Susan Smith: Enjoy those leftovers!

Originally published Nov. 28, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

Well, Thanksgiving 2008 is now in the refrigerator, in the form of leftovers, sandwiches and soups.

The picture above shows my husband, Matt, (aka the Turkey Guy), with Dale Marsden (aka the Honey Guy) at the Dane County Farmer's Market before Thanksgiving.

All our 200 turkeys made it to their destinations this year, some flying on airplanes, others taking the scenic route over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. We figure we fed at least 2,000 people with our turkeys this season, and are thankful to our customers and to the turkeys themselves for giving themselves so deliciously to our feasts.

I've got a few scratches from the great turkey roundup of 2008. (Think "Apocalypse Now," with snow and turkeys flying at your forehead.) But it makes the Red Turkey Mole we'll be taking to Lambeau Field on Sunday all the tastier.

Hope your holiday was tasty and that it gives you the strength to get up and shop today. The economy needs you!

Susan Smith: Last Bash at Union South

Originally published Nov. 20, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

Saturday's game against Cal Poly will mark the very last Badger Bash at Union South.

For more than 30 years, the Wisconsin Marching Band has charged up the fans during a pregame rally amid the bratwurst smoke of Wisconsin's other union.

The anonymous pile of gray concrete will come a tumbling down early next year, to make room for a new and improved student union serving the south end of campus. Not many will mourn its passing, but I will. Sure, it could never compete with the older Memorial Union, which has the Terrace, Lake Mendota, classic architecture, a Rathskellar and a venerable theater.

Union South has a bowling alley. And, did I mention, concrete?

Still, it holds a warmish spot in my heart, because I worked there as a student in the late 1970s, and met my husband and several of my lifelong friends while serving beer to the drunken Badger faithful.

Back then, we served so much beer on game days that we had a line of half-barrels, taps continually open, and just passed cups hand-to-hand beneath the taps until they were full. I remember standing, at times, in a beer lake that lapped at my ankles. Back then, both Unions held a February German Mardi Gras called Fasching. It mostly involved beer. A bus ran between the two Unions with a barrel on board, so no one would ever be far from beer. At Union South, Fasching included tossing cups of beer into the open atrium. Try that now, and you'd probably be arrested.

Union South was also the site of the worst grade I ever earned at the UW: A "C" in bowling. I still can't bowl worth a damn. Still, there were plenty of student memories made at Union South.
So stop by Saturday, and raise a last toast to the "other" Union.

Susan Smith: Gentlemen, Start Your Pumpkins!

Originally published Sept. 30, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

It's that time of year when giant pumpkins race across Lake Mendota, all for the glory of winning the Cucurbita Regatta, an invention of UW-Madison horticulture professors Irwin Goldman and Jim Nienhuis.

The first event, held in 2005, was such a smashing success that a pier behind Memorial Union fell apart under the weight of the spectators. dropping them into the drink.

Most years, it's only the horticulture students, racing inside hollowed out Atlantic Giant pumpkins, who stay a chance of an icy dunk.

The pumpkins float atop tractor tire inner tubes. This year the race starts at noon Saturday Oct. 4, behind Memorial Union.

Susan Smith: I'm Majoring in Beer!

Originally published Sept. 21, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

It makes so much sense I can't believe it took 160 years. But, finally, the University of Wisconsin-Madison will have a course in beermaking. Thanks to a gift from MillerCoors, the UW is launching its first ever beer-making class, as part of the department of bacteriology.

MillerCoors donated a pilot-sized brewery to the UW this past week, which will be used in a new class on "fermentation science."

The equipment is worth more than $100,000, and this past summer, bacteriology faculty associate Jon Roll and a lucky student named (only in Wisconsin) Brandy Day, got to go to Milwaukee and learn from MillerCoors' master brewmaker.

The gift is, in the university's words " the beginning of an ongoing relationship between members of the university'smicrobiology community and experts at the MillerCoors Milwaukee brewery."
Of course, UW students and beer have had a relationship much, much older.

For all the worry about binge drinking on campus, maybe teaching the science of good beer will lead to a more, um, sober appreciation of its attributes.

Susan Smith: A Birthday for Big Mac, another burger for Don

Originally published Sept. 14, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

Is there something about junk food that brings out the obsessiveness? I only ask because, right in time for the 40th birthday of the Big Mac, word comes from our friends at the Fond du Lac Reporter that local resident Don Gorske has now eaten more than 23,000 Big Macs since he started gobbling them one a day in May 1972.

Now, I got a little sick of Don, or maybe sick from thinking about what his insides must look like, because my media pals would write about him at nearly every burger milestone. Frankly, I was waiting for his obituary, which would like show clogging of the ateries as a cause.

But now, finally, comes the reason he has not only eaten a burger a day, but also saved every burger receipt in a box. Gorske told the newspaper he has obsessive complusive disorder, and that his addiction springs as much from a love of counting things as a desire for greasy burger. He keeps all his receipts, too. Apparently, those numbers on the sign that track how many burgers McDonald's has served inspired him to count his own consumption.

Now, I could make fun of this except for this: Two-all-beef-patties-special-sauce-lettuce-cheese-pickles-onions-on-a-sesame-seed-bun.

What's that? It's a McDonald's Big Mac jingle from the 1970s, and it's still stuck in my head. Back then, if you went to a McDonald's, and could recite the ingredient jingle, you got a free Big Mac. I did it. And it was so long ago that there wasn't even a McDonald's in Fort Atkinson -- Imagine, a town too small for McDonald's! -- so we had to travel to Whitewater to sing the song and get the free burger. The weird thing is that I haven't had more than a few Big Macs in my life, and none in the last decade, yet the jingle will likely be with me until death.

So look down on Don Gorske and his burger madness, if you like, but remember that there's probably a crazed Hamburglar hiding out in every one of us.

