At the “Showdown in Sheboygan” thousands of on-lookers converge to watch competitors gorge themselves on bratwursts for 10 minutes. Winners have been known to consume 50 or more.
But when Thomas Margenau writes of his memories of his hometown of Sheboygan, Wisconsin (population 50,792), it’s not the competition – it’s the community – that he associates with the bratwurst.
“The smell of sizzling sausage from hundreds of backyard fryers permeated the town’s air all summer long like a nonstop Oktoberfest. (If you’re from Sheboygan, they’re called “brat fryers,” not barbeque grills.) I remember having brats at least two or three times a week . . . Sheboygan nowadays shows up on “Best Places to Live or Retire” lists . . . many of us remember it as the “wurst city in America.”
Memories of our hometowns are often made of unsuspecting things in unanticipated ways. But those memories are the stuff that makes “our town” different from all the other towns – and give what might otherwise be just another city the special appellation of “community.”
Click to read more (Smithsonian, September 2009, p. 13)
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