Friends, I think I’ve made my peace with Milwaukee. Our problems started fourteen years ago, really got going seven years back and moderated a bit since then. Today, I can say that I like Milwaukee.
You see, in my first year at Grinnell, I had a girlfriend from Wyoming who was attending Michigan Tech in the Upper Peninsula, and we decided it would be great for me to visit her over fall break. The easiest way for me to get from Iowa to the UP involved crossing Wisconsin the long way. So after my last midterm I piled into my ’63 Dodge Dart, drove through the evening in thickening fog, and somehow ended up on a Forest Service road outside Eagle River, WI. The pavement ended, and with a large bump I hit the gravel road.
A few miles later, I made the paved highway again and drove for a bit before the “oil” light came on. This wasn’t out of the ordinary for this old car, and I took a fresh quart from the case I kept in the trunk. A few miles later, outside of Crystal Falls, Michigan, I heard a loud rattle, then a BOOM, and then silence. The car glided to a stop on the side of the road about an hour outside Houghton, my destination. Opening the hood I saw bits of metal that used to be the engine embedded in the hood.
There was only one thing to do: hitchhike back to Crystal Falls, call for a tow truck, and try to get my car fixed in the morning. I also called my girlfriend, who said she would pick me up in the morning when she could borrow a car. After sleeping in my car behind the Dodge dealership waiting for them to open, I met my girlfriend and some guy, who turned out to be her new boyfriend.
Not long afterward — I had to stick around in order to sell my car for scrap and hoped in vain that I could win the girl back — I got on a bus to go back home, which is where Milwaukee enters this story. I arrived after midnight to find the ticket window closed. I had only ten dollars or so left to my name after paying for a late-night tow and a bus ticket to Milwaukee. If Greyhound didn’t take plastic, I would be forced to have my own private Idaho there in Wisconsin in order to get home. But I had more immediate concerns: Milwaukee’s bus station is rough. “Don’t worry, I’ll look after you,” said a burly-looking janitor who seemed to sense my nervousness.
I eventually arrived in Grinnell about 24 hours after leaving Michigan and changing busses in Chicago. “Hey, bus driver, are you going to get my luggage from stowage?” Hey gave me a hurried look. “There’s no luggage on this bus for you.” He got out impatiently to prove his point. I was living the perfect country and western song: no girl, no car, no money, no luggage. The only things that seemed to be missing were mama and prison and gettin’ drunk; and I was pretty sure one of those was right around the corner.
Seven years later I was back in Milwaukee after flying into General Mitchell International Airport — at the time more bus station than airport — to attend a three-day DICOM course. Three days in the suburbs without a car with everything of interest miles away. Three days of pinched, nasal Wisconsin accents. Three days of wall-to-wall election ads targeting the swing state. I think I went a little bit crazy. Or at least that’s what the picture of Crazy Horse told me one evening.
A few years after that I was back to visit GE Medical Healthcare. Still no car, but I was in the middle of miles of strip malls along the six-lane Blue Mound Avenue. Walking past miles of mostly empty parking lots, I got my first sense that something was fundamentally wrong with land use in the ‘burbs.
Then last year I was in Milwaukee twice. First, for a couple days to see a baseball game and some “lazy” animals at the zoo, and later for a couple days to visit GE again. That didn’t seem so painful.
Then last Thursday, before leaving for another quick trip to see GE, I resolved that Milwaukee might not be so bad after all and that I just needed to try a little harder to like it. My trip got off to a good start when I parked in one of the conveniently located spaces reserved for hybrid vehicles at Boston’s Logan Airport and ate fresh cookies in first class seats on Midwest Express, the only airline that I really like.
Not long after I arrived, the sales guy on the trip suggested that I come hang out in the “Concierge Club” with him and a fellow coworker/traveler. I went down to the front desk to enquire about the club. “Well, usually you have to have a certain amount of frequent traveler points, but go meet your coworkers,” she said and handed me a keycard. Sweet! Free food, big screen TV, a friendly concierge from Australia who somehow ended up in Milwaukee and liked talking to Americans about Led Zeppelin. She seemed amused by our story that we were record salesmen for a certain three-letter government agency.
Friday, we met with our homies at GE, and I stayed another night to watch a baseball game at Miller Park. Beforehand, I went to the Milwaukee Art Museum, which was quite nice. Like Cleveland and Detroit, the museum started with robber baron money, was sustained by robber baron wives, went through times of crisis when everyone fled to the suburbs, and now anchors the hopes of cultural renewal. It seems to have succeeded more than the others. Having a little more time on my hands, I walked through the parks fronting the water and headed inland, stopping into a beautiful federal court building that epitomizes the Gilded Era of the late 19th century and city hall, which is under renovation and whose employees and patrons appear to be members of the original cast of Laverne and Shirley.
The game itself was alright, but nowhere near as good as my seat six rows behind home plate. Since last year, the Brewers added a new member — a chorizo — to the sausage races, and he smoked them all in the sixth inning.
Happy days are here again!
Inside the Milwaukee Art Museum |
A Calder Mobile |
“The Janitor” — a statue |
Art for a city built on beer |
Me and Nikki S. Lee |
Lots of little pictures |
Me and my progenitors |
The Milwaukee Federal Building and U.S. District Court |
Milwaukee City Hall |
Sausages |
