The Pub Was the Place

The songwriter’s line, “On State Street, that great street,” could have applied to the site of some of Madison’s zaniest antics in the 1950s just as well as it fit Chicago’s busy thoroughfare. Many University of Wisconsin students spent a lot of free time on the street that ran from the State Capitol to the lower edge of Bascom Hill on campus.

The State Street ambience was light hearted; the students and business owners who catered to them made it so. A Rennebohm drug store, a favorite place to gather for coffee and chit-chat, was called, of course, The Pharm. Creative students often chose the sidewalks outside The Pharm as places they could entertain a big audience with their hijinks. As part of one of our Sigma Nu initiation stunts, a pledge was required to stand at the busy intersection for an hour eating popcorn out of a Kotex box.

Nearby, two bookstores faced each other across the street. In the student newspaper, The University Co-op’s ads said it was “across the mall from Paul.” Paul’s Book Store gave its location as “across the loop from the Coop.” University enclaves seem to inspire inventive names as well as prose. When our son was a University of Minnesota student, he took us for a beer at “The Improper Fraction,” where U of M students hung out. The bar was nothing special, but its name struck me as memorable.

State Street bars didn’t have cutesy names, but I thought they had distinct personalities. I was not a regular in the taverns as some students were. Most regulars flunked out of UW in a semester or two. But I visited all the State Street taverns at one time or another.

The Kollege Klub, where locals and visitors mixed with students, attracted noisy, and sometimes unruly, crowds. Two of my fraternity brothers who were on the boxing team worked there part-time as bartenders. Now and then they also functioned as bouncers.

The Brathaus, a favorite hangout of law school students, had much quieter patrons who actually were interested in the food as well as the drink. The grilled “brats” would have been classified as Polish sausages anywhere else in Wisconsin, something that still mystifies me. Brathaus “brats” definitely were not on menus in Sheboygan.

The Varsity Bar was a dimly lit smaller place, where young men took serious dates for a bit of hanky-panky in the booths. Things could get very serious at the “Var Bar.” Fraternity brother Don Tubman and his steady girlfriend Sue Mickeljohn took to spending considerable time there. Don and Sue became Mr. and Mrs. Tubman after their junior years.

The Pub was something special. There, I enjoyed my first State Street beer as a 17-year-old freshman after gaining admittance with a poorly altered draft card saying the bearer was 19. All the beer bars had their special stories. Tales of events at The Pub probably could fill the pages of a lengthy book. I heard a lot of them because Jack Peters, my best Sigma Nu buddy, tended bar there for a year or more. Jeff Weir, another Sigma Nu good guy, poured suds at The Pub before signing on for an Army tour and again in 1961-62 when he returned to UW to finish up work on a degree. Weir has a good memory, and lately has been sharing a few of the better Pub stories through e-mails. He became an attorney, and has practiced law for more than 25 years in Door County.

The Pub was the scene of “phantom dates.” Whether by house rule or just an accepted rule of conduct, coeds never entered the bar alone or in groups of females only. So those who wanted admittance badly hung around outside until they found a non-threatening male walking by who would agree to escort them in. The understanding was that the man would not have to stay, and many didn’t.

The Pub was home to one of the craziest characters in Madison history. Cy Butt lived for several years in an upstairs apartment. His roommate, Bobby Hinds, was a heavyweight boxer on the UW team who also was known for strange behavior. Butt gained fame by staying enrolled as a UW student for nearly 30 years. That happened because a family will provided him with a comfortable living as long as he was a student in good standing at Madison. Accounts vary, but one holds he stayed in the Law School for the last 12 of the 30 years, before the rules were changed and he was forced to graduate.

Butt, known as the “Sage of State Street,” was good at thinking and drinking, according to a writer who knew him well. He bombarded Madison’s two newspapers with letters to the editor advancing outlandish ideas. He once fired a pistol inside his apartment, and when a Madison police officer showed up to investigate, Butt said the explosion helped him with his writing. A favorite Butt antic was to walk up State Street tipping his hat to any female he passed. A few were said to faint when they got a close look at the live mink Butt was carrying on top of his head.

I encountered Butt only once--in The Pub. He came in wearing an old gray sweater with a bulge under it. He ordered one 15-cent beer and shared it with what I thought was a cat snuggled in the sweater. Maybe it was the mink!

I no longer remember the exact number who received law degrees with him, but when Butt finally graduated in the summer of 1955 I was in summer school and clearly recall reading the news. The Daily Cardinal headline proclaimed something like: Cy Butt and 87 Others Graduate From Law School.

The Pub was a bar and grill. The menu was interesting. Weir recalled serving Yummies (hamburgers) and Chummies (cheeseburgers). He said a Chummie with Swiss cheese was known as a Swummy. Fritos were an order of “Vegetables,” because you had to have them for a balanced meal.

Weir said the regulars at the Pub loved to sit near the front windows, park their beers on a ledge, and tap on the window panes when an especially attractive coed walked by. One regular noticed holes in the metal sidewalk elevator cover that was opened when kegs of beer were delivered. He welded a half dollar to a bolt and attached it to the metal panel. Gales of laughter swept through the bar whenever an embarrassed girl realized she couldn’t pick up the coin after bending over to grab it, and the regulars were watching.

Rumor had it that some student bartenders contributed to sort of a Pub welfare program for thirsty, but poorly financed, buddies. An early version had guests plunking a couple of nickels and dimes loudly on the bar when the regular bartender wasn’t watching. Their pal behind the bar would serve an 85-cent pitcher for the “wholesale price” payment of 30 or 40 cents, and help cover up the ruse with a loud, “Thank you,” as he rang up the sale.

Later, The Pub’s owner installed a cash register tape mechanism to thwart any conniving by student bartenders. Some were said to occasionally beat that system with an ingenious scheme to ring up receipts in a way that balanced the till and the tape totals, yet helped a few special friends satisfy their thirsts at reduced rates. Most transactions at The Pub, however, were known to be strictly on the up and up.

The Pub was the place to be on St. Patrick’s Day. Green beer flowed after the bartenders injected vegetable dye into the kegs. A lot flowed—Weir said as many as 35 half barrels were emptied over the three-day weekend.

When I visited The Pub about 40 years ago as an old grad the floor spaces where the regulars once positioned themselves to observe pretty girls walking down State Street were occupied by pinball machines. I quietly turned around and left. It just wasn’t the place to be anymore. I could envision the ghost of Cy Butt frowning.

Where the Prince is No Pauper

Why we visited Liechtenstein two weeks ago is somewhat mysterious. Perhaps we considered the tiny nation, one of the smallest independent States in the world, akin to the mountain that must be climbed “just because it’s there.”

Sandy, Lee, Karen, and I had no problem finding the place, although it does its best to hide by snuggling up between Switzerland and the western border of Austria. Even a country that is only about 15 miles long and seven miles wide cannot avoid detection by modern global positioning equipment. When we drove in, the day was sunny and mild and we knew the Prince was keeping an eye on things because the Liechtenstein flag was flying at the mountain-top castle above Vaduz, the capital city. That meant he was at home.

I didn’t take long to find out what makes the wheels go round in Liechtenstein—money, and lots of it.

Histories and even tourist brochures state that members of the House of Liechtenstein are “good at business” or “entrepreneurial.” Family leaders owned lots of land elsewhere when Germany was a series of small, frequently warring, States until the mid-1800s. Unfortunately for the ambitious Liechtensteiners, their lands did not qualify for designation as an imperial State. So they bought what is now Liechtenstein in two purchases in 1699 and 1712. Although they didn’t bother to live there, the area was designated as a principality in 1719 and allowed to join the German Confederation of States. It was the only small German State to maintain independence through numerous reorganizations and two world wars.

In 1938, the Prince moved to the country named for his family, occupying the medieval castle above Vaduz. You can go there to look, but you can’t enter or touch. It is a private castle.

With Hitler making serious noises about bringing all Germanic lands into the Third Reich (German is the official language in Liechtenstein), the Prince may have been feeling a bit of heat. He flew to Berlin in 1939 for a private meeting with Hitler. No one knows what deal was struck, but the Wehrmacht never marched into the principality. Opposition would have been light, anyway. The business-like princely family dissolved the Liechtenstein army in the 1860s, because it was too expensive to maintain.

The Prince established the first Liechtenstein bank in 1861. Today, a dozen or more modern financial buildings constitute the Vaduz skyline. Mirroring their Swiss brethren to the west, they long have featured accounts unavailable to the prying eyes of tax collectors. That probably soon will change. The Prince recently advised parliament that bank reform, including adoption of a Tax Information Exchange Agreement with the United States, was top priority if Liechtenstein was to continue as the ‘best-organized and best-regulated State in the world.”

In contrast to a lot of glitz and glamour at Rolex, Armani, Gucci and other shops and a flock of overpriced cafes in the car-free zone below the Castle of Vaduz bordered by the banks, much of Liechtenstein is alpine country where skiing is popular in winter and small pastures start where city streets end. The Porsches, Ferraris, and Mercedes traversing the only main route through Vaduz often are slowed by a farm tractor hauling a trailer full of manure.