Susan Smith: U-Rah-Rah Wisconsin Life Sciences Communications

Originally published Sept. 6, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

On a great day for Badger football, let's pause to give thanks to the department that educates so many of our athletes. Yes, I'm talking about my home department, formerly known as Ag Journalism and now, Life Sciences Communications.

If you were at the game, you saw many of our students. In the writing class I teach, I've had quarterback Allan Evridge, fullback and co-captain Chris Pressley, co-captain and All-Big Ten lineman Kraig Urbik, as well as cornerback Alan Langford, and a host of others. I've had a lot of band members, too, including current trumpet rank leader Sara Schoenborn.

But why so many athletes? One theory is that it started when professor (and popular Wisconsin Public Radio host) Larry Meiller was on the athletic board, and the coaches started sending their players to him for guidance. Over the years, I've had students who are now in the NBA and NFL, as well as many more working for agricultural businesses around the country.

Life Sciences Communications is also celebrating its 100th anniversary this weekend. It began in Hiram Smith Hall as the department of agricultural journalism, but changes its name in recent years to reflect the growing influence of the life sciences (such as genetics and biochemistry) in the college. This year, the department moved from its long-time home on Henry Mall to the newly renovated HIram Smith (which still retains vestiges of its years as the cheesemaking school).

Some prominent Life Sciences Communications graduates include Abdul Khan, assistant director general for communication at UNESCO, and Dennis Dimick, executive editor of National Geographic. And, of course, your humble blogger.

Susan Smith: Stephen Colbert on the Union Terrace! (Kind of)

Originally published Aug. 10, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

Everyone shows up on the Memorial Union Terrace on a fine Friday afternoon.

It was a little too early for Mayor Dave Cieslewicz's weekly field trip, but comedian and political commentator Stephen Colbert made an appearance.

OK, just by phone. But still it was cool.

Your Wisconsin Native columnist was lunching with Newsweek senior editor (and frequent "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" guest) Jonathan Alter, his wife, Emily Lazar, and their two younger kids. They were in town because their son is looking at Wisconsin as a college choice.
And, of course, yours truly is an expert on all things UW, from the Statue of Liberty on the ice days of the 1970s up to and including the Halloween celebration and the current price for UW football tickets on eBay.

Anyway, Emily is, as her husband says, "a fake journalist,'' and her boss, Stephen Colbert gave her a ring because he wanted husband Jon Alter to give him a phone number for Rahm Emaunel.
Turns out that Colbert wanted to warn the Chicago congressman and Dem party mover that he'll be tweaking the Dems and their convention on Monday's show.

The word will be "Catharsis." You heard it here first. See, you don't ever have to leave the terrace. The world will come to you!

Susan Smith: Cool Wisconsin Tattoo

Originally published Aug. 2, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

Can you top this as a Wisconsin tattoo?

We found it on the calf of Jessie Harlequinn, a Madison fiber artist. It shows the state as a fabric patch, its borders “stitched” to her leg. The star shows Madison, where she lives now, and the heart represents her hometown of Milwaukee.

“It’s a heart because home is where my heart is.”

In addition to her art work, Harlequinn is training this summer to try out for the Mad Rollin Dolls roller derby league.

Susan Smith: Save Brett Brigade Rolls Into Madison

Originally published July 22, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

It’s not the Wells Fargo Wagon coming into town, more the Brett Favre-Go! Wagon.
And, suspiciously, it had Illinois plates.

Ignore that detail, says Tony Mars, founder of SaveBrett.Net. He and his buddy Adam Chartier grew up Packer fans in the twin cities of Marinette and Menominee. And they bleed Green and Gold.

Mars graduated from UW-Madison, but has moved his tech business to Chicago, hence the Land of Lincoln plates.

The two Packer fans started their Save Brett tour in Escanaba, Mich, on July 15, and made it as far as Madison six days later, having collected 4,500 “Save Brett” signatures.

Mars and his entourage wore number 4 jerseys as they collected signatures on the Capitol Square. Mars says Packer fans shouldn’t be deterred by Favre’s on-again, off-again desire to play.

“He’s a regular guy, he doesn’t have 10 people to comb his hair before his press conference,’’ Mars said. “What we get is his honesty. When he’s burnt out at the end of the season, and says he doesn’t want to play, we get that. We get his honesty. It’s his greatest fault.”

The “Save Brett Tour Bus” plans to finish up hitting Milwaukee, and Chicago, where Mars assures us there are plenty of Packer fans.

Letting Favre leave Green Bay could put a curse on the Packers practically forever.

“If Babe Ruth had wanted to come back to the Yankees after he retired, do you think they would have told him he had to sit on the bench?’’ Mars said, direly recalling the “Curse of the Bambino,’’ the pennant-less decades that befell Boston after the Red Sox traded Ruth to the Yankees.

Susan Smith: Princeton Flea Market -- "ho-made" treats and the kitchen sink

Originally published July 19, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith


PRINCETON – The only way to truly attack a day at the Princeton Flea Market is on a full stomach.

And what better breakfast than a “breakfast egg roll,’’ a deep fried concoction stuffed with eggs, cheese, sausage and hash browns? I’m pretty sure they don’t have them in China, but they do at the “Ho-Made Egg Roll” trailer located at the corner of Fulton and Wisconsin, on the edge of Princeton’s venerable flea market.

I hadn’t been to the market in years, but last semester, I got a jones to go again after I had Brittany Bowling as a student in my writing class at the UW-Madison Department of Life Sciences Communications. Brittany is a Princeton native, and we got to talking about the market, a Green Lake County tradition for more than 30 years.

Brittany alerted me to the “Ho-Made” egg rolls, and since my kids and I have a running joke about all the items made by alleged “ho” s, (Ho-made pizza, ho-made bread, etc.) I just had to see them for myself. Hey, somebody’s got to keep those hos off the street.

Thus fortified, we attacked the market, located in Princeton’s vintage “City Park,’’ which has an old metal archway and a central pavilion. The teens ditched me, headed for jewelry, both old and new, and dresses from India.

