Absolute Lunacy
As we developed our master plan for moving from Utah to Michigan we kept coming up with two cars and only one driver for the final journey. So we solved the problem by selling the clunker of the two machines at a garage sale. Having done that, we decided to try life with one vehicle for a while to see how it went.
I told Sandy, “Well, we’ll get one little benefit even if it only lasts until we replace the second car. Our insurance costs will drop when I take one auto off our policy.”
The company increased our premium when I called to report that we now needed coverage for only one car. Flabbergasted, I phoned again to get another representative to confirm that decision. It was true—the company charged more to insure one car than two. It seemed a trifle illogical that one vehicle ran more risk of being involved in an accident than two. The representatives explained it all by stating that we no longer qualified for a “two-car discount.”
We had been with the company, a major national firm, for more than ten years. We had filed only a single claim for less that $200 in all that time. Our premium payment record was spotless.
The company was one of those that advertise significant percentage savings by switching to them. With profit-making strategies like the “one costs 10 percent more than two” plan, it’s no wonder they can make that sort of claim.
We promptly relieved the company of 100 percent of our business.
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
A Blueberry Thrill
The women in my life have done a great job helping me indulge in a great pleasure—eating plump, sweet blueberries. I love ‘em.
My mother, an elegant lady who usually dressed as if for a special occasion whenever she left the house made an exception at the height of blueberry season in northern Wisconsin. She put on her field uniform. It consisted of high-top boots, a pair of well-worn coveralls, and a decrepit floppy hat. Thus attired, she went off to spend a long day picking as many blueberries as she could find.
When Mom got home, we enjoyed blue treats for weeks. The berries appeared as desserts, in muffins, over breakfast cereal, and best of all, in pies. The pies were heavenly. They inspired me to demand a blueberry pie instead of the traditional cake as the centerpiece of my birthday celebrations. I not only requested pie, I insisted on one to be eaten only by me!
Mom had no freezer when I was a little boy. She compensated by canning and otherwise preserving foods in wondrous ways. Because of her skills, blueberries were available in our household months after the picking season ended. I got my personal pie complete with candles on every birthday as far back as I can remember.
My addiction to the annual pie coupled with a reputation for conservative financial management (being a tightwad, some might say) led to a family story that survives to this day. On one of my birthdays, a favorite aunt, Dorothy, was visiting from Milwaukee. She begged for a piece of my pie. I very reluctantly agreed, but only after she agreed to pay me a dollar for a small slice.
Wife Sandy is a superb cook, but pies are one of the few things not in her repertoire. After we hooked up, she compensated for that by ferreting out stores that could provide a blueberry pie in mid-winter for my birthday. A couple of times, when no stores or bakeries had pies on their shelves, she was forced to substitute things like blueberry pop-tarts, but the tradition continued and we got some laughs out of the new varieties of pie.
Last year, our first in southwestern Michigan, son Lee’s fiancée Karen showed us one of the reasons agriculture is a leading industry in these parts. We are in blueberry heaven. Karen took us to a major blueberry farm only about 12 miles from our home. You could pick your own, as my Mom once did, but it was a lot easier to let a small army of green-card workers do that hard work. Sandy bought 30 pounds of Michigan’s finest. We celebrated with a round of blueberry ice cream cones.
Sandy split the haul into manageable quantities and froze the bags. Now, I’m enjoying the “perfect breakfast’ (see Dec. 6, 2006, post) seven days a week. I just thaw out a bunch of berries, top off some oatmeal with them, and love every delicious minute of getting started into a new day. If Sandy must buy pop-tarts for my birthday, she is forgiven.
As a native Badger, it is embarrassing to admit that southwestern Michigan blueberries are superior to northern Wisconsin blueberries, but they are. Some of the same soil, topography, and climate conditions that once made our newly adopted area the celery growing capital of the United States (Michigan still is number three behind California and Florida, which have much longer growing seasons) apparently are ideal for growing fantastic blueberries. We didn’t move here for the berries, but had I known how good they are, I might have.
Hey, Fats Domino. Where did you find Blueberry Hill? I’ll bet it was right here.
The women in my life have done a great job helping me indulge in a great pleasure—eating plump, sweet blueberries. I love ‘em.
My mother, an elegant lady who usually dressed as if for a special occasion whenever she left the house made an exception at the height of blueberry season in northern Wisconsin. She put on her field uniform. It consisted of high-top boots, a pair of well-worn coveralls, and a decrepit floppy hat. Thus attired, she went off to spend a long day picking as many blueberries as she could find.
When Mom got home, we enjoyed blue treats for weeks. The berries appeared as desserts, in muffins, over breakfast cereal, and best of all, in pies. The pies were heavenly. They inspired me to demand a blueberry pie instead of the traditional cake as the centerpiece of my birthday celebrations. I not only requested pie, I insisted on one to be eaten only by me!
Mom had no freezer when I was a little boy. She compensated by canning and otherwise preserving foods in wondrous ways. Because of her skills, blueberries were available in our household months after the picking season ended. I got my personal pie complete with candles on every birthday as far back as I can remember.
My addiction to the annual pie coupled with a reputation for conservative financial management (being a tightwad, some might say) led to a family story that survives to this day. On one of my birthdays, a favorite aunt, Dorothy, was visiting from Milwaukee. She begged for a piece of my pie. I very reluctantly agreed, but only after she agreed to pay me a dollar for a small slice.
Wife Sandy is a superb cook, but pies are one of the few things not in her repertoire. After we hooked up, she compensated for that by ferreting out stores that could provide a blueberry pie in mid-winter for my birthday. A couple of times, when no stores or bakeries had pies on their shelves, she was forced to substitute things like blueberry pop-tarts, but the tradition continued and we got some laughs out of the new varieties of pie.
Last year, our first in southwestern Michigan, son Lee’s fiancée Karen showed us one of the reasons agriculture is a leading industry in these parts. We are in blueberry heaven. Karen took us to a major blueberry farm only about 12 miles from our home. You could pick your own, as my Mom once did, but it was a lot easier to let a small army of green-card workers do that hard work. Sandy bought 30 pounds of Michigan’s finest. We celebrated with a round of blueberry ice cream cones.
Sandy split the haul into manageable quantities and froze the bags. Now, I’m enjoying the “perfect breakfast’ (see Dec. 6, 2006, post) seven days a week. I just thaw out a bunch of berries, top off some oatmeal with them, and love every delicious minute of getting started into a new day. If Sandy must buy pop-tarts for my birthday, she is forgiven.
As a native Badger, it is embarrassing to admit that southwestern Michigan blueberries are superior to northern Wisconsin blueberries, but they are. Some of the same soil, topography, and climate conditions that once made our newly adopted area the celery growing capital of the United States (Michigan still is number three behind California and Florida, which have much longer growing seasons) apparently are ideal for growing fantastic blueberries. We didn’t move here for the berries, but had I known how good they are, I might have.
Hey, Fats Domino. Where did you find Blueberry Hill? I’ll bet it was right here.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Just Say the Words
At an age when I probably won’t make the effort to do so, I still harbor yearnings to master a second language. Maybe that’s because I missed out on a perfect opportunity to become bilingual as a boy.
My father’s parents were German immigrants, and their native tongue was their household language of choice. Grandma never truly mastered English, despite living to a ripe old age. In her later years, when infirmities confined her to her home, the Evangelical Lutheran minister made house calls to read to her from a Deutsch Bible. My father’s early school days had been split between classes taught in English and German. He often served as a translator for immigrant farmers who lived in our area in northern Wisconsin.
Yet German was not spoken in our home. Now, I think that was a pity. I believe people who can speak two, or several, languages have richer lives than the rest of us. However, American society was quite different when I was growing up than it is today.
Mom and Dad had witnessed strident, sometimes violent, expressions of anti-German sentiment in World War I years. Mom told us of her horror the day a mob stripped every German book out of the high school library and destroyed them in a bonfire. Dad described the time an immigrant farmer jumped out from a crowd of observers as the local machine gun company recruits marched somewhat inexpertly up Main Street. The farmer, once a Prussian soldier, demonstrated a precise goose step. “That’s how real soldiers march,” Dad said the man yelled. Others knew how to translate. The farmer was thrown in jail.
Dad sang snatches of little German songs now and then when he was in especially good spirits. I still remember a few, although I never did get the pronunciations right. Dad would tell my sister and me what a German word or phrase meant if we asked, but offered nothing beyond that. He did teach me to count in Deutsch, probably because I pestered him so much about it. I practiced by reciting the numbers to myself.
I still can count in German. That’s about it. My sister couldn’t even understand the German numbers I enjoyed spouting. My parents, like many others in second-generation American families, didn’t want us developing skills that might lead anybody to think we were anything but patriotic citizens of the USA.
Lately, my only linguistic development has been picking up a few German words during two trips to Europe. The icon that would instantly lead me to free German lessons stares at me from my computer screen every morning. I never quite work up the gumption to click on it.
On our most recent trip to Deutschland, I got up before sunrise one day in the farmhouse where we were guests. I had decided it was about time we brought something to our hosts’ table besides our appetites. We had learned to love freshly baked pretzels at breakfast time, and we also needed lunch and snacks during a road trip that day. I trudged in the semi-darkness down the cobblestone street to the bakery.
The baker, a stocky woman with a no-nonsense air about her, was chattering with the only customer in the place, a big man occupying a small table. I interrupted them by pointing to the large replication of a pretzel on the wall. I started showing off my German numerical skills, but the baker’s fierce stare somehow erased my ability to remember which number went where. Nothing intelligible came out of my mouth. I finally held up all ten fingers, and then three.
“Oh, you want thirteen pretzels. Why didn’t you just say so?” she said. Her English was very good. I took the sack and, still a little shaken, held out all the Euros I had in my pocket. She selected what she wanted, and I became the owner of perhaps the most expensive pretzels in the region. I thought to myself that working a little bit to learn German could have definite economic benefits.
When our hostess, Dorothee, emerged from the kitchen with the coffee pot she was surprised by the mound of pretzels on the family table. “Who got those?”
Wife Sandy pointed to me. “You mean Dick went to the bakery all by himself?” Dorothee asked with a tinge of doubt in her tone.
I shrugged and said, “Ja, ja.”
At an age when I probably won’t make the effort to do so, I still harbor yearnings to master a second language. Maybe that’s because I missed out on a perfect opportunity to become bilingual as a boy.
My father’s parents were German immigrants, and their native tongue was their household language of choice. Grandma never truly mastered English, despite living to a ripe old age. In her later years, when infirmities confined her to her home, the Evangelical Lutheran minister made house calls to read to her from a Deutsch Bible. My father’s early school days had been split between classes taught in English and German. He often served as a translator for immigrant farmers who lived in our area in northern Wisconsin.
Yet German was not spoken in our home. Now, I think that was a pity. I believe people who can speak two, or several, languages have richer lives than the rest of us. However, American society was quite different when I was growing up than it is today.
Mom and Dad had witnessed strident, sometimes violent, expressions of anti-German sentiment in World War I years. Mom told us of her horror the day a mob stripped every German book out of the high school library and destroyed them in a bonfire. Dad described the time an immigrant farmer jumped out from a crowd of observers as the local machine gun company recruits marched somewhat inexpertly up Main Street. The farmer, once a Prussian soldier, demonstrated a precise goose step. “That’s how real soldiers march,” Dad said the man yelled. Others knew how to translate. The farmer was thrown in jail.
Dad sang snatches of little German songs now and then when he was in especially good spirits. I still remember a few, although I never did get the pronunciations right. Dad would tell my sister and me what a German word or phrase meant if we asked, but offered nothing beyond that. He did teach me to count in Deutsch, probably because I pestered him so much about it. I practiced by reciting the numbers to myself.
I still can count in German. That’s about it. My sister couldn’t even understand the German numbers I enjoyed spouting. My parents, like many others in second-generation American families, didn’t want us developing skills that might lead anybody to think we were anything but patriotic citizens of the USA.
Lately, my only linguistic development has been picking up a few German words during two trips to Europe. The icon that would instantly lead me to free German lessons stares at me from my computer screen every morning. I never quite work up the gumption to click on it.
On our most recent trip to Deutschland, I got up before sunrise one day in the farmhouse where we were guests. I had decided it was about time we brought something to our hosts’ table besides our appetites. We had learned to love freshly baked pretzels at breakfast time, and we also needed lunch and snacks during a road trip that day. I trudged in the semi-darkness down the cobblestone street to the bakery.
The baker, a stocky woman with a no-nonsense air about her, was chattering with the only customer in the place, a big man occupying a small table. I interrupted them by pointing to the large replication of a pretzel on the wall. I started showing off my German numerical skills, but the baker’s fierce stare somehow erased my ability to remember which number went where. Nothing intelligible came out of my mouth. I finally held up all ten fingers, and then three.
“Oh, you want thirteen pretzels. Why didn’t you just say so?” she said. Her English was very good. I took the sack and, still a little shaken, held out all the Euros I had in my pocket. She selected what she wanted, and I became the owner of perhaps the most expensive pretzels in the region. I thought to myself that working a little bit to learn German could have definite economic benefits.
When our hostess, Dorothee, emerged from the kitchen with the coffee pot she was surprised by the mound of pretzels on the family table. “Who got those?”
Wife Sandy pointed to me. “You mean Dick went to the bakery all by himself?” Dorothee asked with a tinge of doubt in her tone.
I shrugged and said, “Ja, ja.”
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Hey, Look Them Over
Over the past 60 years, finding anyone in our nation who didn’t know what a U.S. President looked and sounded like would have been difficult. Since the 1950s, presidents have been major television stars. They don’t need to invent creative ways to appear on the tube as lesser publicity seekers do; networks clamor for the opportunity to feature them.
The television moguls know what they’re doing as they vie for viewers. The American people, no matter what their political persuasions, long have been interested in what our top politicians look and sound like. Before television, when I was in junior high school, Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, Republican candidate for President, scheduled a stop in my hometown. It was such a big deal in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, that the schools were let out so we youngsters would have a chance to get a glimpse of the great man. The movie theater where he spoke was packed beyond capacity. I couldn’t get in, although I did see Taft make his entrance into the building.
