Wisconsin Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff

Review
"Michael Feldman's incisive look at Badger State oddities finally allows Wisconsin to merge from the long shadow of beer, cheese, sausage, and more beer. The reader will have to decide whether this is a good thing."
--Joe Queenan, humorist and author of Red Lobster, White Trash, & the Blue Lagoon



Review
"Michael Feldman's incisive look at Badger State oddities finally allows Wisconsin to merge from the long shadow of beer, cheese, sausage, and more beer. The reader will have to decide whether this is a good thing."
--Joe Queenan, humorist and author of Red Lobster, White Trash, & the Blue Lagoon



Book Description
Popular public radio show host Michael Feldman and coauthor Diana Cook introduce Wisconsin's weirdest, wackiest, and most outrageous people, places, and things including a man who owes his life to a foam rubber cheesehead, a worm that plays basketball, and the best place to savor chicken in a hubcap.



From the Back Cover
With Wisconsin Curiosities, popular public radio show host Michael Feldman brings his “deliciously sarcastic” perspective to the subject of his home state. Together with coauthor Diana Cook, he’s combed Wisconsin for more than 125 of the weirdest, wackiest, most outrageous people, places, and things the Badger State has to offer.

* You’ll meet the world’s largest talking cow, a man who converted a pickup truck into a tree house, and a man who holds the world’s record in cricket spitting.
* You’ll learn how Highway H becomes 2.5 miles longer in winter, where to find part of the Great Wall of China, and how a fifty-five-ton boulder ended up in the master bedroom of a house.
* You’ll experience a game of baseball on snowshoes, the Parade of Beef at the annual Beef- A-Rama festival, and National Mustard Day at the Mustard Museum.




About the Author
Michael Feldman is the host of the popular public radio talk show "Whad'Ya Know?" that has been on the air since 1985 and is now heard in 310 markets worldwide. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Diana Cook is a researcher for "Whad'Ya Know?" and a contributor to The Wisconsin Almanac. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.



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Is there some sort of a connection between people living in towns with funny names and the weird hobbies they usually have? Of course, everyone in this reviewer's hometown of Lompoc is MENSA material, but this book on oddballs in Wisconsin seems to prove the point. Would the folks in Milwaukee be as proud of a dinky little motel (where the Gideon Bibles were "born") as are the people in tiny Boscobel? Could the "meadow muffin" be as celebrated in Madison as it is during Prairie du Sac's Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw? Is there an Alien Museum, featuring a two-headed calf, in Oshkosh as there is in Poynette? America's strength has always seemed to lie in its eccentrics and dreamers, and Feldman has done a great job in chronicling the slightly off-center residents of the Badger State. All Midwestern public libraries should carry a copy of this lighthearted, easy-to-read paean to Wisconsin weirdos; others may buy it just to offer their readers a good chuckle.--Joseph L. Carlson, Lompoc P.L., CA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.


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