I, as usual, was taken in by the used books. I had a nice half hour browsing, but only bought one: a 30-year old hospital auxiliary cookbook from the late ‘70s, when foods such as molded seafood salad and “peas orientale” with French-fried onion rings were all the rage. It was worth $3 to get the recipe for a liqueur made from Italian prune plums.

The Princeton market’s 180 vendors offer everything from kohlrabi to cone flower plants.

There’s even a kitchen sink, or two.

Frank Gwidt of Wautoma was selling old galvanized wash tubs, along with jams made by the Amish, antiques, and a rake-like device he described as a “horse do-do picker upper.”
He also had some of the market’s most unusual home made crafts: old pitchforks, their handles covered by birch bark, topped with cute bird houses. I whipped out my camera, and Frank asked whether I was planning to copy them at home.

Don’t worry, I told him. I’d have to be imprisoned in Taycheedah and struck by lightning to have the time or talent to make such a thing.

When we tired of pawing through the old stuff – “Hey, look, Bicentennial Log Cabin (fake) maple syrup bottles!” – we headed to downtown Princeton for some more upscale shopping.

If the flea market is low brow, the stores along the main drag make up for it by catering to the lake house crowd from Green Lake and other nearby resorts. At Henry’s, you can buy greeting cards featuring New Yorker cartoons and Lillet, the French aperitif.

Next door at Twister, there are fancy sandals and fancier kitchen wares. At the store’s center, if you’ve worn off the ho-made egg rolls, you can pick up Viennese pastries, Madelines, cardamom tea cookies, and other lovely bakery made by the European Renard’s Bake Shop.

Princeton’s littlest store, the shoe-box sized pottery shop called “A Hairy Potter,’’ has a funny name and little bowls for just $3 each. Perfect for keeping your new old jewelry from the flea market.

Susan Smith: Worst Puppy Ever

Originally published July 8, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

I am pretty confident I have the worst puppy ever. Sure, they can wreak all sorts of havoc . But how many dogs do you know that have totaled an extended cab F150 Ford Pickup?

I should have known better, letting the nearly grown kids talk me into a black and tan hound puppy?

I had sworn off hounds forever. Oh, sure, they’re cute, and smart. Years ago, we had beagles. They were totally entertaining, and completely bad.

They killed the neighbors’ chickens, chasing them around the pen like a doggie version of a video game. They pulled the other neighbors’ steaks right off the grill and ran with them. Didn’t we tie them up? Sure, we tied them to a picnic table. They dragged it across the yard, bursting the blood vessels in their eyes in their determination to escape.

They ate an entire tub of Crisco, and threw it up all over the house. They would run for days, and either come home or wind up in dog jail. And they met bad ends: one dead on the highway, the other one shot.

And for years after that, we had a series of good dogs. Shepard and lab mixes, mostly, who were content to hang around the farm, being happy just to be with you.

And then, my beloved senior dog died, and the kids convinced me to “just go look” at puppies. We found Buster at a family-run animal rescue near Richland Center, a place like Dr. Doolittle, with hens and geese, and horses and mules. He had big brown eyes, and giant paws.

“Congratulations,’’ said Doc Williams, our veterinarian. “You’ve got six pounds of puppy and one pound of worms.”

As soon as the worms were cured, the sweet sleepy puppy turned into a holy terror. He shredded shoes, he paraded through the hours with the toilet brush, he personally beheaded the entire spring’s crop of tulips. And he won’t stay home on the porch with the senior dogs.

When he was 8 weeks old, we returned to find him in a cage on the front porch, with a note that read “Is this your puppy?”

So, when my husband leaves, he takes Buster along for a ride in the truck. The other day, they were delivering strawberries to the local grocery store. Buster apparently didn’t like being left in the truck cab anymore than he likes being stuck at home. When Matt came outside with the cart to load the flats of berries, he saw the truck beginning to roll. Buster apparently thrashed around enough to knock the shifter out of gear. Matt ran to the truck to open the door, and Buster jumped up on the window, smashing down the door lock.

The truck began to accelerate down the hill behind the store. My husband ran faster, but lost his balance. Thankfully, he was not run over as the truck careened down the hill, across the street and smashed into a big box elder tree.

The truck is totaled. Buster seems fine after his wild ride.

If you can top that bad puppy story, I’ll give you a bag of puppy chow. (And Buster, too.)

Susan Smith: Black Rooster Must Die

Originally published July 8, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith


The black rooster is the devil. He waits until your back is turned, bending over to scoop up the feed from the barrels, then he attacks. Today he drew blood, jabbing me in the foot because I was stupidly wearing flip flops in the chicken yard.

The creepy thing is that once he engages, he won’t quit. I threw the lid of the feed bin at him, then the compost bucket (chickens love their vegetables) but he just kept coming. I ran out of the yard without the eggs, slamming the fence door with Black Rooster just inches away. He glared malevolently through the fence..

Not all roosters are mean. For years, the king of our chicken yard was a Buff Orphington rooster named Big Red. He was helped on his patrols by Dewey, the second in command. The butterscotch-colored Buffs are probably the nicest chickens in the world. The hens make sweet cooing and clucking sounds when you lift then up for their eggs. And they make great mother hens.

Big Red lived to be about seven, dying of old age. And Dewey lasted only a few weeks after that (proving he really was a number two), pulled through the fence by a coon.

After that, we had Elvis, a noisy, pretty red Leghorn. He had a moment of fame in 2007, starring in a wedding at L’Etoile, Madison’s premier restaurant. The chef, Tory Miller, is Korean American, and there’s a Korean tradition about having a rooster and hen present at the wedding. (Sorry, the hens look alike and thus don’t have names.) Elvis and his anonymous hen spent the wedding night at the Mansion Hill Inn. Wonder how the other guests felt about his 4 a.m. aria?

