Wisconsin Folklore

11 Application to Live in Northern Wisconsin (North of Highway 29)

11 Application to Live in Northern Wisconsin (North of Highway 29) Anonymous Highway 29 runs from east to west, linking Green Bay, Wausau, the Chippewa Falls/Eau Claire area, Menomonie, and River Falls, while neatly separating Wisconsin's northern region from the south. Above this line lakes, woods, and log trucks proliferate. It's the home of self-described "jackpine savages," and the place where Igrew up. In 1960 the hometown Rice lake Warriors basketball team made it to the state tournament in Madison. That was before the present system of four divisions based on relative population, and schools competed with one another irrespective of size. Eau Claire Memorial's "Old Abes" were the perennial "up north" entry, so little-known Rice lake was greeted by downstate papers and rival players as a collection of rubes, hicks, and honyocks (immigrant German or Slavic farmers). Perhaps intimidated, Rice lake was quickly eliminated. But the team was back in the tournament the next year. My dad, Warren leary, publisher of the Rice Lake Chronofype, smarted over negative stereotypes. Rather than tout sophistication (and risk more ridicule), he began to write about Rice lake's team as the boys from 'Woodpecker Point"-a local nickname for the city's rustic extreme west side where his pals Bob and Dix Sandburg had lived in the 1930s. By swapping Rice lake for Woodpecker Point, an in-your-face boondocks byword, my dad pointed out, as much with a grin as a sneer, ''Yeah, we're from up in the woods, what's it to ya?" Rice lake went on to trounce a pair ofdownstate teams before losing in the Rnals to Milwaukee lincoln in overtime on, of course, a disputed, last-second basket. In the aftermath, ardent fans like Alphonse liedI could be seen around town garbed in jackets outfitted with Wisconsin maps across their backs. Woodpecker Point appeared alongside a star in the northwestern quadrant normally occupied by Rice lake. The "Application to live in Northern Wisconsin" plays similarly with both insiders' and outsiders ' stereotypes of the people living above Highway 29. The collective image of an insular, inbred, male-dominated, outdoorsy, gearhead culture of sex-crazed, drunken Packer fans is wildly exaggerated, yet built around a core of truth. "Up north" natives recognize the absurdity of confusing image with reality, but many delight in the image-partly because they enjoy poking fun at themselves, partly because it allows them on occasion to play the wise fool, to act the country bumpkin when patronized by tourists and government officials who assume the role of "Arkansas travelers." Not surprisingly, the up north stereotype shares much with popular images of others living in such rustic American margins as the Ozarks and the southern Appalachians. Indeed, an "Application to Be a Hillbilly" precedes this northern Wisconsin version, as indicated by the residual presence of southern "redneck" elements: the Confederate Rag, "Dixie," Elvis veneration, incest, Jack Daniels, and references to parents as Mamma and Daddy. And just as southern musicians have long made comic use of the hillbilly persona, so too do up north musicians-most notably Da Yoopers from the old Wisconsin Territory in Ishpeming, Michigan, and Bananas at large, whose "Da Turdy Point Buck" situates the quintessential up north rustic in a deer camp. 106 ANONYMOUS: Application to Live in Northern Wisconsin 11.1. In the early 1990s Larry Peterson and Rob Mitchell drew some local criticism when they launched Spooner's "Jackpine Savage Days." For Peterson, however, the festival was both a tongue-in-cheeky recognition of "north woods" stereotypes and a means to make light of them. Logo courtesy of Spooner Area Chamber of Commerce. The application's form and medium merit final comments. Nowadays even backwoods dwellers are confronted with a flurry of forms and a continuous barrage of electronic communiques. Hence this phony application parodies the questionnaires we are too often forced to RII out, and its transmission is not by word-of-mouth, but via the copier, the fax machine, and the Internet. Reprinted from the anonymous document circulating on the Internet, March 17, 1995. NAME: _ NICKNAME: CB HANDLE: _ NECK SHADE: __ Light Red __ Bright Red __ Dark Red NUMBER OF TEETH EXPOSED IN FULL GRIN: Upper: _ Lower:_ LENGTH OF RIGHT LEG: LENGTH OF LEFT LEG: _ DADDY (if unknown list three suspects): _ MAMMA: _ CAN YOU BEAT YOUR WIFE AT ARM WRESTLING: _ ARE YOU MARRIED TO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: __ Sister __...