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)!