My regular Madison hangout between classes and after school was probably most frequented because it was also the regular hangout of most of the hottest bizzels in town. However, I did generate one intelligible thought here that occured to me one especially cold and fine winter day: that the severe weather sure does have a humbling effect on the people and culture in the midwest. Sure, in California we have periodic episodes such as earthquakes and fires, but those are rare events, not regularly re-occuring. Unlike anything we will ever experience here, we don't know what inclement weather really means. The Midwest's version of Mother Nature is brutal - engraved into your subconscious memory year after year after year - forcing every single soul to bundle up, huddling together in the same boat during those harsh winter months (vicious even in the summer, with the severe thunder storms, lightening and flash flooding). A sense of humility and environmental determinism unknown to us Californians is the result.