Sadly, Elvis died in the great possum attack of February 2008.

We got Black Rooster that spring in a mixed batch from the neighbors. He’s small, and not at all pretty. Judging by the photos in the Murray McMurray catalog, he might be a an Ancona, an old Italian breed. Says the catalog, their “active temperament make them a good bird to raise where hawks, owls, and animal predators are a problem . . .they are very quick and alert.”

So he’d probably last longer than the better tempered birds against the possums. But pecking the ankles attached to the hand that feeds you is not an adaptive trait.

Black Rooster will get to test his mettle against another Italian American, Rosella. She’s a grandmotherly farm lady who works for us, and she’s not afraid of Black Rooster. “I’ll fix his wagon,’’ she promised.

Postscript: She did. Black Rooster is now in Rosella’s freezer, awaiting his next appearance on the platter.

Susan Smith: Madison’s Maurie’s makes best caramel apples this side of heaven

Originally published Nov. 2, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

One pre-Badger game tradition has nothing to do with the three Bs: bratwurst, beer and the band.

This one is all about the apples. And, for those in the know, there’s nothing better.

Each autumn, Maurie’s Fine Chocolates on Monroe Street, about two blocks from Camp Randall Stadium, puts away the chocolate-making equipment for a day or two to conjure up the best caramel apples this side of heaven. Store owner Cher Diamond only makes them a few times a year, so those who love them call ahead to reserve their apples or get there early.

The day of the Penn State game, Mike and Deb Bilzing, of Madison, got to the shop about six hours before kickoff to claim four apples. “We covet these apples,’’ Deb Bilzing says. “My husband is obsessed with them. We have friends who drive all the way from Green Bay to get them.”

What makes them so good? The apples are really good, as big as grapefruit and with a winey flavor that cuts the sweetness of the caramel. Owner Cher Diamond only uses Washington State Golden Delicious apples.

“They have the perfect flavor profile, texture and palette to match with the caramel,’’ she says.

The nuts are freshly roasted, lightly salted pecans. But mostly, it’s the caramel, which Diamond cooks in a big copper kettle according to a recipe given to her by her father, the store’s namesake. The recipe goes back to 1935, when he made them in his shop in central Illinois. But forget about the details.

“It’s a secret,’’ she says of the recipe. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore. A secret is something known to one person.”

OK, but it’s no secret that making them is a lot of work. Plus, the bubbling caramel creates humidity in the kitchen, which is bad for chocolate making. Diamond made the apples for two home games in October. She might make them again for the Minnesota game on Nov. 15, but only if she can get the right apples. There’s no way she’d substitute a Granny Smith apple, which she says is too hard and tart.

These caramel apples ain’t cheap. They’re $8 for plain caramel and $10 for the ones dipped in nuts and chocolate. But Diamond says you pay for quality.

“There’s over a half a pound of caramel, nuts and chocolate on an apple,’’ she says.

They’re so big, you could share one apple between two people. Maybe.

“Sure, you could share,’’ advises Mike Bilzing. “But you won’t want to.”


IF YOU GO

Maurie’s Fine Chocolates is at 1637 Monroe St. in Madison. Phone: (608) 255-9092

PHOTO INFORMATION: Just ask Rachelle: Maurie’s game-day caramel apples are just the right combination of a Golden Delicious apple coated in rich caramel and fresh-roasted pecans./PHOTO by Brent Nicastro

Susan Smith: Historic Wonewoc camp provides inspiration for new novel

Originally published Oct. 19, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

Who knew Wisconsin was so in tune with the spirits of the dead?

Spring Green author Sara Rath dug into Wisconsin’s long history with spiritualists for her latest novel, “Night Sisters.’’

The book opens and closes at fictional Wocanaga Spiritualist Camp, which Rath says is modeled on a real Western Wisconsin camp. The camp, known to locals as “Spook Hill,’’ is on a steep bluff high above Wonewoc in Juneau County and has been a gathering place for mediums and those who hope to communicate with the dead for more than a century.

Its aging cabins and dance hall evoke the 19th century, when spiritualists ran the Morris Pratt Institute in Whitewater and the Ceresco utopian community at Ripon. Rath also did research for the book by taking a class in mediumship at the Lily Dale Assembly, a New York spiritualist camp that traces its history to 1879.

“There’s an aura about these places,’’ Rath says, “maybe because they’re a relic of that era, and so unpretentious.”

“Night Sisters,’’ is Rath’s second novel, after many years as a poet and a writer of non-fiction books. It weaves a story beginning in a central Wisconsin town in the 1960s, to events that occur in a fictional Madison of today.

The book has touches of Wisconsin only a native would notice: the neighbor’s bowling ball rosary, the Packers ticket raffle and the old boyfriend who turns into a Harley rider as part of his mid-life passage.

The book’s protagonist, Nell, sounds a lot like Rath: She’s a Wisconsin writer assigned to do a story about spiritualism, and got hooked. Rath says that was her first thought when she visited Lily Dale, but the spiritualists encouraged her to participate, rather than sit back and watch.

In fact, much of the book has a basis in Rath’s real life. She grew up in Manawa, which sounds a lot like the fictional Little Wolf, lived for a time in Madison’s University Heights neighborhood, and even has a ring engraved with The Lord’s Prayer, an object important to the plot.

Rath says fiction writing evolves weaving the true with the false, a skill she teaches in her writing seminars.

“I teach them how to lie effectively, how to make up beautiful lies,’’ she says.

But although Rath didn’t reach the point of channeling dead spirits while at Lily Dale, she isn’t as skeptical about spiritualism as she was when she started out.

“I have great respect,’’ she says. “I do think there are mediums who have great skills.”

As she’s been traveling around the state promoting her book, Rath says she’s surprised at the number of people who confide they’ve been to Spook Hill, to hear their futures, and messages from spirits of the past.

