November 13, 2007

Last weekend, I was in Madison, Wisconsin. If you want to know why I was there, that’s easy. Number one: I went to school there.

Number two: It’s a very flimsy excuse for me to go to a University of Wisconsin football game.

And number three: Of course, it’s one of the best places in the country to live.

If you’ve been reading Money Magazine or Kiplinger’s, you know that this is the place to be. I can safely say that I owe almost my entire career to the University of Wisconsin. It was a very special place for me.

I’m reporting from the Press Box at Camp Randall Stadium, high above the football field. Last Saturday, the University of Wisconsin Badgers played against the University of Michigan “Losers.”

Now, I’m not biased at all. I have to tell you I’m sort of a jinx here because every time we’ve done the radio show from Wisconsin, Wisconsin has lost.

So I’m breaking that jinx today. The last time we did the show from here, and I’m not making this up, we were playing Indiana, which was a nothing team. Did you hear me? A nothing team, and I’m on the air, and in the first seven minutes of the game they were ahead 21-0. And I’m thinking, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know I was a jinx!”

But jinx or no, today we’ve got a special treat for listeners. I’m here with Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle…

INTERVIEW WITH GOVERNOR JIM DOYLE

Gov. Jim Doyle (J): Peter, it’s great being here. You’ve gotten official pardons for all those things you did when you went to school.

Peter Greenberg (P): When I was an undergraduate here, this is the University that focused me, gave me direction, and allowed me to do everything that I do. So, either they take the credit, or they take the blame. I’m not sure which is which, but when I was an undergraduate here, I amassed just a small number of parking tickets, and when it came time to graduate, the University of Wisconsin sent me a letter—they had no more space even on the letter to list the citation numbers. They had divided and multiplied like an amoeba and they said, “Because you’ve amassed all these parking fines, you’re not going to graduate, you’re not getting a diploma, we’re not sending your transcripts anywhere.”

But by that time, believe it or not, because of the University of Wisconsin, I was already working as a correspondent for Newsweek. So I took that letter, I’m not making this up, and I re-lettered it with gothic lettering called “Diploma,” and I hung that on my office wall for 20 years. Now, I should tell you Governor that my mother never forgave me for that. And in 1992, I was here working for ABC doing a live remote, and Chancellor Donna Shalala (who then went on to be a member of the Clinton administration, a cabinet secretary) and Governor Tommy Thompson came out. I knew my mother was going to be watching—she was still angry that I had never gotten that diploma. And so I said on the air, “Chancellor, just a question here: When I was a student here, there was a small misunderstanding about parking fines, and I never got my diploma. I was wondering if you would waive the statute of limitations and finally give me my diploma.” She said, “I hereby waive them!” My mother watched the show, my mother wrote the Chancellor, and my mother got the diploma. So I’ll take any pardon I can get. But other than that, I will tell you that this is a very special place. You’re a Madison boy.

J: I grew up right by the stadium here. It is a really special place. Madison, in all the surveys that come out, is always ranked as one of the best places to live. And that’s true, but to some degree, I think even those ranking never quite capture the feel of the city—just what a special place it is. We have a wonderful university here, which is obviously a world-renowned leader. It’s where stem cell research started, it is one of the major research institutions. But, it is also a place where every student who comes here and goes to school goes away saying, “I loved my years in Madison.”

P: And also, as a tourist destination—imagine a city surrounded by lakes (see photo at right), where you’re really a hub to go anywhere you want to go. I’ve got to admit this, and I’m almost embarrassed to admit this, but most of my friends have never been here. They fly over Wisconsin. So at least once a year, I try to drag them kicking and screaming, so they can come here and see it, and they always say, “Wow, I had no idea.”

J: It is – and all of Wisconsin. We obviously have a very big tourism industry. The Great North Woods and all of the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, and the incredible natural resources we have. But in Madison and Milwaukee, we have great cultural centers, as well. You know, obviously I love this state, and tourism is one of our leading industries.

