I grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin.  I really like my hometown.  I have always thought it was a good size—neither big city nor podunk village.  It has good restaurants, some nice bars.  The nice countryside is never too far away for a day spent on a river, lake, or camping.  But there is one thing that has always troubled me about and that I just do not like—people love to shout at you from their car windows.

I was reminded of this Appleton oddity this past weekend when I visited my brother.  He has been doing some work on the floors in his house and told me after a long day of sanding down floors, he and his girlfriend took a walk downtown for some food.  Now, because he is doing some pretty intensive work on his house and it was 90 and humid, he was wearing shorts.  Nothing fancy, just a pair of grubby shorts.  On the walk to get some food downtown, a car slowed down and someone shouted, “NICE SHORTS, FAGGOT!!”

We all had a laugh about this because in hindsight, it just seems absolutely ridiculous.  But then he said he was glad that was not as bad as what happened to the lead singer of his band.  Apparently, a car full of guys had slowed down and followed this girl for a ways shouting about how they wanted to beat her up for being a dirty hippie.

My brother’s girlfriend (who comes from what I consider to be a trashier town) said that things like that never really happened where she was from, but that it seemed fairly common in Appleton.  And thinking back—yeah, it did happen pretty frequently to me.

In middle school, someone shouted at my friend and me before throwing a lit cigarette at us.

A few times, I would be walking with a girl and people would shout stuff like, “Looking good, baby!”

But most often, it happened when I would be walking with my other brother.  Granted, he looks a bit like a long-haired skeleton, but the shouts did not sound like they are incantations of “Banish Undead.”

I started thinking more and I had to wonder—who are these people who are yelling at pedestrians so frequently?  I first thought that it must be rowdy drunks.  Appleton’s downtown has a big bar/nightlife scene, but every incident I remembered happened during the day.  So then I thought, it must be the college kids.  But the college is in the downtown area is made up of music and art students, not people I associate with shouting obscenities at people walking along the sidewalk.

I can only assume that the good citizens of Appleton must have incurred the wrath of an old crone witch at some point in the past.  She in turn cursed the town so that no one would ever feel comfortable walking around there.

Or alternatively, it is just the trapped souls of three long dead frat guys, looking for a way out of town.  This maybe makes the most sense to me because every time it has happened, it is always some sort of non-descript car with three white dude-bros.  So maybe there is not an epidemic of obnoxious assholes yelling out of car windows, it is just one ghost car looking for the way out of downtown.

My second question is—why?  What on earth would possess someone to yell, “Nice shorts, faggot!” at a guy who was clearly walking with his girlfriend?  Or who sees a couple of kids walking along and thinks, “You know what, I should throw a cigarette at them!”  Or who yells obscenities or catcalls at a girl/woman.  Often all that happens in response is that the person being yelled at gives you two raised middle fingers and a “Screw you, asshole!”

The third question I have is for you, reader—is Appleton an anomaly?  Was this a common occurrence in your hometown?  Do you have any memorable stories of it happening to you?

Paul Menn

Paul (’10) lives in Grand Rapids with his wife, Emma (’10), and cat, HandsomeMarcoCat. He loves board games, Babylon 5, and honey-curry chicken. Everything else is negotiable.