“Wisconsin is a very practical place; we don’t get emotional about much besides the Packers,” Rath says. “Maybe places like Wonewoc tap into the dreamer in all of us.’’

IF YOU GO

The Wonewoc Spiritualist Camp, just off Hwy. 33 in Juneau County, will celebrate its 108th season in 2009, officially running from June 1 to Aug. 29. For details, see the web site – http://www.campwonewoc.com/.

PHOTO INFORMATION: The Wonewoc Spiritualist Camp traces its history to 1874 and annually attracts people seeking answers, serenity and peace. This photo shows a church gathering in 1963./PHOTO courtesy of Western Wisconsin Camp Association

Susan Smith: Paging Dr. Toga, Toga, Toga for UW Homecoming reunion

Originally published Oct. 12, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

Chicago area radiologist Dr. Barry Lessin dresses in scrubs, not bed sheets, when he sees patients at Elmhurst Memorial Healthcare.

But to his UW-Madison classmates, he’ll always be “Dr. Toga.”

He’s coming back to campus the last week of October for Homecoming, which also coincides with the 25th reunion of his medical school class and is 30 years after the inaugural campus toga party.

Inspired by the summer hit movie “National Lampoon’s Animal House,’’ students held dozens of toga parties on campuses in the fall of 1978. But none was larger than the one in Lot 60 along the southern shore of Lake Mendota.

And Lessin had a lot to do with that.

Lessin, a Milwaukee native, was an undergraduate at UW-Madison in the fall of 1978, and helped the prank-pulling Pail and Shovel party win election. The year marked a generational divide on the campus, which was scarred after years of anti-Vietnam War protests. Pail and Shovel launched an era when students were more party animals than political animals.

Pail and Shovel pledged to turn student fees into pennies, and give every student a pail and a shovel to help themselves.

Once elected, they spent money as fast as they could, on such things as a giant Statue of Liberty head embedded in the ice of Lake Mendota (an homage to the final scene of “Planet of the Apes”), a Little Feat concert and hundreds and hundreds of pink plastic flamingos, which greeted students on the first day of classes in 1979.

But one of the first stunts was the Toga Party. Lessin said he and his Sigma Alpha Mu brothers approached the zany student leaders, who gleefully approved it. Dean of Students Paul Ginsberg wasn’t so sure.

“I went to the Dean of Students, and asked, ‘Why not?’ ’’ Lessin recalled. “They were so fearful and distrusting of students then.”

But the dean eventually agreed, and even came to the party. And so did an estimated 10,000 to 13,000 students, all dressed in their bed sheets.

“It was huge,’’ Lessin said. “No one expected a crowd like that.”


In the coming months, Lessin would emcee the Pail and Shovel stages at the big Halloween party, at the Mifflinland on the Mall party (a year the Mifflin Street Block Party moved temporarily to campus) and at subsequent toga parties. At the last toga party, in 1983, he had returned from his radiology residency in Hawaii with yards of tropical fabric for togas.

“I was billed as ‘Dr. Toga from Hawaii,’ “ said Lessin, who still uses “Dr.Toga” in his email address.

For Homecoming, Lessin has hired Count Bop and the Headliners to entertain his medical school class of 1983; the band is a revival of a popular 1970s band, Dr. Bop and the Headliners.

He says his class has always been “smart, fun and full of life.” But with the 25th reunion and the 30th birthday of the toga party, he has to admit they aren’t wild and crazy youngsters anymore.

“We used to laugh at the old alumni coming back to campus,’’ he says. “Now, we are them. Or, they are us!”

PHOTO INFORMATION: More than 10,000 students and others gathered in Lot 60 at UW-Madison for a Toga Party in 1978./PHOTO courtesy UW-Madison Archives

Susan Smith: North Woods ricing ‘not for the weak of heart’

Originally published Sept. 28, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

HAYWARD – For those of us who buy wild rice in the store, Chris Smith has nothing but pity.

Pity, and a few choice words.

“It’s hybrid crap,’’ she said. “It’s not even real wild rice. It’s wild rice crossed with brown rice, then treated to look wild.”

Wild rice, called Mahnoomin by the Ojibwe, and celebrated this month during the Wild Rice Moon, is another thing entirely.

“It’s a treat, and a good staple,’’ she said. A true grass, not a cereal crop, it grows in lakes across northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, both of which have regulated wild rice gathering seasons.

To get the real thing, you have to do what hundreds of Wisconsinites do every September -- take to the shallow waters of the Northern lakes and rivers.

The 2008 wild rice season is winding up, and it has been a decent one.

“It’s not a real top-notch year, but it’s better than last year, which was the fifth year of a five-year drought,’’ Smith said.

Smith and Paul Vallem run The Rice Shack on Highway 63 just north of Hayward, where the region’s ricers bring their prize to be parched and threshed.

Vallem and Smith grew up ricing, and inherited the Rice Shack business from their fathers, along with a love of this special season in the north.

“Most of the people we deal with grew up ricing and learned it from their parents,’’ she said. “It’s not just the Native Americans who go ricing, it’s anyone.”

Sam Thayer, who runs The Forager’s Harvest in Ogema, teaches beginners to rice, but he said it is not for everyone. “If people aren’t used to physical labor, it can be very hard for them,’’ he said.

Anyone can buy a ricing license from the state Department of Natural Resources for $8.25. Thayer estimates the DNR sells about 500 licenses a year, and the tribes issue another 300 to their members.

It takes a canoe and two people: one to stand and pole the canoe through the rice, and the other to sit in front with two sticks called knockers, and whack the ripe grains, which fall into the bottom of the canoe.

Ricing takes some skill – most beginners will wind up in the water – and some fortitude.

“This is not for the weak of heart,’’ Smith said. “If you don’t like bugs and spiders and worms, don’t pick rice.”

To remove the bugs, hulls and moisture that will spoil the rice, the Rice Shack crew first parches or dries the rice in a 50-gallon cement mixer that rotates over heat, then threshes it in a second machine. The Rice Shack charges $1.75 a pound for its services, and will trade for rice. But most people keep their hard-won treasure.

