If you know where to go, fall can be a feast

CABLE, Wis. -- Just got back from a quick jaunt to the world of woodsy lands and quirky people.

Wherever I go, there are locals bound together by the sheer fact they live in an area where most know their neighbors, and their habits.

It's not quite the lifestyle I would choose because I tend to relish my privacy. And yet there is some allure to living on the edges of a national forest to witness Mother Nature in action on a daily basis.

Such is the case in northern Wisconsin, where brandy is measured in gallons instead of shot glasses and a second freezer is a necessity for venison, geese, and bear meat.

A snow machine, or snowmobile to those of us down here, is perhaps more valuable than a Porsche because one would never drive the mega-buck automobile through the endless stands of pine and spruce.

Deer hunting is almost a religion, and kids are let off from school when the season arrives. The more social prefer to live in a town where on a 45-below day it's easier to run into a store and buy three cans of coffee, get the mail, and complain that the well wasn't able to fight off the freeze.

And before the ominous strains of a winter's howling wind, the fall season graces all who care with a pallet of color that the snowbirds in south Florida never get to enjoy.

The crunching of leaves underfoot for me is as comforting as a Rossini overture. The tempo is all up to me when I mix those sounds to music in my head.

There is real peace in the woods. It's a setting I have experienced in the mountain areas of Montana and Colorado during this same time of year. My fantasy was to box all of it up and ship it to those poor souls who want to destroy us and make us slaves to their way of thinking. I say there is no finer tranquilizer than the sounds and smells of the forest.

And in my humble opinion, I truly don't think the people who live in these wonderful landscapes appreciate it as much as the interlopers who come and want to grab a slice of northern heaven.

And then there are the supper clubs, often graced with long mahogany bars and well-worn stools. These are places that will challenge you with steaks large enough to almost make the Guinness Book.

These joints usually come labeled with the owner's name, or the grandfather's moniker from 50 years ago. Not only are they ports in a storm, but also an anchor to the past for the generations that have celebrated birthdays, weddings and wakes at the tables. But it's the food that draws me in and forces me to carefully examine a menu with slightly worn edges and a few spots of gravy or salad dressing adorning a page or two.

But I know it will always be a steak, cooked with a crust that would shame the chef at one of the Morton's establishments back home.

Potato wedges, fresh beets, salads laden with lots of olives, Romaine lettuce, tomatoes as sweet as that first kiss at your senior prom. This is how it has been done forever. And when the word went out that venison was the special, the phone never stopped ringing with cries for reservations, which are hardly ever taken.

I would venture this scene is the same at Portage, Mich., or Nisswa, Minn. The local supper club is the gathering place for neighbors to see who is out for the evening. Even strangers like me are greeted warmly, and pulled in with a genuine welcome.

So many look forward to drilling some holes on their favorite lakes and re-stocking the freezers with panfish and pike, while I'll be back home remembering those steaks and the treks in wonderland.