P: And, of course, if you’re coming to a Wisconsin football game, you can’t come to a game without tailgating. There are some people who actually argue the point that tailgating was started in Wisconsin.

J: Well we think it was, although that’s a pretty obscure history. But I think it certainly has reached very high levels of development here in Wisconsin and in Madison on a Saturday. You know, many people do it twice on a weekend, because when the Badgers are playing in Madison and the Packers are playing in Green Bay, you get a double tailgate, so it’s all tailgating mixed in with a couple of football games.

Gov. Doyle: I think we may have to get a couple of state troopers to remove you from the stadium before kick off.

Peter: Wouldn’t be the first time.

P: So are they actually going to win the game today?

J: I mean I thought they were before you told the story of how you jinxed us—so I think we may have to get a couple of state troopers to remove you from the stadium before kick off.

P: Wouldn’t be the first time. Ok, so let’s talk about Wisconsin as a tourist destination. We were just talking about tailgating because tailgating is actually, forgetting the football games, a really big business because of what you manufacture here in Wisconsin.

J: Well it is big business. Obviously, the basic tailgate is bratwurst and beer. In Wisconsin we’ve refined bratwurst to an art form. If you look at any of the surveys of professional sports stadiums where the best food is, Green Bay and Milwaukee are always at the top of that list because of bratwurst.

P: Explain to my audience, who may not be evolved, what a bratwurst is. Try to help them get the idea.

J: Well, a bratwurst is a sausage that has, well you really don’t know what it all has, but it basically has both beef and pork and is very, very spicy. It’s been a staple in Wisconsin for a long time. And, of course, in Wisconsin, Milwaukee is beer city. We’re the only professional team ever named the Brewers—that’s who our team is. We’re of course the great dairy state, but we’re also the beer state. So that’s the staple. But it has become a highly evolved art—the tailgating. Many of them now are very gourmet, catered in, and people take on different themes. They just become big events in and of themselves.

P: We just came from a parking lot, where there weren’t just a couple guys with a Webber grill. We’re talking about a $200,000 rockstar bus with waiters and bratwurst and caviar.

J: Now, let’s just say that’s probably a fairly unusual one around here but that will be the tailgate of the day. That’s where everybody’s going to want to be today. That was an example of a great restaurateur that catered it in. It’s going to be hundreds of people that are going to be there – it was a big, big party.

P: Now let’s talk about travel and tourism that goes beyond just tailgating, that encompasses the whole state. Here we are in the capital of the state, Madison, but you’ve got so many other resources here that people don’t realize because, you know, so many of my friends and I hate to admit this, but they say, “Oh I don’t want to go there, it’s so cold!” Now you know what, I was an undergraduate here and yes, there were days when it was 22 below zero. And to this day, when I’m in New York doing the Today show and it’s ten degrees outside and I walk outside just wearing a shirt, people say, “Aren’t you freezing?” And I say, “No! This is beach weather in Madison!”

J: Well, if you like cold—and we believe that that builds character—then you’ve got about three pretty cold months. But everybody would say, in terms of wonderful weather from about the middle of April to about the middle of November, you can’t find better weather anywhere in the world. And in the winter, we have developed a huge tourism industry around skiing, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, and other outdoor activities. One of the great things about the tourism industry in Wisconsin is, if you look at it from 25 years ago, it has been developed into a four-season operation. We are a huge tourism state obviously in the summer. We have unparalleled lakes, we are on the shore of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, we have many more inland lakes than Minnesota—even though they put it on their license plates. We’ve counted every one of them. We also have developed a really strong four-season tourism industry. We have unique architectural masterpieces to remote islands in Lake Superior, where you can do wilderness camping – we have it all.

P: Not to mention fish boils, explain the fish boils.

J: Well, if you like white fish out of Lake Michigan, you essentially dump them into a pot of boiling water, with some butter and salt in it. Of course, you need some beer to help you out; now you have a fish boil. And great Wisconsin-grown corn, as well.

