It's a heavy magazine. Because you guys using real high gloss stock paper. The photography
is crystal clear. The ink doesn't run off on your hands. And it's the most relaxing
magazine if you're stressed out. And your anxiety is hitting pick up a copy of our Wisconsin
and your stress and anxiety melts away. Is that your purpose to make this magazine?
Good morning, good morning, done. I always glad to be here back in back out of the
hinterlands in good old received W R J and yeah, you know, these magazines we try to
make our Wisconsin a relaxing experience from the front cover on back. And the idea is
to take people, yeah, yeah, a little bit out into the country. Give them sort of good
exhale moment. Now you're going to get a reading experience that is going to relax
you. Maybe make your giggle, laugh a little bit. Maybe you might find a little sentimental
story, little tear up in your eye, but it's all entertainment. The idea is relaxing.
So sure, there's there's a out there in the in the great Wisconsin country sort of feel
we try to put in every issue. Now I thumb to the magazine the last few days, just because
I didn't read it yet, but I wanted to get some of these articles to talk about. And
why would we talk about off the air was one of the first articles of the currency gals.
And you educated me on currency cows versus don't tell me don't tell me I remember what
it was. I can't remember what was the other kind of the other cow. It's it's more of
it. It's it's it's a German name. There's a town in Wisconsin that starts with new in
the second. Holstein. Holstein. Holstein. So you back in white ones. Yeah, you educated
me what the difference is and why you don't see gurnsies around anymore. And the article
is up here back. Yeah. So yeah, this is a this is a story. Yes, out in the countryside
for sure. And in Columbus, Wisconsin, there's a couple of sisters, Jen and Julie orchard.
And they they've got about an 800 acre farm that their family runs their fifth generation.
They started an eagle Wisconsin, but are in Columbus now. And what they've got is is something
that is sort of retro, I would say in the dairy business. Now I'm sure some dairy farmers
are going to listen to me and maybe able to pick some holes into what I'm saying because
I grew up in Green Bay, but I did have some did have some farmers in the family. They
have there's they're bringing back Gernsey cows. When I grew up, that was pretty much in
the 60s. So that was pretty much the standard breed you saw around northeastern Wisconsin
anyway. And of course, down the mock area, they've got golden Gernsey dairy milk with with
its heritage there golden because the milk that come that they give is literally gold. That's
the carotene in it. But also it has that milk has high fat content. All right. Well, at one time,
of course, fat got a bad name in dairy and in and all things meat. People were avoiding it at
all costs. And we the market shifted over to butter or excuse me from butter to margarine
and more of a chemical creation. Over the years, it they determined that indeed real butter is
better for you than than margarine. My old boss once told me, I can tell it's bad because if
it's not good for you because if you melt some and put it outside in the sun, the flies don't
go to it. They go to the other stuff. So they know something we don't. Anyway, butter fat is not a bad
thing. So these ladies have brought back Gernsey cows. The the dairy market went probably well
up 95% or more of of the dairy cows in Wisconsin or whole stings. They give a lot of milk. They produce
a lot of milk in in comparison with these smaller Gernsey cows. So they're giving more bulk and more
bulk. You're going to make more money. But now farmers are being paid according to the content
of the milk, not just sheer bulk. And butter fat is worth something. So it's now that milk is
lesser. There's less volume. But they're paying a little bit of a premium price to have that
butter fat to make good butter. So you're seeing these smaller brown Gernsey cows that they have
their whole stings. But they're seeing these Gernsey's are bringing them back. And they've got
a special line of butter, artisan butter that they make. And 80% of it is sold in November and
December, right? But you can get it now. And they hand roll these rolls of butter in different
flavors and ship them out all over the nation. They found an old market that I would say went away
and now is being better appreciated. And the sort of comeback of these Gernsey's
is the nut of the story. There's one more related story too over in Monticello, which is by
Mount Horib. And these guys never went away from their cows. Brown Swiss at the vaguely dairy
that dates well into the 1800s just past the Civil War time, I think, many generations. They
still maintain their brown Swiss herd there. It's a very hilly area. You're kind of in the bluff
country. And it's interesting to see these brown cows up grazing, not in a pasture fenced,
but up on hills and ridges. And they brought them from Switzerland because they're adapted
to be able to climb. And they're comfortable with it. Again, a smaller animal,
a little different color. But there's different content in their milk. And yeah, it took a dairy
science guide to explain some of this stuff to me, but it's very interesting the way the market moves.
