Boreal Witch

With the funeral over, my family spent some fun time together (although Robinson would question the ability to have fun in Wisconsin). We visited some of our childhood haunts, some fondly remembered and others not as much. We even wandered around the farm and explored my grandparent's farmhouse.

A favorite place was Widmer's Cheese Factory in Theresa, Wisconsin. We'd always go with either my grandmother or grandfather and get a five pound block of brick cheese. When I was a kid, I remember thinking how lovely it smelled in there. It was absolute heaven. Once we got older and moved away from home, my grandmother would mail my sisters and I each five pound blocks of brick cheese as Christmas presents (I suppose brick cheese is one thing about Wisconsin that Robinson can't complain about!). It was always a very welcome addition during the holidays.

Gilly's in Fond du Lac was another family tradition. My grandparents would take us there throughout the summer. I remember only getting sundaes - we never in any of my memories ever got any of their hamburgers or fries. When my sisters, my nephew, and I went Blythe confessed that she couldn't remember this place. It made me realize that each of us had our own memories about our childhood and our grandparents. Still, it was fun to be able to share these traditions with Josh and eventually, the other kids.

As a kid, there were certain places we were never allowed to go in my grandparent's farmhouse. My grandmother was quite vocal in her opposition to us ever going in the barn, the attic, and the basement. In fact, when I went back in 2007 and asked to see the inside of the barn, my grandmother flat out told me, "No." Looking back, my grandmother probably didn't want us to get hurt because they did (and still do) have a lot of stuff and she was always a little high-strung about our safety.

Now that we were all adults, my sisters and I were able to go into all those forbidden places that we couldn't as children. I went up to the attic, but wasn't able to poke around. I never did get to go into the barn. I did get to explore the super-creepy Blair Witch Project basement. The downstairs room that housed the propane tank looked like part of the set to a horror movie, complete with cobwebs, a large rusty tank, and single chair in the room. My nephew, Josh, loves to be scared, but when I told him about this room, he absolutely refused to go down with Blythe and me. When we finally did get him down there, he did not want to go into the room with the tank and did not want to sit in the creepy chair. Blythe, however, loved the novelty of it all (and even sat in the chair). Later, Josh did help my dad and me put more wood in the wood furnace even though he didn't really want to be there.

At the end of our "vacation," we all agreed that we wanted to start coming back to the farm and stay for part of the summers again. Maybe even travel south to visit my mom's family in Kansas. Fun in Wisconsin, we decided, was not going to end anytime soon.

Blessed be.