If You Grew Up In Rural Wisconsin:
* You know how to polka, but never tried it sober.
* You know what knee-high by the Fourth of July means.
* You know it is traditional for the bride and groom to go bar hopping between the reception and wedding dance.
* You know the difference between 'Green' and 'Red' farm machinery, and would fight with your friends on the playground over which was better!
* You buy Christmas presents at Fleet Farm or Farm and Fleet
* You spent more on beer & liquor than you did on food at your wedding.
* You hear someone use the word 'uff-da' and you don't break into uncontrollable laughter..
* You or someone you know was a 'Dairy Princess' at the county fair.
* You know that 'combine' is a noun.
* You let your older siblings talk you into putting your tongue on a
steel post in the middle of winter.
* You think Lutheran and Catholic are THE major religions.
* You know that 'creek' rhymes with 'pick'. [Note to snobs from the East Coast]
* Football schedules, hunting season and harvest are all taken into
consideration before wedding dates are set.
* A Friday night date is getting a six-pack and taking your girlfriend shining for deer.
* Saturday you go to your local bowling alley.
* There was at least one, if not several, in your class who had to help milk cows in the morning. And/or smelled like it.
* You have driven your car on the lake.
* You can make sense of 'upnort' and 'baatree'.
* Every wedding dance you have ever been to has the hokey pokey and the chicken dance.
* Your definition of a small town is one that only has one bar.
* The local gas station sells live bait.
* At least twice a year some part of your home doubles as a meat
processing plant.
* You think that the start of deer season is a national holiday.
Hi, I realize this post is meant to be funny but it feels stereotyping and a ridiculing to me. Are you from rual Wisconsin? My husband is and this does not describe him or his family.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in Fargo....there's a whole stereotypical MOVIE about that! My oldest daughter was born in rural Wisconsin. There's nothing in the post I haven't heard many times at family gatherings--in fact, I think my late brother-in-law probably made up a few of these himself. It's those of us who know and love rural Wisconsin having a laugh at ourselves.
ReplyDeleteHow about when the guys kidnap the bride during the reception and take her bar-hopping, without the groom. Or is that just rural upstate NY?
ReplyDeleteronnie...i wouldn't know. at my reception, we had to go find the groom and the best man, who had gone bar hopping together. but that was in minnesota. i never heard of barhopping after a wedding in north dakota. in wisconsin, two states east, yes. in between and elsewhere? ya never know.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... I went to Wisconsin once. Perhaps that was a mistake.
ReplyDeleteshammy...it's a beautiful state, and the bars are open after church. Door County is especially nice, and so is the north woods (where Peggy was born) (well, not IN the woods, but you know....) (the little hospital had all homemade food, including the bread and cookies--if you were a nursing mother, you could have a sandwich for your bedtime snack. they'd make it from cold roast beef or chicken left over from dinner on homemade bread. what's not to like??)
ReplyDeleteAs the farmer's daughter's daughter and the farmers' niece,
ReplyDelete(yes, my mother is from Princeton, WI) I spent part of every summer in rural up there at grandpa's farm or in Rhinelander with my fav aunt. And yeah, I know this is mostly true -- if a tad exaggerated! Anonymous needs to get a grip -- or her husband's family were carpetbagging snobs. You can bet they weren't farmers.
My favorite chuckle driving up there in the 50s was always the signs at the Illinois-Wisconsin border that read: "Last chance to buy margarine."
Man, some of you people are mean spirited. He was one of 12 children from a farming Catholic family. We are now farming cherries by ourselves, at 70, in Door county. Elder blogers seem to think that everyone has to be in complete agreement with the writer. Lets tolerate some diversity of opinion and experience and suspend the long-distance judgements.
ReplyDeletedear anonymous....please don't feel bad. my ex-husband comes from a LONG LINE of Wisconsin dairy farmers, and they are the salt of the earth and, yes, Catholics to boot. They are also hysterically funny when they get going, and they especially love making fun of themselves. My mother-in-law was famous for her cherry pies--she even won prizes at the county fair for 'em--and she bought ALL of her cherries frozen in big containers from DOOR COUNTY. You might have met some of us, or we might have eaten cherries from your orchard. what is the name of that movie? Six Stages of Separation....I'll bet we're almost relatives--and if that doesn't shiver your timbers, it should. Peace and love....
ReplyDeleteI was married in Stevens Point, Wisconsin and I recognized some of the funny things in the post. My introduction to the state was at a bar in the woods; nothing else around for miles. You could always find a bar and they all seemed to be doing good business.
ReplyDeletedarlene...not everything in the post is familiar to me, either. for example, my ex's home town did not have a bowling alley. so nobody had bowling dates every saturday night. it did have TWO bars, though, so even with fewer than 2000 residents, it was not considered "small." i can't remember a gas station, either, though if there was one, it definitely would have sold live bait.:)
ReplyDeleteThat all sounds completely normal to me. :-)
ReplyDeleteMom there WAS a bowling alley! I've bowled there!! So there were only about three lanes and not exaclty straight - but they were there!
ReplyDeletepeggy: different generation, honey. first time i went there, it wasn't there.
ReplyDeleteand welcome back!!!! didja have a swell time???
i.e., i gather you're back. i read henry's lament on facebook...:)
ReplyDeleteIf I ever gat back to Wisconsin, I hope it won't be to spend time in the local maternity ward, no matter how good the hospital food is..... LOL!
ReplyDeleteI like this! It sounds like North Dakota or Minnesota to me, too. I'll take your word on Wisconsin. The D.N.
ReplyDeleteDN: but not iowa or illinois, right? or michigan?? the upper midwest isn't all that heterogeneous, is it? plus, even though i was born there, i know zip about nebraska!
ReplyDelete