How now brown cow? Remember that? There you have it class. How now brown cow? We're talking to Mike
Beano, way to the Revauer, Wisconsin magazine. We're also talking about the latest issue. We've
got a whole bunch of stories to talk about in just a moment. Mike Beano from our Wisconsin magazine
is joining me. He does every every of the month. You have an issue that comes out every two months.
And we've got the issue in front of us just came out. Let's talk about Easter. Easter is coming up
in a few days and the Easter bonnets. I mean, they even wrote a song about it. But I remember growing up,
turning on TV and watching the Easter parade, which really wasn't a parade like you know it,
down Madison Avenue in Park Avenue in New York City. And the Easter the parade was just people
walking up and down the street, not on the street, but on the sidewalk, walking up and down,
just wearing their Easter clothes. And they used to the cameras focused in on them. They don't do it
anymore. It's kind of a lost thing. But my wife, when we first met, used to go to church,
wearing a special Easter bodied Easter hat. And I see you got an issue. We are going back to
many years ago when people wore their Easter hats. Yeah, we have a we've got a story here. You know,
it's a number of stories. And you're you're right, Don. Easter Easter used to be much more of a big
deal generally than it is now. Easter is coming April 20th, of course. And you know, I recall on
Good Friday, the businesses would shut down at noon until out people to go to church or some
quite contemplation. That was my even in the 80s and was working in the Chicago area, those
businesses were shutting down at noon. It was Good Friday, Easter weekend, you know. And in
recognition. So yes, Easter was the culmination of four weeks, Valentin, a long time of
deprivation, not deprivation, but you know, supposed to be fasting and it's been a big fish
Brian, no isn't fasting, but it was religious contemplative. And Easter was the big glorious end
to that four weeks. And here came Easter and part of the celebration were the Easter bonnets,
festive Easter bonnets. The milleners would be putting these things together in the stores for
ladies would go in and order them. They would dress up the kids in special home made matching
Easter dresses with gloves and some stockings. And of course, their monitor hat and Easter was
always chilly in Wisconsin. So they had to have a special little coat over it that matched mom
and grandma spent a long time making those clothes. And for the little ones, and of course,
then the ladies had to have their special outfits. So this was a time to get out there in the spring
sun, go to church and stand there in a very celebratory festive way. And so we ask our readers
to share their old picture. You don't see that change so much anymore today when I don't see it
anymore. But it really was a big deal. And there's some nostalgia. It's sweet to kind of remember.
So we ask the readers to share pictures and tell us about what it was like to get dressed up
like that. And they share pictures by and large from their childhood. I'm seeing one here from
several from the 50s, 60s here, 63, 57. People on this page have shared the photos of the dresses
and the things that grandma made for them. And they're modeling them before they go to church.
It's amazing quaint now. But those pastel colors and the bright upbeat positive
happiness that went with it in spring really is something I think readers remember and they
like to share. And that's another idea behind the magazine, our Wisconsin. It's actually
written by its readers. We go straight to the readers themselves. Toss an idea to them, say,
hey, what do you think about this? Show us your Easter, show us your Easter bonnet or show us a
snowman you made with the kids. And they respond. And it gets them into the magazine. They have fun
with it. It's their 10 minutes of fame. And we'll send them a pecan pie baked by her. I'm
pitched IRS for sharing a little picture with us. And that's part of the neighborliness of
the magazine. And a lot of those children you see in those Easter bonnets are probably grandparents
today. Because if they were taken in the 50s, they got to be in their mid 70s. They're probably
grandparents today. So now here they are looking themselves as children and they have their own
grandchildren today. Quick Easter story. And I've told this on the air before. Living next door to us
growing up was a guy named Bill Richard. He was a chicken and egg man. He delivered chickens and
eggs. And every Easter the day before he used a hard boil a couple hundred eggs. He used to
have the family paint them, you know, dip them in some kind of color. And we woke up at Easter
morning. There were eggs all over the neighborhood. You could look down the street and see all
these colored eggs all over the front lawn. He was like three or four per lawn. And we used to go out
get the hard boiled eggs. That was breakfast. And he did that for years. Now that was back in the
60s, early 60s. Bill Richard is around today. He doesn't know it anymore, but he's 103 years old.