The Prince lives well above any unpleasant odors and can look down from his castle with considerable financial satisfaction. Beyond other family properties, he can easily see the princely vineyard and winery and parts of the princely forest. If those and other views become boring, he can stroll through the hallways of his home to inspect one of the finest private art collections in Europe.

It’s good to be the Prince.

Sorry He Asked

Commenting a while back on the demise of the Christian Science Monitor brought one of my favorite newspaper stories to mind.

Christian Scientists I knew, and I knew many, were scrupulous about abstaining from drinking and smoking in accordance with church doctrine. In fact, I have only witnessed one exception. My Aunt Dorothy, who professed to be a member although she rarely attended church services, occasionally requested a bottle of Miller High Life when she visited our home. She was a strong-willed lady, and Dad usually had to go downtown and bring back the beer rather than risk a tirade about intolerance. We believed “Dode” demanded the beverage just to shake Mom up a bit.

Christian Science rules prevailed on all church property. Newspaper people at the time the story took place were known for observing few, if any, rules of deportment in their workplaces.

After a brash, young reporter was seated for his appointment to interview the Monitor’s chief editor in the newspaper’s offices in Boston, he said, “I suppose it’s OK if I smoke in here.”

The editor fixed the upstart with an icy glare and said, “Nobody ever has.”

Cashing In At Last

After years of contesting with opponents, the March-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians has the green light to move ahead with development of a major casino not many miles up the highway from our home.

The Native Americans plan to make a bundle. The State of Michigan apparently believes they will, judging by an agreement approved by both parties. The State will get 8 percent of slot machine profits up to $150 million a year. Above that the profit share rises to 10 percent. Geez--a hundred million here and a hundred million there could add up to some real money.

Some may be jealous of our soon-to-be-rich Indian brethren. But those of us who recall the poverty experienced by many Pottawatomis 60 years ago are not among them. They were few in number near my hometown, but those who lived in mysterious places like the tiny town of McCord west of Tomahawk were far from wealthy.

One day near the onset of a Northern Wisconsin winter, my Dad finished his workday and he and I started for home. Outside, we were greeted by a chaotic scene in the middle of “Main Street.” A crowd had gathered, two of Tomahawk’s finest were on the scene, and Joe Waubiness and an Indian woman assumed to be Mrs. Waubiness were holding a shouting match with each other and the local gendarmes.

It seems that Mr. Waubiness was accustomed to being locked up for large parts of each winter in the Lincoln County Jail in Merrill. There he enjoyed a warm bed and food until spring brought his release and return to Tomahawk. Unfortunately, a new Sheriff had refused to house him when the local police radioed to arrange his incarceration that fall. Waubiness pondered the injustice of that decision over several drinks in “The Mug and Jug” at the end of our block, and finally careened out of the tavern to state his case in the middle of the street. His wife was angry because (1) Waubiness apparently had no intention of taking her along to jail, and (2) he and the Tomahawk policemen were ignoring her complaints altogether.

Waubiness finally hit upon a solution to his cold-weather lodging problem. He hurled a rock squarely into one of the large plate-glass windows at the front of Nick’s Casket Factory, completely shattering the pane and scattering glass in all directions. He turned to one of the cops with a smile and said, “Now you have to take me.”

With head held high, Waubiness assumed a position in the rear seat of the city’s squad car and was driven away on the first leg of what he hoped would be a trip to his winter lodgings in Merrill. Mrs. Waubiness was left in the middle of the street. Nick and Sons was left with a substantial repair bill.

It is good to know that the Pottawatomis in Southwestern Michigan will not have to resort to crime to stay warm next winter.

The Next American Tragedy

I’ve just finished a good book. Two things made this reading experience unusual. Larry Tobin, copublisher of the Tomahawk Leader, is the author of Pressing Matters. I started my journalism career at the Leader 53 years ago, and could relate personally to his tale of a weekly newspaper owner's adventures. Although Tobin spent years writing his first novel, its appearance at this point in history could not have been timelier.

The other half of the publishing team in my northern Wisconsin hometown, Kathy Tobin, recently issued a positive review of my memoir, Days With The Dads: Recollections of a Small-Time Journalist. Reviewers look for a key attribute that differentiates the book under examination from others. Mrs. Tobin said, “Yes, Dick Klade has a knack for remembering the most unusual ordinary moments.” After pondering that observation, I realized it’s a pretty apt description of the tales in my book. I hadn’t thought of it that way before.

You may think Mrs. Tobin’s friendly comments influenced my analysis of her husband’s work. I recognized that possibility, and took pains to consider his book objectively. After all, I have no obligation to say anything whatsoever about it, although it served as a springboard to an important forecast.

Two things separate Larry Tobin’s novel from the herd. He builds suspense in a masterful, and quite unusual, way. He gets a reader engrossed in guessing about the outcome of a situation, relieves the tension by giving us the problem’s resolution, and immediately starts building new suspense about another problem. Most novelists build suspense about a single situation, with a grand-climax revelation at the end. Tobin does it differently, and the result is a good read.

Pressing Matters has a central theme—a moral to the story, if you will—running through it. The plot has a small-time newspaper publisher exposing serious corruption involving city officials. The discovery of the wrongdoing doesn’t happen because the publisher is a crusader by nature or stays up nights looking for dirt to dig. It happens just because he and his newspaper are there, and their normal news-gathering work begins to reveal suspicious activities. The big message is that newspapers are vital parts of our society.

To me, that’s a truism that cannot be repeated too often. It has been true since our founding fathers protected newspapers in the first amendment to the constitution. It has been true in big cities where crooked mayors were forced out of office by editorial heat. It has been true in small cities, like De Pere, Wisconsin, where embarrassed city council members threw out the bids for a new police car after I reported improper conduct at the bid opening by the Ford dealer who also was a councilman.

Somebody has to keep an eye on the everyday activities of public servants. When that stops, democracies are doomed. Tobin’s mythical publisher tells us why: “There is an arrogance of power that afflicts not just heads of state—the Napoleons, the Tsars, the Nixons. Whenever authority is unchecked it can be abused at every level of our lives. Some people feel their sense of power—real or imagined—gives them the right to act without consideration for those around them or for the moral effects of their actions.”

Unfortunately, the newspapers big and small that have been there when needed to hold public servants accountable are doomed. Radio didn’t do them in; people couldn’t remember much of what was said. Television didn’t kill them, as many predicted it would; stations made a lot more money airing comedies than presenting news. Free shopping guides didn’t do the deed, although they hurt papers in many localities by siphoning off advertising revenue. Newspapers survived because they could deliver a product to subscribers that the competitors could not match with sound bites and exclusively commercial offerings.

The Internet is what has plunged the daggers into the hearts of newspapers large and small. It can deliver ads, news, and opinions instantly at little or no cost to the “publishers” and with great convenience for the readers. Free want ads available at sites like Craigslist have crippled the lucrative newspaper classified ad business that radio, television, and shopping guides could not destroy.

Growing numbers of young moderns do not subscribe to newspapers, nor do they read them at all. The total number of newspapers in the United States has been declining rapidly for more than a decade; the current economic crisis merely accelerated the mergers and failures. Some of our oldest news institutions are suffering mightily or disappearing.

The owner of the Chicago Tribune, which immodestly called itself “The World’s Greatest Newspaper” when it was our family paper years ago, was $13 billion dollars in debt in December when he declared bankruptcy. Just as it was about to turn 100, the Christian Science Monitor announced it will stop publishing next month, except for a puny weekly offering, and shift to providing Internet news. The decision was based on rising costs and dwindling circulation.

With the Wall Street Journal on the right and the New York Times on the left, the Monitor occupied the center ground as one of the only newspapers that could be thought of as “national” in the U.S. Its daily editions restricted church news to a small, clearly labeled section. The rest of the paper was considered by most professional journalists to display excellent, objective reporting and some of the best analysis available. The “print bite” approach taken by U.S.A. Today hardly qualifies it as a worthy replacement for the Monitor in the national newspaper arena.

So what? If Americans can get their news and analysis from a flock of TV networks, websites, and blogs, why should we care if newspapers die?

For one thing, we should care because of potential government control of the very organizations who should be watching it. The first amendment is precise about what type of media it protects from control:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging freedom of speech, or of the press . . . “

When commercial radio appeared, so did the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC regulates the airways by licensing stations, including those used by the rapidly proliferating television networks. Although court decisions have gradually extended first amendment protections to broadcasters, the coverage as yet is not equal to that afforded the print media. It probably never truly will be. Those who assign channels obviously could control what is presented. That is a risk we should not be willing to run.

The great strength of the Internet, total freedom from any control other than feeble attempts by legislators to limit pornography, is its great weakness as a news source. It’s a free for all. Few bloggers have any credentials, and so far the few websites claiming to purvey legitimate news have taken the TV sound bite approach and probably will continue to do so. Some legitimate analysis is presented, but it’s hard to recognize it amid all the junk. Most of the good analysis is merely a repeat of articles from the dwindling number of print media.

