Local Loco’s

                   “Shhhh! Don’t say that out loud!”

                   “What?”

                   “You can’t say that you don’t like cheese curds around here!”

                   “Why not?”

                   “Because the Curd Police are everywhere and if they hear you talk bad about the most favorite thing in this State, they’ll drag you to the nearest border and kick you out!”

                   “But I don’t like Cheese Curds, it’s like eating a bunch of tough boiled big clams that ‘squeak’ when you chew them!”

                   “Makes no never-mind, you have to at least pretend that you like them. Everyone is crazy here, and we don’t wany any trouble!”

                             That was a snippet of a conversation overheard when we were in Wisconsin.

You know, the Cheese State.

Cheeseheads……

They wear those foam rubber wedge-shaped ‘piece of cheese’ hats everywhere!

          Out here in Montana the local craze (a word derived from crazy, whose synonyms include, mad, eccentric, odd, bizarre, and irrational) is the Huckleberry.

Now, we’ve all heard of a Huckleberry, but I’m not sure that I knew that it was a real thing. My experience with that word started in the early ‘60’s with the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, Huckleberry Hound.

Remember him?

That Southern accented talking blue dog?

Huck went into retirement after about three years, but another member of his show went on to fame and fortune, eventually opening and running his own empire of RV Parks and Campgrounds.

          Yes, Yogi Bear was a spin-off of Huck’s cartoon show, and his RV Parks are very nice as we can attest to.

          The other most famous use of Huckleberry comes from a contemporary of Yogi’s.

Not Bear….

But… Berra!

That person is none other than the Scooter himself, Phil Rizzuto, who when he retired from playing became the voice of the Yankees and was known to call various players a ‘huckleberry’ when they made an error on the field.

          Out here in Montana, Huckleberry Everything is Everywhere!

                             They kind of taste like a cross between a raspberry and a blueberry, but each color, or variety, has its own subtleties.

                             But!

Have no fear!

They will make anything with Huckleberries around here so no matter what you have craving for, you will find a Huckleberry kind of it with no problem!

The Huckleberry Police are crawling all over this area, so I think I’ll go back to Jersey for a Taylor ham, egg’n cheese, salt, pep, ketch, on a hard roll.

But don’t say it out loud that you don’t like it.

Just order a bacon……..