Remember the old A-Team television show? Hannibal’s line at the end of each show was “I love it when a plan comes together.” I really enjoyed The A-Team for several reasons.
First, way back when we lived in Sacramento we visited a Los Angeles theme park where there was an A-Team exhibit. Great fun! And second, it was one of my favorite shows when I watched TV: adventure, good looking, fearless, clever men who always did the right thing in unconventional and smart ways. The A-Team always came out on top and justice was served in a way you can no longer count on. The planning and thinking 2 steps ahead, was a major draw for me, and Team Leader Hannibal’s line was icing on the cake every single week.
I didn’t know there was a Johnsonville “plan” during our recent trip to Wisconsin, but it kind of all came together anyway and ended up making a great story. At least I think so. See if you do too.
Everyone from Wisconsin knows Johnsonville makes the best bratwurst around. Green Bay Packer football and Johnsonville brats go together like peanut butter and jelly. There’s a tradition called tailgating before every Packer home game. Game attendees come hours (and hours) before the game, park their cars in the parking lot and break out barbeque grills and coolers. The menu is beer and brats, burgers and epic bloody marys. It’s a major, legendary party. Every home game. Here’s a video about the wild, fun time with a crazy history.
Johnsonville figures so prominently in Green Bay Packer lore that in 2017, Johnsonville and the Packers built and opened a 13,242 square foot venue in the east Lambeau Field parking lot. Called Johnsonville Tailgate Village, it’s only open on gamedays and for private events on nongame days. Johnsonville co-owner Shelly Stayer says they and the Packers have mutual fans and have had a relationship at Lambeau since 1995.
Randy and I are two of those mutual fans. We like their brats, of course, and their breakfast sausage links. But our favorite Johnsonville sausage product is Garlic Bulk Summer Sausage. It’s only sold in the state of Wisconsin so whenever we’re there, we stock up, freeze them, and bring the sausage home in a cooler. If you’re driving down to visit us in Florida from Wisconsin, you’re often roped into buying a supply and bringing it down with you. Last week we brought 13 pounds of sausage back with us. That might last 6-8 months. Might.
We heard on this trip that there was a new Johnsonville Marketplace store near their original factory in Sheboygan Falls, WI. It’s hard to admit but we’ve never visited Johnsonville in all the years we lived in Wisconsin, even though it’s actually just a short drive from where I grew up. But we had a date this trip to have lunch with one of my long-time friends who lives in Sheboygan, so we decided to leave a couple hours early and take a field trip to the Johnsonville location.
You know what? It’s a happy place!
We meandered Wisconsin’s back country roads to get there. It was a pretty and relaxing drive as the trees had just started to turn their beautiful fall colors, and we are, after all, retired with all the time in the world. We were literally out in the middle of nowhere when suddenly Johnson’s enormous industrial complex just appeared. We knew we were in the right place because of the sculpture on the road.
Having worked for the last 12 years of my career for Ozarkland, I have a bit of a history with gift shops. I know a good one when I see one. Johnsonville’s Marketplace is a good one. It’s chock full of Johnsonville branded merchandise and anything related to Wisconsin, cheese, and sausage you can think of. I especially liked the T-shirts (and sweatshirts, because it IS Wisconsin) on which are printed clever puns, such as “Don’t call me a weenie,” “You’re the wurst,” “You can’t spell sausage without USA,” and “This ain’t my first brat fry”. Surprisingly, the sausage I’d just bought at Pik ‘N Save was almost a dollar a pound cheaper than I’d paid for it. Next time we’re going right to the source.
We resisted most of our urges to buy everything we saw and liked. Thankfully we walked out of the Johnsonville Marketplace for only about $50.
On the way home to Florida my brother Denny sent me this video, called Forks in the Road – The Johnsonville Sausage Story. It was fun to watch, but I’d forgotten that when Randy and I were corporate America slaves, one of our favorite management books was Flight of the Buffalo. I still have a copy, so marked up and full of tabs, that I can’t even take it to a used bookstore to get rid of it to make room on my bookshelves. Its author, Ralph C Stayer, is the second-generation owner of Johnsonville Sausage. Coincidentally, while researching this post, I discovered that Ralph and Shelly Stayer (Ralph’s wife and current Chairman of the Board of Johnsonville) live just down the road from us in Naples, FL.
And that, my friends, is how a plan I didn’t even know existed, about how intertwined with Johnsonville my life has been, all came together for me and Randy last week. While writing this post, I pulled Flight of the Buffalo off my bookshelf and mentally committed to read it again. The story that started in the little town of Johnsonville, WI, population 65, just 30 miles from my mom’s place, keeps popping up in our lives over and over and over again. And that sounds like an interesting sort of plan to me.
P.S. If I were younger, wanted to live in Wisconsin again, and was as curious about everything as I am today, I’d be tempted to apply for a job at Johnsonville. Good thing I’m older, retired, and happy here in warm, sunny Florida. I know exactly why Ralph and Shelly moved here!
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