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Friday night we went down to the Essen Haus to meet up with some of Mike’s co-workers for dinner and drinks. Bringing Adam to a restaurant/bar with a live Polka Band and adults drinking large quantities of beer from glass boots or steins that look like Thor (God of Thunder, not Derek’s cat) should be drinking from it, not mere mortals with puny, human-sized livers would not have been in my top 5 list of places to take a 4 year old. But there we were…
So at the Essen Haus, Adam had his first indoctrination into Wisconsin culture.
Polka band? Check!
E-I-E-I-E-I-O? Check! (I had totally forgotten about that right up until the band sang it at us, and like some sort of pre-programmed freak, I knew how to respond)
Massive loads of beer? Check!
Adults (not just college students) acting inappropriately? Check!
Adam sipping my beer? Check! (for the record, he didn’t like it)
Beer Barrel Polka and In Heaven There Is No Beer? Check and Check!
While he probably couldn’t articulate it, it seemed obvious at times that he thought the grown-ups were acting not very grown up at times. After a while, the noise and the loud polka got to him and he just wanted to go home. After all, it was nearly 10pm.

I wanted to say to him: This, Adam, this is Wisconsin as it used to be years ago. This is how your great-grandmother would have spent an evening out. This, this is the culture of your ancestors. Before the silly cheese head hats when thousands of German immigrants were settling into Wisconsin and carrying their traditions with them, this is how many people had a good time.
After having lived in Virginia where the attitudes towards alcohol were almost puritanical, it’s nice to embrace the German bier garten attitudes of my ancestors.