Alright, so I was digging through some old stuff in the basement the other day. You know how it goes, boxes piled up over the years. Found this old roadmap, the kind you get from the gas station, probably from a trip I took way back when. It was for northern Wisconsin. Spread it out on the floor, and there was Spooner, right along the highway I must’ve taken.
Seeing that name, Spooner, WI, kinda took me back. I remember passing through. Didn’t stop for long, just got gas I think. Seemed like a decent, quiet little town. Nothing flashy, just folks living their lives. Standard small-town America feel, really.
Then, totally unrelated, I was scrolling through some news feed later that day, and the name Matt Schlapper jumped out at me. The guy who runs CPAC, right? Big political figure on the national stage. And for some reason, my brain just kinda connected those two things: Spooner, Wisconsin, and Matt Schlapper.
It wasn’t like he was in Spooner or anything I read about. It was just the contrast, I guess. You got this image of a small, unassuming town up north, seems a world away from the DC political bubble. Then you got this guy who’s right in the thick of that national political storm. It felt like two different universes.
Made me pause and think, though. Are they really that separate anymore? Seems like all the big, loud national arguments filter down everywhere now. You can be in a place like Spooner and still feel the ripples from whatever’s happening with figures like Schlapper and the organizations they run. Maybe there isn’t really an ‘away’ from it all anymore.
I just sat there for a minute, looking at that old map and thinking about how places might look simple on the surface, but underneath, all this complex national stuff is probably churning away too. It’s kinda weird how a name on a map and a name in the news can just collide in your head like that and make you reconsider things. Anyway, folded the map back up and put it back in the box. Just one of those odd moments that sticks with you.
