I’m back from our little weekend getaway. We flew into Chicago’s Midway airport Friday morning, spent the night with my brother-in-law in the Northwest ‘Burbs, and on Saturday drove up to a wedding in Madison, WI. Just a few observations:
Driving in Chicago allows one to experience all the thrill of being a NASCAR driver, plus right turns.
Madison seems to be a very pleasant, clean, and well-laid-out town, but then I only toured the part around the Capitol and the University, on one afternoon.
Cheese curds, bratwurst, and beer are very popular in Wisconsin.
‘Em peeple shore dew tawk funny up ‘air. I don’t know why, but whenever I go out of town, I subconsciously dial up the redneck accent a notch or two. Wisconsinites were too urbane to mention it, unlike a few people in Chicago.
Hey, look! Black dirt! A welcome change from the red clay I grew up with.
Maybe I should write this up and send it to Fodor’s. What do you think?
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Posted in uncategorized on May 10th, 2004
by Thibodeaux | RSS 2.0 |
May 10th, 2004 at 4:36 pm
Madison is a nice town, if a bit small. I grew up in Milwaukee, about 80 miles to the East.
And if you travel enough, you’ll eventually figure out that people everywhere talk funny. 🙂 Every time I go back home, I realize how odd the people there sound, but then I realize that I still sound an awful lot like them. In fact, whenever I go home, my Wisconsin accent subconsciously comes out even stronger.
I think two years it the minimum before you start to notice it. That is, you have to live somewhere markedly different from where you’re “from” for two solid years before you start to really notice the accent of the people who grew up where you did.
May 10th, 2004 at 4:37 pm
You may have also noticed a marked lack of tall buildings in Madison. If I’m not mistaken, that’s owed to a city ordinance that requires all buildings to be substantially shorter than the capitol itself — the capitol must stand out above everything else.
May 10th, 2004 at 4:57 pm
Well, the “talk funny” bit was kind of tongue-in-cheek (no pun intended). Of course they talk funny—from my point of view. But to them, I must sound like part of the cast of Deliverance.
As for the buildings…well, as I said, I only saw just a little bit of the isthmus. And remember, I’m a country boy at heart. To me, more than 2 floors is a tall building.
May 10th, 2004 at 5:06 pm
Cheese curds are one thing Wisconsin has going for it. Especially fried cheese curds. Mmmmm.
May 10th, 2004 at 5:07 pm
Er, not that it doesn’t have other things going for it. I was born there. But, good cheese curds.
May 10th, 2004 at 5:21 pm
You’re both from Wisconsin?
May 10th, 2004 at 11:12 pm
Originally.. Moved to Nashville with my family when I was 9. Been here ever since.
May 11th, 2004 at 5:33 pm
Chris:
I didn’t know you were from Wisconsin. Whereabouts?
I prefer the garlic & dill cheese curds over the fried ones. Other things that Wisconsin has going for it: Sprecher Beer and especially Sprecher Root Beer; Cousins Subs; Oscar’s Frozen Custard (although some swear by Kopp’s); the world-famous Mt. Horeb Mustard Museum (not far from Madison, it wouldn’t have been far out of the way at all for Thib); Usinger’s Sausage, the finest money can buy (try the garlic summer, the natural casing wieners, or the onion brats); and of course, the Green Bay Packers.
Back to accents for a moment, the movie Fargo was the worse thing to ever happen to people with an upper-Midwest accent. Worse even than those SNL “Da Bearsss” guys.
May 11th, 2004 at 5:34 pm
Ack, that should read “worst thing.”
May 11th, 2004 at 10:33 pm
Yep. I’m a hybrid. Part good ol’ boy, part cheesehead.. I was born in Manitowoc, and moved to Oshkosh when I was 6, living there for 3 years before moving down here. We still have family in Manitowoc and Racine..
Go Pack!
May 12th, 2004 at 9:22 am
I thought everybody said the accents in Fargo were spot on. Do you mean that now people think everybody west of Lake Michigan talks like that?