He was our chain. He was our Easter bunny. He was the guy. He must have come out of the middle of
the night because we used to wake up at six in the morning and see the eggs there. So he must have
been there in the middle of the night three in the morning. Drop it eggs all off the neighborhood.
Today you get the police called on you with the ring cameras and everything. But everybody in
the neighborhood woke up to Easter eggs colored in the morning. Okay. Now what we're going to do is
how many people how many people did he make happy doing all that work that that's that's that's
great. And one year, I was over there in the afternoon on a Saturday before and I got to see
the operation. And he had these giant pots of eggs. Hard one. And then they had all the colors.
They used to use different colors for the eggs. Just dip the egg in. They didn't paint them. They
just dipped them in a die. And then you found them on your front lawn and peeled them in the
morning. And that was breakfast. We're talking about our Wisconsin magazine with Mike Bino. Mike
is going to pick some of his favorite articles from this issue coming up in just a moment.
Mike Bino from our Wisconsin magazine. Joining us this hour talking about the latest issue that
just came out with the cardinal. That's not a cardinal. That is a yellow, what's that orange?
That's a Robin. Is that a Robin? No, you're getting close. You're getting close.
Robins is state bird. I got a lecture for not putting a robin on the cover. That is a Baltimore
orio without right. Those are fighting words. A Baltimore orio. That's a beautiful bird.
Next week, next year, you'll put a brewer on the cover. Some guy who makes beer.
You'll get. Okay, so speaking of sports, I picked out some articles in the first half out,
or I still have some more I want to pick out, but you wanted to talk about stroke of genius.
This guy built a golf course for himself, huh? Yeah, for me, the most fun part of this job. I've
been doing her 13 years since we launched the magazine off the kitchen table up here in the
north woods, but the most fun part of this job is meeting characters. You invite people to send
their stories in and you run into some characters along the way. Some fun-loving people who like
to spend some yarns. You've got to put a little windage on what it is they're telling you,
but that's part of the entertainment, isn't it? There's this gentleman, 90 years old,
in Wannake, which is near Madison, named Silmonley. He calls himself an old farm boy at Hart,
but he's spent a career as a real estate developer builder. He built some subdivisions in that around
the Wannake area. Along about 1968, he's this real estate broker purchased a 57-acre parcel in Wannake
from a farmer. He built his custom homes there. Then he put himself in that neighborhood too,
and he had in front of his house what amounted to an empty cow pasture. He wasn't going to put
any more homes there, and it wasn't really good for development. He put in some grass and he
kind of leveled out and seeded it. The grass came up and he looked at it. He looked at a little
while longer, kind of admiring his grass, and that's boring. Well, that kind of looks like a golf
course, so he decides to go with it and build his own golf course. Now it's kind of flat, but that's
okay. He can't have everything. So he made a part three course. He put in a little short course. He
added nine greens and he put in tea boxes and planned in a few sand traps and he started putting
trees in the ground. He said, uh, maybe a few too many because he kind of grown. He had a few more
obstacles on the course than you normally see, but he got it kind of looking proper. And so he
named it Harvest Hill Golf Course. Open for business. Open for business. Well, it's open 24
hours a day, seven days a week, and you can go there, done, and all of your listeners can go.
Okay. You don't have to pay for any, you don't have to pay anything, but a $3 donation is encouraged
because that goes to the Wisconsin Council of the Blind and visually impaired. So I had a family
member with some of those challenges. And so it's dear to his heart. And so still has this
golf course. So to speak in schools come out and seniors come out and people learning the game
come out. They don't get all too wound up if the people in front of them aren't playing fast enough.
