Sunday, July 19, 2009

018.) Who Needs to Join in When You Can Observe and Have Just as Much Fun?

We have a tradition in this city in which I live and maybe you've heard of it. This tradition is called Fish Day, held every third Saturday in July (and why a Saturday I'll never know (can't you tell I'm a day behind in my postings?)). It's a big deal in my city, possibly bigger than Pirate Fest and Maritime Fest and the tantrum throwing flip-flopping of that brat Brett Favre (and I know I'll be shot by a renegade Wisconsinite for saying that, but it's an undeniable fact).

Fish Day is such a big deal here that we have a parade (a parade that passes by my house, negating the need to sit outside and burn from the sun) - complete with drum lines which is really the only thing (apart from the classic cars) I sit through the parade for. There's also a walk/run and a craft fair and fireworks, but c'mon - it's really the parade that makes the morning.

I'm mentioning this because I have to explain why there were hundreds (I do mean that literally, for thousands of people flock downtown to eat fish, listen to live music and get drunk) of people lining the streets. I have to explain why my neighbors had people all over their lawn and why, only in Wisconsin, would a beer-bellied man be wearing a backward Packers cap, a Reggie White jersey, pond scum green cargo shorts, grey socks and tan hiking boots. Don't knock the Reggie jersey individually - he was my favorite and I'm not even from this state originally, not to mention the fact that I don't like football - but the whole package which screams cheese eating, beer drinking, "yah der hey"-ing, cow tipping Wisconsin. Which is kind of cool, actually, though I am not usually one to embrace stereotypes.

What could be even better than Stereotype Guy?

Listening to the drunks come home, of course. They'll either walk up from the marina or catch the Fish Day Shuttle (sponsored by Miller Lite) and either way they'll pass by my bedroom window.

A taste of the interesting conversations:

"I told you once, I told you twice - ain't no way those are fucking Converse!"

- said by an anonymous man retorting to a teenage girl, who I hope wasn't drunk and who screamed across the street to this man "These are fucking Chucks!" (the man having made an incomprehensible slurring moan that the girl could decipher far too quickly for comfort as having to do with the brand of her footwear).



What a city.

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