The Geezer Goes Historic

Today is the seventh anniversary of this blog. That’s not especially notable; many bloggers have been at it longer, and a whole lot produce more interesting posts and have many more followers.

Like my fellow bloggers and all the writers throughout the world, the geezer thrives on knowing someone out there reads the stuff he creates. So it is gratifying to learn from automatic counters

It's number 7 for Gabbygeezer

attached to this blog for most of the seven years that viewership has expanded more than ten-fold since the days when only a handful of neighbors and close friends checked out Gabbygeezer occasionally.

The best thing by far about the seven years has been the opportunity to find other bloggers who I now consider to be friends, even though we have never met. I've looked at hundreds of blogs over the years, and am pretty picky about deciding on a few to follow closely. So my group of “blogging buddies” is rather small. I place high value on what they write and any comments they make on my offerings.

I’ve been a writer, editor, or both for more than five decades, and think I've learned a thing or two about writers. Most important is the fact that writing is hard work. Attaching one’s bottom to a chair and engaging a sometimes reluctant brain for a period of solitary exercise is not fun. And it is an exercise that doesn't become much easier with repetition. I thoroughly disagree with those who maintain that they write because they enjoy the act.

Writers write because they enjoy the fruits of their labor, not the labor itself. Unless they are very good at it and earn scads of money, the reward comes through comments on their work. A favorable comment from a respected source can send a writer to cloud nine. That’s why people who developed huge social networks such as Facebook cleverly included a “like button” right from the start.

Even a negative jibe is better than silence. At least it shows someone cared enough to read the item. One of the small disappointments during my seven blogging years is that members of my little family, the people I care about most, rarely or never say anything about my posts, formally with a written comment or informally in conversations. Other bloggers say they have the same experience. None claim to understand why. The lack of family interaction is a minor matter, however, considering the many new acquaintances I've made throughout the U.S. and some countries overseas.

One small group I was not aware of before I started blogging consists of the folks who make the historical society in my hometown, Tomahawk, Wisconsin, a vibrant organization that sponsors some interesting activities. Several members of the society have been good about sending me material for posts over the years, and I appreciate their thoughtfulness. One of the society volunteers recently notified me that an early Gabbygeezer post will be a factor in a special event, a “Toma-Walk” to be held next week (on July 19 and 20).

During the walk, local historians and friends in period dress will be available throughout the old business district to tell visitors about the history and folklore of the buildings and businesses in the four-block “Main Street,” which really is part of Wisconsin Avenue. A young actor, Eli Wurl, will portray—believe it or not—me.

Eli will be telling visitors the story of the shoe shining business I conducted in 1946 on Main Street. I wanted to be there to see him in action, but family commitments prevent that. The young man should have a sufficient audience without me; Tomahawk is the hub of a summer vacation area and lots of tourists attend special events.

The story Eli will use for most of his material has been published in the Tomahawk newspaper and in two books after first appearing here. It was re-posted two years ago on the fifth Gabbygeezer anniversary. But for those who haven’t read the tale before, here it is once again:

A Very Small Business

As small businesses went in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, mine had to be one of the smallest. And as business owners went, at age 10, I was probably one of the youngest.

In the summer of 1946, Billy “Barrel” Schmidt and I were hanging around my dad’s tailor shop voicing the usual complaint of youth that there was nothing to do. Barrel’s uncle Louie, who ran the Central Drug Store in front of my dad’s shop, suggested we do something useful and start up a shoe shining business to make a little money.

We thought that was a pretty good idea. My dad found a shoeshine box somewhere, bought us a few supplies, and we were in business. The partnership lasted only a couple of weeks. Barrel decided going swimming at Crystal Lake and other typical Tomahawk summer activities beat heck out of work. He left me as the sole proprietor of the business.

One of the group of downtown businessmen who met every morning for coffee at Rouman’s Restaurant told my dad he thought the Hotel Tomahawk once had a shoeshine stand in the lobby. Sure enough, it was in storage at the hotel. Dad got it for me, and I hauled it out in front of Central Drug every morning, ready for business.

My only advertising was two cardboard signs attached to the arms of the chair. They read: “Shoe Shine 15 cents, other shoe free.”

This postcard provided a measure of fame

When business at the stand was slow, which was often, I toted the shine box to the local barber shops (I think there were three in those days) looking for customers. My recollection is that the only shop where I did much business was 

Charlie O’Rourke’s. That’s where I got my hair cut, and Mr. O’Rourke returned the favor by trying to gently persuade the men awaiting their turn in his chair to let me shine their shoes.

I think my dad suggested my other regular “house call.” If my mom had found out about it, the business would have ended right then and there. On Friday nights, Dad worked until 9 p.m. so Mom thought I was tending to business at my stand until we came home together. Actually, I was at Scorch’s Bar with my shine box. Business there was great, often netting me $2 or $3 for a couple of hours work—big money in those days for a little kid.