And if people behind them are playing a little too fast, everybody just slows down and gets along
because it's about having fun. Now along the way along this course, well, you got to have a little
fun. So he made a little wedding chapel. You said, what? Marriage guaranteed only as long as the
ceremony, Father Sill. He's got old, great old farm equipment, implements that he found in
fields or something. He's got repainted and they're standing out there along this course. So
you've got to golf your way around that stuff. And he's got little placards with
official history for some of these pieces of farm equipment. And one hand painted
sign says it's an antique tractor and it says this tractor at F-20 Farm Hall was built in
1747. With its high-tech qualities, the engine was put in the spacecraft and powered John
Glenn and Neil Armstrong to the moon. After seven more trips to moon Mars Pluto, it was put
back in the tractor frame and returned to the Molly Museum here. Engineers from John Deere,
Case IH, Chrysler, Ford and Chevy, stop every so often to copy the high-tech properties of this
tractor. You play through it. Sill says his head is sporting, his body is 90 and he loves coming
out there and talking to people. And his daughter Lynette and son-in-law, Larry, are helping him out
there and keeping the golf course going. He just likes to get out there and talk to people.
It's kind of like a beautiful park. He's had many offers to buy the land and he's not selling
because he's having too dang much fun out there and this is the kind of people in Wisconsin.
We try to show him this magazine. He's so Molly and swing a club with him.
He's 90, you said, right? Yes, he is. And I talked to him on the phone the other day. He said,
people are coming out and enjoying it and he thanked us for this because he just likes talking to
the people. Like I said, they're not there to make any money. I'm sure they have fun.
It's in Wannake, I guess you can find it. If you look at the magazine, you'll find that
exactly where it is. It's in Wannake and the great pictures, even the wedding chapel, Bill,
great pictures in there. Let's talk now. This next, in our Wisconsin magazine, the next story,
even as a quote from Dean Warmer from Animal House. I mean, how did you get that in the story?
It's about that. I hate. Yeah, I hate those guys.
I remember another one. Fat drunken stupid. It's no way to go through life on. Yeah, I know.
That was the advantage right also. The Fred boys. Yeah, we're going to put them on double secret
probation. That's a classic movie. I love that. That's right. Fat drunken stupid. There's no way
to go through life, son. That was good. Okay, itching for some fishing. Now the reason I'm not
an outdoorsy person is because of this article, mosquitoes and bugs. I just don't like them.
I know nobody likes them, but I can't tolerate them. And when you get down talking about,
I'm going to tell you about the a deed story I have. Deed is the stuff that you use to
to get the bugs away from you. When I was, this is not the story, but when I was going up north,
with, um, I forget where the place was, but they were selling deed in the store. 100%
deed. And that stuff is dangerous. 100% deed. But anyway, talk about the story that I'll give you my
my deed story. Okay. Deed was used in Vietnam. In Vietnam has got a lot of jungles as you know,
so yeah, it's, it's effective on keeping mosquitoes at bay. Um, this is a story,
little, uh, an old, an old to hating mosquitoes by a trout fisherman named Tom Davis. Now,
I mentioned that the readers themselves do, um, provide most of the content in the magazine,
storing photos in the magazine. Uh, we, we have, uh, a professional or two who, um, appear in
Tom Davis is an essayist from Green Bay who, who does our outdoors type stuff. There's hunting,
there's fishing, but there's ecology. There's needs stories about otters and how they play in the
winter. There's times done many, um, many stories about Wisconsin's outdoors, woods, and waters.
Um, this is really the only nod to hunting and fishing in the magazine because it's wide
ranging. It's general interest. So Tom has given us a story about his trying to go fishing,
and trout fishing in central Wisconsin. He's, uh, north central Wisconsin. He's, uh,
heading over toward Wittenburg, uh, west of Toronto. And, um, he's found a stream out there. These
guys learn how to read the stream. They check the depth. They check the flow. Uh, they check how fast
it is where the possible trout places for trout to hide are. They put a lot of time and effort into it.
