It's in the can Column By Tom Brooker This has been a nettlesome week. By the time you read this, I fully suspect my beloved Cubs will have packed up and gone home, gas prices will be up another buck a gallon, and people will just generally remain fairly stupid. As Garrison Keillor said last week, "It's pretty frightening to think that half the people in the world are below average." I mention all of these irksome things because of the following ... Art F. of Pulaski asks, "Do people really order canned mushrooms on their pizzas? It never fails to crack me up when a waitress at a pizza parlor asks, 'Do you want your mushrooms fresh or canned?' I mean, who in their right mind, given that choice, would order canned mushrooms?" Answer: It's a consumer-driven world out there, Art, and it even stretches all the way to Pulaski. Your restaurant wouldn't give you this choice if enough people didn't ask for canned mushrooms. That, however, doesn't make the practice right. In fact, I would strongly recommend that, if you're sitting at a table next to someone who says, "Oh, I just love canned mushrooms on my pizza! Please- please-please give me extra-extra canned mushrooms," you and your party should slowly move as far away from that person as possible. You see, people who choose canned mushrooms over fresh live in a strange, warped world with others of their ilk: Twins who actually enjoy dressing exactly alike. People who refuse to turn right on red. Folks who, after having surgery, put extracted pieces of themselves in glass baby-food jars and display them prominently on the fireplace mantel. This world is guarded by little metal coachmen who have had their Negroid features painted over in off-white. Inside, it is lit by lava lamps, and the bathrooms have pink wallpaper with patterns of little lambs. All the furniture is made of fiberboard instead of real wood. That decision, naturally, was made by those who choose canned mushrooms over fresh. - - - Grace M. of Greenleaf sent me this: "You constantly seem to run down Wisconsin and Wisconsinites. Can't you find something positive to say? Especially now, in autumn, when the air is brisk and the leaves are turning colors? There is no more beautiful place in the world than Wisconsin at this time of the year. Can't you convey that to your 'hundreds of thousands' of readers?" Answer: I can see why you have your first name. Wisconsin is filled with your type, Grace - people who find good in everything even when their own lives are filled with misery, people who have something nice to say all the time, even when they've closed the car door on their fingers. But, OK, you've got a point. For all of you out-of-state readers who are planning a trip to Wisconsin, here is the first annual Ask An Editor Fall Colors Report. Ernie Bodart in Merrill says their are five leaves turning orange at the top of the maple tree in his back yard, the one with the huge hornet's nest lodged firmly in its main crotch. In Bayfield, Lance Fredricks says the leaves on all his butternut trees are a nice shade of brown, but he thinks this might be due more to gypsy moths than to the change of seasons. At Gills Rock, Francine Neppers says her pawpaw trees look a little punk from the dry summer, and she's considering spray painting some orange on a couple of branches to show the trees what they're supposed to be doing, just in case they forgot. George Bulgoski in Soperton notes beautiful colors on his hickory, the one left standing after loggers came in and exercised their right to clear-cut his back 80. Harriet Wendlestein in Stiles Junction says her grove of ashes are "gloriously bedecked in a kaleidoscope of fall's finest fashion, a riot of umbers and siennas and sepias." You have to wade through a reeking muck swamp to see them, she notes, but it's worth the trek. Gervaise Gardener in Athelstane tells me he hasn't had much time to look at fall colors this year, so there'll be no report on the pigmentation of his stand of oaks. "I'm just too dern busy harvesting a bumper crop of mushrooms I've growed in the root cellar," he says. "Next, me and my twin brother, Jerry - he's the one who dresses just like me - are gonna can 'em. Got a big order fer 'em from a pizza parlor in Pulaski." Honestly, you're not surprised, are you? Brooker is editor of The Green Bay News-Chronicle. You can ask him anything through e-mail ([email protected]), or write to him at P.O. Box 2467, Green Bay, 54306.