P: Actually we did a piece about unusual programs for kids when they travel. And up there, you’ve got a submarine.

J: Yes, we’ve got a submarine in Manitowoc. One of the things people don’t realize is we are a great maritime state. The European settlers really came as maritime settlers along the Great Lakes, and so we have a big, big shipbuilding industry, and in WWII we built a lot of the submarines and a place called Manitowoc was a major place to build submarines, and there’s a submarine for people to go and see.

P: And actually, the kids get to do overnights. They can actually sleepover on the submarine. Now, I can’t let you go without talking about cheese. We didn’t talk about cheese. Now last night, I went to dinner at a restaurant that’s been in Madison for over 50 years called Smoky’s. Run by the same family, and I have to pronounce their name correctly or they’ll kill me: Schmock. And, of course, some of the friends who were with me had never had cheese curds.

J: Cheese curds are incredible, and I assume when you were talking to them about it, the real issue was how squeaky were the cheese curds because when you put it in and bite on it, a really good cheese curd squeaks. They are high protein for people who want good high protein diets. A solid cheese curd diet is what you want to do.

P: Of course, I have to admit these were fried cheese curds.

J: Well, the health benefits fade a little bit when you start to fry them. But the other thing I want to say about cheese, and I have to say this is, we are not only the major cheese producer—we want to make sure when you buy that pizza the cheese on it comes from Wisconsin. But we have become the absolute leader in specialty cheeses, as well. We rival France, Italy, every place in the world, and this has become another very, very high-end market. A lot of our cheese makers are now into the finest specialty cheeses in the world.

P: When I was an undergraduate here, you had three different kinds of Wisconsin cheese. You had cheddar, sharp cheddar and extra sharp cheddar. Now?

J: Now you have hundreds and hundreds of varieties, and many of them are very, very high-end, so this is a great tribute to not only the agriculture and the dairy industry but also to our entrepreneurial spirit. People have not only found a way to not only make huge, bulk cheese, but specialty cheeses have become a big part of our economy, as well.

P: There are some places in Wisconsin where you can actually go to the dairy and watch them make the cheese. They’ll let you help them make the cheese.

J: Most every dairy does that, wants you to do it. You know, we’re the only fans that wear cheese on our heads so…

P: Well, I should tell our audience that you are not, right this minute, wearing a cheese head.

J: I am not wearing a cheese head.

P: And will you be wearing one any time today?

J: Well, you know it’s a big difference in Wisconsin football, this is really important. At a Badger game, you will rarely see a cheese head. At a Packer game, you’ll see cheese heads. It’s just the cheese heads grew up around the Green Bay Packers.

Fan of cheese? Check out Voyage de Fromage: Destinations for Cheese-Lovers.

P: Speaking of the Packers, I would be remiss of not noting that Brett Favre has had an unbelievable season, pulling it out in the fourth quarter and sometimes in overtime in every single game.

J: We’re having a great year, and I’ve often said it’s a lot easier to govern the state of Wisconsin when the Packers have won on a Monday. If you’ve had a doubleheader, if the Badgers have won on Friday or Saturday and the Packers have won on Sunday, we’re going to have a pretty good week in this state. A lot rides on what the Packers do. The productivity in this state, which is always very high, I want to say, but it goes up to 125 percent coming off a Packers win.

P: So the Packers could actually go all the way this year.

J: Yeah, they could. This is really a good team, and everybody is really excited, and the whole Brett Farve story is one of these great, heartwarming stories of a guy that has just worked and worked and worked. In Wisconsin, we all feel like we’ve kind of grown up with him. He came in as this wild, young guy, and now he’s the elder statesman of the league, and the idea that in Green Bay we’ve had one quarterback start every single game for– I think it’s now 15 years– is pretty amazing.

From Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio, Nov. 10. Click here for more info.

Check out other entries in Peter’s Travel Detective Files blog.