Roger Freed
Anyone who has spent any time in southern Alaska has noticed the high density of Wisconsiners living here (to avoid any violent misunderstandings and to remain socially correct, by “high density” I am referring to the percentage of population, not the thickness of their skulls). There is a disproportionally large population of them in town coming from a state with only five million, most of them cows. I am one myself (a Wisconsiner, not a cow) but don’t tell anyone.
Why are there so many here? A two word answer: EASY WINTERS. That’s right; easy winters, this time without capital letters. Southern winters may not seem easy by any standards, but by Wisconsin standards they are downright wimpy. Of course, that is not taking into account the pre- and post-rain that strike the south in Noah-like torrents, but other than that they are easy.
Expatriate Wisconsiners consider anywhere where there is snow in December and temperatures that rarely dip below 0 degrees to be flocking grounds. What is a Wisconsiner’s idea of a winter vacation? 30 degrees with a case of Schlitz, bratwursts, a snowmobile and the Green Bay Packers on satellite dish. (Note — the Schlitz can be substituted with Pabst, the brats with summer sausage, and the snowmobile with an ATV, but DON’T EVEN THINK OF SUBBING ANYTHING FOR THE PACKERS unless you are good at untying your fingers from the knots they have been made into. Disparaging the Packers is the equivalent of saying anything against the Inquisition in the 12th century and equally as revenged.)
For example, snowy climes with weather better than Wisconsin’s include anywhere in the world with the exception of the North and South Pole, northern Canada, Siberia, Greenland and the tops of the Himalayas. Anywhere else, except Minnesota which is really a suburb of Wisconsin, is a piece of frozen cake. Wisconsiners want to be able to ski, make snowmen and snowmobile with all the luxuries of a snow culture minus the actual danger of freezing to death.
Interestingly enough, Wisconsiners always migrate to other cold climates. They could go to California or Mexico, but no, they always go to places with the big — sleet, slush and snow. Our Norwegian heritage has a lot to do with this. Mostly due to the fact of only having lutefisk (oc soaked in lye) to eat all winter. There was a mass emigration out of Norway, especially to places that had cows. When our Norsk forefathers came over here the whole country was open for grabs. They could have gone to balmy Florida or sunny Texas. Where did they all go? To Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Michigan, the bleakest, most desolate winter places possible.
This is due partly to certain psychological conditions inherent in the Norwegian mind such as Defrostiphobia (fear of thawing out) and Chlorophylliphobia (fear of green, growing things and land not covered in white). Also to blame are permanent cases of brain freeze that render making rational decisions difficult (ie, “Gee, Brunhilde, when we go to America we could go to Arizona or Georgia! Heck, let’s go to Wisconsin where we can spend half the year chopping icicles out of our noses!”)