Taft’s presidential bid failed, so I couldn't claim I’d seen a man in the flesh who had occupied the White House. That didn’t happen for another 35 years.
No matter how familiar a President becomes to television viewers, actually seeing the real person seems important to many citizens. President Obama recently spoke at the University of Michigan commencement ceremony in the “Big House” football stadium in Ann Arbor. Event organizers printed 80,000 tickets, and demand exceeded the supply.
Mr. Obama will be back in Michigan on June 7. Kalamazoo Central High School won a nationwide contest to get the President as its graduation speaker. The inner city public school topped the nation with its outstanding record of academic improvement through several creative programs. School officials changed the graduation date to give their Class of 2010 what they called a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to see and hear a President.
I thought about trying to get a ticket until information on the demand appeared. Central usually attracts about 2,500 spectators at a graduation. This year’s event is scheduled at the local hockey arena, which holds 4,000. If it stays there, grads for the first time in history will be limited in the number of family members and friends they can host. There is talk of moving the event to Western Michigan University’s basketball arena to squeeze in another 1,000 people. Mention also has been made of moving to the university’s football stadium, where 27,000 could be admitted. If that happens, I might try for a ticket.
Why would I bother? Well, there aren’t a whole lot of average Americans who can say they’ve seen a sitting President in real life. Something about the possibility of joining that small number is intriguing. I have seen a First Lady and a former President at close range, and those memories remain vivid.
First Lady Barbara Bush passed within a few feet of me as she walked down a corridor in a Salt Lake City hotel. She was on the way to a meeting room across the hall from one where I was attending a Forest Service conference. She was there to give a speech to a group of Republican supporters. I was in the hallway having a smoke, and I stayed for her appearance when a Secret Service man told me she would be coming.
Mrs. Bush was known as a great lady. When I saw her, she radiated charm and good humor as she passed by. She nodded to onlookers in the corridor and smiled at everybody. I was clapping as hard as I could, as were others, so I’d like to think she smiled at me, but that’s a stretch.
A few years later, the annual Marie Lombardi Charity Golf Tournament was held at the Menominee Falls Country Club, about a mile from our home in Wisconsin. Proceeds went to cancer research in memory of the famous Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi. Many political, sports, and show business luminaries participated, with heavy representation by present and former Packers and Chicago Bears football stars.
I walked the mile from our home to the country club. Seeing no reason not to, I slipped under a rope near the entrance just in time to see former President Gerald Ford, escorted by several young men, pass slowly within a yard of me as he headed for the scorer’s tent. Mr. Ford was smiling and waving to everybody on both sides of the roped-off pathway to the tent. I’d like to claim he waved at me, but I’ll settle for stating he at least “waved near me.”
Mr. Ford had been out of office for several years when I saw him. It was a good day for celebrity sightings of others who had joined the ranks of retirees. I saw “Mr. Perfect,” Bart Starr, the former Packers quarterback, hit a perfect drive long and down the middle. Dick Butkus, former great Bears linebacker, crunched a fairway wood that appeared to travel about 300 yards. Years earlier, Butkus would have been more interested in crunching Starr.
When Mr. Obama comes to town, I think sneaking in to see him will be out of the question. I’m hoping the ceremony is moved to the football field to give me a chance for a ticket.
Over the past 60 years, finding anyone in our nation who didn’t know what a U.S. President looked and sounded like would have been difficult. Since the 1950s, presidents have been major television stars. They don’t need to invent creative ways to appear on the tube as lesser publicity seekers do; networks clamor for the opportunity to feature them.
The television moguls know what they’re doing as they vie for viewers. The American people, no matter what their political persuasions, long have been interested in what our top politicians look and sound like. Before television, when I was in junior high school, Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, Republican candidate for President, scheduled a stop in my hometown. It was such a big deal in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, that the schools were let out so we youngsters would have a chance to get a glimpse of the great man. The movie theater where he spoke was packed beyond capacity. I couldn’t get in, although I did see Taft make his entrance into the building.
Taft’s presidential bid failed, so I couldn't claim I’d seen a man in the flesh who had occupied the White House. That didn’t happen for another 35 years.
No matter how familiar a President becomes to television viewers, actually seeing the real person seems important to many citizens. President Obama recently spoke at the University of Michigan commencement ceremony in the “Big House” football stadium in Ann Arbor. Event organizers printed 80,000 tickets, and demand exceeded the supply.
Mr. Obama will be back in Michigan on June 7. Kalamazoo Central High School won a nationwide contest to get the President as its graduation speaker. The inner city public school topped the nation with its outstanding record of academic improvement through several creative programs. School officials changed the graduation date to give their Class of 2010 what they called a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to see and hear a President.
I thought about trying to get a ticket until information on the demand appeared. Central usually attracts about 2,500 spectators at a graduation. This year’s event is scheduled at the local hockey arena, which holds 4,000. If it stays there, grads for the first time in history will be limited in the number of family members and friends they can host. There is talk of moving the event to Western Michigan University’s basketball arena to squeeze in another 1,000 people. Mention also has been made of moving to the university’s football stadium, where 27,000 could be admitted. If that happens, I might try for a ticket.
Why would I bother? Well, there aren’t a whole lot of average Americans who can say they’ve seen a sitting President in real life. Something about the possibility of joining that small number is intriguing. I have seen a First Lady and a former President at close range, and those memories remain vivid.
First Lady Barbara Bush passed within a few feet of me as she walked down a corridor in a Salt Lake City hotel. She was on the way to a meeting room across the hall from one where I was attending a Forest Service conference. She was there to give a speech to a group of Republican supporters. I was in the hallway having a smoke, and I stayed for her appearance when a Secret Service man told me she would be coming.
Mrs. Bush was known as a great lady. When I saw her, she radiated charm and good humor as she passed by. She nodded to onlookers in the corridor and smiled at everybody. I was clapping as hard as I could, as were others, so I’d like to think she smiled at me, but that’s a stretch.
A few years later, the annual Marie Lombardi Charity Golf Tournament was held at the Menominee Falls Country Club, about a mile from our home in Wisconsin. Proceeds went to cancer research in memory of the famous Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi. Many political, sports, and show business luminaries participated, with heavy representation by present and former Packers and Chicago Bears football stars.
I walked the mile from our home to the country club. Seeing no reason not to, I slipped under a rope near the entrance just in time to see former President Gerald Ford, escorted by several young men, pass slowly within a yard of me as he headed for the scorer’s tent. Mr. Ford was smiling and waving to everybody on both sides of the roped-off pathway to the tent. I’d like to claim he waved at me, but I’ll settle for stating he at least “waved near me.”
Mr. Ford had been out of office for several years when I saw him. It was a good day for celebrity sightings of others who had joined the ranks of retirees. I saw “Mr. Perfect,” Bart Starr, the former Packers quarterback, hit a perfect drive long and down the middle. Dick Butkus, former great Bears linebacker, crunched a fairway wood that appeared to travel about 300 yards. Years earlier, Butkus would have been more interested in crunching Starr.
When Mr. Obama comes to town, I think sneaking in to see him will be out of the question. I’m hoping the ceremony is moved to the football field to give me a chance for a ticket.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Foolish Figures
Some polls are useful to those interested in following changes in public opinion trends. They also can tell politicians what the public “thinks” on a specific issue if the gulf between the “fors” and the “againsts” is wide enough.
But, many poll questions are downright silly. One such was included in a survey last week. A Washington Post-ABC News Poll asked 1,000 randomly chosen Americans whether they approved or disapproved of federal regulation of derivatives trading by bankers. The results: 43 percent favored regulation, 41 percent opposed regulation, and 17 percent had no opinion.
I will wager any amount with anyone foolish enough to take me up on it that at least 99 percent of the respondents had no idea what a derivative is. I would set the ignorance bar at 100 percent, but there was a slight chance an investment banker wound up in the poll sample.
At least, the 17 percent who confessed to having no opinion were honest about their knowledge level. I’ve attended two lengthy seminars where experts carefully did their best to explain what the term “derivative” means in financial circles. After absorbing a lot of information on the subject, I must confess I am unable to write a concise definition of “derivative.” The concept is that complicated.
This ridiculous poll question, however, illustrates an important point about federal regulation of financial institutions, and the larger question of the proper role of government in our society.
We little guys are helpless without protection by our government institutions in complex matters beyond our control, and sometimes well beyond our comprehension. When we are not protected by sound regulations formulated by our representatives, bad things like the personal financial, property value, and job losses experienced by many in the “Great Recession” will be our lot as the predators in society feed upon us.
Expecting financiers to police financing mechanisms in the public interest is as ludicrous as expecting garden variety criminals to fine and jail themselves. And voting “for” or “against” regulation of something one does not understand is not a whole lot smarter.
Some polls are useful to those interested in following changes in public opinion trends. They also can tell politicians what the public “thinks” on a specific issue if the gulf between the “fors” and the “againsts” is wide enough.
But, many poll questions are downright silly. One such was included in a survey last week. A Washington Post-ABC News Poll asked 1,000 randomly chosen Americans whether they approved or disapproved of federal regulation of derivatives trading by bankers. The results: 43 percent favored regulation, 41 percent opposed regulation, and 17 percent had no opinion.
I will wager any amount with anyone foolish enough to take me up on it that at least 99 percent of the respondents had no idea what a derivative is. I would set the ignorance bar at 100 percent, but there was a slight chance an investment banker wound up in the poll sample.
At least, the 17 percent who confessed to having no opinion were honest about their knowledge level. I’ve attended two lengthy seminars where experts carefully did their best to explain what the term “derivative” means in financial circles. After absorbing a lot of information on the subject, I must confess I am unable to write a concise definition of “derivative.” The concept is that complicated.
This ridiculous poll question, however, illustrates an important point about federal regulation of financial institutions, and the larger question of the proper role of government in our society.
We little guys are helpless without protection by our government institutions in complex matters beyond our control, and sometimes well beyond our comprehension. When we are not protected by sound regulations formulated by our representatives, bad things like the personal financial, property value, and job losses experienced by many in the “Great Recession” will be our lot as the predators in society feed upon us.
Expecting financiers to police financing mechanisms in the public interest is as ludicrous as expecting garden variety criminals to fine and jail themselves. And voting “for” or “against” regulation of something one does not understand is not a whole lot smarter.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
It Wasn’t Heavenly
The silver-haired gent looked up from his restaurant meal, spotted my faded Packers sweatshirt, and smiled.
“You from Wisconsin?”
“Sure am.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Tomahawk.”
“Oh, up north. I’m from Ironwood.” The elderly diner’s face took on a sheepish look. “We were right next door to Hurley.”
Some people claim Hurley is the town that put the “sin” in Wisconsin. Others quote a saying that goes back at least 60 years. “There’s Hurley, Haywood, and Hell, and Hurley’s the worst of the three.”
That’s the way I remember the saying. Others disagree. A few continue to argue about it. They quote a slightly different version: “The three worst places on earth are Hurley, Hayward, and Hell, and Hurley’s the toughest of the three.”
That, to me, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Obviously, Hell is not on earth. A few wordsmiths argue that the saying doesn’t refer to the biblical Hell at all, but to the Michigan city of that name. The trouble with that idea is that Hell, Michigan, is in the lower peninsula, nowhere near Hurley and Hayward, and it never was known as a center of bad behavior.
One blogger recently wrote a post arguing that the order of things in the saying really was “Hayward, Hurley, and Hell. . .” because in the old days Hayward came before Hurley on the passenger train run to the far north. That amateur historian claims the saying was based on a railroad conductor’s announcement of the next stops. That thought is interesting, but it’s a real stretch. Neither one of the Hells in question was on that railroad line.
No matter how the “real” saying goes, associating Hurley with Hell was a reasonable thing to do. The town was notorious for providing illegal gambling, booze, and prostitutes to loggers and miners. After the big trees were cut and the valuable ore dug out, enterprising Hurley business owners continued to furnish their primary products to anybody who wanted to buy.
Hurley is just 90 miles north of my hometown, straight up Highway 51. Stories of illicit activities in Hurley abounded. Silver Street, the main thoroughfare, was said to be lined by two-story wood-frame buildings. Each featured a saloon in the front, a gambling parlor in the rear, and a brothel operation upstairs. Some served food, but that was incidental. Acquaintances described all sorts of exotic activities they had seen in Hurley, summed up by “they get you anything you want.”
I assumed the stories were basically true. They aroused my curiosity about the place. I remained curious for a long time, because many years passed before I visited Hurley. During most of my youth, my family didn’t have a car, so we couldn’t do a lot of visiting anywhere. And if we could have traveled, Mom certainly would have vetoed any plan involving a trip to Hurley.
Frequent news stories about events in Hurley contributed to my curiosity. State agents regularly raided Silver Street establishments and made numerous arrests. A few days after we read detailed descriptions of the evil acts the state police discovered, smaller news articles reported the results. Typically, local magistrates found most of the accused not guilty, and the others only slightly guilty. The slightly guilty got small fines and went back to work.
For a while in the 1940s and 50s, the good citizens of Hurley made determined public relations efforts to clean up the city’s image. The most famous attempt was a program launched by the mayor; he encouraged residents to paint all the buildings in the city white. They really did that. The new puritanical color scheme had little effect on opinions about the place. City officials took to sending out news releases comparing the number of churches in Hurley to the number of saloons. The churches led by a slight margin. That tactic failed utterly to convince anyone that Hurley was heavenly.
Hurley still conjured up images of a little sin city in 1978 some 30 years after I first started hearing and reading about it. That’s when I finally made my one and only visit to Silver Street.
Ironwood, which is separated from Hurley only by the Wisconsin-Michigan border, was home to the headquarters of the Ottawa National Forest. We in the U.S. Forest Service wanted to consolidate ranger districts in the forest to trim administrative costs. We expected trouble because any Upper Peninsula proposal to cut jobs always ran into opposition. I was sent from the regional office in Milwaukee to work on the plan with our people in Ironwood. “Ah,” I thought, “finally I’ll get to see Hurley.”
