THREE MONTHS IN MAD CITY MADISON WISCONSIN

ALL PERSONAL PICTURES AND TEXT ARE COPYRIGHTED BY DON AND SARA SCHULTZ. (ACQUIRED GRAPHICS CREDITED)

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Aldous Huxley the famous British writer, critic and author of the novel, Brave New World is credited with the observation that most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted. Sara and I have been reminded of that thought often as we travel around this great nation.


While visiting Washington D.C. we stayed in a park nearby in rural Maryland. When we inquired of the park host as to the best way to park and ride to see our nation's capital with its many attractions, he remarked, "Wouldn't know; lived here most of my life; never been there!!!"

In the Los Angeles area there are countless life long Californians that will tell you they have never been to Disneyworld or attended a Rose Bowl Parade.

Even a waitress at Pancho McGillicuddy's Mexican Restaurant in tiny Williams, AZ less than 60 miles south of the rim of the Grand Canyon remarked, "Yah know, one of these days before I die I should really go up and see it, but my daughter's been there."

After not spending more that a month in any one locale for the past five years, Sara and I decided to spend most of the summer, three months at least, in Madison, WI or as it is affectionally known to locals as Mad City. The incentives were topped by a happy, grinning, cooing granddaughter, Presley Jane Medland, whom we had not seen in four months and who was growing faster than the corn fields of Kansas that we were passing as we drove to Wisconsin from southern Texas where we spent the winter. We could tell from our weekly online web cam sessions with the Medlands that we were missing a lot. The second incentive was the Schultz family matriarch, Don's mother Marge, who will celebrate her 100th birthday in December and whose health is failing. She needed us to be there. Finally besides our daughter Amy, Rick and granddaughter Presley, we would be within a days drive to our younger daughter Polly and husband Eric in Minneapolis.

We arrived in Madison two weeks early due to our concern over Grandma's Schultz's health. Our suspicions were confirmed when we entered Grandma's room at her extended care center and saw her slumped in her wheel chair with an oxygen tube to her nose and her mouth hanging open. We tried to rouse her several times without success and decided to leave as not to upset her and just let her sleep. As we walked out, one of the nurses remarked, "Isn't Marge doing well? She won the ring toss today." What!! She couldn't be talking about Grandma. More about Grandma's condition later.

We were still looking forward to an extended stay in one place as we knew it would be good training for our new travel schedule master plan. We plan be in Madison each year for June and July, the month of August in the Twin Cities; then spend September and part of October on the road to Southern California, six months at JoJoba Hills between Los Angeles and San Diego, our new West Coast home, and then a month and a half back on the road to Wisconsin.

Soon after settling in on the northeast side of Madison, we found that like that camp host in Maryland or the waitress in Williams,AZ, we too are not immune to this curious phenomenon of an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted described by Huxley. Sara and I lived for over 30 years less than 20 miles from the Capital Square of Madison, a city that has consistently appeared on the Best Places to Live Lists in such national magazines as Money, Forbes and Kiplinger. If you were to have asked us what we liked the most about Madison when we lived near by we would have been hard pressed to come up with a list of five things. Like the lyrics of that popular 60's song by Joni Mitchell, Yellow Taxi, "You don't know what you've got til it's gone."

Now after over three months in Mad City, we are beginning to appreciate Madison like we never had before. Maybe it was the fact that during our years in the Madison area we were both teaching full time, raising two kids, had over two acres to mow, 135 fruit trees to prune and spray and a huge garden to tend that dimmed our fascination. You think!!!!!!

Our first problem was just finding a place to park the RV. Madison is not known as an RV friendly city. In fact, there really are very few places to stay and most lack full hookup of water, sewer and 50 amp electrical service. We remembered a manufactured home site, Oak Park Terrace right next to Madison's main airport,Truax Field on the far northeast side. It was our only close option; we applied and were accepted.

We loved our stay at Oak Park as we had full hookup plus garbage collection and an impressive recycling program. Hey, it's Madison. A public library was less than three blocks away, there was great food stores nearby and a Farmer's Market every Sunday. The church, St Peter's was less than a mile from the park and we could make it to the Square and the University of Wisconsin campus in less than 15 minutes during non rush hour traffic.

Our next door neighbors Ted and Sharon were old Madison natives as Ted was a detective with the Madison Police Department for over 30 years and with Sharon has family all over Madison.

During our three months stay, we managed to rediscover Madison and all it has to offer. Included during our stay was a long list of priceless experiences in no particular order of importance except for the first one; delightful visits with our grand daughter, a blue grass festival at the nearby Roxbury Tavern, tours of the Capital and UW campus including the Chazen Art Museum (formerly the Elvehjem Art Museum until someone named guess who donated $6 million bucks to it) visits to the famous Farmers Market on the Square, the 2010 Art Fair, bird watching at Cherokee Marsh, photo field trips to the Olbrich Gardens Butterfly Display and Vilas Zoo, a drive to the Schultz Homestead in Poynette and Don's father's grave, a Madison Mallards semi pro baseball game, the Johnny Cash "Ring of Fire" show at the Fireside in Fort Atkinson, a retirement party for an old teaching colleague, the Baptism of our grand daughter, a show at the infamous Broom St Theatre, numerous dinner parties and get togethers with old friends and relatives and yes, more visits with Grandma Schultz. More about that later.

Our stay in Madison was not without its trials and tribulations. Our new Mustang convertible was rear ended and our four year old dog Charlie was diagnosed with bladder stones on the same day. The Mustang cost $3492.61 to get back to its former self (cell phone distracted lady's insurance covered that) and Charlie's bladder stones were removed by surgery for $1000 in vet bills (covered by our Mastercard-Ouch!!!!!) The car and Charlie are both doing fine with the Mustang still on regular gas; however, Charlie will be on very expensive prescription dog food for the rest of his life. To keep vet costs down, Don will check Charlie's urine with pH paper and a microscope for crystals for the rest of his life too. The dog, not Don's hopefully.

Included are photos of the Mustang's rear end and Charlie's bladder stones in living color along with many of our Madison experiences.

Oh, and about Grandma Schultz, our second visit was like the first. Grandma was slumped in her wheel chair again but seemed to know who we were when she awoke. As we left the nurse again commented on Marge's vigor. "She led everybody in singing songs today." Totally baffled, we called mom's doctor to find out what was going on. The doctor started laughing as we related the inconsistencies and asked what part of the day were visiting. We responded with just after lunch the first time and after breakfast the second. Dr. Griswold said, "You know that your mother's heart is beating at between 40 and 60 beats a minute, and after a meal all the blood goes to the stomach to digest the food and she falls asleep." Ah, the answer to the mystery. Next time we visited before a meal and Grandma was alert and anxious to visit. She likes to pray so we did the Our Father and Hail Mary with Grandma leading us like a runaway freight train until she finished with "Hickory, Dickery, Doc, the mouse ran up the clock."

That woman will dance on all our graves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What follows in a color pictorial of our visit to Madison in no particular order and includes Charlie's bladder stones. It is a great city to visit whether you have lived there or not. The pictures include several of family and friends as well as attractions in Madison that are not to be missed. We apologize for too many pictures of our grand daughter Presley but gosh she is cute. Also if we missed a picture of you, we will be back in Madison next summer 2011 and will make sure you are included.

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