“You have to pick twice as much as you want, because you only get half the weight back after it’s threshed,’’ Smith said. For her, about 40 pounds will last until next year’s rice season.

PHOTO INFORMATION: Chris Smith (front) and Paul Vallem check wild rice after threshing. If they find more than one husk in a handful of rice, they continue threshing for another minute and check again./PHOTO by Dennis Harnden

Susan Smith: Pioneer Store remains the heart of Ellison

Originally published Sept. 14, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

ELLISON BAY -- Ah, we’re such tourists.

We go away for a year, or a decade, and we expect nothing about our favorite place should change.

I want the Wampum Shop in Mercer to still have the same rubber tomahawk my parents wouldn’t buy for me when I was a kid. (A decision that likely saved my brother’s scalp).

I expect whitefish livers on the menu at Greunke’s in Bayfield. (Even though I’d never order them.)

So it was with horror that I, and many other tourists, learned about the July 2006 destruction of the Pioneer Store in Ellison Bay. The store blew up in an early morning gas explosion. The blast knocked store owner Carol Newman out of her bed upstairs, and she had to escape by climbing out a window.

It seems a building project had cut an underground gas line, and gas leaked until it exploded in the middle of the night, killing two people staying in a nearby cabin.

It also cost a community a beloved landmark. The store had served the far Northern Door since 1900, as a post office and a store.

As local writer Myles Dannhausen Jr. wrote: “Many feared a part of Door County’s soul was lost forever . . . so entwined was it in Ellison Bay lore that many speculated the town would die without it, as if the town’s heart had been cut out.”

Newman, a part of Door County life for more than half a century, and her husband Lester didn’t let that happen. The new store reopened about a year after the blast.

On the outside, it greatly resembles the dearly departed Pioneer Store. Inside, it’s too new to be the same. I miss the narrow aisles, the rolling floor boards and banana bunches hanging from the post near the wood stove.

Newman says what regular customers miss most is the old stool on the customer side of the counter. “Everyone sat on it,’’ she recalled, “the customers, the salesmen when they were making a call. I even would sit on it at night when I did the books.”

She’s still got the base of the stool; the seat, which blew across the street, disappeared during the clean up.

Everyone in town, it seems, helped decorate the new place. They’ve donated antique tins, dishes and appliances for shelves above the new counter.

It doesn’t look exactly the same, but it still has the same feeling. “It still has the charm of the old store because the customers are all happy and chatting with each other when they stand in line,’’ she said.

And there’s a secret behind that. Newman says, “It’s because we keep the air conditioning up high, so people are happy instead of irritable and hot.”

But I think it’s because we’re happy an old, beloved tradition – for tourists and townies alike – has survived against all odds.

PHOTO INFORMATION: On the outside, the Pioneer Store looks much like the original, destroyed by an explosion in 2006./PHOTO by Susan Lampert Smith

Susan Smith: Start school year right with trip to Appleton’s Jansport outlet

Originally published Sept. 7, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

APPLETON – Think you’re cool because your kid goes to the big UW?

Well, I’m a “Yale mom,” not to mention a Stanford booster.

And my collegiate pride cost far, far less than the tuition you’re paying.

Yes, it’s time for back to school, which means our annual pilgrimage to find slightly wacky collegiate wear at the Jansport Outlet Store, located on the company grounds a few miles west of the Fox River Mall in Appleton.

This is a real outlet store – a place with real deals on high quality merchandise – unlike those fake-o outlets that line the highway, offering just a few bucks off the full price. I discovered the store, at N850 County Road CB, when I went to the company’s Appleton office to write about a mountain climbing expedition for women with breast cancer.

At Jansport’s Appleton outlet, you’ll find thick collegiate sweat shirts, two for $15, as well as $1 bins of misprinted T-shirts. They don’t make the stuff in Appleton, but the appliqué and embroidery is done here. And the outlet is the place where they get rid of the ones that represent a bad day at the embroidery machine.

Our family tradition, part of our annual trips to Door County and Lambeau Field, is to find the strangest schools to support, as well as the best misspellings.

Yes, Jansport has Wisconsin wear and our beloved Bucky Badger on sale, but why wear what everyone else is wearing? Besides, the Victor Valley Rams need your support more than the Ohio State Buckeyes.

You can adopt the Horned Frogs of Texas Christian University, the Lynchburg College Hornets and the Shippensburg University Ships.

My personal favorite weird mascot sweat from the Jansport store is the Wichita State Shocker, a crazed looking dude with dreadlocks made of shocks of wheat. The family used to fight over who got to wear that sweatshirt.

There is a weird side effect, however. When you wear your Kamehameha School zip-up, people will stop you on the street to talk about the greatness of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the school founder and last royal descendant of Kamehameha the Great. It does no good to explain that you’ve never been to Maui, and couldn’t get into the school, anyway, as you’re not native Hawaiian.

Likewise, my husband used to wear a Palomar College sweatshirt at his stand at the Dane County Farmers Market, and encountered a surprising number of people who wanted to reminisce about the good old days in San Marcos, Calif.

The misspellings can be fun. My son has a brown sweat shirt advertising the UCLA “B’s.”

But we’re still searching for our holy grail: A nice collegiate shirt that reads Hervard or Yael.

It gives us a reason to keep on digging.

PHOTO INFORMATION: Dustin Roosa of Mount Horeb models a UCLA “B” sweatshirt, a great find at the Appleton Jansport outlet.

Susan Smith: Madison’s derby Dolls more than just “hurt in a skirt”

Originally published Aug. 17, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

A funny thing happened in the four years since I’ve been to a roller derby bout.

It’s become a real sport.

