Madison would have to be one of the nicest little towns we've seen. It
felt like the ideal of "Hometown USA" that used to come across from alI
those Hollywood movies. It's not a spectacular place in comparison to
most cities we visited but if we had to live in the USA we might easily
choose it (and it's not too far from Minneapolis).
Our hosts for the
couple of days were Hank & Lesleigh Luttrell, we'd met Lesleigh before
in 1972 when DUFF brought her to Australia so it was good to be able to
meet her again. Hank was somebody we'd been looking forward to seeing
and doing so was a real pleasure. They are both quiet people but by
no means dull, and we enjoyed our stay very much.
They live on the ground
floor of what seems to be,a typical northern US house, it is old and
comfortable with just enough room for them, their collection of books,
magazines and comix and their cats - Nemo and Maya. (These cats are,
by the way, remarkable because they are so similar to Spot and Bill.
Bill and Nemo are both bIack males, Spot and Maya are sort of splotchy
females. When Lesleigh had stayed with us she'd commented that the cats
were so similar but I really hadn't believed it. But it's true, the
main differences are that Spot and BiII are lazy and fat while Nemo and
Maya are just as lazy but not so fat. Nemo, who once used to be
"Little Nemo" but is no longer "Little" probably keeps fit with a
running battle with another cat on the block. Very soon after we'd
arrived Nemo and his sparring partner disturbed our snack with their
activities. We wandered out to look at the fight which was quite
exciting and they knew what they were doing because they were over the
fence in the next yard where we could see them but not interrupt.
After awhile Lesleigh, who was more concerned with the fight than we
were, ran off and quickly returned with a bucket of water which she
dumped on them. Stopping in mid gouge they looked up at her as if to
ask "Now what did you go and do that for?" Then they returned to their
fight).
Some time during our stay Hank & Lesleigh brought out a map and
showed us the layout of Madison. There are lakes on all sides and in
the middle is the Capitol building about which the rest of the city is
planned. Of course maps don't mean too much by themselves. I didn't
think to ask if being more or less surrounded by water ever leads to
flooding but who cares; it's all very picturesque. One afternoon when
Lesleigh had finished class they took us in their little green car for
a drive around the immediate countryside. We drove around one of the
small lakes and they told us that the university owns all the land
around it so that it is maintained in its natural condition. To the
botanist this would probably mean hours of enjoyable crawling around
looking for interesting things but to most people it would simply mean
a beautiful bit of road to drive along with overhanging trees, tall
bushes and lots of uncut grass. Being a reasonably short drive a lot
of people pedal around the lake on their bicycles and I'd imagine that
the energy spent would be well worth the trouble. In fact, of all the
places we visited Madison, would have had the largest population of
bicycles. I wondered about this but Hank explained it very logically
when he reminded us that Madison, as well as being a state capitol, is
a college town and students usually aren't affluent enough to be able
to afford a car.
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