Autorama, Cheese Days and more by Bob Keith

This past weekend I was able to start the threads of a regional venture I hope to expand on after I return from my third media project in Iraq. I will be dissecting Wisconsin culture. I was able to visit two events, in two adjoining counties, in two most different cities that share the same language and peoples.

The Beloit Evening Lions Club; the Coachmen Street Rodders; and, the Blue Ribbon Classic Chevy Club donate their time and donate the proceeds from the Beloit Autorama to charitable causes. The event has been held annually for over 30 years down along the Rock River in Beloit, Rock County's southern most large city. Find the Autorama on the North side of Beloit in Preservation Park. "Old cars" is the mantra. The Green County Cheese Days in Monroe, Wisconsin is held every two years on even years. The event was started in 1914 and has evolved into the bi-annual event everyone recognizes today. It celebrates the industry of cheese making - hence, the high school mascot name, "Cheese Makers." Monroe is a city in an island of agriculture. Cheese products are a result of that ubiquitous farming industry. To this day while other dairy regions of Wisconsin and the nation at large flounder and divert to cash cropping out the land, the Green County area boasts many dairy farms. Find Cheese Days clustered in the old downtown square in that consummate Midwestern city.

The Beloit Autorama is probably not an aberration. Beloit has long been an industrial town and the roots of that blue-collar culture still resonate today. Beloit is just a few miles from Janesville's General Motors plant. I worked in Beloit in the late 1970s. My co-workers always had a work in progress in their garages - a lost-cause car being rebuilt. It is fascinating to see a culture like that handed off like a track and field baton to the next generation - even though the industrial face of the community has changed.

The farms of Green County still plod on, the milk trucks peruse the many back roads and main drags picking up the fresh milk from the farms - often from three-time-a-day-milkings. I know my dad would only milk the herd twice a day. Green County still often marches to a drummer from even before my Dad's time. I worked in Monroe for a time, years ago. The building my company used shared its space with a firm that used cheese making bi-product as fertilizer spread for farm fields.

Along the river in Beloit during Autoroma you will find a flee market catering to trading parts, wheels, and tools. Hundreds of old cars, refurbished or otherwise line the grounds - owners chat and compare notes. The controversial Amphicar even made a cameo. The Cheese Days Parade boasts a host of old farm tractors. The Beloit Autorama boasts a host of old cars and trucks.

Find both of these events in mid-Septembers, just 35 miles apart, sharing the same geography, and cultural cuisine. This year they shared the same weekend. Brats, corn on the cob, hot dogs, burgers, beer, and Wisconsin colloquialisms are of course shared by both crowds.