July 17th -Burlington, Wisconsin

Lois suggested we take a walk before breakfast while it was still cool, and we enthusiastically agreed. We wandered the rural highways to the east a bit and then returned to a hearty breakfast of eggs and gyro leftovers on toast. Then we read the newspaper while she finished reinforcing the seams of an old fabric wall hanging for the dome. Lois left to pick up Patience at the airport and we trundled around to look at some camping trailers and do some errands.

Our first stop was a “wholesale” RV dealer out by Interstate 94. They had some of the lighter, smaller trailers we were looking for, but they were all locked up tight. We spent a half an hour checking the gross vehicle weights and peering in the windows to get an idea of the interior layouts, but no one ever came out to give us more information or open the trailers up so we could take a closer look. Unlike most car lots, there were no prices posted on these vehicles, which I found frustrating as I was trying to get a feel for the fair market prices of the lightweight trailers.

Puzzled by the lack of interest on the part of the dealer but not wanting to interrupt, we drove back to Burlington to do our shopping and errands. The errands were all done by a quarter to 5, so we drove to another RV dealer on the north edge of town to check out their stock. The contrast with the first RV place was like night and day—this dealer had all the RVs behind a big iron fence and the only way you could enter was thru the sales area of the main office—it was organized just like many new car dealers.

Having had many bad experiences shopping for our new truck, I was initially leery of having to work with a salesman, but the young man who showed us the trailers was a volunteer Fire Chief in his spare time and seemed very straightforward. Even though it was getting late and he was nursing an injured foot, he showed us several models of two different brands of lightweight trailers and explained the pros and cons of each one. He also put together a brochure with information on different brands of lightweight models for us to take along, and we left this dealer feeling much more positive about the kind of service we would probably get if we purchased an RV there.

By the time we returned to the dome, Lois was back with Patience and we had supper before Lois’s recorder group came for the evening rehearsal. Monika played the recorder and joined in the rehearsal while Patience and I chatted in the dining area. We applauded each of the pieces shamelessly, so they invited us to join them in the after-rehearsal ritual of kringle consumption. For folks not raised in southeast Wisconsin, kringle is a big oval strip of jam or nut-filled pastry covered with streusel topping, and is absolutely delicious. Hence our attempts to ingratiate ourselves with the recorder players—it was worth it!

While consuming copious cuts of kringle, we joked about many topics with the women in the recorder group. Someone brought up Burma Shave signs and I told them my favorite was:

He lit a match
To see his tank,
And now they call him
Hairless Frank!
Burma Shave!

Please remember I was a young, impressionable child when I read that, so the image of an explosion burning off someone’s hair was indescribably funny—a child’s sense of humor can be a rather unsubtle thing. Carol said that her favorite was:

In this vale
Of toil and sin,
Your head grows bald,
But not your chin!
Burma Shave!

In Wanderung 4 we saw exactly this set of Burma Shave signs on display at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan near Detroit—what a blast from the past! Clearly these Burma Shave poems were oriented to male customers, but I clearly recall our entire backseat of children enthusiastically reading them as we sped along. Mary Ellen, a librarian, said she had bought an entire book of Burma Shave poems for the library, but couldn’t remember a particular favorite one. It’s rather a shame they don’t post those anymore because they are quintessentially American humor. I suppose one thing I could do in retirement would be to carve some of those Burma Shave poems into wood plaques and mount them by the side of the road. I also told the group that the Tinkertown Museum outside Albuquerque had been constructed by the same gentleman who carved Burma Shave signs for a living, and they were interested in that. The kaffeeklatsch broke up around 11 and I fell into bed for a good night’s sleep.