Oh, yeah, the women – who fill roles as substitute teacher, mom, or IT tech in daylight – still sport funny stage names and the costumes. The summer travel league team, the Dairyland Dolls, dresses in their blue and white gingham dresses. Think Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, if you left her out in the rain until her dress shrunk to the approximate size of a teddy, the better to show off her panties – and her massive pair of quadriceps.

The Dairyland Dolls play up their bad farm girl image with a mascot in a Holstein costume, and a cheer that goes:

“Don’t gimme no pop, no pop
“Don’t gimme no tea, tea.
“Just gimme that milk, moo, moo, moo, moo
“Wisconsin milk, moo, moo, moo, moo.”

But once they hit the rink – their next home bout is Aug. 30 against the Burning River Girls from Cleveland – it’s clear the sport has come a long way.

In July, they made progress in the rankings, by narrowly beating the Charm City Roller – a Baltimore team dressed unwholesomely in black, at their home rink, Madison’s Fast Forward.

The team’s star jammer, a tiny girl in braids named Mouse, cut through the Baltimore bruisers like a mouse through Swiss cheese. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) As she came around the oval, scoring a point for every opposing member she passed, her arms churned (sorry again) like those of an Olympic speed skater. There were referees’ whistles and fouls, but none of the professional-wrestling style antics that marked the team’s birth five years ago.

“This is definitely the future of derby,’’ said Tammy Faye Undertakker, the dolls’ spokeswoman. “Anymore, teams that are just show and fake fighting aren’t respected.”

The Baltimore bout was serious business, as Baltimore came in ranked 13 nationally, and the local team 17th. The top 12 teams in the East will qualify for the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association’s Eastern Regionals, which will be held Oct. 10-12 at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. The top four teams will advance to Portland, Oregon, for the national championships in November.

Derby in Dairyland has come a long way since the Dolls first season in 2004. The four Madison area teams that play locally -- the Vaudeville Vixens, the Reservoir Dolls, the Unholy Rollers and the Quad Squad – have been joined by the Appleton-area Fox Valley Foxs and the Milwaukee-based Brew City Bruisers.

And Crackerjack, a Doll who currently serves as president of the WFTDA, expects the sport to grow some more after the release next year of the Ellen Page (of “Juno” fame) and Drew Barrymore movie, “Whip it,’’ about a Texas girl who gives up beauty pageants for the track. Texas was the home of the roller derby revival early this century (it all but died out in the 1970s), so it’s appropriate the film is set there.

Standard rules and athletic training have made it more of a sport and less of a show.

“The hits are harder, but cleaner,’’ said Crackerjack, a Dolls founder. “Before, the rules weren’t clear, so it was street justice.”

And the girls, many of whom never played an organized sport before, are in better shape than ever.

Witness the “baby dolls,’’ a group of about 25 women hoping to make the local teams this fall. Their summer regimen consists of two or three days doing core strength work at the Monkey Bar gym, and three nights of training at the track.

“We play tag and learn how to properly fall,” said “Baby Doll” Robin Giles, who was limping around Fast Forward on a crutch, the result of wrenching her knee during a practice.

Still, for every bout, there’s an ambulance and a paramedic team on hand, giving truth to roller derby’s motto, “Hurt in a skirt.”

For schedules and info, see http://www.madrollindolls.com/

PHOTO INFORMATION: A Dairyland Doll named Mouse passes on the outside during a recent derby match in Madison vs. Baltimore’s Charm City Roller team./PHOTO by Neil Stechschulte

Susan Smith: Door County’s curvy Hwy. 42 designed for beauty, not speed

Originally published Aug. 3, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

NORTHPORT – In a state known for its paved and curvy rural roads, it might be dicey to pick one stretch as the curviest road in Wisconsin.

After all, motorcyclists and sports car hobbyists from all over the flatter parts of the Midwest flock to Wisconsin for its scenic rural drives.

For the fact we’re not completely flat, like much of Illinois, you can thank the glaciers that either missed areas – the hilly Coulee Country near La Crosse comes to mind – or shaped it into eccentric gum drop mounds and deep kettles, like those found in the Kettle Moraine of southeastern Wisconsin.

For the fact so many of our rural roads are paved, unlike the gravel rural roads of other states, you can thank our history as the Dairy State. Milk trucks had to get to farms 365 days a year.

So, yes, we have many curvy roads. But for my money, nothing beats the last couple of miles of Highway 42, as it winds out to the very tip of Door County.

Between Gill’s Rock and Northport, where the car ferry leaves for Washington Island, the highway zigs and zags between the beech and maple trees.

There are plenty of beautiful photos of this stretch, with the trees blazing orange and yellow in the fall, and with the black road coiling through the icy white woods in the winter.

I’ve driven it many times, but I don’t always appreciate its beauty as I’m rushing to catch the last ferry.

During a recent trip, I counted 15 curves in the one and half miles between Timberline Road and Porte de Mortes Drive. And why? It’s not like you’re snaking along the edge of a winding river or skirting the edge of bluffs.

Bill Prue, at the state Department of Transportation office in Green Bay, said he didn’t know the reason, but he has heard the theory it’s designed to slow down tourists so they don’t drive straight into Lake Michigan. “It does look nice,’’ Prue says. “Oftentimes when I’m up there, I’ll see people stopped on one of those knobs taking pictures.”

At the town of Liberty Grove, at the very tip of the county, town road commissioner Walter Kalms says his grandfather complained that “whoever laid out that road had something wrong with his head.”

But Kalms, and deputy clerk Janet Johnson, actually do know the reason: The road was designed by an artist, not an engineer.

Johnson says famed landscape architect Jens Jensen had a hand in laying out the end of Highway 42 to enhance its scenic beauty. Jensen, a Danish immigrant, designed parks in Chicago and Madison before coming to Door County in the 1930s to create, The Clearing, a school to train landscape architects.

Jensen, who had a near-mystical belief in the civilizing power of nature, would probably scoff at my hurry to get to the island so I could start relaxing.

