In Madison, Wis., the King of Quirks

"They thought the walls were stained with cigarette smoke, but they cleaned them and found out the paint was actually that color," says Feldman. "You used to be able to smoke pot here; now you can't smoke cigarettes."

We gather lunch from the student union cafeteria line and sit at brightly colored metal tables that stretch to Lake Mendota. It's one of the prettiest places in Madison -- a scene that Washington Post associate editor David Maraniss described as "a little splash of Paris set down in the American Midwest" in his book "They Marched Into Sunlight," about the division the Vietnam War brought to America.

Feldman says some student protest leaders never left Madison. Well-known organizer Paul Soglin, for example, was mayor for a while, but is now an investment adviser. Two farm boys, brothers Karl and Dwight Armstrong, returned to Madison after serving years in prison for using fertilizer bombs to blow up a math research building in 1970.

"Dwight drives a cab. Karl owns a restaurant and a smoothie cart. The cart sells things like Angela Davis Banana Smoothies and Dick Gregory Mochas," says Feldman. "The kids have no idea what the names refer to."

Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright is another Madison guy. The home and studio he built for himself, Taliesin, is 38 miles away and open to visitors. Two Wright houses and a church are within city limits. Additionally, Wright designed before his death the Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center, where Feldman holds his live show Saturday mornings. City leaders weren't always keen on Wright, and it took 60 years to get the center built along the shores of Lake Monona.

"The best view is from the water," Feldman says. "From Madison, all you see is the back of it. It's like he's mooning the city."

The next day, on my own, I take Feldman's advice to check out the university milking barns to see cows that have portholes in their stomachs so that students can study their digestive systems. Seems cruel, but the cows appear content and perfectly normal, except for the see-through stomachs. A pre-vet student says that if I wait while she returns some foals to pasture, she'll open the porthole and give me a closer look. Really, I've seen enough.

I head back downtown to the Wisconsin Historical Museum, across the street from the Capitol, and encounter a life-size rendering of a cow that is standing on nuts, bolts and rivets. A card explains that the display "is a reminder that manufacturing has been as vital to Wisconsin's economy as fields of grass filled with milk-producing Holsteins."

On the next floor, behind a glass wall, is an exhibit of a typical Wisconsin family room in the early 1990s. The next exhibit is a typical Wisconsin kitchen from the same period. Cupboards are open so you can see what kinds of things people in Wisconsin ate in the 1990s. Clearly they had a varied, high-salt diet, judging from the cans of Hormel chili, Hunt's tomato paste and Campbell's chicken noodle soup.

Feldman, when I later check back to report on my solo adventures, laughs, but can explain.

"We badgers get nostalgic very quickly."

Yet another quirk in a charming, quirky place.