Now we've got plates that look dangerously like those of Illinois. It's getting so you don't know who to resent anymore on I-94. I recently tailgated a guy for six or seven miles before I got close enough to see he was one of us. It's a generic catchall of a license, with a sailboat, a barn and what looks like either Gumby or a zucchini in between. The incongruity is bound to scare off tourists; all that's missing is a muskie leaping out of a milk pail. The worst thing about them is they're white, and don't even come with a tablet of orange dye like the oleo we were forced to consume for so many years. They're a setback. It's hard to imagine a convict taking pride in stamping out one of these.

Personally, I don't hold with what I see as dairy denial. For me, cows have never stopped being exotic, kind of like land manatees. Growing up in God's country, Milwaukee, I believed that if you crossed a Golden Gurnsey with a Holstein, you got a Goldstein. I see no reason to change my opinion now. The cows that stood along the Class B highways on our forays to the four corners of Wisconsin beckoned me like bovine sirens in an alfalfa sea. When I learn they were domestic animals, I vowed never to marry unless she had spots on her sides.

To this day, in my more serene moments, I can see myself nestled deep in the bosom of Dairyland, living alone in a little bungalow built for two, a dog roasting on the hearth, an apple tree just outside the window, and a stream running past the door, with cows in it, worrying the trout. And, in the foreground, an aqua and white Rambler Classic with cheese plates, now, unfortunately, expired.