Andy’s Blog

I love UHub.  It is a great site that has connected me to all sorts of superb blogs in Boston and the surrounding areas.  UHub is always entertaining and usually I find it to be spot on accurate…until today.  First a disclosure: I am a midwestern transplant.  Although most wouldn’t guess it, I didn’t spend my formative years here in the Northeast.  Alas, I am a Wisconsin native.  A cheesehead.  A Packer fan.  A Badger alum.  As such, I might be able to consider myself an “authority” on all things Wisconsin.  (Well, authority enough to fool one of you here chowderheads.)  As such, I can DEFINITIVELY state that Wisconsin DOES NOT celebrate Patriot’s Day.  Hence, UHub led me astray today.  (I guess more accurately it was the site UHub linked to.)

Proof, you say.  You want proof?  The following is a rough transcript of the quick phone call I had with my mom tonight:

Me: “Hi Mom.”

Mom: “Hi Andy.”

Me: “What’s Patriot’s Day?”

Mom:  “What???  I have never heard of it.  Is it for the football team out there?

There you have it folks.  Airtight proof.  I had to call her to make sure.  I only lived there for 22 years.  She has lived there for nearly 50.  In our 72 years combined life in Wisconsin neither of us have ever celebrated the “holiday.”

I actually remember first learning of this “holiday” upon moving here.  I asked a few people what on earth this “patriots day” nonsense was all about.  No one could really give me a straight answer.  I pontificated awhile about Massachusetts’ bogus “holidays.”  (How appropriate for today, Evacuation Day.  EVACUATION DAY?!)  I continued to drone on for a bit until a wise person cut me short and informed me that we get those “bogus holidays” off from school.  End pontification.  GO PATRIOTS DAY!  I remain a convert.