I booked a motel room at the far end of Silver Street. It was nearly dinner time after I got checked in the day before my meetings in Ironwood, so I stopped for advice at the motel desk. The clerk recommended a fast food place. I said I wanted to eat in one of the old Silver Street establishments to see what it looked like.
“You’re a little late,” the clerk said. “The last one burned down two weeks ago.”
The silver-haired gent looked up from his restaurant meal, spotted my faded Packers sweatshirt, and smiled.
“You from Wisconsin?”
“Sure am.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Tomahawk.”
“Oh, up north. I’m from Ironwood.” The elderly diner’s face took on a sheepish look. “We were right next door to Hurley.”
Some people claim Hurley is the town that put the “sin” in Wisconsin. Others quote a saying that goes back at least 60 years. “There’s Hurley, Haywood, and Hell, and Hurley’s the worst of the three.”
That’s the way I remember the saying. Others disagree. A few continue to argue about it. They quote a slightly different version: “The three worst places on earth are Hurley, Hayward, and Hell, and Hurley’s the toughest of the three.”
That, to me, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Obviously, Hell is not on earth. A few wordsmiths argue that the saying doesn’t refer to the biblical Hell at all, but to the Michigan city of that name. The trouble with that idea is that Hell, Michigan, is in the lower peninsula, nowhere near Hurley and Hayward, and it never was known as a center of bad behavior.
One blogger recently wrote a post arguing that the order of things in the saying really was “Hayward, Hurley, and Hell. . .” because in the old days Hayward came before Hurley on the passenger train run to the far north. That amateur historian claims the saying was based on a railroad conductor’s announcement of the next stops. That thought is interesting, but it’s a real stretch. Neither one of the Hells in question was on that railroad line.
No matter how the “real” saying goes, associating Hurley with Hell was a reasonable thing to do. The town was notorious for providing illegal gambling, booze, and prostitutes to loggers and miners. After the big trees were cut and the valuable ore dug out, enterprising Hurley business owners continued to furnish their primary products to anybody who wanted to buy.
Hurley is just 90 miles north of my hometown, straight up Highway 51. Stories of illicit activities in Hurley abounded. Silver Street, the main thoroughfare, was said to be lined by two-story wood-frame buildings. Each featured a saloon in the front, a gambling parlor in the rear, and a brothel operation upstairs. Some served food, but that was incidental. Acquaintances described all sorts of exotic activities they had seen in Hurley, summed up by “they get you anything you want.”
I assumed the stories were basically true. They aroused my curiosity about the place. I remained curious for a long time, because many years passed before I visited Hurley. During most of my youth, my family didn’t have a car, so we couldn’t do a lot of visiting anywhere. And if we could have traveled, Mom certainly would have vetoed any plan involving a trip to Hurley.
Frequent news stories about events in Hurley contributed to my curiosity. State agents regularly raided Silver Street establishments and made numerous arrests. A few days after we read detailed descriptions of the evil acts the state police discovered, smaller news articles reported the results. Typically, local magistrates found most of the accused not guilty, and the others only slightly guilty. The slightly guilty got small fines and went back to work.
For a while in the 1940s and 50s, the good citizens of Hurley made determined public relations efforts to clean up the city’s image. The most famous attempt was a program launched by the mayor; he encouraged residents to paint all the buildings in the city white. They really did that. The new puritanical color scheme had little effect on opinions about the place. City officials took to sending out news releases comparing the number of churches in Hurley to the number of saloons. The churches led by a slight margin. That tactic failed utterly to convince anyone that Hurley was heavenly.
Hurley still conjured up images of a little sin city in 1978 some 30 years after I first started hearing and reading about it. That’s when I finally made my one and only visit to Silver Street.
Ironwood, which is separated from Hurley only by the Wisconsin-Michigan border, was home to the headquarters of the Ottawa National Forest. We in the U.S. Forest Service wanted to consolidate ranger districts in the forest to trim administrative costs. We expected trouble because any Upper Peninsula proposal to cut jobs always ran into opposition. I was sent from the regional office in Milwaukee to work on the plan with our people in Ironwood. “Ah,” I thought, “finally I’ll get to see Hurley.”
I booked a motel room at the far end of Silver Street. It was nearly dinner time after I got checked in the day before my meetings in Ironwood, so I stopped for advice at the motel desk. The clerk recommended a fast food place. I said I wanted to eat in one of the old Silver Street establishments to see what it looked like.
“You’re a little late,” the clerk said. “The last one burned down two weeks ago.”
Thursday, April 15, 2010
A Win, Win, Win
Lots of times, when mature adults come up with grandiose ideas about mundane matters, younger folks conclude “those old fuds have too much time on their hands.” True sometimes, but not always. Retiree freedom to ponder small problems can produce novel solutions. We think we did that the other day.
We’ve just gone through our first winter with a rural mailbox. The previous owner-builder of our house apparently valued living well back from the road and didn’t mind paying for a whole lot of concrete for the privilege. The mailbox at the end of our driveway is 150 feet from our front door. Fifty yards is just a nice little walk, eh? Not during a Michigan winter when the temperature is 11 and the most recent weather event was an eight-inch snowfall.
Our mail appears daily except Sunday, but regularity ends there. It can arrive any time over a four-hour span from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. Lately, we’ve been eagerly anticipating a fat tax refund check. We’ve wasted a fair amount of time trudging back and forth from the house to the mail box hoping the mail lady had visited. We started to grump about that. We thought there must be a better way. One idea didn’t fly. We really didn’t want to spend half days at an observation post trying to spy the postal car arriving at our place. What to do?
Our mailbox is equipped with one of those little red flags we can raise to tell the mail lady to stop for an outgoing letter. She faithfully puts the flag down before she leaves, so we can tell by the flag position that the day’s mail has arrived. On those days, we of course have no problem with wasted trips to the box. The trouble is we seldom have outgoing mail in this computer age.
As great minds are said to do, Sandy and I at almost the same time hit upon a foolproof way to confine daily trips to the mailbox to one.
Instead of automatically tossing all our junk mail unopened into the recycling bin, I now take a few minutes to slit the envelopes and extract any postage-paid return envelopes. Sometimes I spend another minute writing on the cover letter, “Take me off your mailing list,” and sticking the message in the return envelope. Either way, the sealed return envelopes go on a corner of an entryway table. We take a return envelope along every day when we retrieve our mail. The return goes into the box, and we raise the red flag. The next day, we know that our mail has been delivered just by noting the flag is down. We repeat the process.
This surely is not the most important plan ever devised, or the most brilliant, but consider the multiple benefits:
1. We will spend more time staying warm and cozy in winter, and less time feeling grumpy in all other seasons.
2. We have launched a relentless, and we hope effective, counter-attack on those nasty junk mailers. It hurts them right where they are coming from, in the pocketbook. They have to pay for return envelope deliveries. Past experience indicates that the little note asking to be taken off the mailing list sometimes does work. Just stuffing a lot of miscellaneous junk in the envelope and returning it as some people advocate has never gotten us off a mailing list.
3. We can be confident the junk advertising materials are being recycled. If we just returned all of them to senders, they might wind up in a landfill with the rest of the advertiser’s trash.
4. By forcing the junk mailers to pay for return deliveries, we are making a small contribution to keeping the U.S. Postal Service in business. We understand the post office financial picture is bleak and getting worse. We’re proud to now and then spend a couple of minutes helping that venerable institution stay afloat.
Now that I think about it, geezers who write blog posts on topics such as this probably do have too much time on their hands!
Lots of times, when mature adults come up with grandiose ideas about mundane matters, younger folks conclude “those old fuds have too much time on their hands.” True sometimes, but not always. Retiree freedom to ponder small problems can produce novel solutions. We think we did that the other day.
We’ve just gone through our first winter with a rural mailbox. The previous owner-builder of our house apparently valued living well back from the road and didn’t mind paying for a whole lot of concrete for the privilege. The mailbox at the end of our driveway is 150 feet from our front door. Fifty yards is just a nice little walk, eh? Not during a Michigan winter when the temperature is 11 and the most recent weather event was an eight-inch snowfall.
Our mail appears daily except Sunday, but regularity ends there. It can arrive any time over a four-hour span from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. Lately, we’ve been eagerly anticipating a fat tax refund check. We’ve wasted a fair amount of time trudging back and forth from the house to the mail box hoping the mail lady had visited. We started to grump about that. We thought there must be a better way. One idea didn’t fly. We really didn’t want to spend half days at an observation post trying to spy the postal car arriving at our place. What to do?
Our mailbox is equipped with one of those little red flags we can raise to tell the mail lady to stop for an outgoing letter. She faithfully puts the flag down before she leaves, so we can tell by the flag position that the day’s mail has arrived. On those days, we of course have no problem with wasted trips to the box. The trouble is we seldom have outgoing mail in this computer age.
As great minds are said to do, Sandy and I at almost the same time hit upon a foolproof way to confine daily trips to the mailbox to one.
Instead of automatically tossing all our junk mail unopened into the recycling bin, I now take a few minutes to slit the envelopes and extract any postage-paid return envelopes. Sometimes I spend another minute writing on the cover letter, “Take me off your mailing list,” and sticking the message in the return envelope. Either way, the sealed return envelopes go on a corner of an entryway table. We take a return envelope along every day when we retrieve our mail. The return goes into the box, and we raise the red flag. The next day, we know that our mail has been delivered just by noting the flag is down. We repeat the process.
This surely is not the most important plan ever devised, or the most brilliant, but consider the multiple benefits:
1. We will spend more time staying warm and cozy in winter, and less time feeling grumpy in all other seasons.
2. We have launched a relentless, and we hope effective, counter-attack on those nasty junk mailers. It hurts them right where they are coming from, in the pocketbook. They have to pay for return envelope deliveries. Past experience indicates that the little note asking to be taken off the mailing list sometimes does work. Just stuffing a lot of miscellaneous junk in the envelope and returning it as some people advocate has never gotten us off a mailing list.
3. We can be confident the junk advertising materials are being recycled. If we just returned all of them to senders, they might wind up in a landfill with the rest of the advertiser’s trash.
4. By forcing the junk mailers to pay for return deliveries, we are making a small contribution to keeping the U.S. Postal Service in business. We understand the post office financial picture is bleak and getting worse. We’re proud to now and then spend a couple of minutes helping that venerable institution stay afloat.
Now that I think about it, geezers who write blog posts on topics such as this probably do have too much time on their hands!
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Covered, Sorta
Shingles is nasty stuff. An affliction that usually torments older people, shingles acts on the surface and beneath the skin and generates intense pain. I had chicken pox as a kid, making me more susceptible to the disease than those who did not.
A vaccine prevents shingles in the majority of people. The vaccination costs $225 in our area. So, it was good news when our insurer announced it had decided to cover the cost of the vaccine.
Note the insurer promised to cover the cost of the vaccine.
I overlooked the nuances of the announcement language and signed on for the shot at the first area pharmacy I found that offered the service. They charged me $35 for the five minutes it took to do a little paper work and poke the needle in my arm. The nice older couple next in line had different insurance coverage; they had to pony up $74 for one shot.
I now know that if your insurance does not cover the entire cost of a vaccination, both the vaccine and administering it, you will be wise to shop around to find out what various providers will charge to give you the needle. That cost can vary considerably from one place to another.
The recently enacted reforms in health care insurance may eliminate the discrepancies. New regulations will be coming to require all insurers to cover vaccinations. But until the new procedures are established and debugged, it would be smart to read the fine print in your policy and if need be go shopping for a low-cost drug dispenser before signing up for shots.
Shingles is nasty stuff. An affliction that usually torments older people, shingles acts on the surface and beneath the skin and generates intense pain. I had chicken pox as a kid, making me more susceptible to the disease than those who did not.
A vaccine prevents shingles in the majority of people. The vaccination costs $225 in our area. So, it was good news when our insurer announced it had decided to cover the cost of the vaccine.
Note the insurer promised to cover the cost of the vaccine.
I overlooked the nuances of the announcement language and signed on for the shot at the first area pharmacy I found that offered the service. They charged me $35 for the five minutes it took to do a little paper work and poke the needle in my arm. The nice older couple next in line had different insurance coverage; they had to pony up $74 for one shot.
I now know that if your insurance does not cover the entire cost of a vaccination, both the vaccine and administering it, you will be wise to shop around to find out what various providers will charge to give you the needle. That cost can vary considerably from one place to another.
The recently enacted reforms in health care insurance may eliminate the discrepancies. New regulations will be coming to require all insurers to cover vaccinations. But until the new procedures are established and debugged, it would be smart to read the fine print in your policy and if need be go shopping for a low-cost drug dispenser before signing up for shots.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
A Tissue Issue
Our new home has two bathrooms. They were designed to be very different and thus they have distinctive fixtures. Usually, however, both provide identical basic services.
Last week, we thought the bath near the guest bedroom was being visited by extra-terrestrial beings. Every time anyone reeled out a few sheets of “Quilted Northern,” our favorite tissue, for a bottom cleanup the roll fell out of the dispenser onto the floor--every time. This had never happened before, and it was not happening in the other bathroom.
Yesterday as Sandy planned a shopping foray to replenish supplies, we launched a full-scale investigation into the tissue issue. The dispenser that continued to function normally is a common type where, at roll changing time, one removes a metal cylinder, inserts it in a tissue roll, and returns both to the fixture. In the “haunted” bath, a more modernistic dispenser has no cylinder. Two “ears” retract when the core of an old roll is removed. They spring back out, and you just pop the new roll into place.
We had nine rolls of “Quilted Northern” in the cabinet under the sink. They all exactly matched the one that unknown forces kept bouncing onto the floor. All ten rolls were a half inch narrower than the one in the other bath! We found a slightly older package in our storage room. Sure enough, below all the glitzy, colorful advertising on the package was some finer print proving that the company had started selling less paper for the same price by reducing the width of each roll by a half inch.