Next time, I’ll appreciate the curves that were put there just so I’d slow down and see the beauty of Wisconsin.

PHOTO INFORMATION: Tourists often stop along the knobs on Highway 42, capturing photos of the road as it winds through the beech and maple trees./PHOTO by Neil Stechschulte

Susan Smith: Capitol Square restaurant serves an Old Fashioned good time

Originally published July 27, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

MADISON – Doug Griffin can’t recall his first brandy old fashioned.

“No. No, I guess I can’t,’’ he said. “I have enjoyed them very much over the years.”

He won’t forget the 100,000th. Not his personal 100 grand of brandy, mind you. No this was the 100,000th served by the namesake restaurant, The Old Fashioned, which opened in 2005 on the East Side of Madison’s Capitol Square,

Griffin and Kevin Kiley, his pal from their days at Green Bay’s Notre Dame High School, and half the town, it seemed, crammed into the noisy bar on a hot July night, urged on by $1.50 Korbel brandy old fashioneds.

General manger Jen De Bolt and her staff glistened with perspiration as they muddled sugar and bitters, splashed in the brandy and soda, and speared cherries and oranges like they were on an assembly line. As the brandy went down the hatch, the noise level in the bar soared, a natural consequence of mixing Cheeseheads with brandy.

The bar wound up serving 761 old fashioneds during the three-hour special and another 145 afterward. Not so unusual, really.

“We sell the most Korbel brandy of any restaurant in the state,’’ said De Bolt. So much that the president of Korbel paid the bar a personal visit back in January. (There were $1 old fashioneds that night to celebrate, but since there was a blizzard raging, they only sold about 300.)

The Old Fashioned restaurant is a tribute to all things Wisconsin. From the old Blatz beer signs on the wall to the Green Bay Packers souvenir bourbon decanters behind the bar, to the menu, where you’ll find the wares of Wisconsin’s small food companies.

You can dine on natural casing hot dogs from Salmon’s Meat Market in Kewaunee, or on crusty hard rolls from Sheboygan’s Highway bakery. Appetizer choices range from smoked chubs from Charlie’s Smokehouse near the tip of Door County, to landjaeger sausage from New Glarus to cheese from the Fayette Creamery in Darlington. For color, add some Bea’s picked beets, and wash it down with the neon colored sodas from Seymour.

For co-owner Tami Lax, the menu is a way of preserving the foods she grew up eating in Green Bay. When she moved to Madison, she’d return from a visit home with a cooler packed with bacon, braunschweiger, and cheese. If she loved these things, she figured, so would others. And she’d be keeping the distinct flavors of Wisconsin alive.

“Some of these things are going extinct because our tastes are becoming more narrow,’’ she said. “You save them by eating them. We can keep Seymour Bottling in business by buying hundreds of cases of their sodas.”

And, thanks to dedicated customers such as Griffin, who says he “got here early and parked my keister on a stool” to wait for the special, they’re doing their part for brandy, too.

PHOTO INFORMATION: While people elsewhere might mix an old fashioned with whiskey, every good Wisconsinite knows it’s really made with brandy./PHOTO by Brent Nicastro

Susan Smith: Only in Madison -- Grad student is human mosquito magnet

Originally published July 20, 2008

By Susan Lampert Smith

Elsewhere in Wisconsin, people tend to tend to roll their eyes at the mere mention of Madison.

You’ll hear it is full of liberals and politicians and nothing like the rest of this solid Midwestern state. But in at least one way, Madison is classically Wisconsin: Its chain of lakes, marshes and woods have, this summer, produced a truly amazing crop of mosquitoes. One Madison surveillance trap sucked in 20,000 mosquitoes in a day.

But, yes, there’s a Madison twist here, too. Because on nice summer evenings, when the rest of humanity wisely flees indoors, swatting at the swarm, somewhere in Madison, Patrick Irwin is baring parts of his linebacker-sized body for science.

The UW-Madison graduate student knows, scientifically speaking, he’s a piece of meat. But he does have his limits.

“I told my adviser that I’ll be the bait, but I won’t shave my legs,’’ said Irwin, a doctoral candidate in Entomology. (His advisor, Entomology Professor Susan Paskewicz, a nationally known mosquito expert, is doing research in Uganda, where mosquito-borne diseases cause death and suffering to millions.)

Part of Irwin’s research involves “human landing studies.” This means during prime biting times, Irwin stations himself in a likely spot, such as a subdivision in the UW Arboretum near Lake Wingra, to count how many mosquitoes land on one lower leg in a 10-minute span.

His record? About 120 in 10 minutes. He sucks them up in a bug vacuum to be taken back to the lab, and counted by genus and species. Right now, he’s testing to see whether those carbon-dioxide-emitting bug traps, sold under names such as Mosquito Magnet, really work.

“We know that they catch a lot of mosquitoes, but what we’re interested in is whether (the traps) reduce biting pressure on humans,’’ he said. Maybe they just attract your neighbors’ mosquitoes or maybe they trap mosquitoes that don’t bite people.

The evidence is still coming in, but let’s put it this way: Irwin hasn’t spent any of his own money on the devices.

For his master’s degree in public health, Irwin surveyed Madison’s storm sewer system, swamps and drainage ditches to find the breeding places for the mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus. And, since he learned the vast majority of Madison’s mosquitoes breed in about a dozen or so “hot spots,” mostly in drainage ditches, he’s come up with a idea for killing mosquitoes without chemicals.

He recently got permission from the Department of Natural Resources to seed the drainage ditches with fathead minnows.

“They’re a native species,’’ Irwin explains, “And fathead minnows really love to eat mosquito larvae.”

If it works, it might be one fatheaded idea from Madison the rest of the state can embrace.

PHOTO INFORMATION: Patrick Irwin, a UW-Madison graduate student, settles into a spot at the UW Arboretum for “human landing studies” of this year’s amazing mosquito crop./PHOTO by Brent Nicastro