Random Thoughts from the Badger State

1. Only in Wisconsin can you find such thorough analysis of accident statistics. Was anyone surprised at the following headline in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel?
Alcohol cited in many snowmobile fatalities

2. Although I haven’t been to Summerfest since 2002, I am going to safely assume that the quality of the musical guests has declined sharply in the last seven years. Today I received a “newsflash” email from Summerfest informing me that Chicago and Earth, Wind, & Fire would be headlining the Marcus Amphitheater. Don’t you think these performers would be more appropriately found at a side stage? At the Walworth County fair?

3. I am embarrassed by the number of years it took me to realize that the Historic Third Ward and Old World Third Street areas of Milwaukee were not one and the same. In my defense, I wasn’t working in the city at the time.

4. And then there’s this guy, proving again that common sense is not all that common.

5. Casimir Pulaski was a Polish-born Revolutationary war hero who has schools, counties, and streets named after him throughout the midwest. Illinois even celerbates Casimir Pulaski Day, a state holiday, on the first Monday in March. I wonder why is it that in Chicago, we say pull-ass-key, but in Milwaukee they say pull-ahhh-ski?

So, DUH! It's Time for Pop Culture!

During the first week of my new job in 2002, my coworker (let's call him “Mike”), struck up a conversation with me. Knowing Mike as well as I do now, I can only assume we were comparing our caffeine intake habits. I probably said something about that fact that I don’t like coffee, but I do drink pop. I will never forget Mike’s reaction:

“Are you from Sheboygan?”

I was aghast. Shocked. Speechless.

Did this person actually think I was from Sheboygan or was this some sort of Cheesehead slur?

By the look on his face, I realized he was questioning my hometown! Another wave of revulsion came over me.

Couldn’t he see that I was more “deep dish pizza and the White Sox” than “bratwurst and snowmobiling?” That I was more “Southside” than “Up North?” Was I starting to assimilate into this culture? Was my entire Chicago attitude fading away?

After I set Mike straight with some response that surely included eye rolling and the words "let me tell you somethin'," “southside,” “Chicago,” and “temporary resident of Wisconsin,” I realized he was challenging my use of the word “pop.”

Apparently, Milwaukeeans like to use the term “soda” when referring to carbonated beverages, but they are misguided. Soda is a type of pop. Specifically, "cream soda” and “soda water” (seltzer) are varieties of pop. I know people like to ride the fence by using the term “soda pop” but that’s like saying you’re neither a Sox fan nor a Cubs fan, but rather a Chicago fan. Nope, not possible. Pick one side and jump off the fence.

My use of “pop” really, really bothers many Milwaukeeans, much to my delight. I recall a standoff at the Oak Creek Lions Fest one Labor Day weekend. I asked one counter person where I could buy a “pop.” He gave me a look like “Yer not from around here…” and pointed to the bar area and told me that I could find “soda” over there. And I said, “Thanks. I really need some POP.”

Of course when I got to the bar, I realized they were only serving Black Bear products, which are made right here in Oak Creek, WI. Now, I generally try to support local businesses, but this stuff is…well, let's just say I don’t care for it. My husband and son will drink it, but I refuse.

My daughter, who doesn’t like carbonation, and my son will slip and say soda because that’s what their friends say. We’re working on correcting them, but sometimes it seems futile as they were both born in Milwaukee and have been surrounded by Wisconsin culture their whole lives.

To me, it’s pop. It was pop when my parents would buy 8 packs of Pepsi in glass bottles and return the empties to the Jewel. You had to drink the whole bottle in one sitting or else it would go flat in a few hours. (But you would never drink from the bottle. That would be trashy.) It was pop when I mixed it with schnapps and drank it in the woods as a teenager. And it’s a big fountain pop that I need every weekday morning on my drive into work.

Don’t hassle me about it. I call it pop and I probably always will. I’m still coming to terms with the fact that I am a long-term resident of the state.

(And I know there is a whole segment of the population that says "Coke" for everything. No one does that here. That's just silly. For futher research on this subject, check out the Pop vs. Soda map. Or just google Pop vs. Soda. There is an alarming amount of research on this devisive subject.)