We made a brief inspection of products on supermarket shelves. Every major manufacturer represented there had gone to narrower rolls. One cleverly hid the change by reversing the measurement information on the package. Another baffled shoppers by showing the dimensions in metrics incomprehensible to most Americans. Georgia-Pacific, maker of "Quilted Northern," told me in an e-mail that they also have reduced roll counts "by a few sheets" to keep costs down. I hadn't noticed that until they fessed up.
We know the pulp and paper industry has suffered more than most lately as it experienced steep declines in demand from publishers plus general effects of the Great Recession. We support the industry. Having it as a wood buyer is a big plus for sound forest management in many places. Good forestry benefits the environment, and a good environment benefits everyone. However, the mercenary action by tissue producers to provide less for the same price seemed a bit of an underhanded swipe (pardon that pun) at loyal customers like us.
We still like “Quilted Northern.” We just can’t use it in the guest bath unless we want to tear out a dispenser that matches the decor and replace it with one having lesser esthetic appeal.
If we decide to invest in dispenser replacement, we might have to make an even less desirable adjustment. We could have to face the rigors of strict diets, and even some targeted exercise, to reduce the size of our bums. Smaller posteriors may be required if we are to keep our household supply budget sustainable despite higher costs per square foot of toilet paper.
Or, we could abandon “Quilted Northern” and go to coarser, and therefore cheaper, wide stuff. We’re not going that route. Some things are just too important to be constrained by financial considerations. On this issue, comfort is paramount.
Our new home has two bathrooms. They were designed to be very different and thus they have distinctive fixtures. Usually, however, both provide identical basic services.
Last week, we thought the bath near the guest bedroom was being visited by extra-terrestrial beings. Every time anyone reeled out a few sheets of “Quilted Northern,” our favorite tissue, for a bottom cleanup the roll fell out of the dispenser onto the floor--every time. This had never happened before, and it was not happening in the other bathroom.
Yesterday as Sandy planned a shopping foray to replenish supplies, we launched a full-scale investigation into the tissue issue. The dispenser that continued to function normally is a common type where, at roll changing time, one removes a metal cylinder, inserts it in a tissue roll, and returns both to the fixture. In the “haunted” bath, a more modernistic dispenser has no cylinder. Two “ears” retract when the core of an old roll is removed. They spring back out, and you just pop the new roll into place.
We had nine rolls of “Quilted Northern” in the cabinet under the sink. They all exactly matched the one that unknown forces kept bouncing onto the floor. All ten rolls were a half inch narrower than the one in the other bath! We found a slightly older package in our storage room. Sure enough, below all the glitzy, colorful advertising on the package was some finer print proving that the company had started selling less paper for the same price by reducing the width of each roll by a half inch.
We made a brief inspection of products on supermarket shelves. Every major manufacturer represented there had gone to narrower rolls. One cleverly hid the change by reversing the measurement information on the package. Another baffled shoppers by showing the dimensions in metrics incomprehensible to most Americans. Georgia-Pacific, maker of "Quilted Northern," told me in an e-mail that they also have reduced roll counts "by a few sheets" to keep costs down. I hadn't noticed that until they fessed up.
We know the pulp and paper industry has suffered more than most lately as it experienced steep declines in demand from publishers plus general effects of the Great Recession. We support the industry. Having it as a wood buyer is a big plus for sound forest management in many places. Good forestry benefits the environment, and a good environment benefits everyone. However, the mercenary action by tissue producers to provide less for the same price seemed a bit of an underhanded swipe (pardon that pun) at loyal customers like us.
We still like “Quilted Northern.” We just can’t use it in the guest bath unless we want to tear out a dispenser that matches the decor and replace it with one having lesser esthetic appeal.
If we decide to invest in dispenser replacement, we might have to make an even less desirable adjustment. We could have to face the rigors of strict diets, and even some targeted exercise, to reduce the size of our bums. Smaller posteriors may be required if we are to keep our household supply budget sustainable despite higher costs per square foot of toilet paper.
Or, we could abandon “Quilted Northern” and go to coarser, and therefore cheaper, wide stuff. We’re not going that route. Some things are just too important to be constrained by financial considerations. On this issue, comfort is paramount.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Wofford, Wonderful
Who would have thought teams representing those two evenly matched collegiate athletic powerhouses, Wofford College (enrollment 1,400) and the University of Wisconsin (enrollment 40,000), would clash twice in the same school year?
The first game, a disgusting example of greed-based football scheduling, was a blowout Badger win as expected (see 9/20/09 post, “Wofford, Woeful"). The Terriers pocketed a bunch of cash and took their bruised bodies and egos back to Spartanburg, SC. There was no glory in it for either school.
This week was a different story.
NCAA handicappers arranged the meeting of the two mighty Ws in the opening round of the "March Madness" basketball tournament. Wofford hung in there throughout the contest, actually led by a point in the second half, and finally lost by a mere four points.
This time, no one had anything to be ashamed of.
Who would have thought teams representing those two evenly matched collegiate athletic powerhouses, Wofford College (enrollment 1,400) and the University of Wisconsin (enrollment 40,000), would clash twice in the same school year?
The first game, a disgusting example of greed-based football scheduling, was a blowout Badger win as expected (see 9/20/09 post, “Wofford, Woeful"). The Terriers pocketed a bunch of cash and took their bruised bodies and egos back to Spartanburg, SC. There was no glory in it for either school.
This week was a different story.
NCAA handicappers arranged the meeting of the two mighty Ws in the opening round of the "March Madness" basketball tournament. Wofford hung in there throughout the contest, actually led by a point in the second half, and finally lost by a mere four points.
This time, no one had anything to be ashamed of.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Hoods in Our Hood
When I was a youth, we country bumpkins who lived on the edge of “the great north woods” in central Wisconsin had a special relationship with city slickers from Chicago. They liked to visit us to escape the sultry summer heat of the big city. We liked their money.
Aside from coveted jobs at the local paper mill, employment opportunities were few in Tomahawk, Wisconsin. The Tomahawk Boat Company, which morphed into a Harley-Davidson plant many years later, was just starting up. Other manufacturing operations also were small.
Summer tourism took up the slack. Some forty resorts were within a few miles of Tomahawk. Many were Mom and Pop operations. Most had a main building and cabins for guests. A lot of the guests hailed from Chicagoland; many came back year after year to the same establishment for a week or two of fishing or just relaxing and being pampered on the shore of a lake or river.
We catered to the cash. A large billboard on main street proudly proclaimed Jim’s Logging Camp, a steakhouse north of town, to be “The Antoines of the North,” referring to a famous New Orleans eatery. A line of cars with Illinois plates, many of them Cadillacs and Lincolns, filled the parking lot outside Jim’s most summer evenings. With few exceptions, Tomahawk natives drove Fords and Chevys. We worked at places like Jim’s; we ate at Rouman’s Restaurant, Arnie's Grill, or Gene’s Snack Shack if we ate out at all.
Of course, the higher class resorts provided bonus jobs each spring as they spruced up their places anticipating the coming of the Chicagoans. We made several, more subtle, adjustments. I worked part-time at the National Tea store, a food market on main street. Not so strangely, the manager appeared with revised price sheets the same week Chicago public schools closed for summer vacation. Every price went up about 10 per cent. Just after Labor Day signaled the end of summer vacation time, new sheets appeared again. Every price went down about 10 per cent.
We endured a few indignities to get the greenbacks. One was sometimes blatant disregard for local regulations, exemplified by “Chicago U-Turns” on main street. These mid-block course corrections were illegal and unsafe maneuvers usually ignored by our tiny police force, but definitely not appreciated by us locals. Although we were on good terms personally with most tourists, we couldn't help but overhear remarks from others about the inadequacy of our small-town life compared to their superior existences in the big city area.
As a form of payback, we took satisfaction in keeping quiet, other than snickering a bit, about the line of tourists fishing from the Fourth Street Bridge. Just a few yards upstream the city’s untreated sewage splashed into the Wisconsin River. We speculated about how the uninformed anglers liked the taste of their catches. We just laughed there. We did not fish there.
We absolutely did not make any joking remarks about anything associated with one type of tourist. Those were the guys who drove to northern Wisconsin to escape a different kind of Chicago heat. Stories abounded about visits by mobsters, including the infamous John Dillinger portrayed so expertly by Johnny Depp in the 2009 film “Public Enemies.” Were the tales myths or facts?
Nelson headed north.--I several times heard Oscar Newborg’s account of the day he spotted George “Baby Face” Nelson driving through town on main street (part of the Highway 51 route at the time). Newborg said he jumped in his car and followed Nelson to learn where he was going. He soon thought better of getting too close to the notorious robber and murderer, and stopped at the Midget Supper Club a few miles north of the city. Nelson continued north. Newborg returned to Tomahawk and phoned police.
Oscar Newborg was a respected businessman and civic leader. He owned a clothing store, was an assistant chief of the volunteer fire department, was a past-Master of the Masonic Lodge, served on the school board for several years, and was an active member of the Grace Lutheran Church. I knew him very well; he was one of the few adults who allowed friends of his sons to address him by his first name. I never knew him to invent stories, lie about anything, or even exaggerate any situation he was involved with. Before parking meters were installed late in the 1940s, Newborg always parked his Chevy in front of his store. It is quite possible that he could have seen Nelson, who had a well-publicized distinctive appearance, driving by and had time to hop into his car and follow the outlaw.
Was Nelson heading to Little Bohemia Lodge at Manitowish Waters? That’s 55 miles straight up Highway 51 from Tomahawk. There in April of 1934, FBI agents surprised him and other members of the Dillinger gang. The G-men shot up just about everything at Little Bohemia, except for the gangsters. All the crooks escaped. The “Public Enemies” filmmakers used some literary license to alter history in their version. The movie shows Nelson being killed as he tried to get away. He actually was shot dead months later by lawmen in Illinois.
Was Nelson heading to a resort much nearer my hometown when Newborg spotted him? Or, was he going to Little Bohemia on a different occasion? He could have been.
Money makers relaxed at the lake.--I heard a story about a gang of counterfeiters vacationing near Tomahawk from two reputable people. The yarn said the group rented a cottage on Clear Lake and stayed for several weeks in the 1940s. One version claimed they were arrested there by federal agents and the printing plates were in their possession at the time; the other said they left peacefully and were arrested later in Illinois.
Mrs. J. S. Griffith, who owned Essex Lodge on Clear Lake for many years, was one source of the story. Her reliability as a witness was enhanced by the fact that she never took a drink. She was a member of our Christian Science Society, and a steadfast foe of alcohol use. Ads for her resort proudly proclaimed that no liquor was allowed on the premises. Mrs. Griffith told the counterfeiter story in detail on several visits to our home.
One summer before my teen years, Mrs. Willis Osborne, wife of one of the co-publishers of the Tomahawk Leader, invited my mother, my sister, and me to spend a week at the Osborne cottage on Clear Lake. “Aunt Lutie,” like Oscar Newborg and Mrs. Griffith, was a very reliable person. I remember my mother asking her if there was any truth to the counterfeiter story.
“Darn right they were at the lake,” Mrs. Osborne said. “They stayed just a couple of cabins over from here. I saw them walking around several times. Bill told me to steer clear of them.”
Dillinger gassed up.--John Dillinger’s bold bank heists and amazing escapes from the law were prominent in the news across America in the early 1930s. His face appeared in many newspaper photos as well as on wanted posters.
A night gas station attendant, Cliff Miller, claimed he filled ‘er up for Dillinger in Tomahawk. He just didn’t know it at the moment he pumped the gas. The next day, Miller picked up a newspaper with a front-page headline announcing Dillinger was on the loose in northern Wisconsin. Miller maintained that the photo with the story was without a doubt a picture of his late-night customer. Miller was working at the first Hufschmid station on Tomahawk Avenue, part of the old Highway 51 route through the city. The story became part of Hufschmid family lore.
Dick Hufschmid, who told me the tale, says Miller was a family friend as well as an employee at times. Hufschmid believes the story is true. It is quite possible that Miller saw Dillinger in Tomahawk. If Dillinger was on the way to Manitowish Waters, his most direct route was through Tomahawk. So we can be quite sure he passed through the city at least once, when he drove to Little Bohemia for vacation time with Nelson, several other gang members, and their girl friends—the time the FBI spoiled the party.
In those days, service station attendants got a fair amount of face time with customers as they cleaned windshields, asked if they could check the oil, and made change for cash payments. Tomahawk was not a busy place at night. Chances were good that Miller would remember the appearance of a stranger who drove in during the wee hours.
However, learning Dillinger’s identity from the newspaper photo casts some doubt on the possibility that the gangster was heading for Little Bohemia the night Miller claimed he serviced his car. The FBI agents acted on a tip and kept their operation quiet as they traveled to Little Bohemia to corner the gangsters. The fact that Dillinger was in northern Wisconsin was not leaked to the press in any historical account I know of.
Could Dillinger have been heading somewhere else north of Tomahawk when Miller saw him? Or, could he have gone to Little Bohemia on more than one occasion? Possibly.
Smoke rose in the hills.--My father told me to be careful hiking around in the Harrison Hills east of Tomahawk. “If you see smoke rising from the woods, stay away from it,” he said. “Those Dutchmen make moonshine out there, and stills make smoke. Moonshiners protect their stills, and some of those guys are pretty good shots. Just stay away from smoke plumes.”
Dad’s statement could have been more myth than truth in the late 1940s, but 10 or 15 years earlier it would have been absolute truth. A Harrison history based largely on recorded interviews with residents and several newspaper articles provide detailed accounts of liquor distilling and beer brewing operations in the Harrison Hills during Prohibition years. It was big-time work. The headline in the pertinent history chapter reads: “Harrison supplies Capone with alcohol.”
Names of owners of several small stills are recorded. Many of the names are familiar; I went to high school with their children or grandchildren. At least two operations qualified as full-fledged distilleries. When State agents raided one in 1936, they found production equipment capable of processing 1,000 gallons of booze a day, including an 80-foot-tall vat column, two steam pumps, and a 125-horsepower boiler.
