Green Bay Packers rookie running back Johnathan Franklin grew up in Compton — the CPT for those of you in the know — and attended UCLA, so it isn’t much of a surprise that he experienced a little culture shock when he came to Green Bay.
The extent of said culture shock is maybe a little surprising though. Franklin marveled at… just about everything when he first came to Green Bay. Kind of a like a three-year-old on his first visit to the zoo.
“Oh my gosh, from Los Angles to Green Bay, Wisconsin,” Franklin exclaimed in front of his locker after the Packers’ final minicamp practice. “Boy, I tell ya. It’s like night and day.”
“I saw a moose head in a room the other day and I went crazy. I ain’t seen none of this,” Franklin explained while shaking his head. “I said, ‘Is that real? Did you really kill a moose?’ It’s so different here. I saw a porcupine the other day, I mean it’s crazy.”
A porcupine! Dude saw a porcupine, yo!
That statement just kills me, even though it probably shouldn’t. I mean, I’ve been to the CPT and there sure as hell aren’t any porcupines there, but still. The childlike wonder is what makes me laugh.
There’s more. Franklin is also afraid of the woods, as he found out on a trip to Door County.
“I wanted to see Lake Michigan,” Franklin said. “I was driving through the woods and I was so scared. There I was on the cliff (at Cave Point County Park) and it was nice. We just drove up and came right back.”
And of course, everyone is telling Franklin he needs to eat some cheese curds, which he is totally psyched about.
“I still have to eat a cheese curd, that’s what everybody is telling me. So I’m excited for that.”
Honestly, I force cheese curds on everyone not from Wisconsin when I am in Wisconsin as well. It’s just the right thing to do. The only question is, battered and deep fried or squeaky?