Windy City To Cheese Head

This will sound like a line from comedian Stephen Wright, but it’s not! At least I don’t think so. But if it should be, then that guy is darn near as clever (some might say as strange) as I am:

Today I went to the Windy City. It WASN’T!

Chicago was neither windy nor anything else I imagined it to be. Once again we are challenging prior conceptions of the truth as we cross the country. I expected, after all we have been through in this very, very late spring, Chicago to be, yes, windy and cold. I also, if the truth be told, expected the city to reflect the wear and tear of the strong elements and look a bit beaten by them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Chicago was beautiful. Surprisingly, shockingly beautiful! Colorful. Clean. From skyline to countryside to infrastructural elements to geese waddling down the thoroughfare in Sunday morning traffic, Chicago was actually FUN to drive through. We considered going around it to avoid the hassle, but we did wish to see it, and see it we did. It would have been a sad mistake not to drive right on through- past the ball park, the Chicago Board of Trade, the Sears Tower- a welcoming city. Did I mention CLEAN! Spotless. I still can’t believe how clean everything was.
Now our time passing through Chi-town was very limited so we stopped to see the famous landmark apartment buildings that George Burns used to run before achieving fame and fortune and moving to Cape Coral, Florida. OH, NOT THAT GEORGE BURNS --- THE OTHER GEORGE BURNS! Very few people know, to this day, that George Burns’ first wife was Theresa and NOT Gracey as most people think. On display in the apartment museum is the oven which Theresa used to cook her favorite and famous Argentinean/Hungarian Gypsy love meat potion which is widely believed to have lured her then landlord to her apartment to accomplish two things: first to get him to marry her, and not incidentally, to also lower her rent payments. Such a clever and talented cook was the lovely Theresa that she and George are still happily together to this very day. It is one of the true and lasting love stories of Chicago lore.

Then on to Wisconsin, where, way up here in the north country, the weather is a whole lot more pleasant and warm than it was from Kentucky all the way up. I think the jury is still out on global warming but global confusion is a no brainer at this point. Which is why I can sit here with all the windows open in shorts and bare feet, while in West Virginia I was in heavy wool socks and the warmest clothing I could find just to protect against the ice and snow. What a difference a state makes!

This is Badger country. Cheese head country. I half expected to see Steve and Cheryl somewhere along the journey on the way to some big sporting event. They are our dear friends from Connecticut (at least for now). SHE is a Badger Babe. He is a sports fanatic who just happens to look good in any goofy sporting attire, so I guess we should say he is a cheese head. For sure they are Packer fans and will never ever vote Democratic because John Kerry got the name of the stadium wrong…No one here will ever forget that!

We went to one of the many cheese shops near the campground just outside of Madison. I had hoped to try on a cheese head or two for size myself, but, alas, none to be found- just good cheese and related products. But I could not have walked in to a better shop if I had tried. On the counter was a gallon glass jar for donations which read: COW TIPPING. For weeks now, I have been trying to convince Marilyn that people from this part of the country have a sport they call “cow tipping.” Until, now she just wasn’t buying into the concept and thought, every time I brought it up, I was making the whole thing up. In a nutshell, if you have never heard of this, you wait til a cow is standing and pretty much asleep in the field and run up to it and tip it over.
“Why would anyone ever do that,” asked the lovely Marilyn.
“Sport, challenge and general boredom,” says I.
So when I pointed to the jar in the shop Marilyn had to ask the girls behind the counter if it was for real.
“Yes,” said the girl as she wrapped our cheese selection, “It is.”
“But why,” asked Marilyn, “would anyone want to do that?”
And to my great surprise and glee, the Wisconsin girls said the following:
“Well, sometimes for sport and sometimes because we’re bored and sometimes just to see if we can do it!”
I rest my case. Besides, it’s how milk shakes were invented. And while I’m at it, yes, chocolate milk DOES come from brown cows. (Oh I know it doesn’t come out brown or with chocolate flavorings; but since much of the milk we drink comes from cows, I’m pretty sure I get credit for this theory on a technicality.)

BUS LAG: what happens when you travel in a motor coach back and forth across time zones at the same time you are correcting the clocks every week or two for that AND daylight savings in each zone. It’s similar to jet lag, but it comes and goes a lot more slowly!