The Harrison history provides details of how Al Capone developed large-scale bootlegging in the area. He selected 160 acres of fallow farmland that had several buildings and three entrance roads. A fake oil-drilling rig was set up to mask the operation. Large quantities of supplies were sent from Chicago by devious methods and many barrels of liquor were shipped to a big barn near Chicago.
Trusted Capone men performed most operations at the distillery. Only two local men were employed permanently. One, Ary Amelse, was shot in the leg during a raid by a local law enforcement task force that closed down the operation in 1927.
The raiders dumped 1,200 gallons of 190-proof alcohol and 15,000 gallons of mash into a nearby creek. An old timer recalled that local farmers were angry. They claimed their cows get drunk at the creek, causing their milk production to go down!
Mobsters were captured.--The Harrison history says “it is a possibility” that “Big Joe” Saltis, leader of a large Chicago beer-running operation, had a connection to the Capone operation in the hills. Whatever the truth of that, Saltis definitely spent some time in the Tomahawk area.
Saltis, Frank “Lefty” Koncil, “Three-Fingered Pete” Kacsinsky, and Nick Kramer, all hardened criminals, “vacationed “ in a cottage on Half Moon Lake for nearly a month. Posing as wealthy tourists, they rented the place from Patrick Stone. Ten men hand-picked from Chicago detective and patrol squads arrested all four in a surprise foray into the north.
Koncil was nabbed in downtown Tomahawk sitting in a Cadillac sedan as Kramer tried to make a phone call to Chicago from the hotel. Saltis and Kacsinsky were arrested at the Stone cottage. Incidentally, Half Moon Lake is adjacent to Clear Lake, and the two for a time were linked by a canal. This relatively small area, only about four miles from Tomahawk, appears to have had some special attraction as a vacation spot for mobsters during and after Prohibition.
Saltis and Koncil were charged with murdering a rival mobster. When task force members got them back to Chicago via the “fisherman’s special” train on the Milwaukee Road line, the prosecutor said he was determined to see them hanged. That didn’t happen, but seven months after his arrest in Tomahawk Koncil was gunned down in a gang attack on the west side of Chicago.
The four criminals did their part to uphold the tradition of providing Chicago financial support for northern Wisconsinites. One newspaper account said the farmers around Half Moon Lake liked the group because they threw lots of cash around when buying supplies. Farm women reported the gangsters spent as much as a dollar for a quart of milk, a price several times higher than the locals would pay. When Saltis was arrested, he had $2,710 in his pockets, a tidy sum at the time.
Rumors flew about Phil's.--One gangster rumor floated around Tomahawk during all the years I lived there. It was said that Phil Kilinski was dispatched by Chicago mobsters to build Phil’s Lake Nokomis Resort north of Tomahawk so the bad guys would have a comfortable place to hide out when necessary.
My parents emphasized to me that this was just a rumor, and I should not be repeating it to others or raising questions about it. My parents were good people. One reason for their admonition was that Phil Kilinski, Jr. was in high school during my sister’s years there and Arlene Kilinski was a classmate of mine. Mom and Dad didn’t want us contributing to any embarrassment for the Kilinski family.
The Kilinskis came to Tomahawk for school, church, and occasional shopping. They didn’t hang around much in the city. They seemed to hurry back to the resort, six miles north, soon after whatever event brought them to town. There was nothing sinister about that. Many resort owners operated that way. I was quite well acquainted with Arlene, and considered her a friend. I don’t remember anyone bringing up any possible mob connections in talks with her, and she certainly did not mention any.
However, Phil’s Resort was set a fair distance back from Highway 51 in a rather secluded area. Large picture windows in the substantial main building provided great views of Lake Nokomis. Guest cabins appeared to be larger than most at area resorts. A considerable investment would have been necessary to acquire the site and build the place. A unique feature was a gas station designed to resemble a windmill at the entrance road on the highway. It seemed an unusual place to build a gas station. A phone call from it would have been a perfect early warning that unwanted visitors were approaching the resort.
I rarely heard of locals frequenting the bar or the dining room at Phil’s. However, during my high school years Phil Jr. bought an airplane equipped with pontoons and offered aerial tours to the public from a takeoff spot on the lake in front of the main building. This was hardly something that would be advertised by operators of a mob hideout where privacy was at a premium.
Kilinskis no longer own the resort, but it continues to operate—now as Bootleggers Supper Club. A current ad for the club on the Internet says this:
“Bootleggers Supper Club is located on Lake Nokomis in Tomahawk, WI. The original building was built in 1928 and was used during Prohibition for mobsters. It is rumored that several famous gangsters including Capone and Dillinger used Bootleggers (then known as Phil’s Resort) as their hideout.”
Phil Kilinski was born in 1899, making him 29 or 30 when the resort was built. That would be about the right age for a trustworthy and presumably energetic young man to be sent north to develop a fairly large enterprise. However, building a safe haven in 1928 does not fit with the start of Capone’s well-documented bootlegging activities in the nearby Harrison area. They began earlier and ended in 1927. And the Harrison history presents no claim that Capone every visited the area, only that he bankrolled and masterminded the major bootlegging operation there.
And, why would Dillinger have been buying gas in Tomahawk when just a few more miles up the road he could have used a station at Phil’s place that he knew to be in friendly hands? And why would both he and Nelson feel the need to go to Manitowish Waters for vacation time, if an equal or better, and more secure, facility was available 55 miles closer to home? After all, they were betrayed by the Little Bohemia owner’s wife. Had they or their friends sent Phil to build a hideout, they surely would have been able to trust him completely. So why not party there?
Another report casts doubt on the mob connection at Phil’s, and also on separate sightings of Dillinger and Nelson in Tomahawk. The Harrison history says Elsie Theilman “vividly recollects” Dillinger, Nelson, and two other men stopping at Theilman’s saloon near Tomahawk. She said they were hard up for money and begged for a loan, but she refused. She gave in when they offered their elegant watches as collateral, and assured her they would return soon to repay her. Theilman said they then headed for Little Bohemia, although she does not say the men specifically told her where they were going.
Mrs. Theilman had evidence to authenticate her story. The men never returned, and she still had their watches when she granted the interview in 1995. If the mobsters were traveling together to Little Bohemia as her story suggests, why did Newborg and Miller see Nelson and Dillinger separately on their way through Tomahawk at quite different times of the day? Could they have been going to Little Bohemia or elsewhere on trips separate from the one that precipitated the famous FBI shootout at Little Bohemia?
Arlene Kilinski graciously arranged for the fifth reunion of our high school class to be held at Phil’s Lake Nokomis Resort. Her parents were present and helped make the event a pleasurable evening. I didn’t see a shred of evidence of criminal activity.
Did high-profile Chicago mobsters visit and sometimes stay in my home area? Absolutely. Just when and exactly where in many cases may remain forever mysterious.
Thanks to Richard Hufschmid for providing material for this post, and to his sister, Elaine Koth. Elaine volunteers at the Tomahawk Historical Society. She kindly sent me a copy of a chapter from“The Harrison History: Over 100 Years of Logging, Farming, and Bootlegging” and copies of newspaper articles from the 1930s.
Aside from coveted jobs at the local paper mill, employment opportunities were few in Tomahawk, Wisconsin. The Tomahawk Boat Company, which morphed into a Harley-Davidson plant many years later, was just starting up. Other manufacturing operations also were small.
Summer tourism took up the slack. Some forty resorts were within a few miles of Tomahawk. Many were Mom and Pop operations. Most had a main building and cabins for guests. A lot of the guests hailed from Chicagoland; many came back year after year to the same establishment for a week or two of fishing or just relaxing and being pampered on the shore of a lake or river.
We catered to the cash. A large billboard on main street proudly proclaimed Jim’s Logging Camp, a steakhouse north of town, to be “The Antoines of the North,” referring to a famous New Orleans eatery. A line of cars with Illinois plates, many of them Cadillacs and Lincolns, filled the parking lot outside Jim’s most summer evenings. With few exceptions, Tomahawk natives drove Fords and Chevys. We worked at places like Jim’s; we ate at Rouman’s Restaurant, Arnie's Grill, or Gene’s Snack Shack if we ate out at all.
Of course, the higher class resorts provided bonus jobs each spring as they spruced up their places anticipating the coming of the Chicagoans. We made several, more subtle, adjustments. I worked part-time at the National Tea store, a food market on main street. Not so strangely, the manager appeared with revised price sheets the same week Chicago public schools closed for summer vacation. Every price went up about 10 per cent. Just after Labor Day signaled the end of summer vacation time, new sheets appeared again. Every price went down about 10 per cent.
We endured a few indignities to get the greenbacks. One was sometimes blatant disregard for local regulations, exemplified by “Chicago U-Turns” on main street. These mid-block course corrections were illegal and unsafe maneuvers usually ignored by our tiny police force, but definitely not appreciated by us locals. Although we were on good terms personally with most tourists, we couldn't help but overhear remarks from others about the inadequacy of our small-town life compared to their superior existences in the big city area.
As a form of payback, we took satisfaction in keeping quiet, other than snickering a bit, about the line of tourists fishing from the Fourth Street Bridge. Just a few yards upstream the city’s untreated sewage splashed into the Wisconsin River. We speculated about how the uninformed anglers liked the taste of their catches. We just laughed there. We did not fish there.
We absolutely did not make any joking remarks about anything associated with one type of tourist. Those were the guys who drove to northern Wisconsin to escape a different kind of Chicago heat. Stories abounded about visits by mobsters, including the infamous John Dillinger portrayed so expertly by Johnny Depp in the 2009 film “Public Enemies.” Were the tales myths or facts?
Nelson headed north.--I several times heard Oscar Newborg’s account of the day he spotted George “Baby Face” Nelson driving through town on main street (part of the Highway 51 route at the time). Newborg said he jumped in his car and followed Nelson to learn where he was going. He soon thought better of getting too close to the notorious robber and murderer, and stopped at the Midget Supper Club a few miles north of the city. Nelson continued north. Newborg returned to Tomahawk and phoned police.
Oscar Newborg was a respected businessman and civic leader. He owned a clothing store, was an assistant chief of the volunteer fire department, was a past-Master of the Masonic Lodge, served on the school board for several years, and was an active member of the Grace Lutheran Church. I knew him very well; he was one of the few adults who allowed friends of his sons to address him by his first name. I never knew him to invent stories, lie about anything, or even exaggerate any situation he was involved with. Before parking meters were installed late in the 1940s, Newborg always parked his Chevy in front of his store. It is quite possible that he could have seen Nelson, who had a well-publicized distinctive appearance, driving by and had time to hop into his car and follow the outlaw.
Was Nelson heading to Little Bohemia Lodge at Manitowish Waters? That’s 55 miles straight up Highway 51 from Tomahawk. There in April of 1934, FBI agents surprised him and other members of the Dillinger gang. The G-men shot up just about everything at Little Bohemia, except for the gangsters. All the crooks escaped. The “Public Enemies” filmmakers used some literary license to alter history in their version. The movie shows Nelson being killed as he tried to get away. He actually was shot dead months later by lawmen in Illinois.
Was Nelson heading to a resort much nearer my hometown when Newborg spotted him? Or, was he going to Little Bohemia on a different occasion? He could have been.
Money makers relaxed at the lake.--I heard a story about a gang of counterfeiters vacationing near Tomahawk from two reputable people. The yarn said the group rented a cottage on Clear Lake and stayed for several weeks in the 1940s. One version claimed they were arrested there by federal agents and the printing plates were in their possession at the time; the other said they left peacefully and were arrested later in Illinois.
Mrs. J. S. Griffith, who owned Essex Lodge on Clear Lake for many years, was one source of the story. Her reliability as a witness was enhanced by the fact that she never took a drink. She was a member of our Christian Science Society, and a steadfast foe of alcohol use. Ads for her resort proudly proclaimed that no liquor was allowed on the premises. Mrs. Griffith told the counterfeiter story in detail on several visits to our home.
One summer before my teen years, Mrs. Willis Osborne, wife of one of the co-publishers of the Tomahawk Leader, invited my mother, my sister, and me to spend a week at the Osborne cottage on Clear Lake. “Aunt Lutie,” like Oscar Newborg and Mrs. Griffith, was a very reliable person. I remember my mother asking her if there was any truth to the counterfeiter story.
“Darn right they were at the lake,” Mrs. Osborne said. “They stayed just a couple of cabins over from here. I saw them walking around several times. Bill told me to steer clear of them.”
Dillinger gassed up.--John Dillinger’s bold bank heists and amazing escapes from the law were prominent in the news across America in the early 1930s. His face appeared in many newspaper photos as well as on wanted posters.
A night gas station attendant, Cliff Miller, claimed he filled ‘er up for Dillinger in Tomahawk. He just didn’t know it at the moment he pumped the gas. The next day, Miller picked up a newspaper with a front-page headline announcing Dillinger was on the loose in northern Wisconsin. Miller maintained that the photo with the story was without a doubt a picture of his late-night customer. Miller was working at the first Hufschmid station on Tomahawk Avenue, part of the old Highway 51 route through the city. The story became part of Hufschmid family lore.
Dick Hufschmid, who told me the tale, says Miller was a family friend as well as an employee at times. Hufschmid believes the story is true. It is quite possible that Miller saw Dillinger in Tomahawk. If Dillinger was on the way to Manitowish Waters, his most direct route was through Tomahawk. So we can be quite sure he passed through the city at least once, when he drove to Little Bohemia for vacation time with Nelson, several other gang members, and their girl friends—the time the FBI spoiled the party.
In those days, service station attendants got a fair amount of face time with customers as they cleaned windshields, asked if they could check the oil, and made change for cash payments. Tomahawk was not a busy place at night. Chances were good that Miller would remember the appearance of a stranger who drove in during the wee hours.
However, learning Dillinger’s identity from the newspaper photo casts some doubt on the possibility that the gangster was heading for Little Bohemia the night Miller claimed he serviced his car. The FBI agents acted on a tip and kept their operation quiet as they traveled to Little Bohemia to corner the gangsters. The fact that Dillinger was in northern Wisconsin was not leaked to the press in any historical account I know of.
