I just realized I have a pet peeve – people who ask me how I “Ended up” living where I currently reside.  That question always causes me to pause, think, and ultimately answer “I don’t know, how’d you end up where you are?”  I guess, I got here by being born here.  This is where my family lives.  This is where I work.  This is where my roots are.  This is home.

People ask the inane question “How did you end up there?” without thinking how much work it would take to steer and manipulate the conditions of your birth.  It’s not like, shortly after conception, I got the notion to shoot a flare down my mom’s birth canal signaling her “Hey Mom, let’s move to Franksville, Wisconsin!”   No, it wasn’t like that.  I didn’t have that much control over the situation.  An oak tree doesn’t say “I think I’d like to grow up in North Carolina.”  It grows where the acorn lands.  It sprouts wherever it hits the ground.  

If you really think about it, the question “Why do I live here?” makes some sense.  I mean, why would anyone live where I do?  Franksville lies in rural Southeastern Wisconsin.  The land of cheese, beer, sauer kraut, and the Packers.  Weather-wise, in this part of the country we get about a week of spring, three months of unpredictable summer, two months of arguably spectacularly temperate fall, all culminated by a cold, damp seven month blight called winter.  On the surface, there’s a strong argument to be made for not living here.

November and December aren’t bad in my homeland but you can just forget about January and February.  The dampness put off by Lake Michigan freezes you with a special brand of cold found nowhere else.  The humidity mixed with frigidity just goes right through you.  The onslaught breaks slightly in March and April.  These months toy with your desire for warmth like that cute girl in high school who never wanted to date you but loved the power it gave her to make you think she wanted to date you.  She teases you with warmth but you know it’s illusory.  You’ll get a warm day or two in March and April but you always know in the back of your mind that winter could return in a moment’s notice.  

Then comes May and June.  These months can bring everything from eighty degree, joy-filled days of bliss, to biting cold and snow.  We have a giant outdoor music festival in Milwaukee called Summerfest.  It starts the last week of June. Usually the weather is great during Summerfest but last summer, I literally wore a winter coat to the event one day.  You see, just because it’s warm everywhere else in the world at the end of June, it doesn’t mean that the weather gods in Southeastern Wisconsin will be cooperating.  

The only month that there’s never been a recorded snow fall in the state of Wisconsin is July.  You’re sure to get some scorching weather in July and August.  That’s when the cold miser from The Year Without a Santa Claus gives up and takes his holiday at the North Pole.  Summers are pretty darned nice in Wisconsin.  Plus, they’re followed up by September and October, two glorious, dry, warm, sunny months in our state.  Sure you might get some frost toward the end of October but the weather is usually fantastic.  That great fall weather isn’t without its caveats though.  You know, in the back of your mind, even though it’s nice, November and December are on their way and the whole process starts all over again.    

You see, you can’t help where you’re from.  It should be obvious that I don’t live here for the weather.  I’ve tried to move away about four times in my life but I keep coming back.  Wisconsin has a homing mechanism built into it.  I think the Native Americans had it installed hundreds of years ago.  You can try to get away from Wisconsin, but when you do, you remember what you left behind.  Family.  Friends.  A sense of pride and community like few other states have.  And some of the best damned people I’ve ever known.  Good, loyal, honest people who you can take at face value.  People who will tell you like it is without worrying what they can get out of you.  You might be able to say that about the Midwest in general, but I know for a fact that these values are in the marrow of Wisconsin people.  And deep down, it’s the quality of the people that brings character to wherever you ended up.