When the newspapers are gone, who will cover the local school board meeting? Who will have the training and motivation to cut through red tape and secrecy and get to the bottom of things when an action of a town or county board smells funny? Who will write thoughtful analyses giving us the meaning, not just the fact, of events? Who will document the little things—the births, deaths, business changes, and small tragedies and triumphs—that collectively become the history of our country? We don’t know, and that is sad.

One of the great founders of our nation made the strength of his feelings on the subject clear:

“. . . were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.” – Thomas Jefferson, 1787.

Mr. Jefferson, the newspapers you saw as necessary in a vibrant democracy are about to disappear from the American scene. That disaster is not many years away. I may not be around to say, “I told you so,” but perhaps those of you who are younger will recall you first read the dire prediction here. I very much regret feeling compelled to make it, but I think a death announcement from a friend is slightly better than one from an enemy.

Bearded Look-Alikes

Ron Lindmark and I were clean-shaven young men when we worked together in the mid-1970s at Intermountain Research Station headquarters in Ogden, Utah. Lindmark moved up to a post in the Forest Service national office and that led to his appointment as Director of the North Central Research Station, the hub of renewable natural resource studies in the Midwest.

Lindmark’s messages usually contain a fascinating bit of trivia or two in addition to the normal accounts of the whereabouts and activities of mutual acquaintances. His latest communication did not disappoint. He had been reading this Blog. “I just had to include this photo after viewing your photo,” he said. “I noticed that the lower parts of our faces are similar.”

I noticed that the economist, who had been well-trained as a scientist, had carefully qualified his observation. Unlike many men of similar vintage, Lindmark still has an abundant crop of hair on top of his head as well as on the bottom. He also continues to be a rather handsome guy for an old gaffer. Unfortunately for me, those facts seriously limit the number of our similarities. However, the story Lindmark sent with the photo of himself and his alleged famous likeness described a situation with Latino hero worshippers somewhat similar to one of my experiences.

Lindmark said he had taken to sporting a scraggily full beard he started on a camping trip shortly after retiring. He converted it to the present carefully trimmed goatee after his wife, Lynette, protested that he looked like Yasir Arafat. The trim job apparently made him look like another celebrity. On a visit to Mexico, several young storekeepers insisted that he was Colonel Sanders of fried chicken fame. “I said NO, he died several years ago, but I am his brother,” Lindmark recalled. “That was a mistake! I was mobbed.” Lindmark’s grandchildren also noted the resemblance, and the bobblehead pictured with him here was a birthday present from them.

I concealed myself behind a semi-full beard for about 20 years before deciding the goatee was more sophisticated (and also called less attention to the increasingly sparse cover on the top of my head). While fully bearded, I experienced a look-alike encounter in Jamaica when Sandy and I were taking a tour with a busload of other visitors. We were in the first two seats next to the driver. I was wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat.

The driver had stopped so we could walk past some open-air shops to an historic church and back. Just as all were aboard, a teenager waving his arms ran out from one of the shops. He pounded on the bus door, pointing at me, and yelling, “Kenny Rogers, Kenny Rogers!”

The driver angrily indicated he wanted the interloper to get away. When the racket continued, the driver simply started to pull away. The Rogers fan was undaunted. He ran along beside my window, and as the bus accelerated he jumped up and clung to the rear of the vehicle. He continued to bang on the bus and yell what he thought was my name. At the next stop the driver dismounted and pried the teenager off his bus.

Actually, Kenny Rogers and I have one thing in common. Although it is true that Rogers is a great showman who knows how to tell a musical story, neither of us has much of a singing voice.

Nevertheless, I thought being mistaken for him was quite an honor; at least I did before discovering an entire web site devoted to Kenny Rogers look-alikes.

Wake Up and Cheer

The University of Wisconsin basketball squad was one of the last teams selected for this year’s “March Madness,” the NCAA tournament. That was a bit of a comedown from the past few tourney designations, although in a way it was a break for my alma mater because the team did not have a banner year.

When I was a student at UW, getting into an NCAA tournament by any means possible would have touched off a tremendous celebration in Madison. The Badger hoopsters were awful. Coach Bud Foster was in the twilight of his lengthy career, still playing the slow-motion basketball that brought him success in the 1940s. The trouble was, it was the l950s.

The old Fieldhouse, which came to be known as The Barn, had plenty of vacant seats when the Badger basketballers were being overwhelmed by an opponent. This was in complete contrast to the situation nowadays in the new Kohl Center, where the fans, dubbed “The Grateful Red,” occupy every available seat and raise the roof with cheering that sometimes helps befuddle visiting teams.

In the 1950s, you could have gone to sleep at a game in the Fieldhouse. I did. Because my student athletic ticket book was prepaid, I went to see two games. For the second, a slaughter administered by Indiana, I brought along a very thick history book. After reading it for awhile, I put it beneath my head as a surrogate pillow as I stretched out across a vacant row of seats. I slept through most of the second half. So did the Badgers.

There was no sleeping in the Fieldhouse when the Badger boxers performed in the 50s. The place always was packed to the rafters with 15,000 fans. I never missed a night at the fights, especially because three fraternity brothers—Bob Morgan, Terry Tynan, and Bob Meath—were among the Wisconsin pugilists. Morgan and Meath both won NCAA championships. The team never lost to a visiting group during my years on campus. The “Grateful Red” would have been proud and loud.

The competition was fierce. Michigan State, Idaho, Louisiana State, and Syracuse had good teams. None was better than the Badgers, however. Fighters wearing cardinal and white so dominated college boxing for 20 years that a writer titled his book describing the era as Lords of the Ring: The Triumph and Tragedy of College Boxing’s Greatest Team.

The tragedy happened in 1960, three years after I graduated, and it happened in the Fieldhouse. Charlie Mohr, a talented Badger boxer who was an Olympic team prospect, died of injuries sustained in the ring when the NCAA tournament was held at Madison. That horrible event signaled the end of college boxing. It was to be the last NCAA boxing tournament.

Tender, Loving Wear

Last night was St. Patrick’s Day eve. By chance, I was introduced to Pat Davis at a meeting of the Plainwell Arts Council. She was well-acquainted with all the members of the O’Leary family, the clan from whom we bought our home. If O’Leary isn’t Irish, what is?

We like what Mrs. Davis called "the O’Leary house.” Everyone around here refers to it that way. For us, it’s the right space in the right place. Sandy has a special area where she can stamp and craft things to her heart’s content, and I have my very own private place to create new tales that are electronically dispatched almost instantly to bore large segments of the populace. We can look through a multi-aged miniature oak forest onto a handsome golf course fairway and green, and have a deck big enough to share the view with a hundred or so guests should we choose to throw a really big summer shindig.

The only problem is that the house has been occupied by various O’Learys and several different renters for brief periods of time over the past five years. It has not had the quality of care that can be provided only by a single set of dedicated owner-occupants. The list of things large and small to be shaped up is lengthy.

When we first moved in, it seemed as though a new intriguing problem lurked in every corner. The large number of phone jacks and television connections was impressive, but about half connected to nothing. The second day, a high-powered garage door opener opened nothing. In some places less-than-wonderful amateur wiring posed potential hazards, and a small opening allowed raindrops to fall unimpeded into the attic. And, etc., etc., etc.

The most important things were fixed fairly quickly. Our handy son, Lee, did yeoman work, even sacrificing his vacation days to perform repair tasks ranging from plastering to rewiring. His fiancee, Karen, solved electronic mysteries that baffled everyone else. They worked so hard we are thinking of increasing their “Klade pay” from “free sheets on Sunday” to the old Army standard, “three hots and a cot.”

When temperatures soared the other day, we thought it was time to haul screens up from the basement. Five cover two windows and three double doors opening to the deck. The screens were in a downstairs storage area where lighting is adequate, but fairly dim.

We checked the screens out and decided finally we had found elements of the house that could be put into service without any repairs or adjustments. Surprise! When we hauled the screens to daylight, it was plain to see that the mesh in three of the five was not going to keep out mosquitoes or other pesty wonders of nature. The next stop for the screens will be the repair shop behind the local hardware store.

When we met Mary O’Leary Knecht at our sale closing, she said, “There’s a lot of love in that house.” She described how her brother had taken time out from his construction business in Texas to custom-build it for their parents. She talked about many good times in the home and neighborhood. She was gracious and helpful.

The sellers were honorable in every respect. We knew an 18-year-old house was not going to be perfect in every detail. We made a fair deal with the O’Learys. All will be well, but it will take a bit of time to get it there.

Now, if we can just figure out how to replace that bronze leprechaun holding a shamrock on the front door with a guy wearing lederhosen and an alpine hat . . . .

Degrees of Belief

Quite a few Michiganders have interrogated me about life in Utah when they learned we lived for 30 years in the Beehive State. None have asked directly so far, but sooner or later most get around to finding out if we are Mormons.

I tell them there were many good, and a few not so good, things about living for years as a minority in a society dominated by a single religion. One of the wonderful things was how LDS (stands for Latter-day Saints) believers support and nurture members of their families. Incidentally, LDS people refer to all others as “nonmembers” or “gentiles.” Even Jews become gentiles in Utah, which probably surprises quite a few of them.