Could Dillinger have been heading somewhere else north of Tomahawk when Miller saw him? Or, could he have gone to Little Bohemia on more than one occasion? Possibly.
Smoke rose in the hills.--My father told me to be careful hiking around in the Harrison Hills east of Tomahawk. “If you see smoke rising from the woods, stay away from it,” he said. “Those Dutchmen make moonshine out there, and stills make smoke. Moonshiners protect their stills, and some of those guys are pretty good shots. Just stay away from smoke plumes.”
Dad’s statement could have been more myth than truth in the late 1940s, but 10 or 15 years earlier it would have been absolute truth. A Harrison history based largely on recorded interviews with residents and several newspaper articles provide detailed accounts of liquor distilling and beer brewing operations in the Harrison Hills during Prohibition years. It was big-time work. The headline in the pertinent history chapter reads: “Harrison supplies Capone with alcohol.”
Names of owners of several small stills are recorded. Many of the names are familiar; I went to high school with their children or grandchildren. At least two operations qualified as full-fledged distilleries. When State agents raided one in 1936, they found production equipment capable of processing 1,000 gallons of booze a day, including an 80-foot-tall vat column, two steam pumps, and a 125-horsepower boiler.
The Harrison history provides details of how Al Capone developed large-scale bootlegging in the area. He selected 160 acres of fallow farmland that had several buildings and three entrance roads. A fake oil-drilling rig was set up to mask the operation. Large quantities of supplies were sent from Chicago by devious methods and many barrels of liquor were shipped to a big barn near Chicago.
Trusted Capone men performed most operations at the distillery. Only two local men were employed permanently. One, Ary Amelse, was shot in the leg during a raid by a local law enforcement task force that closed down the operation in 1927.
The raiders dumped 1,200 gallons of 190-proof alcohol and 15,000 gallons of mash into a nearby creek. An old timer recalled that local farmers were angry. They claimed their cows get drunk at the creek, causing their milk production to go down!
Mobsters were captured.--The Harrison history says “it is a possibility” that “Big Joe” Saltis, leader of a large Chicago beer-running operation, had a connection to the Capone operation in the hills. Whatever the truth of that, Saltis definitely spent some time in the Tomahawk area.
Saltis, Frank “Lefty” Koncil, “Three-Fingered Pete” Kacsinsky, and Nick Kramer, all hardened criminals, “vacationed “ in a cottage on Half Moon Lake for nearly a month. Posing as wealthy tourists, they rented the place from Patrick Stone. Ten men hand-picked from Chicago detective and patrol squads arrested all four in a surprise foray into the north.
Koncil was nabbed in downtown Tomahawk sitting in a Cadillac sedan as Kramer tried to make a phone call to Chicago from the hotel. Saltis and Kacsinsky were arrested at the Stone cottage. Incidentally, Half Moon Lake is adjacent to Clear Lake, and the two for a time were linked by a canal. This relatively small area, only about four miles from Tomahawk, appears to have had some special attraction as a vacation spot for mobsters during and after Prohibition.
Saltis and Koncil were charged with murdering a rival mobster. When task force members got them back to Chicago via the “fisherman’s special” train on the Milwaukee Road line, the prosecutor said he was determined to see them hanged. That didn’t happen, but seven months after his arrest in Tomahawk Koncil was gunned down in a gang attack on the west side of Chicago.
The four criminals did their part to uphold the tradition of providing Chicago financial support for northern Wisconsinites. One newspaper account said the farmers around Half Moon Lake liked the group because they threw lots of cash around when buying supplies. Farm women reported the gangsters spent as much as a dollar for a quart of milk, a price several times higher than the locals would pay. When Saltis was arrested, he had $2,710 in his pockets, a tidy sum at the time.
Rumors flew about Phil's.--One gangster rumor floated around Tomahawk during all the years I lived there. It was said that Phil Kilinski was dispatched by Chicago mobsters to build Phil’s Lake Nokomis Resort north of Tomahawk so the bad guys would have a comfortable place to hide out when necessary.
My parents emphasized to me that this was just a rumor, and I should not be repeating it to others or raising questions about it. My parents were good people. One reason for their admonition was that Phil Kilinski, Jr. was in high school during my sister’s years there and Arlene Kilinski was a classmate of mine. Mom and Dad didn’t want us contributing to any embarrassment for the Kilinski family.
The Kilinskis came to Tomahawk for school, church, and occasional shopping. They didn’t hang around much in the city. They seemed to hurry back to the resort, six miles north, soon after whatever event brought them to town. There was nothing sinister about that. Many resort owners operated that way. I was quite well acquainted with Arlene, and considered her a friend. I don’t remember anyone bringing up any possible mob connections in talks with her, and she certainly did not mention any.
However, Phil’s Resort was set a fair distance back from Highway 51 in a rather secluded area. Large picture windows in the substantial main building provided great views of Lake Nokomis. Guest cabins appeared to be larger than most at area resorts. A considerable investment would have been necessary to acquire the site and build the place. A unique feature was a gas station designed to resemble a windmill at the entrance road on the highway. It seemed an unusual place to build a gas station. A phone call from it would have been a perfect early warning that unwanted visitors were approaching the resort.
I rarely heard of locals frequenting the bar or the dining room at Phil’s. However, during my high school years Phil Jr. bought an airplane equipped with pontoons and offered aerial tours to the public from a takeoff spot on the lake in front of the main building. This was hardly something that would be advertised by operators of a mob hideout where privacy was at a premium.
Kilinskis no longer own the resort, but it continues to operate—now as Bootleggers Supper Club. A current ad for the club on the Internet says this:
“Bootleggers Supper Club is located on Lake Nokomis in Tomahawk, WI. The original building was built in 1928 and was used during Prohibition for mobsters. It is rumored that several famous gangsters including Capone and Dillinger used Bootleggers (then known as Phil’s Resort) as their hideout.”
Phil Kilinski was born in 1899, making him 29 or 30 when the resort was built. That would be about the right age for a trustworthy and presumably energetic young man to be sent north to develop a fairly large enterprise. However, building a safe haven in 1928 does not fit with the start of Capone’s well-documented bootlegging activities in the nearby Harrison area. They began earlier and ended in 1927. And the Harrison history presents no claim that Capone every visited the area, only that he bankrolled and masterminded the major bootlegging operation there.
And, why would Dillinger have been buying gas in Tomahawk when just a few more miles up the road he could have used a station at Phil’s place that he knew to be in friendly hands? And why would both he and Nelson feel the need to go to Manitowish Waters for vacation time, if an equal or better, and more secure, facility was available 55 miles closer to home? After all, they were betrayed by the Little Bohemia owner’s wife. Had they or their friends sent Phil to build a hideout, they surely would have been able to trust him completely. So why not party there?
Another report casts doubt on the mob connection at Phil’s, and also on separate sightings of Dillinger and Nelson in Tomahawk. The Harrison history says Elsie Theilman “vividly recollects” Dillinger, Nelson, and two other men stopping at Theilman’s saloon near Tomahawk. She said they were hard up for money and begged for a loan, but she refused. She gave in when they offered their elegant watches as collateral, and assured her they would return soon to repay her. Theilman said they then headed for Little Bohemia, although she does not say the men specifically told her where they were going.
Mrs. Theilman had evidence to authenticate her story. The men never returned, and she still had their watches when she granted the interview in 1995. If the mobsters were traveling together to Little Bohemia as her story suggests, why did Newborg and Miller see Nelson and Dillinger separately on their way through Tomahawk at quite different times of the day? Could they have been going to Little Bohemia or elsewhere on trips separate from the one that precipitated the famous FBI shootout at Little Bohemia?
Arlene Kilinski graciously arranged for the fifth reunion of our high school class to be held at Phil’s Lake Nokomis Resort. Her parents were present and helped make the event a pleasurable evening. I didn’t see a shred of evidence of criminal activity.
Did high-profile Chicago mobsters visit and sometimes stay in my home area? Absolutely. Just when and exactly where in many cases may remain forever mysterious.
Thanks to Richard Hufschmid for providing material for this post, and to his sister, Elaine Koth. Elaine volunteers at the Tomahawk Historical Society. She kindly sent me a copy of a chapter from“The Harrison History: Over 100 Years of Logging, Farming, and Bootlegging” and copies of newspaper articles from the 1930s.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Shape Up, Senators
A recent filibuster by Sen. Jim Bunning that for a time blocked an extension of unemployment benefits, medical payments to doctors, and work on major highway projects was a disgusting example of the nonsense going on in Washington, DC.
Just about everybody I know, liberal and conservative alike, is tired of government by power play and parliamentary trickery. Our constitution provides ample checks and balances to protect our legitimate interests. We don’t need a Senate procedure that in effect gives each individual member a veto. The constitution gives that power to the President, and if presidential vetoes are ill-used a sensible process is available to overturn them.
Bunning is a Republican, so of course Democrats skewered him. A few implied he was the worst obstructionist of all time, conveniently forgetting that members of their party used filibusters for decades to block civil rights progress. Bunning countered that he was merely standing up for a budgeting principle. Even some of Bunning’s fellow conservative Senators thought there were better ways to do that.
The filibuster is an archaic device that has no place in our government in the 21st century. Every single Senator--Republican, Democrat, and Independent--should man- or woman-up, take responsibility, and prevent any more of this outrageous disregard for the public trust they were elected to uphold. The Senate rules are what allow filibusters to take place. Who can change the Senate rules? Duh.
Following is an e-mail on the subject recently dispatched to both of my Senators. I’ve never written to a Senator or Congressman as a private citizen before, but I helped their staff people answer lots of constituent letters while working for the U.S. Forest Service. I know these messages get read, and sometimes are taken seriously. This may not be the greatest statement on the subject ever composed, but feel free to copy and use all or parts of it if you choose to urge your Senators to act.
.
+ + + + + + + +
Dear Sen. Stabenow:
I am outraged by Sen. Bunning’s recent filibuster. It is ridiculous that a single person can wield this sort of power in a democratic republic.
America needs a change in Senate rules to forbid filibusters. If we cannot accept majority decisions from a body of 100 men and women chosen by voters in their states, there is no rational reason to continue with representative government.
Will you take leadership action in pushing for a rules change to ban filibusters?
I hope the staffer who handles these messages will let you know that at least one constituent is serious about this situation and intends to try to convince others to protest. The answer to my question, which also was sent to Sen. Levin, will be a decider for me on whether I support or actively oppose you in future elections.
+ + + + + + + + +
A recent filibuster by Sen. Jim Bunning that for a time blocked an extension of unemployment benefits, medical payments to doctors, and work on major highway projects was a disgusting example of the nonsense going on in Washington, DC.
Just about everybody I know, liberal and conservative alike, is tired of government by power play and parliamentary trickery. Our constitution provides ample checks and balances to protect our legitimate interests. We don’t need a Senate procedure that in effect gives each individual member a veto. The constitution gives that power to the President, and if presidential vetoes are ill-used a sensible process is available to overturn them.
Bunning is a Republican, so of course Democrats skewered him. A few implied he was the worst obstructionist of all time, conveniently forgetting that members of their party used filibusters for decades to block civil rights progress. Bunning countered that he was merely standing up for a budgeting principle. Even some of Bunning’s fellow conservative Senators thought there were better ways to do that.
The filibuster is an archaic device that has no place in our government in the 21st century. Every single Senator--Republican, Democrat, and Independent--should man- or woman-up, take responsibility, and prevent any more of this outrageous disregard for the public trust they were elected to uphold. The Senate rules are what allow filibusters to take place. Who can change the Senate rules? Duh.
Following is an e-mail on the subject recently dispatched to both of my Senators. I’ve never written to a Senator or Congressman as a private citizen before, but I helped their staff people answer lots of constituent letters while working for the U.S. Forest Service. I know these messages get read, and sometimes are taken seriously. This may not be the greatest statement on the subject ever composed, but feel free to copy and use all or parts of it if you choose to urge your Senators to act.
.
+ + + + + + + +
Dear Sen. Stabenow:
I am outraged by Sen. Bunning’s recent filibuster. It is ridiculous that a single person can wield this sort of power in a democratic republic.
America needs a change in Senate rules to forbid filibusters. If we cannot accept majority decisions from a body of 100 men and women chosen by voters in their states, there is no rational reason to continue with representative government.
Will you take leadership action in pushing for a rules change to ban filibusters?
I hope the staffer who handles these messages will let you know that at least one constituent is serious about this situation and intends to try to convince others to protest. The answer to my question, which also was sent to Sen. Levin, will be a decider for me on whether I support or actively oppose you in future elections.
+ + + + + + + + +
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Bless ‘Em All
The men and women who give of their time to serve as volunteers or semi-volunteers in local government posts deserve our heartfelt thanks. Without their donated work, county and township services surely would be more expensive. Policies and decisions made by friends and neighbors, however, at times can be somewhat strange.
Michigan homeowners may appeal their real estate taxes every March. Sandy and I did that last March. We developed, we thought, a well-reasoned and documented case for reducing our total bill by 18 percent.
The strongest part of our argument was that we bought the property for 16 percent less than the assessed value. We didn’t know the sellers, and no financing games were played to artificially lower the price. We were eager to get a house in the neighborhood, and to be sure we had a deal we offered several thousand dollars more than the property was worth on the open market.
We had a congenial meeting with the township tax review board. All three gentlemen own homes near ours. They courteously listened to our presentation and looked over our documents. More heads nodded than shook as we stated our case. We were pleased with the meeting. We were confident a large tax reduction would result.
About a month later the verdict arrived by mail. It consisted of a curt statement and a checked box informing us that our home’s assessed value was correct and our appeal was denied. We were astonished.
Last week, township officials mailed a letter to us and every other homeowner announcing that assessed valuations had been reduced by 17 percent. We were amazed. Our local leaders must have had a property valuation epiphany.
The men and women who give of their time to serve as volunteers or semi-volunteers in local government posts deserve our heartfelt thanks. Without their donated work, county and township services surely would be more expensive. Policies and decisions made by friends and neighbors, however, at times can be somewhat strange.