Jen’s Top 5 Wacky Infrastructure List!

These five things took me a long time to understand and accept:

1) The grid for Milwaukee is wrong. The numbered streets run east/west in Chicago, but here they run north/south. It took me a long time to get used to this.

2) One Chicago block equals two Milwaukee blocks. This took some time to figure out. In Chicago, driving from 16th Street to 79th Street would take forever. I can drive from 13th Street to 76th Street in less than 10 minutes. Chicago does the crazy thing of double numbering their streets: 95th Street, 95th Place, 94th Street, 94th Place. That was always confusing. Maybe Milwaukee has it right…

3) U-turns are commonplace and legal. One of my favorite things about Milwaukee is that the city and suburbs are full of boulevards. A boulevard is a wide street divided by a median usually featuring landscaping. (I provide this definition for those of you who, like me, were not aware that the term boulevard is more than a fancy name for a road.) These wonderful, scenic boulevards are found throughout the Milwaukee area and necessitate u-turns in order to reach one’s destination.

4) Much of the Lakefront is poorly utilized. When I last lived in Chicago, I was on Loyola’s campus in Rogers Park, right on the Lake where Sheridan curves west. After that, we lived in Lake Forest, just a five-minute walk to the Lake. I was accustomed to the Lake being a reliable source of beauty and recreation. When we started exploring Milwaukee and Oak Creek, we were very disappointed in how inaccessible the Lake was. Much of the lakefront on the southside is used for industrial or utility purposes. Driving over the Hoan Bridge, as I did today, the view of the distance of the lake is breathtaking, but the sight of the lakeshore itself is…notsomuch. Fortunately, the Lakefront is inviting and beautiful the further north you travel, so all is not lost.

5) The general community does not embrace public transportation. I think Chicagoans take their excellent public transportation system for granted. I know I didn’t appreciate it as much until we moved to Milwaukee. There is a bus system…and Amtrak. My husband rode the freeway flyer bus to the courthouse downtown for the first few years we lived here. People thought he was either eccentric or had his driver’s license revoked. Why else would anyone CHOOSE to take the bus? There are two rail options to get to Chicago, Amtrak or the Metra from Kenosha. Neither is desirable. This topic sparks some heated debate in Wisconsin political and business communities, so I’ll just leave it that my family strongly supports light rail in southeast Wisconsin.

Once in a Lifetime

Wisconsin Lexicon #3

once (adverb): quickly; for a short amount of time.

“C’mere once!” or “Lemme see dat once.”

I was really confused when “once” was directed at me for the first time. I believe a friend was asking me to give her something in my possession. "Jen, lemme see your ruler once.”

At first, I thought it was a limiting term and was reminded of The Godfather when Michael says to Kay, "Enough! Alright. This one time, this one time I'll let you ask me about my affairs...”

The Wisconsin version would be:

"Lemme see dat once, but for the love for God, no matter how much I beg, do not – I repeat – do not let me see dat twice!”

I soon realized that "once" was a way to qualify the amount of time you want the person or item in your close proximity.

“Once” can also be used as an offer of help. You could use this phrase “Lemme see dat once” can be used to extend assistance to someone deciphering illegible handwriting or someone trying to open a new jar of pickles. To a child struggling with a jacket zipper, the phrase “C’mere once.” indicates that the parent will zip the jacket for the child.

My unscientific theory is that the Wisconsin “once” may be derived from the phrase “at once.” It still implies immediacy, but in an informal, folksy sort of way.

“Don Corleone would like to see you in his office at once!”

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BONUS! Once is also the title of a charming movie about musicians in Ireland. Add it to your queue.

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I believe I may have a Wisconsin version of MS Word. Spell check offers me an option to “ignore once.”

Geography, Part I

I lived most of my life living in the Chicago area: Mt. Greenwood (Chicago), Frankfort, Chicago Ridge, Burbank, Worth, Alsip, Rogers Park (Chicago), and Lake Forest. I also spent a great deal of time in Jefferson Park as my now-husband lived there until we were married. Therefore, for all practical purposes, I consider myself as being from Chicago. While traveling, when someone would ask, “Where are you from?” and I’d say, “Chicago.” That’s how it worked.