It also tying their own flies. It's a very, very big sub-culture that's rapidly into the hobby.
Takes a, takes time and, um, planning. He's on his way to go fishing and he's thinking he's,
no, I forgot some. I got the vest. Yeah, I got the vest. I got the extra fly rod. Yeah, I got
that. Okay. I got some tevids. I got some, I got, uh, these woolly boogers and I got these, uh,
pink lady. He's whatever these dams will fly. It's whatever they're throwing out there to try to, um,
lure fish. Got it all. Okay. As soon as he gets out of the car and starts pulling his waiters out
rigging up at streamside, he remembers what he forgot. He hears in his ears a little,
oh, no, I forgot them. Well, I'm here. Yeah, the mini-marts a half hour away. No, I'm going fishing.
And he wished he didn't do that because further along in the story he's talking about finding the
honey hole, tying into a bunch of, a brook trout. He's saying, I was catching trout, but I was too
miserable to care. Uh, so he goes through, uh, you know, what you can use against mosquitoes.
We found some old art from muskald insect repellent, M-U-S-K-O-L. Now I know off is made in, in,
by Johnson and Racine. And I know Sam Johnson would probably, if you were around here, would, uh,
have a problem with us showing muskald in a, uh, Wisconsin story. So let's, let's just say right
away, office a wonderful product, and I've used it often. Okay, muskald. The reason I put that in
is every tackle box that I've ever run into from people of my father's generation, my grandfather's
generation. I've inherited a few tackle boxes over the years. And without a doubt, there was,
in every one of them, there was a little clear glass bottle about three inches tall, two and a
half inches tall, with a little screw cap, and it was clear. And this was the muskald insect repellent.
Believe it, it comes from Canada. But somewhere, uh, this company decided not to go after mom and
dad and the picnicers, which might have been a bigger audience, they were going to fishermen.
That's who they were. Mark, that's why muskald showed up in every one of those old tackle boxes.
Did it work? Well, I guess so. But, uh, so does off. So anyway,
mosquitoes loving people, they love some people better than others. Not all mosquitoes. I don't
know. There's 50 odd species. I don't know how many there are close to that in Wisconsin. Not all
of them need a blood meal, not all of them bite humans, uh, so much some, uh, go toward other wildlife.
Other animals. Um, I've heard that, uh, dark animals like deer tend to attract certain species
because of the color. Some people, uh, uh, just get swarmed and others don't. I've, I've heard
vitamin A is something you should take, but I've heard that's been debunked. So if you, you got a
deep story, I think people need to know about it because I can guarantee you up here where we live,
near Prescott, Wisconsin, manned, which waters where there's a lot of pockets of clay soil that
hold water in the spring for a long time. Yeah, there's a lot of mosquitoes we live with. They
drive us inside the house. I'll have my deep story just a moment. We're talking to Mike Bino,
editor of our Wisconsin magazine. Got more to talk about in this issue in just a moment.
Mike Bino, the editor of our Wisconsin magazine with me every two months, we talk about their
latest issue. We just talked about mosquitoes, two quick mosquito stories. I heard not a lot
of this is true or not, but when you hear a mosquito, around you, the noise, they don't bite.
It's the ones that don't make the noise that bite. So if you hear the noise, don't worry,
but when you hear silence, you have to start worrying. Okay, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
I don't know if that's true. The deep story back in the 1950s, when driving movie theaters were
really flourishing, their big problem was people had to roll down their windows to put the speaker
in the car, but the mosquitoes came in too. So what they did was every performance before,
you know, dust came. They used to fog the drive in with deep. They fog these giant fog clouds
all through the drive in with 100% deep. They sprayed and then you roll down your windows and all
that fog came in your car. Could you imagine how dangerous that was? They don't do it anymore.