Like “backsliding Baptists” in the South, who are known to get much closer to bourbon bottles and other sorts of sinful behavior than their pastors recommend, some Mormons don’t follow the letter of the law. “Jack Mormons” covertly or overtly guzzle alcohol on occasion and even smoke. Both practices are banned by the “Word of Wisdom," which is supposed to be observed by all true believers. The Jacks often refer contemptuously to the hardliners as “Churchy” people. Polygamists, who officially were excluded from LDS membership more than 100 years ago, are known by both groups as “Pligs.” Thousands of Pligs live in Utah and nearby.

Just for fun, I like to build suspense by letting the conversations about our Utah past go a while before making it known that we are none of the above. Back in the days when my work required a fair amount of airline travel, I often astonished fellow passengers by musing about which of my wives would be there to greet me when my flight landed at the Salt Lake airport.

Oh well, I also for years have introduced Sandy as my “first wife.” She is not always altogether happy about that.

Always a Lady

Recently, I sent a brief history of some highlights in my Mother’s 89-year life in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, to Darlene Wurl. Mrs. Wurl is putting together displays featuring some of the women who contributed much to my hometown community through their civic activities.

My little story included the obvious. My mother was a founding member of her Christian Science society, and later served as First Reader for more that 20 years. Mom also was a long-time member of several clubs that sponsored many civic activities and improvements. She was elected to the Board of Education, perhaps the first woman to achieve that distinction, and served for 11 years, the last nine as Board President. She was the first woman to hold the board presidency.

What my story left out, because it was inappropriate for Mrs. Wurl’s project, was the most important thing. My Mother was first, last, and always a lady. I never heard her utter a negative comment about a fellow human being. When the going got tough, her responses never were anger or regret; they were positive, sympathetic, and encouraging. She would not have considered striking her children, or anyone else. She dressed up before walking downtown to shop.

When Mother was about 87, she became very weak and tired. Finally, she strayed from her Christian Science principles in an effort to stop her decline. With a referral from Doctor R. J. Henderson, who had been a fellow board of education member, she went to the Marshfield Clinic for a series of tests.

Like the much more famous Mayo Clinic, the Marshfield Clinic was known throughout Wisconsin and much of the Midwest as an outstanding diagnostic institution. It attracted many doctors considered authorities in their specialties. Mom’s first tests showed a need for more focused exams, and she asked me to come home and drive her to the clinic for that work and to hear the diagnosis by an expert M.D.

The expert was a kindly man in his mid-50s who was very professional in explaining the problem. Mom’s hearing was not good, so he talked primarily to me and I repeated what he said so we would be sure Mom understood. The bottom line was that her body was not making sufficient white blood corpuscles, and the only treatment our expert knew of was a male hormone in capsule form, which he prescribed.

Mom nodded quite agreeably at that part of the news. But then, the doctor went into a description of side effects from taking the hormone. “You will develop more hair on your arms and legs than you have now,” he said. He smiled just slightly, and said Mom might even want to shave off a few whiskers that the drug could cause to sprout.

Mother didn’t wait for me to repeat a word of that. “Listen, young man,” she told the middle-aged physician, “I’ve been a lady all my life, and I’m not going to do one single thing that will change that.”

I reasoned with Mom on the drive home. She relented a little, and I had the prescription filled at Tomahawk Drug. About a month later on another visit, I noticed the medicine bottle in a bathroom cabinet. Mom had not taken a single capsule.

A Different Solution

“Isn’t it about time for you to get ready for your appointment?” Sandy asked. I was lounging before the computer in my pajamas doing some serious work by taking on three robotic electronic figures in a game of hearts.

“Heck, that’s not for a couple of hours,” I said.

“Did you forget we were supposed to change to daylight time today?”

“I didn’t forget anything, It’s only a little after eleven, and I’m not supposed to be there until one thirty.”

An application of wifely wisdom quickly convinced me the appointment was only about 20 minutes away, not several hours. I had once again failed in my feeble attempts to adjust the mysterious workings of my digital watch, and my guesstimate of the “new” time was based on Mountain, not Eastern, time.

Several months ago, after reading about the Campbell Solution to Coping with Digital Watches (see “Seeking a Timely Solution” posted Nov. 20), Sandy handed me a comic gift. It was a duplicate of the cheap Walmart watch that had become my everyday timepiece. The dupe was set to daylight time so I could merely change watches when time changes were called for each spring and fall.

The Campbell Solution was put into effect to take care of things in Utah. After about an hour of intense study of directions and trial-and-error resettings, I succeeded in adjusting one of the watches to Eastern Time when we moved to Michigan. I forgot about the other watch, which now is several hours off the mark.

Rather than go through another digital resetting ordeal, or getting some 10-year-old kid to do the task for me, I adopted the Klade Solution to Digital Difficulties. I threw both digital watches into a dresser drawer and started wearing my 50-year-old, stem-wound Bulova. It doesn’t do anything but tell time, but I can set it right in an instant if it goes astray.

Start a Conversation

Life is going to be hard now and then, no matter what we do. But it doesn’t have to be grindingly dull.

For years, Sandy and I have long resisted the herd instincts that cause people to wear advertisements for Adidas, Old Navy, and other products and shopping meccas. What are those people advertising? That they are consumers? Can you imagine stopping someone to exchange some interesting chit chat about your mutual adventures traveling down aisles at J.C. Penney?

Why not use your personal advertising space to make a statement about who you are, or perhaps better, bring a smile to those you meet? A surprising, and interesting, array of fellow fans turned up when I wore Green Bay Packer shirts and caps in Idaho and Utah, and that continues to happen in Michigan. I’ve found fellow U of Wisconsin grads in some strange places by sporting Badger sweatshirts.

The message seems a trifle mundane to me, but a T-shirt of mine that says “Fairways Forever, Housework Never” generates smiles and laughter wherever it’s been seen. “Never anger someone who knows how to handle knitting needles” gives viewers a chuckle when Sandy displays it, and it also led to conversations and some sales when she was actively pursuing her craft business. I have yet to make one that says, “Work is the Curse of the Drinking Class,” but creating that item is on my agenda.

We don’t have any great, or expensive, art adorning the walls of our home. However, most of what we have invites questions that lead to discussions of unusual events in our lives. Conversation pieces are handy things to have around when a new acquaintance visits.

It is a pleasure to note that my harping about the value of making oneself distinctive and adding a dash of humor now and then appears to have influenced our son. Visitors to his home are greeted by a truly unique display, and its history is a nice tribute to youthful creativity.

As an apartment dwelling worker-student in Minneapolis, Lee invested in some rather fancy earphones so he could enjoy music, much of it classical, without bothering the neighbors. Seeking a safe place to rest the phones when they were not in use, he and Sandy found the perfect thing on a shopping foray during one of her visits. They bought a splendid and affordable bust of Johann Sebastian Bach. Unfortunately, it was poorly attached to a small base. Lee commandeered a limestone rock from the Mississippi River shore near his apartment, securely attached Bach to it, and drilled a fake audio cable connection into the new, ultra-stable base.

When visitors to his various homes commented about the old music master perched on a rock, wearing an over-sized set of modern earphones, and apparently tuned into something, Lee had a standard opening to his response--“Bach Rocks.”

I think Lee also accepted my message about the value of distinctive apparel. The other day he showed up wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed:

“Outside of a dog, man’s best friend is a book. Inside a dog, it is very dark.”

Beyond the Call

Pete Baez died this winter in a care facility in Reston, Virginia. I met Baez several times and had some long-distance business dealings with him during my years in the U.S. Forest Service.

Baez’ passing might seem a matter of little consequence to some, but thanks to Bill Hamilton, retired head of publishing for the Forest Service, we have enough details of our colleague’s life to know he was an outstanding member of “The Greatest Generation.”

Baez was born in Puebla, Mexico, in 1921. He grew up in Brooklyn, and later earned a liberal arts degree nearby at Drew University in New Jersey. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps and flew “The Hump” with the Air Transport Command in India during World War II. After the war, Baez returned to school to gain a bachelors degree at Cornell University and a masters at the University of Minnesota, both in soil science.

He started his civilian government employment as a soil scientist in the West with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and then the Corps of Engineers. Later, Baez became a professional working with the language he had mastered in an editorial position with the U.S. Navy. He moved to the Department of Agriculture in 1964 and spent the last 25 years as an editor for the Forest Service, retiring in 1994.

That history is mildly intriguing, to be sure. What came later is absolutely amazing. Baez followed up his half-century of federal service by continuing to work in the Forest Service national office, as an editor and in other jobs, throughout most of the 15 years after he retired until he died at age 88. He worked as a volunteer for no pay. In his spare time, Baez also volunteered as a tutor for children learning English in the DC area.

Incidentally, the first time I met Baez, in 1970, I unwittingly asked the obvious question. Was he related to Joan Baez, the prominent folk singer who was then making a name in anti-establishment circles? Baez muttered, “Yeah, I’m her uncle,” and promptly changed the subject. Coworkers told me he considered his niece’s public activities an affront to the family’s conservatism, and he disliked talking about her.

I worked with many fine people in the Forest Service who gave back much more to America than it gave to them. One scientist, Walt Mueggler, stayed on for more than 15 years after he retired, and contributed more than 40,000 hours of his time to research work in the Intermountain West. I know of dozens of others who made large contributions of their personal time, and sometimes even their personal resources, while they were regular employees or retirees.