Michigan homeowners may appeal their real estate taxes every March. Sandy and I did that last March. We developed, we thought, a well-reasoned and documented case for reducing our total bill by 18 percent.
The strongest part of our argument was that we bought the property for 16 percent less than the assessed value. We didn’t know the sellers, and no financing games were played to artificially lower the price. We were eager to get a house in the neighborhood, and to be sure we had a deal we offered several thousand dollars more than the property was worth on the open market.
We had a congenial meeting with the township tax review board. All three gentlemen own homes near ours. They courteously listened to our presentation and looked over our documents. More heads nodded than shook as we stated our case. We were pleased with the meeting. We were confident a large tax reduction would result.
About a month later the verdict arrived by mail. It consisted of a curt statement and a checked box informing us that our home’s assessed value was correct and our appeal was denied. We were astonished.
Last week, township officials mailed a letter to us and every other homeowner announcing that assessed valuations had been reduced by 17 percent. We were amazed. Our local leaders must have had a property valuation epiphany.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Progress with Pain
Dentists inflicted much pain on me during my youth (See October 1, 2009 Post, “Unintended Consequences”). My horrific encounters with drills and scraping instruments without the benefit of pain killers had a lasting effect. I am terrified by the prospect of visiting a dentist.
So when a routine exam revealed that one of my molars was in serious trouble and needed to be pulled, I was not a happy puppy. I even got a second opinion. It confirmed the diagnosis. I was referred to an oral surgeon for the work, which came as a surprise. More than a dozen of my teeth have been extracted over the years, and every one was yanked by a dentist as part of his general practice. I didn’t know things had progressed to the point where a family dentist would refer extraction work to a specialist.
I did know that a lot of progress has been made in dental techniques since the days of “Painless” Parker, who was sued for claiming in ads that his work was painless. Of special interest was knowing that painkillers are more effective today than they were 40 or 50 years ago.
Fifty three years ago my last remaining wisdom truth was in serious trouble. I didn’t need any professional opinions to realize it had to be pulled. A referral from members of the family who owned the weekly newspaper where I worked sent me to “the best guy in town.” Town was De Pere, Wisconsin.
The De Pere dentist shot me full of local anesthetic that numbed a big part of my lower jaw. He had to split the roots before he could get the tooth out. He did that with a couple of smart whacks with a hammer on a chisel. I thought the world was ending. But I survived the jolts, the tooth finally was gone, and I was more than ready to get out of there.
“Where are you going now?” the dentist asked.
“Back to work.”
“Oh, no, you’re not. When the novocaine wears off, you won’t want to go anywhere. Call your office and tell them you won’t be in today. Then stop at the liquor store and buy a half-pint of brandy. Go home. When the bleeding stops, get in bed and drink all the brandy.”
I followed the advice. After sleeping fitfully from mid-afternoon until the following morning, I made it to the office. Constant pain accompanied me through that work day. The pain diminished gradually, but it didn’t disappear for several days.
After that, I didn’t let a dentist touch me without first administering a dose of laughing gas (nitrous oxide) to provide something of a feel-good aspect to any work on my teeth. My favorite caper was to schedule dental work for late Friday afternoons. When I got home, still somewhat goofy from the gas, a single martini usually was sufficient to launch me flying a little high into a relatively painless weekend recovery period.
Sandy, our keeper of up-to-date medical knowledge, briefed me on oral surgeons before my recent appointment. She said they usually are very skilled and offer all sorts of ways to reduce pain. Included, in addition to modern local anesthetics (novocaine no longer is used), are the old reliable “laughing gas,” oral drugs, intravenous drugs, and even all-out anesthesia to render patients unconscious throughout the procedure.
Sandy insisted on driving me to the surgeon’s office. She assumed I would be “put under” when my aversion to pain became known. Her opinion got backing as we waited. An assistant came into the waiting room and instructed a man to drive around to the back of the building. She said his daughter’s extraction was complete, and she would bring the recovering girl to the rear exit and help get her into the car. I thought, “Aha, they do put you out. I’m going for that if there’s a choice.”
A different assistant read my medical history carefully, asked a few questions, and took my blood pressure. “That’s really good,” she said. “Any bad reactions to anesthetics?”
“Absolutely none,” I said. “What are the choices?”
“Looks like a routine extraction. We almost always just use local anesthetics for them. The doctor will numb you up real good.”
Perhaps puffed up into a state of mini-machismo by the compliment about my physical condition, I lost my wits for a moment and said, “OK.” In an instant, areas around my soon-to-be-missing tooth were swabbed with topical anesthetic to numb the surfaces. I don’t recall topicals being used 50 years ago. I do recall jabs with local anesthesia needles hurting something fierce.
J. Mark Domin, DDS, appeared with some comforting, and not so comforting, news. He said my extraction indeed appeared to be routine. I felt good about skipping the gas. He said roots would need to be split, and I could expect to hear a “rasping sound.” I felt less good about skipping the gas.
However, when Dr. Domin numbed me with the big needle, I didn’t feel much of anything. I felt absolutely no pain as he broke off an old crown, sawed (I think) through the remnants of the tooth, and pulled the pieces out. I was told taking a nonprescription painkiller would be a good idea before the anesthesia wore off. I was given a prescription for stronger stuff that could minimize pain for two or three days.
I took no pain killers. When the numbness wore off, there was no pain. Hours later, there was no pain. Days later, there was no pain. Wow! Dental science has made mighty strides toward greater patient comfort in the last half century.
But improved dental technology has at least one painful price. Prominent in the post-operative instructions sent home with me by the oral surgery staff were these words: “DO NOT USE ALCOHOL FOR ONE WEEK FOLLOWING SURGERY SINCE IT DELAYS HEALING.”
Now, that hurt!
Dentists inflicted much pain on me during my youth (See October 1, 2009 Post, “Unintended Consequences”). My horrific encounters with drills and scraping instruments without the benefit of pain killers had a lasting effect. I am terrified by the prospect of visiting a dentist.
So when a routine exam revealed that one of my molars was in serious trouble and needed to be pulled, I was not a happy puppy. I even got a second opinion. It confirmed the diagnosis. I was referred to an oral surgeon for the work, which came as a surprise. More than a dozen of my teeth have been extracted over the years, and every one was yanked by a dentist as part of his general practice. I didn’t know things had progressed to the point where a family dentist would refer extraction work to a specialist.
I did know that a lot of progress has been made in dental techniques since the days of “Painless” Parker, who was sued for claiming in ads that his work was painless. Of special interest was knowing that painkillers are more effective today than they were 40 or 50 years ago.
Fifty three years ago my last remaining wisdom truth was in serious trouble. I didn’t need any professional opinions to realize it had to be pulled. A referral from members of the family who owned the weekly newspaper where I worked sent me to “the best guy in town.” Town was De Pere, Wisconsin.
The De Pere dentist shot me full of local anesthetic that numbed a big part of my lower jaw. He had to split the roots before he could get the tooth out. He did that with a couple of smart whacks with a hammer on a chisel. I thought the world was ending. But I survived the jolts, the tooth finally was gone, and I was more than ready to get out of there.
“Where are you going now?” the dentist asked.
“Back to work.”
“Oh, no, you’re not. When the novocaine wears off, you won’t want to go anywhere. Call your office and tell them you won’t be in today. Then stop at the liquor store and buy a half-pint of brandy. Go home. When the bleeding stops, get in bed and drink all the brandy.”
I followed the advice. After sleeping fitfully from mid-afternoon until the following morning, I made it to the office. Constant pain accompanied me through that work day. The pain diminished gradually, but it didn’t disappear for several days.
After that, I didn’t let a dentist touch me without first administering a dose of laughing gas (nitrous oxide) to provide something of a feel-good aspect to any work on my teeth. My favorite caper was to schedule dental work for late Friday afternoons. When I got home, still somewhat goofy from the gas, a single martini usually was sufficient to launch me flying a little high into a relatively painless weekend recovery period.
Sandy, our keeper of up-to-date medical knowledge, briefed me on oral surgeons before my recent appointment. She said they usually are very skilled and offer all sorts of ways to reduce pain. Included, in addition to modern local anesthetics (novocaine no longer is used), are the old reliable “laughing gas,” oral drugs, intravenous drugs, and even all-out anesthesia to render patients unconscious throughout the procedure.
Sandy insisted on driving me to the surgeon’s office. She assumed I would be “put under” when my aversion to pain became known. Her opinion got backing as we waited. An assistant came into the waiting room and instructed a man to drive around to the back of the building. She said his daughter’s extraction was complete, and she would bring the recovering girl to the rear exit and help get her into the car. I thought, “Aha, they do put you out. I’m going for that if there’s a choice.”
A different assistant read my medical history carefully, asked a few questions, and took my blood pressure. “That’s really good,” she said. “Any bad reactions to anesthetics?”
“Absolutely none,” I said. “What are the choices?”
“Looks like a routine extraction. We almost always just use local anesthetics for them. The doctor will numb you up real good.”
Perhaps puffed up into a state of mini-machismo by the compliment about my physical condition, I lost my wits for a moment and said, “OK.” In an instant, areas around my soon-to-be-missing tooth were swabbed with topical anesthetic to numb the surfaces. I don’t recall topicals being used 50 years ago. I do recall jabs with local anesthesia needles hurting something fierce.
J. Mark Domin, DDS, appeared with some comforting, and not so comforting, news. He said my extraction indeed appeared to be routine. I felt good about skipping the gas. He said roots would need to be split, and I could expect to hear a “rasping sound.” I felt less good about skipping the gas.
However, when Dr. Domin numbed me with the big needle, I didn’t feel much of anything. I felt absolutely no pain as he broke off an old crown, sawed (I think) through the remnants of the tooth, and pulled the pieces out. I was told taking a nonprescription painkiller would be a good idea before the anesthesia wore off. I was given a prescription for stronger stuff that could minimize pain for two or three days.
I took no pain killers. When the numbness wore off, there was no pain. Hours later, there was no pain. Days later, there was no pain. Wow! Dental science has made mighty strides toward greater patient comfort in the last half century.
But improved dental technology has at least one painful price. Prominent in the post-operative instructions sent home with me by the oral surgery staff were these words: “DO NOT USE ALCOHOL FOR ONE WEEK FOLLOWING SURGERY SINCE IT DELAYS HEALING.”
Now, that hurt!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
A Cheesy Present
Fraternity brother Lowell Laitsch, an attorney in Alexandria, VA, perused a recent post and dispatched this e-mail:
“I note that the UW colors are properly reflected on the cover of Days with the Dads. . . even though you are now a Michigander or whatever. . . ”
The cardinal and white sweaters pictured on the cover of my book were gifts from Sandy’s mother, who lived in West Bend, Wisconsin. She spent hours knitting the three surprise Christmas presents. She got the colors just right. I have been among the most fortunate of men. I had a wonderful mother-in-law as well as a wonderful mother.
But even the best don’t always get it right. It happened on a visit to West Bend years after the sweaters arrived. With a little smile but no comment, Sandy’s mom handed me a cheesehead—the ludicrous headgear favored by rabid Packers and Badgers fans. I handed it back, and said “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one of those.”
“Didn’t you know that was a gift?” Sandy whispered to me moments later.
“No, but if did I probably would have said the same thing."
Fraternity brother Lowell Laitsch, an attorney in Alexandria, VA, perused a recent post and dispatched this e-mail:
“I note that the UW colors are properly reflected on the cover of Days with the Dads. . . even though you are now a Michigander or whatever. . . ”
The cardinal and white sweaters pictured on the cover of my book were gifts from Sandy’s mother, who lived in West Bend, Wisconsin. She spent hours knitting the three surprise Christmas presents. She got the colors just right. I have been among the most fortunate of men. I had a wonderful mother-in-law as well as a wonderful mother.
But even the best don’t always get it right. It happened on a visit to West Bend years after the sweaters arrived. With a little smile but no comment, Sandy’s mom handed me a cheesehead—the ludicrous headgear favored by rabid Packers and Badgers fans. I handed it back, and said “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing one of those.”
“Didn’t you know that was a gift?” Sandy whispered to me moments later.
“No, but if did I probably would have said the same thing."
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Who Dat General?
Choosing a Super Bowl favorite was a snap at our place. New Orleans for years has rated right up there with San Francisco among U.S. cities we believe are worth visiting many times.
In the early 1980s, New Orleans’ music was great, the perpetual party atmosphere in the French Quarter was a joy, and typical tourist activities were anything but dull. Like San Francisco, it was a good place to “take her along” on a business trip. We did that several times.
While business meetings occupied my time, Sandy spent enjoyable days scouting out the cities, often in a tour group. She was ready every evening with good ideas for an activity. We tacked a weekend day or two onto the trips at our personal expense to make time for at least one lengthy tour together.
In 1981, we flew to New Orleans the weekend before a national meeting for heads of U.S. Forest Service research information units. Among other things, we wanted to travel five miles south to the site of the most famous battle of the War of 1812. Gray Line had a tour going there by boat. It was a good one.
The National Park Service employee at the historic site did an excellent job describing the events of January 8, 1815. With his clever interpretations fueling our imaginations, we could visualize the redcoats coming out of the wooded area and marching into withering fire from a rag-tag American army led by General Andrew Jackson. I still recall one of the park ranger’s lines: “All of a sudden the fog lifted, and the Americans were looking straight down their gun barrels at the best-dressed army in Europe.”
We had special help with activity planning during our 1981 visit to New Orleans. My counterpart at the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Bob Biesterfeldt, was there as a source of sound advice. Biesterfeldt had worked for several years at Southern Forest Experiment Station headquarters in New Orleans. He owned some rental properties in the city. He provided several good tips on where to go (and, definitely, where not to go) in the Big Easy. He even took me to a seedy little restaurant to experience the joys of a Po’ Boy sandwich after I said I’d like to go where the “regular people” ate lunch.
Sandy and I joined Biesterfeldt for early coffee before the Monday business meeting started. He asked about our weekend adventures. We started to give a glowing account of our trip down the river to the historic battlefield.