They had to stop doing it. They were ordered to stop doing it. The fog, the drivers, but for
years, they did this and people would roll down their windows and the fog would come in their
cars and they'd breathe it in. They would be on their food. There's snack food. How dangerous was
that? Anyway, that's, well, well related to that. I don't want to eat up too much for time,
but we had a story about the driving movies. This was near Poinette at the time from somebody
ran out of drive and they put it basically, they put it on wetlands right down by the Wisconsin
River, okay, in the woods and you know what's going to happen in early summer. And on the screen,
they would have the cartoons and stuff, but features before. And then they would say go to the
go to the snack shop, the concession stand, get the coils and hot dogs and they're selling.
Also, something a product called PIC. I see the chemical Picardin and it was a mosquito coil
they sold in there that you lit up and fogged the inside of your car. I have, I have two hours
of driving movie trailers at home on a VHS cassette and PIC was on there and it's, they have a
little cartoon mosquito dropping dead. Yeah, you're under the concession stand, get your hot dogs
right up this coil and they two on hot dogs and the fog and the smoke. What are we thinking?
Night out. All right, we got about three minutes real quickly. We're going to talk about the
master lockster. I went to three minutes because I want to get that contest into.
Come on, master lock. Now, the shot heard round the world. If you're a member of the 1960s,
they advertised master lock. Master lock of Milwaukee was the world's largest builder maker of
padlocks. They had the market cornered worldwide on the gene based on the genius of a hardworking
inventor. I'll mention him in a moment. But in the 60s, there was you'd be watching the football
game, whatever. And on would television, I would come a picture of a padlock on a target
and a guy in a shooting range with earmuffs and a high powered rifle. Boom. He hits this lock,
dead center. Wood shatters all around it. You can see right where the bullet hit and somebody
comes to the key and opens it all as well. Mighty master locks strongest padlock ever built.
Harry Soreff, an immigrant from Ukraine, born in 1887,
whole-bought around the U.S. His family came to Milwaukee. He traveled to road the rails. He
managed a pool hall in Indiana. He worked as an advanced man for the circus. But he was a
ten career. And he figured out a way to fix flats by plugging tires or rubber bands. You see that
now in his idea. He did not patent and he lost it. So he patented everything he came up with.
And he had bought 80 by the time he was done. In those days, 1920s, a good padlock cost the
equivalent of 100 bucks to their soda day. Cheap padlocks were the rage. You just hit them with
a hammer they didn't work. So he decided in 1921, he figured out a way to build a tougher padlock.
He was taking scrap steel from used for armaments during the World War I. And he'd be found scrap,
take the plate, cut these plates, stack them and compress them under tremendous pressure.
And grind it off. And that was the body of his lock, nearly indestructible. And what
said him going was New York in 1928, bought 147,000 padlocks because prohibition was in swing.
When they found where people were making that evil sauce, they would shut him down and lock
the place up. Now ironically, these locks were made at the masterlock factory. 32nd and
center in Milwaukee is a former Pat Spruery. Anyway, Harry was unassuming. He was humble and he worked
right on the floor with all the people. And they loved him. And in 1940, they gave him a plaque.
And it said in sincere appreciation of this splendid building and the progressive spirit of
masterlock company, which made it possible. We gratefully extend our hand clasp for continued
progress in Goodwill, the masterlock companies of 1940. Harry hung on till about 1970 and he died.
But he made a business known worldwide right here in Wisconsin with his rags to rich his story.
And we have about one minute left. Talk about the contest real quick.
Our treasure hunt, if you want to win $5,700 worth of two e-bikes in a carrier, e-bikes are all
the rage because anybody who can ride a bike can ride them. If you're a little bit older,
and your knees don't work so well, or maybe not nimble, have quite the balance you once had,
these things e-bikes take out the hills. They make it easy to ride a bike and people love them.
We've hidden a key to the bikes in a park somewhere in Wisconsin. And in each issue with a magazine
here, we take out 10 counties to narrow the search and we give more clues. So anybody is welcome to
go to public parks in Wisconsin and look for this hidden key. And if you'd like to know more about
it, pick up a copy of our Wisconsin. And also, if you want to subscribe, it's ourwisconsinmag.com.
You can subscribe to the website, ourwisconsinmagmagg.com.