Next time you hear some idiot bad-mouthing government workers, think about Baez and Mueggler. Ask yourself how many people retired from General Electric or any other company you can think of and stayed with the organization as unpaid volunteers for another 15 years. Name two.

Official Confirmation

We’ve often contended that Utah has a higher birth rate than Bangladesh. The Beehive State income tax form I just filled out seems to confirm that.

Most forms seeking tax status information provide one box for the filer, one for the filer’s spouse, and two to four extra individual boxes for dependent children. Utah’s has a double box for dependents, allowing one to declare 10 or more kids with no fuss.

No, the Utah box for a spouse does not also automatically accommodate double-digit entries! That’s an urban myth.

We Now Pronounce You . . .

Over nearly 60 years, I’ve applied for and been granted several dozen driver's licenses. My qualifications earned permits in Wisconsin, Idaho, Utah, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Army. Sandy also was a successful applicant in many places. We always negotiated the process rather easily. That is, we did until we encountered those helpful guardians of the public driving trust in the local office of the Michigan Secretary of State (SOS seems an appropriate acronym).

The SOS website displays a giant chart showing all the types of documents needed to acquire a Michigan license. We found we could register our car in the same office with a few more documents, which brought our document total to seven.

Being an experienced bureaucrat, I loaded up a whole briefcase full of documents “just in case.” Off we went to Allegan, the county seat, which is a 26-mile roundtrip from our home. Together, we stood before a clerk in the SOS office after only a brief wait.

My temporary drivers license was issued after a routine check of a selection of our documents proved that I was a now a Michigander and a vision check revealed that I could see most things. The car registration also was completed efficiently. Sandy’s license was another matter.

The clerk said Sandy’s documentation was insufficient. “Don’t you have a marriage license?” she asked.

“Not with us,” Sandy said. “What does that have to do with it? I gave you my Utah license and even showed you my social security card and passport. Passports are issued by the federal government. Mine has gotten me across borders in several parts of the world.”

“Michigan his stricter standards than the feds,” the clerk said. “We’re worried about illegals coming across the border.” Sandy asked what proving you were married had to do with crossing borders. I muttered something about wondering whether or not my new Michigan license would get me across the Indiana border.

I pointed out that the SOS website said two bills for services in Michigan showing the name of the applicant was sufficient documentation to establish residency. We had given the clerk a bill to both of us from the local power company, and also had produced a letter from our auto insurance company saying we both were now covered in Michigan and the letter would serve as our bill. The clerk said the power bill was fine, but the letter was not. “You have to have the actual policy.”

Sandy was beginning to make a few decidedly unfriendly comments and turning a shade of what I knew was going to become bright red. I suggested we leave quietly, drive home, get a copy of our marriage license, and return. Sandy’s parting shot was, “Will Michigan pay for our gas?” You know the answer to that.

We got one of the two signed marriage license duplicates that was handed to us after the ceremony several decades ago. Luckily, I decided to also grab a copy of our voluminous auto insurance policy. We returned to Allegan where we were allowed to join a line of other returnees who could go to the counter ahead of all first-time visitors.

I handed over the marriage license to the same clerk we had seen earlier. “Oh, I don’t think that will be acceptable,” she said. “It doesn’t have a seal on it. And this one says it’s the groom’s copy. You’re going to need to contact the courthouse to get a stamped copy of the original.”

“But the courthouse is in Wisconsin,” I said. “Anyway, this is an original. It was handed to me right after the ceremony. Sandy also got one, and I assume God has a third one.” That brought some laughter from the other clerks and applicants, but didn’t produce a driver’s license for Sandy.

As the clerk started for the supervisor’s office with our marriage license to get a ruling, I told her I also had our insurance policy, which clearly showed both our names. “Oh,” the clerk said, ‘then we can go ahead.” Several minutes later, Sandy had her temporary permit.

While we were in the office, we noticed that almost every applicant for anything who appeared before the other two clerks was being told to come back later with one or more missing documents.

The Governor of Michigan recently announced a serious program to cut State expenses. Maybe if the licensing rules were streamlined a bit the Secretary of State staff could be cut in half because residents would need to visit only once to do a piece of business rather than two or three times. That also might be viewed as a gas conservation measure.

And why does Michigan worry about the residency of people who can prove they are U.S. citizens and want to hand over 25 bucks for a State driver’s license? I thought my newly adopted State was hard up for cash. Maybe if we advertised “quickie” driver’s licenses ala the instant marriages and divorces available in Nevada we’d raise enough cash to balance the budget.

Listen to the Rumble

A pleasant phone call from old high school friend Jim Shea caused me to reflect once again on how dramatically computers have changed the way information is processed and exchanged in our world. Shea was a co-worker on what was to be my very first job in publishing. The contrast to my most recent contact with the publishing industry is remarkable.

Several months ago, designer Arik Thuesen and I put together a 300-page book during a series of sessions in his electronic studio. We seldom had to move from our two chairs in front of his multi-screened computer display. When we were satisfied with the outcome, Thuesen merely pressed the “send” button. Our document was on the way from Utah to New York. “It’ll take them a while to download that,” he said.

In less than 10 minutes, a message popped onto our screen: “You are published.” Although not a single page had been printed, the book was just as available as though thousands of copies were stacked in a warehouse. When someone ordered one, a finished copy could be generated from the electronic version in a matter of minutes.

Sixty years ago, anyone who said this would one day be possible would have been laughed out of town. Type for publications was produced by ponderous linotype machines, or put together letter-by-letter by hand. Big, slow presses generated the pages, and workers had to assemble and bind the pages to finalize the document.

Jim Shea and I were among the workers who assembled a new edition of the telephone book for the City of Medford, Wisconsin, in about 1950. The others were Jim’s brother, Danny, and Charlie Bebeau. The age gap in the temporary workforce was noteworthy. Jim, Danny, and I were young teenagers. Bebeau was a Spanish-American War veteran (the only one I ever met) and one of the oldest residents of Tomahawk. The publishers of the Tomahawk Leader had won the directory printing contract and hired us to work a few hours daily after school to assemble the pages. We worked on the project for about a week for 50 cents an hour.

The printed phone book pages were arrayed in some 20 piles along a wooden bench in the bindery section of the Leader printing plant. The Shea brothers and I continually walked down the line picking up individual pages. When we had a set, we placed it neatly in a stack next to Bebeau, who ran a machine called a saddle-stitcher that put two staples in each directory as he manipulated the stack of pages into just the right places.

My recollection is that we put together 2,000 directories. Whenever a substantial number had been stitched, Loren Osborne, one of the brothers who owned the publishing company, appeared to trim the books on a paper cutter. The machine weighed several tons, and its knife could have removed a finger or a hand as easily as it could slice through a stack of phone books. Osborne was a careful man.

Osborne also was a man of few words. He said very little, and his few pronouncements almost always were delivered quietly. So it was a somewhat startling spectacle to watch him in action on the day the Leader was printed. Osborne perched atop a big flatbed press as he fed large sheets of paper into the extremely noisy machine. The back part of the building shook when the press was running. When Osborne hit the button that got the press rolling, he launched into a song at the top of his voice. He almost seemed to be engaged in a contest to see if he or the press could generate the most volume.

Osborne’s song was appropriate. The chorus of “The Wabash Cannonball” opens with the words, “Listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar. . .”

Shhhh . . . They’re Secret

Amid complaints that security at President Obama’s inauguration was on the lax side, a Secret Service spokesman was quoted as saying, “The agency’s security measures are not always visible.” Surprise!

During my government service, I encountered the secret agents twice. My observations were (1) the real surprise is how public Secret Service operatives actually can be; and (2) those guys are very good at their jobs.

During my time at the Intermountain Research Station, the Station Director dispatched me and two other staff members to Washington, DC for a week to take a training course given by the Juran Institute, a consulting group reputed to be leading experts in the “Management by Objectives” system that was the current fad among government and private industry gurus. My teammates were Gordon Booth, the Station Biometrician, and Maureen Stettler, a rising star in the Operations Group. Our job was to learn all we could about MBO and come back with recommendations as to whether the Station should adopt all, some, or none of the ideas.

The class met in a hotel several doors down the street from the Soviet Embassy. Room rates in that hotel were too high for Forest Service types, so we lodged about six blocks away in a Holiday Inn. An early continental breakfast was included in the course benefits, and the three of us made an early morning hike every day to take advantage of that. Only a few classmates rose early enough for the breakfast hour.

One man was there every morning before we arrived. He bore a remarkable resemblance to actor Stacey Keach, and was the only classmate who always wore a dark suit and tie. He also was the only one with a slight bulge in his jacket near his left shoulder, which all of us concluded meant his was packing “heat.” A name tag he always wore confirmed that possibility. It clearly read: Secret Service.

After saying hello on the first morning, we started to share a table with the agent every morning. He told us he had been a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, and described his work with the Secret Service in detail. He left one thing out; he obviously was there guarding someone, but he never revealed who that was by word or action. We learned later that the Postmaster General of the U.S. was among our classmates, and so was a Marine Corps general, but we never noticed the agent going near either man.

