Wisconsin at Xmas

Snow covered Wisconsin can be very beautiful. Wisconsin is pretty flat so it isn’t overpowering and majestic as it can be in the east and west, but it’s still serene and its beauty has power too. Last night a blanket of snow fell, and my parents live on 50 acres of land with a tree lined river a hundred yard dash from my bedroom window.

I’ve spent about a week here and the weather has been warm, usually I arrive bitterly complaining of the cold, but this year it has hovered around freezing and therefore the precipitation has vassilated from rain to sleet to snow. What I’ve found is that everyone in Wisconsin rests their conversation on the weather. If it’s the precipitation or lack of precipitation or the cold it’s the foundation of any exchange- gaining traction it might veer off into how the weather is affecting driving, plowing, shoveling, the corn growth in the summers, how the farmers are taking it etc. My parents generally start off with it when they pick up the phone to call me. I’ve blogged about it before when my mom expresses disbelief over unusually warm temperatures and then denies global warming. Well people, it was warm in Wisconsin this year, while during my Christmas home stay I’ve worn nothing more than a hoodie instead of a winter coat, hat, scarves, and ten layers underneath.

My cousin Ken wrote me “I always felt kind of strange when I went back to G.B.- like I was an undercover agent who knew of a world beyond the mountain pass that no one ever wanted to cross. That mountain pass of course being the state border of Wisconsin”

Well put Ken.

My cousin Tom is a teacher, a few Christmas’ ago I came home, we used to be close and I asked him if he’d like to go out for a beer while I was home. He told me of course, but he didn’t know if I’d enjoy it since his friends dropped the N bomb from time to time, and me being an east coast liberal and all… I flew into a fit, “you’re a teacher how can you have friends who use the N word, why don’t you stand up and say something!”. By last Christmas after Obama’s election I had learned to avoid conversations like these- especially when they started talking about how much more prepared to govern the country Sarah Palin was. Tom shot a deer out of my bedroom window this Christmas- so you can see how Sarah Palin would be a family favorite, deer hunter, still looks like a woman, and conservative! Cousin Tom loves his country, but he hasn’t passed the border of Wisconsin, and he doesn’t want to, he acknowledges his students are rednecks and he feels “Anyone living in America who works hard can make it” and “why are there no African American male role models”. My uncle charms in "Tom's not a bigot" but I know anytime you start defending yourself as not racist, its a pretty good indication you are, especially after you make statements like "Obama got elected how can you say racism still exists" I wish Tom could see my kids and their parents, understand their struggles and see that beyond whitewashed Wisconsin, things are not as simple as they seem.