The toilets under Milwaukee’s boulevards

Well, I can’t resist sharing this ARTICLE about the discovery of secret underground bathrooms beneath the flowery landscaping of Milwaukee’s boulevards. The median strips are pretty ho-hum today, but when I first moved to Milwaukee in the early 1980s, our boulevards were world-class AMAZING! The first time I ever saw the gorgeous bird of paradise flower (Wikipedia article HERE) was in maybe 1983 as I was driving along Humboldt Boulevard.

Sigh. The world isn’t what it once was. Appliances are no longer built to last a lifetime. A half-gallon of ice cream is now 1.75 or even 1.5 quarts, because we’re apparently supposed to be dumb enough not to notice that everything is downsizing in order to charge us more while appearing not to have raised prices. And flowers (and even trees) are extravagances that cities can’t afford to maintain on any kind of scale.

On the other hand, I suppose once we’re all living in the Metaverse, we can have as many virtual flowers as we want. We’ll just need VR headsets or other XR devices to see them. And sadly, no one has figured out yet how to digitize scent, so we won’t be able to enjoy them that way. But no matter. By then COVID (“Covid”? Or entirely lowercase “covid”? Or whatever, because who even cares?) may have stolen humanity’s sense of smell anyway.

Gee, sorry about this. All I meant to do was share a fun article. And then I actually went and wrote a downer of a post. I assume I’ll be in a better mood next time!😄

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About Katherine Wikoff

I am a college professor (PhD in English, concentration rhetoric) at Milwaukee School of Engineering, where I teach film and media studies, political science, digital society, digital storytelling, writing for digital media, and communication. While fragments of my teaching and scholarship interests may quite naturally meander over to my blog, this space is intended to function as a creative outlet, not as part of my professional practice. Opinions are my own, etc.
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4 Responses to The toilets under Milwaukee’s boulevards

  1. OMG! Who knew? Loved your commentary, BTW!! Made me laugh out loud!

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Sally Cissna's avatar Sally Cissna says:

    Oh my goodness! Almost a rant from our very staid Katie. Wonderful! Every time I have to write COVID, I wonder how to do it, and then I, too, realize that no one really cares how it’s capitalized or not. Made me smile and cheer you on!

    Liked by 1 person

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