Of course, it didn’t take long for us to observe that an agent wearing a Secret Service name tag wasn’t very secret. And the cold war was pretty warm at the time, and the Russians were just down the street. Our agent shrugged that off. “They know who we are, and we know who they are. Most of us don’t work under cover. But some do, and they’re around at the right times.”

There were no reports of anyone being attacked on embassy row the week we were there, so it seems fair to conclude that our public agent friend and his secret buddies did their jobs well.

About a year later, the annual national meeting of Forest Service information directors was held in a hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. By then, smoking had been banned in meeting rooms, so I stepped out into the hallway at intervals to have a puff. One day at mid-morning a man dressed in a dark suit was standing on a stairway next to my adopted smoking area. He asked what my business was in the hotel, and when I told him he said he too worked for the Federal Government--as a Secret Service agent!

“The First Lady is coming to give a talk at a luncheon for Republican leaders,” he said. “Mrs. Bush will be coming right by here and going into that room. We scouted everything out yesterday.” The room was directly across the hallway from our meeting room. “If you come back about 11:30, you’ll get to see her,” the agent said.

I ventured the opinion it seemed unlikely that anyone was going to attack the extremely popular Barbara Bush. “Not so,” the agent said. “She is a grand lady, but there are lots of crazies out there, and we take no chances.”

Impressed by a Secret Service assessment that I wasn’t a crazy, I showed up shortly before 11:30. It was a good feeling to know the agent trusted me. But he proved he didn’t trust anybody. “You can stand over there,” he said. “Keep your hands out of your pockets. You can clap when she goes by if you want to, but that’s it. Don’t make any moves to go toward her.”

Mrs. Bush arrived on schedule in the middle of an entourage. I noticed several men in dark suits ahead and behind the group. When the doors opened and the assembled luncheon crowd cheered, I added a bit to the applause for her. I didn’t make any other moves.

Michael Contezac occupied an office next to mine when I started my Forest Service career at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison. Contezac had worked in the White House before transferring to FPL. He characterized his job in Washington as “pretty much of an errand boy.” Frequently, people in the communications office handed news releases to Contezac and he was charged with delivering them without delay to a duplicating and mailing operation in another part of the building.

Contezac’s favorite story about White House duty attested to Secret Service efficiency. He said he was trotting down a hallway with a news release one day when he turned a corner and bumped into a tall man. The next thing he knew he was flat on his back on the floor. When he looked up, a .45 was pointed squarely at his eye. “Son, you should take it a little easy around here,” the tall man said.

The tall man was Lyndon Johnson. The gunman, of course, was a Secret Service agent. They take no chances.

Are There Still Differences?

Many people, and I was becoming one of them, think Americans have become so mobile that regional differences within the U. S. have nearly disappeared. Employment changes have become routine, children are sent to schools far away from the nest, and nearly everyone has traveled extensively in the country. We all have Walmart, those golden arches, and other “institutions” in common. Thus, the popular wisdom holds, we have blended together into a homogenous nation, even losing those delightful southern and New England accents in the process.

Perhaps the popular wisdom is wrong in some respects.

Twenty-six years ago we bought a home on a public golf course in the Interior West. A month ago we bought a home on a public golf course in the Midwest.

Sandy and I attended homeowner functions in our Utah neighborhood without fail, served in various capacities with the homeowner association, and often walked the loop road through the neighborhood, stopping to visit with fellow residents. We became acquainted with just about everybody. About half the residents were golfers. A majority had lived in the area for all, or most, of their lives.

I marveled at the fact that an entire winter and most of the following spring passed, and no one had asked me to buy a membership in the golf club or play in the men’s association. In 26 years, no one ever did! Well into my first summer, one long-time golfer and homeowner in a clubhouse bar conversation somewhat belligerently demanded to know why I didn’t play in the men’s association. When I rather timidly ventured that no one had ever asked me to, he snorted for all to hear something like, “Hey this guy thinks he rates an invitation.”

Last night, I was one of about 30 people who enjoyed a Super Bowl party at the home next to our son’s place in Michigan. We had met the host couple (Bud and Chris Jensen) once, and had not previously met a single one of the others invited to the shindig. Sandy was under the weather and couldn’t attend, which was unfortunate because the people were very friendly. Casual conversations revealed that most of the party goers had lived in the area for many years, and many, but not all, were golfers.

Seven or eight of the men present (make that eight or nine; Bud had done so earlier) invited me to join a group of senior golfers who play together at least twice a week. Two offered to sponsor me as a member of the association. One told me exactly how to obtain a fact sheet describing all the local golf events scheduled for the coming season. A half dozen of the women asked whether Sandy played golf, and offered to sign her up in a group they belong to.

Seems like newcomers still “rate an invitation” in Southwestern Michigan.

Let It Snow

Christmas eve traditionally softens the hearts of employers toward their charges, and the word goes out that it's OK to leave the workplace early with the organization's best wishes for a happy holiday. No so in the cold-hearted world of government contracting in the 1960s. My workday at the McCoy Job Corps Center, as most were, was scheduled to run from 8 a.m to 5 p.m. as usual.

Karl Wagner, a former public school system superintendent who held a PhD in education, was the newly appointed center director as my second holiday season at McCoy approached. Wagner blithely let it be known to those in the headquarters building that he intended to release all personnel who were not needed for security reasons or to supervise residential living at noon on the day before Christmas.

The word got to Al Groncki the morning of the 24th. Groncki was on loan from the U.S. Forest Service to the anti-poverty agency that administered the Job Corps program. His job was to see that RCA, our employer, observed the letter of the law in meeting the provisions of its contract to operate the McCoy Center. He took his job very seriously.

"Not so fast," Groncki said. "The contract calls for all employees to work a full day on December 24. Dr. Wagner, you have no authority to release the workers early."

Wagner had an attorney and two contract specialists on his staff. He summoned them to his office and told them to find a way he could get around the contract provision. They couldn't find a thing, except one small clause that allowed the director to send employees home if a natural disaster put them in jeopardy.

Wagner looked out his office window and observed a few snowflakes falling. "Tell Groncki I'm declaring a snow emergency, and tell the department heads to send all employees who don't live at the center home immediately before this blizzard makes the roads impassable."

I just saw some snowflakes. Please, take the rest of the day off. And, Merry Christmas!

(A New) Home for the Holidays

Suddenly, a buyer for our long-time Utah home appeared, and he wanted to buy immediately. So, we packed up, drove through blizzards, fog, and icy roads, and will buy a new place tomorrow and become official Michiganders.

Despite a depressed economy and an almost equally depressing winter storm that arrived last night, the hardy folks who inhabit these parts seem to be in good spirits. The first fellow transplant who commented on our arrival said:

"God smiled on those who were born in Michigan. The rest of us did our best to get here as soon as we could."

Sounds like something a Texan would have dreamed up, but we're hoping it truly applies to our new home.

Revising Identities

The latest change at our best-known big-box store seems to have elicited a rising tide of apathy. Wal-Mart removed the hyphen (or the star that occupied the same space in many places) several weeks ago. I still am straining to hear the cheers for Walmart.

In these tough times, however, it might be worth taking a moment to ponder the costs of changes like this. Think of the signs, letterheads, labels, painted truck panels, and numerous other items that will have to be altered. Walmart is so big that costs in the millions are easy to visualize, and customers will pay them as the hyphen-less and star-less merchandiser subtly includes them in price increases.

Although in this case the alterations easily could be phased in to hold costs down, keep an eye on our leading discounter and see if its intrepid execs don’t start to champ at the bit and order quicker revisions than necessary to “get the project completed.” They recently were running an expensive advertising campaign just to tell us about it. And who cares? The company’s own home page showed the name all three ways just a few days ago. The star in the middle was replaced with something at the end best described as an orange doodad, making the revised name into a logo that fails to signify much of anything. One would think corporate leaders could find more important things to meddle with.

In the case of Walmart, Wal-Mart, or Wal¶Mart, it’s hard to think of a reason for the changes. The company has been making money hand over fist, and is expected to make even more as people look for places to buy cheap stuff to help cope with economic distress.

Sometimes, more than a hyphen or star is involved and there may be fairly good reasons to upgrade a corporate identity. About a year before I went to work at Allis-Chalmers in the public relations department the corporate wizards there decided they needed to create a more modern image by renaming the company and following that with the introduction of a new logo. Most of us thought they were right. The old moniker—Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company—was not inspiring. They fixed that by just knocking off the last two words, and it was a good fix.

The A-C logo was a stodgy affair that did not lend itself to a quick fix. So the image makers scrapped it and commissioned a high-priced advertising agency to develop a completely new symbol. Veteran PR men told me numerous new designs were proposed and rejected over many months before a logo finally was approved by the CEO. Although no one knew the exact costs of developing and changing to the new symbol, my associates estimated very conservatively that the total was about $250,000. In the mid-1960s, a quarter of a million was considered more than just walking around money, even in a big company.