However, when we moved to Wisconsin, I realized I was no longer “from Chicago.” I was now “from Illinois.”

“Jen, are you going to Illinois for Christmas?”

"She calls it pop because she’s from Illinois.”

Milwaukee and Chicago both suffer from metrocentrism, that is, their respective states are divided into a single major metropolitan area and the rest of the state. My northsider husband still claims that downstate Illinois begins at 79th Street.

I’ve gotten used to hearing people refer to me as being “from Illinois.” However, I have a hard time admitting I’m from Wisconsin. When traveling to Arizona last year, if asked, “Where are you from?” I would respond, “I’m from Chicago, but we live in Milwaukee now.”

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When my husband and I starting looking for apartments in the Milwaukee area, I had a list of features that I wanted our new home to have: dishwasher, laundry, easy access to I-94, and a normal name. I use the example of living on Menomonee River Parkway in Wauwatosa as a nightmare address, but in reality that's a great neighborhood.

My criteria for our new home included the ability to dictate our address to someone over the phone with the fewest explanations and repetitions. (Our last name is a nightmare in itself to explain!) And this is why we ended up on Field Stone Circle in Oak Creek. But then that lead to the inevitable question: “Is that one word or two?”

Here’s a list of names that I had to learn to pronounce correctly (This is a short list and I welcome comments about any others I forgot to include):
Potawatomi (I'm not spelling the first few phonetically because unless you're going to move here, there's no use learning how to say them.)
Oconomowoc
Manitowoc

Waukesha

Wauwatosa
Mukwonago
Cudahy (to me, this looks like cud-uh-hee, but it’s cud-uh-hay, dontcha know?)
New Berlin (put the accent on the Ber, not the lin.)
Bay View (for some reason, you need to put the accent on the VIEW. When we were looking to purchase our house, I asked our realtor about looking in BAYview and I was met with a blank stare.)
Green Bay (again, you need to put the emphasis on the BAY, or else you risk sounding like a tourist)

IMPORTANT! Don’t forget that when pronouncing “Milwaukee,” the “l” is silent as in "M'waukee."

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And no conversation about the unusual names of Wisconsin communities is complete without mentioning the unforgettable scene from Wayne’s World:

Wayne: "So, do you come to Milwaukee often?"

Alice Cooper: "Well, I'm a regular visitor here, but Milwaukee has certainly had its share of visitors. The French missionaries and explorers began visiting here in the late 16th century." Pete: "Hey, isn't Milwaukee an Indian name?"

Alice Cooper: "Yes, Pete, it is. In fact, it was originally an Algonquin term meaning the good land."

Wayne: "I was not aware of that." Alice Cooper: "I think one of the most interesting things about Milwaukee is that it's the only American city to elect three Socialist mayors."*

Wayne to the camera: "Does this guy know how to party or what?"

*Look for musings about Wisconsin politics in future postings of Say Cheese(head)!

Inspiration for Say Cheese(head)!

The impetus for this blog came from this Bloody Mary:

Yes, it is customary to serve a Bloody Mary with celery and other garnishes, but look closely...do you see the pepperoni stick?

Only in Wisconsin, can you order a drink that comes with sausage.

A week ago, I met my three best friends from high school for lunch. They all live in the Chicago area and it is a rare but wonderful thing when the four of us can get together without children or significant others. We had a nice long (and loud!) lunch at The Chancery just over the state border in Pleasant Prairie, WI.

The conversation turned to life in Wisconsin as my girlfriends said they felt like tourists. The Bloody Mary gave us lots of giggles. After lunch, we shared a giant cream puff, another Wisconsin novelty. We did agree that there is too much dairy for one person alone to eat a cream puff, but my Wisconsin residency status may be in trouble for suggesting that there is such a thing as "too much dairy."

I mentioned the pepperoni stick to my neighbors who responded, "Did she get cheese with it, too? They usually come with a few cheese cubes." Perhaps that Bloody Mary accessory is served in the Chancery locations around Milwaukee County but not the one so close to Illinois?

So I thank Missy, Debbie, and Lidia for our fun afternoon together, and for inspiring me to finally write down the unusual, but endearing, aspects of life in Wisconsin.