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: 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: 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: 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

Dennis McCann: John Heisman's own trophy is a simple cemetery stone

Originally published Dec. 8, 2008

There may be more bowls in college football than in a bowery soup kitchen, but we now know who will be playing who, where and when during the Christmas and New Year’s college football orgy. Thankfully, the Rose Bowl will again feature the Big Ten vs. the Pac-10, the way God meant it to be, instead of some untraditional interloper like Texas, and Wisconsin will head to Florida once again to take on the second oldest coach in college football in Bobby Bowden’s Florida State. The only unanswered question in college football, then, is who will win the Heisman Trophy.

And, might this year’s winner finally be the one to make it to quiet Forest Home Cemetery in Rhinelander, where the remains of John Heisman himself, the man who gave his name to the iconic trophy, have been buried for more than 70 years? Yes, the man so closely associated with the New York Athletic Club and the nascent days of a game he likely would not recognize today rests in a northern Wisconsin cemetery under a simple flush-to-the-ground marker, so unostentatious I had to have help to find it when I stopped earlier this fall.

“I wonder how many people,” said Marv Schumacher as he led me to the grave, “know he’s got a simple gravestone in Rhinelander, Wis? This famous man and just a ground-level stone.”

Some do know, of course, because Heisman’s Rhinelander burial comes up some years about award time, and it got a lot of attention the year Wisconsin running back Ron “The Great” Dane won the trophy. It’s “kind of a novelty” story, said Dick Winquist, who was sexton at the cemetery for 32 years and knows the story about as well as anyone. Each year a few football fans in the know seek out the grave to show their kids or take photos, he said.

“My dad was there for 20 years before me and he used to say that’s our one claim to fame,” he said.

It’s not a bad claim. Heisman, who was born two weeks before the first American football game was played between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869, is widely viewed as a pioneering coach in college football. As the New York Times wrote two years ago, “Without John Heisman there might not be a forward pass in football, and without a forward pass the game would probably have died from disinterest or been abolished because of its fatal brutality.” In addition to pushing to have the forward pass made legal, Heisman pushed to have the game divided into four quarters and created the center snap. He introduced the “hike” vocal signal and was a creative play designer.

Heisman was said to have introduced the ball to his players and, after a pause, add, “Better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football.”

Heisman was in New York at the time of is death but was buried in Rhinelander, the hometown of his second wife, Edith. Winquist said to his knowledge no trophy winner has ever come to visit.

One curious story occurred in the 1980s when a visitor who was never identified glued a jar to the stone. In the jar, for some inexplicable reason, were four tickets to a Minnesota Gophers football game. Winquist still has them. Heisman, after all, is his claim to fame.