The name change was nice, but it did little to reverse the downward spiral of the Allis-Chalmers corporate fortunes. The logo change became an embarrassment. Just a short time after the sleek new symbol had been plastered, painted, and printed all over the place, someone encountered an Associated Grocers logo, an emblem which had been around for years. It was nearly identical in color and form to the “unique” Allis-Chalmers creation that cost so much to design and adopt.

Geezer A-Go-Go

With my long-running garage improvement project (see Nov. 13 post, “Timely Inaction”) completed, the way is clear for us to sell our Utah home and zip off to Michigan. Of course, real estate conditions being what they are this could take a while.

We’re claiming the reason for the move is to be near our son Lee and his fianceé Karen, who live near Kalamazoo. The real reason is a yearning to be where people don’t say, “We gotta remember we need the moisture,” when digging out from under two feet of winter snow or bailing gallons of threatening water after springtime mini-floods.

There’s something in this for everybody. Some will be delighted to know we are leaving. Some may be a bit sad, but pleased to know we're doing what's best for us. For both groups, we hope the news contributes to a Happy Thanksgiving. And best holiday wishes as well to the many who couldn’t care less.

Seeking a Timely Solution

Deals involving acquisition of acreage by the federal government through purchase or trade can be complex, requiring specialized knowledge and careful negotiations. Forest Service retiree George Campbell served for years on lands staffs in the Eastern and Intermountain Regions, and those who worked with him said he did his job very well.

Despite indications that Campbell could manipulate high-tech gadgets with no trouble, he is not fond of some of them. He chooses not to use a home computer. His recent pronouncements on the subject indicate he fully intends to maintain his distance from PCs.

Just after daylight savings time reverted to the regular brand, Campbell appeared at a Wednesday coffee assembly and asked in a voice filled with frustration if anybody knew how to reset a digital watch, because he was having no luck with his. I told him not to feel lonesome, because neither Sandy nor I had been able to get my fairly new watch properly calibrated. We reset the hours and minutes correctly, which was a bit better than Campbell had done, but we couldn’t get the gadget to acknowledge that it was Wednesday, not Sunday.

After some contemplation of the resetting problem, Campbell announced he had the solution. He was going to buy a duplicate watch. He would have one set for standard time and the other for daylight time. He simply would trade watches twice a year. Someone in the group that heard the “Campbell solution” observed that those who traveled often through several time zones would need quite a few watches.

I mentioned the idea to Sandy, who thought it had some merit. She, however, believed I probably could muddle through. She pointed out that I didn’t do much of anything most days, so carrying around a constant reminder of what day it was probably was not vital.

The next time we met, I asked Campbell how he was coming with his watch problem. He said by working at it for about 30 minutes he figured out the process and had everything reset to the correct numbers. Meanwhile, Sandy and I had downloaded pages of instructions from the manufacturer of my watch, and when they failed to work, obtained another instruction sheet from Walmart, where we bought the gadget. Those directions didn’t work, either.

I was nearly ready to apply the “Campbell solution’ and go with at least two watches. Sandy saved the day. She told me to leave my watch in her care when I was heading off to a meeting and she would make one last try at adjusting the date display. When I got back, the timepiece was functioning correctly.

Sandy had made a 20-mile roundtrip to another Walmart store where clerks gave her a copy of the right instructions. She then restored order in our high-tech world, at least until spring when I try to remember where we put the reset instructions.

Who Dunnit?

This "letter," sent around by old neighbor Dick "Snuffy" Hufschmid, caused a chuckle:

Dear Sir /Madam:

In view of current developments in the banking market, if one of my checks is returned marked "insufficient funds," does that refer to me or you?

Timely Inaction

Was anyone surprised when our newly elected leaders informed us that much of the change we’ve been promised will take time? Had the other guys won, would those mavericks have said the same thing? You betcha.

Some big projects simply take time. It is true that Rome and other major works were not completed in a day.

Last week I made a final shelf adjustment and added a bit of paint to a wall section to finish my garage improvement project begun the week we moved into our home—we arrived 26 years ago. You just can’t rush into some things.

Election Math That Didn’t Compute

Shortly before settling in to absorb a bunch of voting returns on election night I ran across a website that made the whole thing simple. The author presented a vast array of charts and numbers, with razzle-dazzle analyses, that purported to predict accurately who would be the next President of the United States of America based on just a few early ballots. It was impressive, and no flaws in the presentation were apparent. If you wanted a quick answer, all the number crunching boiled it down to this:

If the race was close in Indiana, and Obama won Virginia, there was a 100 percent chance that Obama would be our next President. If those two things didn’t happen, we were in for a close race and a long night.

The polls closed very early in both states, so I figured I could learn what was going to happen in not more than an hour after dinner. Maybe I could even win a few last-minute bets (we lost a dinner bet when Obama eventually won). Early results showed a close race in Indiana. The trouble was those unpredictable voters in Virginia just kept standing in line for several hours. About the time CNN was willing to call Virginia for Obama, Obama clearly had won the entire election. Following the wizard’s advice didn’t help me learn a darn thing any quicker than anybody else did.

It wasn’t the first time a flaw in human performance caused frustration when I was trying to follow the guidance of a statistical genius at election time. When I worked in public relations for Allis-Chalmers in the 1960s, our supervisor “volunteered” himself and several of us to work for the Associated Press on election nights. Supposedly, we were doing a civic duty by helping tabulate incoming election returns. Actually, we were trying to butter up the news people at AP. We knew it, and they knew it, but they needed help and we were available.

At that time, the Associated Press was the principal news organization that took it upon itself to declare winners in elections. They used a fairly sophisticated statistical program that incorporated samples from key parts of a state to predict winners. In Wisconsin, where we helped out, the samples were mostly from the heavily populated areas in the southeast, but also included a county or two in the northern rural areas.

On the night of my frustration, we added up totals from report after report, but our leaders refused to declare a winner in the most important contest. Midnight passed; still no call was made. We finally had added up nearly 90 percent of the precincts in the state, and started clamoring for a call. We were told that the statistical formula absolutely required returns from one small county in the north, and it hadn’t reported.

About 2 a.m. somebody got somebody in the northern county out of bed and demanded to know what was going on. Our contact had merely forgotten about the AP commitment and retired for the night hours earlier!

This very unhappy camper got home around 4 a.m. that election night, just about in time to get ready to go to work at my day job. I should have learned right then not to get mixed up with political predictions, but Tuesday night I did it once again.

Should They Speak Out?

Despite occasional disagreement about the practice among journalists, some 400 daily newspapers across the land endorse presidential candidates in their editorial columns. In 2004, they were nearly equally divided between recommending John Kerry or George W. Bush. Interesting--that’s about how the election turned out.

Should the print media presume to tell us who they think can best guide our County? And when they do, should you and I pay attention to what they say? Yes and yes.

My experience is that newspaper editors come to know a lot about politicians because they constantly are exposed to their messages, and also monitor their actions. The newspaper people are skeptical by nature. With few exceptions, the editorials that appear in daily papers are developed by an editorial board. Debates can be sharp, because some effort usually is made to appoint board members with divergent viewpoints. What emerge are better analyses of the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates than individuals can possibly make by themselves.

My local paper doesn’t endorse presidential aspirants, but a few years back it decided to make recommendations about local candidates and referenda. I find this very useful in helping me make up my mind about how to vote on things that matter in my life. I wish the Ogden paper’s editorial board would say who it favors for president. That alone wouldn’t sway my vote, but I’d like to see the argument.

Endorsements by newspapers are useful because they always are accompanied by the reasons for the recommendation. Editorial boards tend to address the issues, not the “attack dog” junk. Calling Senator Obama an “inexperienced socialist” or Senator McCain an “over-aged warmonger” is stupid and useless. With very few exceptions, the editorial boards don’t engage in the reprehensible character assassination that has been far too prevalent in the current campaign.

Should we slavishly follow the advice of the press? No. We should make up our own minds, but the arguments that accompany newspaper recommendations should be considered. They offer some of the best information available.

Of course, like anything else, endorsements can be reduced to absurdity. Next week cartoonists Garry Trudeau (a liberal) and Carl Moore (a conservative) are going to endorse someone for president in their daily doodlings. I intend to pay no attention whatever to this kind of nonsense, and hope you also will ignore these shenanigans.

Should geezers who write blog posts endorse candidates? No. They have no special knowledge that would be helpful.

Ghastly Gein Pops Up Again

Ed Gein died of cancer in a mental institution two decades ago, but writers concocting stories about horrible events for the Halloween season continue to resurrect him. People who lived in Wisconsin 50 years ago, as I did, would prefer the world forget about Gein.

Younger generations may not have heard of the killer, grave robber, and mutilator of bodies who lived in a farmhouse he decorated with human remains near the small community of Plainfield, Wisconsin. But they can get the idea from a series of fictitious monsters patterned after him. Gein’s story was the basis for Alfred Hitchcock”s famous thriller, “Psycho.” He also was the model for Leatherface in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” Leatherface wore clothes made from human skin; so did Gein. More recently, Gein inspired the terrifying “Buffalo Bill” character in “The Silence of the Lambs.”

