender, grave-digger, peanut-brittle salesman, translator, steel roofer, cheesemaker, sign-painter, tire-changer, stage hand and night watchman at the Norwegian telephone company. He grew up in Bangor, Wisconsin, on the La Crosse River.

His new book, "Dead Lines: Slices of Life from the Obit Beat," collects many of his stories about people (and a few animals, and one tarantula) whose lives don't usually get noticed. Except by Hesselberg, who wrote their profiles on deadline. These are one of a kind stories about the people who fill in the background. The bar cook, the woman who lives on the streets, the old fellow who parks his RV and walks all over town, the sword designer, the unknown poet, the young soldier, the psychic who works for free, the POW, the man who does handstands on cliffs over the Wisconsin River, the chimp who hated his owner, and more. I (and this is of course me writing this) loved writing these pieces. If I was to populate a Wisconsin village, every one of these peope and animals would fit right in. Except maybe Big Chief the polar bear. Chief was the bear at the Henry Vilas Zoo who was shot by a police officer because a crazy man had jumped in to the bear's enclosure.

If you can find a copy of any of his previous books, they are fun reading, too. "The Vesper Stories" were loved by thousands of newspaper readers who were treated to an annual holiday story about the mouse family and friends. Hesselberg covered the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, and his book, "Olympic Moose Salami," is a collection of Olympic stories the likes of which did not always appear on the sports pages. The French barrel jumper who longed to make the speed-skating team, the Swedish downhill skiier whose job it was to empty the frozen outhouse at the top of the mountain, and more. 'Paint Me Green and Call Me Fern," his first collection of columns, is a solid read and provides a good history of Madison during the 1980s. (Even though the title is a little misdirectional. I am told some bookstores placed it in the gardening section.) And the hardcover children's book, "Special Days, Special Tales," is a read-aloud-or-not story book with terrific illustrations by Connie Lovett. These were also holiday children's stories presented to newspaper readers and their children every December. My favorite - and I wrote them - is about how a little girl couldn't dream until she ate a peanut-butter, pickle and jelly sandwich before bedtime. A true story, it turns out.

This link will tell you how the animals were chosen for The Vesper Stories.

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/video/creating-vesper-and-his-friends/vmix_9fcd29aa-2a93-11e1-9631-001871e3ce6c.html