Iowahawk has the exclusive story.
Born on July 9, 1947 as the 7th child of legendary La Crosse welding supply impresario and kingmaker Elmer Snitker, Norman Snitker grew up amid the stately opulence afforded by his father’s reported $15,000 fortune, bass boat, and palatial storage shed. By all accounts a precocious drinker, he took early advantage of his birthright and fully stocked basement liquor cabinet, earning the first of his 138 lifetime DUIs at age 11.
Although he grew up in privilege, Snitker insiders say that even at a young age Norm showed a deep empathy for those who were less fortunate.
“Norm would look at the other kids at school, and say, ‘why don’t they have access to the same fake IDs as me? Why must they remain sober?'” said classmate Glenn Hunsaker. “It became a crusade for him, and he became an activist. Every Friday night you’d see him at the Piggly Wiggly parking lot, making sure that every kid in La Crosse got the Pabst and Old Style that they so desperately needed.”
Despite those early accomplishments, young Norm Snitker was often overshadowed by his glamorous and dashing older brothers, Stu, Larry and Wayne, whose tragic deaths transfixed southwest Wisconsin. He was only seven when eldest brother Stu was felled by a salmonella-infected bratwurst. By the time he was was an 18-year old GED student, eldest surviving brother Larry M. Snitker had already taken the helm of the family’s Tri-County Welding Supply dynasty. The brief golden age of Weldalot came to a tragic end at the 1967 ‘Ice Bowl’ game between the Green Bay Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, when a celebrating LMS was slain by a goalpost icicle. He was succeeded by Wayne, whose life abruptly ended in 1981 after his mullet became ensnared in the rollers of a QuikTrip weenie heater.
There’s more.
It’s Kwik Trip not QuikTrip, eh. How quickly people forgot Cheddarquidick. As a life-long resident, I’m disappointed there was no mention of the world’s largest six-pack.
Is this Dave the Iowa diaspora, residing in . . . Illinois . . . having fun at the expense of humble Wisconsin. Does he come to praise Wisconsin for its cheese, beer, and availability of welding gas and people who know how to build and repair things with it, or does he come to bury us in cheap satire?
This is a little close to Mike Royko’s remarks about the women in Madison and their “fur boots” and is calls for “Wisconsin style snowmobile” competition (i.e. driving recklessly, at night, under a 6-pack) in the Olympic Winter Games.
Iowahawk Dave, are you one of us, or have you been in Illinois too long and having a laugh at our expense?
There actually is a chain of gas station/convenience stores called QuikTrip, though I don’t know if they’re in that part of the country; I first encountered the chain in Kentucky while moving down here to Georgia.
They seem to have traded in their weenie rollers lately for their own line of deli sandwiches. Which are quite good, actually.
For that matter, I’d be surprised if Piggly Wiggly is present in the upper Midwest.
I can assure you that Piggly Wiggly has a “market presence” in Central Wisconsin.
The joke about “weenie rollers” almost puts Iowahawk Dave in the loft level of the Onion in finding the humor is stupid, mundane things.
My brother was almost ratted out to Child Protective Services over the “weenie rollers.” You know how you have your kid with you, and the kid sees something they just want and have to had, and it is easier to stand and deliver than stand and have a fight? My nephew was beguilled by the “weenie rollers”, and my bro’ got him a hot dog, for which he was dressed down by his wife’s sister, “You mean you fed your child a gas-station mini-mart hot dog! What were you thinking! This is child endangerment!”
Wow. Of course, I’ve never been more than a few miles into Wisconsin, and that in the summer of 1970. Still, I’ve always thought the Wiggly was a Southern phenomenon.
Yep, there’s more than 600 Piggly Wiggly stores from Wisconsin to Florida according to their website.