Gein admitted, without a trace of remorse or concern, to two murders and exhuming more that a dozen bodies from the local graveyard. He made lampshades, bowls, a shirt, and other items from the cadavers. The local sheriff investigating the disappearance of a woman found her in Gein’s farmhouse. Her beheaded and disemboweled body was hanging upside down from a ceiling beam. The discovery was made in November 1957, the year I graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

I never encountered Gein, nor did I help those who burned his farmhouse to the ground shortly after he was arrested. But I unknowingly passed too close to him for comfort many times over a four-year period. Perhaps I exaggerate the proximity, but nevertheless the annual resurrection of this creature scares hell out of me.

Plainfield is about the halfway point between Madison and my hometown. I, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends, drove through the area whenever a trip was made to or from home by auto. One time, three of us stopped in a Plainfield bar for a beer. Two men who stopped in a Plainfield bar a few years earlier never were heard from again. Although he was known to favor dispatching or mutilating women, Gein was suspected of doing the men in. He never admitted guilt regarding the missing men. There were several other mysterious disappearances in the area over several years.

Thank God I never hitchhiked home from school. That probably was due more to circumstance than common sense. Thumbing a ride was an acceptable way to travel in those days. Neither we youngsters nor our parents thought much about the danger involved. Nowadays, parents worry much more, and hitchhiking is rare. Teenage travel may be less adventurous, but it surely is safer.

If you are among those planning a pilgrimage to look for spooks where Gein’s farmhouse stood, or in the Plainfield cemetery where he is buried near many of his victims, please do us all a favor this Halloween. Stay away, and let Ed stay dead.

Help Is On the Way

An Associated Press headline today said, “Iraqis have money, but lack know-how in spending it.”

There’s a nonproblem if ever there was one. As soon as we vote a whole lot of incumbent senators and congressmen out of office week after next, we’ll send them over to act as advisors. This should be a bipartisan group. Plenty of blame for our current financial problems is available to shower on both parties.

When President Bush becomes available in January, he can assume command of the crew. It won’t take long for that bunch to show our Arab friends how to go from riches to rags.

Playing Around Comes Around

In the wake of huge drops in value of many shares on the stock exchanges this month, I feel sorry for three groups.

People who are in their sixties, entrusted their savings to the markets, and were planning to retire soon may have to postpone their entry into the golden years, and quite a few may have to work until they drop. This group doesn’t have ten or more years to wait for the markets to recover.

Younger guys and gals who were saving to help their kids with college education costs or to get a down-payment on a home also took a big hit if they listened to the sweet music of brokers and “financial advisors” who said putting their cash into the market rather than into more conservative savings plans was the only thing to do. The race no longer went to the steady; to be “with it” you had to be among the swift, nimble, and clever. You could charge or borrow for just about anything, and the big returns you would earn in the market would pay off your balances at some vague time in the future. The arguments were persuasive, but they were hogwash.

Some middle-aged workers also deserve sympathy. After their employers canceled or refused to finance any new company-funded retirement plans, they had little choice but to bet on the stock market through 401K’s as a way to accumulate wealth they would need in the future. Some tales are told of employers actually telling workers it was to their advantage to get out of company-funded retirement plans in favor of “personal choice” arrangements.

The people I couldn’t care less about are in the big group that smugly told solid citizens for years that they were outdated and stupid for putting their nest eggs into safe investments, such as long-term certificates of deposit or tax-exempt municipal bonds, because the returns just didn’t match the rich rewards available in the market. These jerks deserve what they got. They should have paid more attention to the words in some common descriptive phrases:

We play the ponies.

We play the tables.

We play the slots.

We play the stock market.

When you choose to gamble, you ought to be prepared to take the consequences without a lot of whining. Calling a gambler an investor doesn’t change the odds a whole lot.

Disclosure: The Gabbygeezer has no position in the stock market.

Slightly Provincial

The nice lady on the phone several days ago was a true voice from the past. Betty Rowe Baker was a close friend of my sister and the daughter of one of my heroes (see Nov. 2, 2007 post, “My Hero, Dr. Rowe Baker”). I hadn’t talked with Betty Rowe for at least 50 years.

We did a lot of reminiscing about days in the old hometown. My caller mentioned that she subscribed to the Tomahawk Leader, although most of the names in the news no longer were people she knew. That observation got us onto the topic of something that was unknown to many of us when we were kids in a small town. We seldom knew the street names, or if we did, we were hazy about where they were.

We found houses because they were “across the street from Nick’s, next door to Schmidt’s, “ or “right where the road turns north in Jersey City.” I knew where Wisconsin Avenue was because we lived on it. And Fourth Street was familiar, because beyond it, when walking “downtown,” Wisconsin Avenue was known as “Main Street.” Other than that, my knowledge of the location of streets was limited.

We thought we were pretty sophisticated in Tomahawk, Wisconsin. After all, a passenger train stopped beside the depot at the end of Main Street every day. It disgorged travelers from such grand places as Chicago and Milwaukee. We even had a famous eatery. Jim’s Logging Camp, a steakhouse a few miles up the highway, modestly advertised itself as “The Antoine’s of the North,” assuming that we and tourists who came to our city were acquainted with New Orleans’ restaurants. We thought we were pretty worldly in many ways, but in fact we could be very provincial.

One night at our dinner table Mom started a conversation about a “man from Illinois” who lived in our immediate neighborhood. After a while, my sister asked just who this man was. When Mom revealed his name, we learned that the immigrant has lived across the street from our family home for 27 years!

Apparently, it took a little time to become recognized as a fully integrated citizen of my hometown.

Bring the Sheriff Back to Town

A whole lot of us thought deregulation was the way to go when our hero Ronald Reagan made it a pillar of his campaign in 1980. After all, wasn’t free enterprise the American way, something to be taken literally? And with less government interference, business people would just naturally be freer to lead us to prosperity, and wouldn’t that be wonderful?

So we ran roughshod over what we saw as a misguided regulator crowd. Laws were changed. Officials were admonished to be kinder and gentler to the very guys they were supposed to be watching, because, after all, American business leaders could be trusted. And, of course, private enterprise does everything better than government. It can even regulate itself, we were told.

Well, American business leaders can be trusted. Their job is to operate efficiently and maximize profits for their shareholders. They can be trusted to work hard to make their operations successful. There is nothing wrong with that. Without guidelines about what is permissible, though, financiers and business people face too much pressure to produce large short-term profits, and do it quarter after quarter. That was part of the problem when we went overboard with deregulation. Caution became a dirty word. Many individuals crossed the line and committed fraud. Others had no ethics to begin with, and gleefully took advantage of the new deregulated situation.

Somewhere along the line, we forgot the lessons of the not-so-distant past. Government programs that did work in combating effects of the Great Depression included considerable regulation of our financial institutions. That inspired confidence, which along with wartime spending, lifted us out of economic disaster. In the late 1980s we should have learned the lesson again when relaxed regulation of Savings and Loans created an expensive bailout crisis. We quickly forgot about that and went on our merry deregulation way.

We ignored two very fundamental things about human nature. First, like it or not, greed is a major motivator of Homo sapiens. Second, many of us like to think we are considerably smarter than we really are.

Let’s face it; most of us simply do not understand the complexities of high finance. We haven’t a clue about what’s going on with derivatives, hedge funds, credit-default swaps, and exotic mortgage-backed securities. Hedge fund managers don’t even reveal how they are investing the money entrusted to them! Investors are supposed to just have faith.

Ignorance about high-level money matters is not confined to the middle and lower classes. The wealthy often don’t understand sophisticated financial deals, either. They, however, can hire accountants, lawyers, and other expensive advisors to protect their interests and make big profits for them. We common folks simply are unable to do that. We have neither the money nor the contacts.

We are the minnows in the financial pond. It should come as no surprise that the big fish just ate a whole lot of us little fish. They almost always do. This time, we suffered the additional indignity of being forced to pay the costs of the meal.

We must empower our government to closely monitor and regulate our financial institutions simply because we cannot protect ourselves from greedy executives and the predators who are ever-ready to pick our pockets to benefit themselves or their clients.

We need to get the sheriff and a whole lot of deputies back into our financial community right now. We need to back them up by restoring many old regulations and creating some stiff new ones, and we need to cheer them on as they round up the wrongdoers and hang them high. We need enterprise that is both free and fair.

Campus Comedy

A promotional ad during a timeout in Saturday’s Wisconsin-Michigan football game extolled the virtues of the “Wisconsin Idea” in education—“The Boundaries of the Campus are the Boundaries of the State.”

That’s another way of saying UW pioneered in developing extension activities. When I was a freshman at Wisconsin, another activity that often drew attention, and sometimes criticism, was nearing its end at the school. The student humor magazine, the Octopus, was in its final year. The magazine’s motto was “The Bounders of the Campus are the Bounders of the State.”

Only a true zany could come up with something like that. The editor was one. He lived in the room next to mine in the cheap rooming house where I spent my first semester. One of the editor’s favorite projects was producing an Octopus issue that was a parody of the student newspaper, the Daily Cardinal.

The editor christened the parody paper the Daily Crudinel. I don’t remember the exact number given, but I do recall one of the most ingenious items on the Crudinel sports page. A headline proclaimed: “Fencers Lose to Illinois, Six Dead.”