Television and My Weird Wisconsin Memories

A while ago I wrote about my fondness for the great state of Wisconsin and how the heady aroma of dairy farm manure evokes pleasant thoughts of long ago summers spent vacationing Up North.

Thoughts of warm days spent idling poolside or lakeside or wherever are indeed pleasant but I also have a slew of memories that are perhaps a little odd, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic and all involving television.

Age of Aquarius? No, I am a child of the Age of Television, a baby suckled by the Boob Tube. When I should have been rough-housing out of doors as a child, I was instead planted firmly in front to the tv, even on vacation.

I went with my parents to Wisconsin Dells in the summer of 1972. That was when I first the first summer when television delivered weirdness to me, this time in the guise of tragedy. The summer Olympics were in Munich, the game's first return to Germany since 1936. There was the mustachioed Mark Spitz winning seven gold medals, there was Olga Korbut, but there were also Palestinian terrorists and dead Jewish athletes and Jim McKay saying, "They're all gone."

The next summer I remember watching the Watergate hearings on tv. Sure, that seems an odd viewing choice for a child, but really, who amongst us could resist Sam Ervin's eyebrows, eyebrows that seemed to have a mind of their own?

The hearings seemed bizarre to me. Nixon was not a well-liked man in our household, but to see his presidency collapsing, all the lies unfolding, on tv like that, well, let's just say it was compelling television, even for an eight-year-old.

Years later I was in Milwaukee with my wife, when on the news I saw that Mike Tyson had bitten a chunk of Evander Holyfield's ear off during a heavyweight bout. Now that's bizarre, although not surprising, I suppose, since Tyson was involved.

That same summer, in 1997, I was in a cabin in the North Woods when I saw news reports of the end of the Andrew Cunanan saga. He was a spree killer who left dead bodies in his wake from California to Chicago to Pennsylvania and finally to Florida. Some of his victims were unknown, some were famous and wealthy, like Lee Miglin and Gianni Versace. Cunanan's end came by his own hand as police were bearing down on him on a houseboat in Miami.

These are the odd events of note that I associate with Wisconsin and summer fun just as much as I do beer and brats and fudge.