With tongue firmly in cheek, Biesterfeldt said, “I suppose some Park Service guy fed you a bunch of nonsense about the battle. They never tell tourists the true story.”
“It sounded real to us,” I said.
“I suppose he told you how Andy Jackson rode his big white horse up and down the line, telling the troops how important it was to win the battle and save the nation.”
“Not exactly, but he said something about Jackson’s fears that a victory there was sorely needed to keep the British from marching into New Orleans and splitting the country in half.” No one on the scene, including Jackson, realized that the battle meant nothing. The War of 1812 had ended 12 days earlier with a treaty signed in Europe. News moved slowly in those days.
“Well, he did try to fire up the Americans, but not with a bunch of patriotic jabbering,” Beisterfeldt said. “Jackson’s words really were, ‘Boys, I know that British general. He’s a Methodist. If he gets past us, nothing will stop him from marching into New Orleans. The first thing he’ll do is shut down every tavern, whorehouse, and gambling den in the city.’ When the time came, the Americans rose up and shot hell out of those redcoats.”
The Park Service version seemed more plausible. Whatever the truth, the Americans defended their turf with enthusiasm. The final score was not nearly as close as Sunday’s Super Bowl tally: British casualties 2,042, American casualties 71. Fitting right in with Biesterfeldt’s bogus account, one of the British dead was their commander, Major-General Edward Pakenham.
The Park Service interpreter squelched one myth about the battle. Pirate Jean Lafitte not only did not fight valiantly in the American cause, he wasn’t even there. He was several miles away. One version of history says he was on a scouting mission. Another has him sneaking away before the fighting started to enjoy the pleasures in one of his favorite taverns. As with many things related to New Orleans, take your pick.
And be joyful that, come hurricanes or high water, those Saints keep right on marchin’ in. The Super Bowl win just revved up the Bourbon Street party that never really stops.
Choosing a Super Bowl favorite was a snap at our place. New Orleans for years has rated right up there with San Francisco among U.S. cities we believe are worth visiting many times.
In the early 1980s, New Orleans’ music was great, the perpetual party atmosphere in the French Quarter was a joy, and typical tourist activities were anything but dull. Like San Francisco, it was a good place to “take her along” on a business trip. We did that several times.
While business meetings occupied my time, Sandy spent enjoyable days scouting out the cities, often in a tour group. She was ready every evening with good ideas for an activity. We tacked a weekend day or two onto the trips at our personal expense to make time for at least one lengthy tour together.
In 1981, we flew to New Orleans the weekend before a national meeting for heads of U.S. Forest Service research information units. Among other things, we wanted to travel five miles south to the site of the most famous battle of the War of 1812. Gray Line had a tour going there by boat. It was a good one.
The National Park Service employee at the historic site did an excellent job describing the events of January 8, 1815. With his clever interpretations fueling our imaginations, we could visualize the redcoats coming out of the wooded area and marching into withering fire from a rag-tag American army led by General Andrew Jackson. I still recall one of the park ranger’s lines: “All of a sudden the fog lifted, and the Americans were looking straight down their gun barrels at the best-dressed army in Europe.”
We had special help with activity planning during our 1981 visit to New Orleans. My counterpart at the Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, Bob Biesterfeldt, was there as a source of sound advice. Biesterfeldt had worked for several years at Southern Forest Experiment Station headquarters in New Orleans. He owned some rental properties in the city. He provided several good tips on where to go (and, definitely, where not to go) in the Big Easy. He even took me to a seedy little restaurant to experience the joys of a Po’ Boy sandwich after I said I’d like to go where the “regular people” ate lunch.
Sandy and I joined Biesterfeldt for early coffee before the Monday business meeting started. He asked about our weekend adventures. We started to give a glowing account of our trip down the river to the historic battlefield.
With tongue firmly in cheek, Biesterfeldt said, “I suppose some Park Service guy fed you a bunch of nonsense about the battle. They never tell tourists the true story.”
“It sounded real to us,” I said.
“I suppose he told you how Andy Jackson rode his big white horse up and down the line, telling the troops how important it was to win the battle and save the nation.”
“Not exactly, but he said something about Jackson’s fears that a victory there was sorely needed to keep the British from marching into New Orleans and splitting the country in half.” No one on the scene, including Jackson, realized that the battle meant nothing. The War of 1812 had ended 12 days earlier with a treaty signed in Europe. News moved slowly in those days.
“Well, he did try to fire up the Americans, but not with a bunch of patriotic jabbering,” Beisterfeldt said. “Jackson’s words really were, ‘Boys, I know that British general. He’s a Methodist. If he gets past us, nothing will stop him from marching into New Orleans. The first thing he’ll do is shut down every tavern, whorehouse, and gambling den in the city.’ When the time came, the Americans rose up and shot hell out of those redcoats.”
The Park Service version seemed more plausible. Whatever the truth, the Americans defended their turf with enthusiasm. The final score was not nearly as close as Sunday’s Super Bowl tally: British casualties 2,042, American casualties 71. Fitting right in with Biesterfeldt’s bogus account, one of the British dead was their commander, Major-General Edward Pakenham.
The Park Service interpreter squelched one myth about the battle. Pirate Jean Lafitte not only did not fight valiantly in the American cause, he wasn’t even there. He was several miles away. One version of history says he was on a scouting mission. Another has him sneaking away before the fighting started to enjoy the pleasures in one of his favorite taverns. As with many things related to New Orleans, take your pick.
And be joyful that, come hurricanes or high water, those Saints keep right on marchin’ in. The Super Bowl win just revved up the Bourbon Street party that never really stops.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
More to the Story
Just when you think you’ve said it all on a topic, up pops a new angle on an old story.
I thought a tale in Days with the Dads, my memoir, included every detail of the connection between Jerry Kramer, a five-time All-Pro with the Green Bay Packers in the 60s, and our son and me. It did. At least, it included everything I knew about that when the book was published late last year.
I was mystified, and frankly a bit miffed, about Kramer’s lack of interest in talking with me while we were seated next to each other for an hour or more in the Chicago airport. After all, I had told him I was a long-time Packers fan and admired his play. Only recently did I stumble onto a fact that would have guaranteed some Klade-Kramer conversation.
Sandy and I were visiting one of our local library’s periodic discount book sales. Sandy usually fills a couple of bags with titles to support her two to three book a week reading habit. I usually fill one hand with two or three titles. This time, I found more. One was a well-worn copy of Jerry Kramer’s Farewell to Football, published in 1969. I’d never heard of the book, and assumed he authored only two—Instant Replay and Distant Replay.
When we got home, I casually flipped Kramer’s book open, and read a few lines. One jumped right out at me. “I’d just pledged Sigma Nu,” Kramer said on page 106. That was at the University of Idaho. That was the same year I pledged Sigma Nu at the University of Wisconsin. Lo and behold, our family football hero and I were fraternity brothers! I just didn’t know it when we met at O’Hare.
Kramer’s Farewell book has a lot of personal information. He includes several descriptions of Sigma Nu happenings on the Moscow campus. He gives “clowning around” with buddies, including fraternity brothers, as one reason for his lackluster academic work. Kramer finished nearly four years at Idaho as a football and track all-star, but without a degree.
The Sigma Nu chapter at Idaho was known to be strong during the time I worked in the state and nearby in Utah. Its members included plenty of academic achievers, and a number of men who went on to become leaders after graduation. I met several who were successful businessmen in Boise. Throughout the 1980s, both U.S. Senators from Idaho—Republicans Steve Symms and Jim McClure--were Sigma Nus. I met one of them.
I did not meet McClure, but as far as I know, he served with distinction during his 18 years in the Senate. He was said to be strongly influenced by the mining industry, which did not always gladden the hearts of those of us interested in sound forest management. But mining was important in Idaho, and McClure was up front about his political positions. I saw no reason not to respect him.
Symms was another story. When we met in Boise in 1973, I was performing one of those low-level duties that sometimes fell to information officers. Wearing my uniform, I was working at a booth at the Idaho State Fair, answering questions about the National Forests and handing out maps and brochures. Symms had a booth almost directly across the aisle where he was promoting his candidacy for Congress.
The Symms family ran a large orchard and fruit processing business west of Boise. His campaign slogan was, “Let’s Upset the Applecart.” He was running hard against the status quo in Washington and what he saw as excessive governmental control on every level (sound familiar?). He and his supporters said some pretty nasty things about federal and state employees during that first campaign.
When the lunch hour provided a lull in booth visitors, Symms strode over to me. He offered a friendly smile and a firm handshake. “You’ve probably heard some of my comments about feds,” he said. “You know, of course, I don’t mean you Forest Service guys. You do a great job.”
I said, “Sure, we know you’re not talking about us.” By that time in my career, I had met enough politicians to not be surprised by enthusiastic insincerity. And I knew he probably was not surprised by my insincere response.
Symms won the election and went on to serve four terms in the House and two in the Senate. If he was distinguished by anything, it was as an accomplished philanderer. Rumors flew about his romantic adventures in Washington. Idaho journalists were said to know about several, but, as they did in those days, they kept his personal life out of their reports. However, when Symms’ long-suffering wife sued for divorce she put his alleged extra-marital activities on the public record. The media carried the stories, and Symms declined to run for another term, perhaps thinking his behavior would not be appreciated by voters in a conservative state.
I saw Symms once more after our Boise encounter. He passed within several feet of me as he rushed down a busy hallway in the Capitol Building in Washington. I was there as part of a legislative training course. I called out, “Hello, Steve.”
He responded with a big wave, and a hearty, “Well hi, great to see you,” as he continued on his way. He made it sound as though he remembered me well. I didn’t believe it for a minute.
So what does all that prove? Fraternity brothers, especially those from other chapters, certainly are not equivalent to birth brothers. However, they have one thing in common. Whether you respect them, admire them, choose to ignore them, or dislike them and their activities, they are yours forever.
Just when you think you’ve said it all on a topic, up pops a new angle on an old story.
I thought a tale in Days with the Dads, my memoir, included every detail of the connection between Jerry Kramer, a five-time All-Pro with the Green Bay Packers in the 60s, and our son and me. It did. At least, it included everything I knew about that when the book was published late last year.
I was mystified, and frankly a bit miffed, about Kramer’s lack of interest in talking with me while we were seated next to each other for an hour or more in the Chicago airport. After all, I had told him I was a long-time Packers fan and admired his play. Only recently did I stumble onto a fact that would have guaranteed some Klade-Kramer conversation.
Sandy and I were visiting one of our local library’s periodic discount book sales. Sandy usually fills a couple of bags with titles to support her two to three book a week reading habit. I usually fill one hand with two or three titles. This time, I found more. One was a well-worn copy of Jerry Kramer’s Farewell to Football, published in 1969. I’d never heard of the book, and assumed he authored only two—Instant Replay and Distant Replay.
When we got home, I casually flipped Kramer’s book open, and read a few lines. One jumped right out at me. “I’d just pledged Sigma Nu,” Kramer said on page 106. That was at the University of Idaho. That was the same year I pledged Sigma Nu at the University of Wisconsin. Lo and behold, our family football hero and I were fraternity brothers! I just didn’t know it when we met at O’Hare.
Kramer’s Farewell book has a lot of personal information. He includes several descriptions of Sigma Nu happenings on the Moscow campus. He gives “clowning around” with buddies, including fraternity brothers, as one reason for his lackluster academic work. Kramer finished nearly four years at Idaho as a football and track all-star, but without a degree.
The Sigma Nu chapter at Idaho was known to be strong during the time I worked in the state and nearby in Utah. Its members included plenty of academic achievers, and a number of men who went on to become leaders after graduation. I met several who were successful businessmen in Boise. Throughout the 1980s, both U.S. Senators from Idaho—Republicans Steve Symms and Jim McClure--were Sigma Nus. I met one of them.
I did not meet McClure, but as far as I know, he served with distinction during his 18 years in the Senate. He was said to be strongly influenced by the mining industry, which did not always gladden the hearts of those of us interested in sound forest management. But mining was important in Idaho, and McClure was up front about his political positions. I saw no reason not to respect him.
Symms was another story. When we met in Boise in 1973, I was performing one of those low-level duties that sometimes fell to information officers. Wearing my uniform, I was working at a booth at the Idaho State Fair, answering questions about the National Forests and handing out maps and brochures. Symms had a booth almost directly across the aisle where he was promoting his candidacy for Congress.
The Symms family ran a large orchard and fruit processing business west of Boise. His campaign slogan was, “Let’s Upset the Applecart.” He was running hard against the status quo in Washington and what he saw as excessive governmental control on every level (sound familiar?). He and his supporters said some pretty nasty things about federal and state employees during that first campaign.
When the lunch hour provided a lull in booth visitors, Symms strode over to me. He offered a friendly smile and a firm handshake. “You’ve probably heard some of my comments about feds,” he said. “You know, of course, I don’t mean you Forest Service guys. You do a great job.”
I said, “Sure, we know you’re not talking about us.” By that time in my career, I had met enough politicians to not be surprised by enthusiastic insincerity. And I knew he probably was not surprised by my insincere response.
Symms won the election and went on to serve four terms in the House and two in the Senate. If he was distinguished by anything, it was as an accomplished philanderer. Rumors flew about his romantic adventures in Washington. Idaho journalists were said to know about several, but, as they did in those days, they kept his personal life out of their reports. However, when Symms’ long-suffering wife sued for divorce she put his alleged extra-marital activities on the public record. The media carried the stories, and Symms declined to run for another term, perhaps thinking his behavior would not be appreciated by voters in a conservative state.
I saw Symms once more after our Boise encounter. He passed within several feet of me as he rushed down a busy hallway in the Capitol Building in Washington. I was there as part of a legislative training course. I called out, “Hello, Steve.”
He responded with a big wave, and a hearty, “Well hi, great to see you,” as he continued on his way. He made it sound as though he remembered me well. I didn’t believe it for a minute.
So what does all that prove? Fraternity brothers, especially those from other chapters, certainly are not equivalent to birth brothers. However, they have one thing in common. Whether you respect them, admire them, choose to ignore them, or dislike them and their activities, they are yours forever.
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