At 15 cents a customer, making that kind of cash depended on how much beer was flowing at Scorch’s (usually quite a lot) and some help from my friends.

My friends were two single ladies who worked at the A&P Store and always showed up at Scorch’s about 6:30 on Friday nights. They sort of adopted me, and since the males at the bar were trying to adopt them, they convinced a lot of drunks to get shoe shines—and woe to him who didn’t include a tip in the payment. One slightly absent-minded, or more likely very inebriated, guy paid me to shine his shoes twice in the span of 10 minutes!

I also did some “carry out” business. The best customers were Myron Veith and “Bev” Beverson, who owned The Gift Box across the street from my stand. On Saturday mornings, they left the door to their upstairs apartment unlocked and set out a half dozen pairs of shoes for me. I carried them across the street, shined them up, and took them back.

Another regular customer was Terry Small, who worked at the Quality Meat Market owned by his parents. Terry always dropped off two pairs of shoes for my attention, also on Saturdays. This was easy to recall because Terry was a very big man. His shoes were size 13 EEE. However, he always paid 25 cents a pair, so I didn’t complain about needing to use extra polish and elbow grease.

I worked all summer and occasionally in the fall after starting the seventh grade. Then work got a little old, and in the spring playing baseball was a lot more attractive than popping shoeshine rags and wielding brushes. I sold the stand and my supplies for $5 to Bob Gilley, an older man with some physical handicaps. Mr. Gilley shined shoes at the stand in the entryway of Nick’s Casket Factory on Wisconsin Avenue for quite a few years. He, however, was not known to solicit business in barbershops or bars.

Photographer Claude Venne gave my business a small measure of fame when he sneaked up on me one day when I was taking one of my frequent breaks, reading a comic book and eating a popsicle. Venne made his photo into postcards, which he sold at the Tomahawk Drug Store across the street with some other local scenes he had snapped. He had a note on the shoeshine card display that said something like, “Business is lousy, ain’t it?”

Business wasn’t too lousy. In addition to paying for popsicles, I saved nearly $100 from my summer’s work 60 years ago. I still had the money in the Bradley Bank seven years later to help pay for my first year at the University of Wisconsin. In those days, tuition for one semester at UW was $90.

                                               * * * * * * * * *

Eli, here’s hoping you “break a leg” in your youthful venture into show biz. And if you actually shine any shoes during “Toma-Walk” be sure you price the service a lot higher than the 15 cents I collected in 1946. And thanks, historical society members—you made my otherwise routine blogging anniversary something special. 

Ours Is Best!!!

We were trying a new appetizer in our favorite local restaurant. As I chomped on a “Brew Pub Pretzel” coated with "beer cheese" dip, I exclaimed, “This might be the best pretzel ever.”

Beautiful wife Sandy snickered and said, “A few thousand Germans might give you an argument about that.”

She was right. I’d momentarily forgotten a lesson we learned in visits to Deutschland. We loved the pretzels, especially those just out of the oven in small bakeries that seem to be everywhere.  We soon discovered anyone within earshot who heard us admiring pretzel flavor was more than ready to tell us “the best pretzels in Germany are made here.”

They couldn't all be right, but it was obvious that residents of every area were convinced the local contribution to elegant breakfasting or snacking was without doubt the best. Any American claim to pretzel excellence would be scorned.

Going home after our pretzel snack we passed the Plainwell Ice Cream Company, a reminder that 

Small store, big flavors

Germans may have their pretzels, but Americans have their ice cream. In a state-wide poll a couple of years ago, Plainwell Ice Cream was named one of “The Seven Wonders of Michigan.” It is that good. Yet, not many miles away Hudsonville says its flavors are better. And several other Michigan producers boast their ice cream is at least equally wonderful.

What about elsewhere? I've been around enough to know that people all over the U.S. think the local ice cream is the greatest.

At my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, students and alums have been going gaga over Babcock Hall Ice Cream for more than 90 years. The dairy on the agriculture campus churns out thousand of gallons a year. Delightful flavors can be ordered from Babcock by phone, mail, or the internet, and shipped to almost anywhere.

Another ag campus institution claims its product is better. Aggie Ice Cream is a famous attraction at Utah State University in Logan. I know scoops of “Aggie Blue” or any one of many other flavors are great, because it was an easy walk to the ice cream parlor from the U.S. Forest Service laboratory I occasionally visited on business some years back. That was a walk worth taking.

Our son, Lee, is somewhat of an ice cream junky. He swears that the best cones served up in the nation

Farr claims to be better throughout the West

come from the Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream Store. The store is near the historic Connecticut home he owned for several years. Sandy thinks Lee is right, and I must admit the ice cream dispensed in the store by the bridge deserves a claim to fame.

Who makes the best claim to being the best? In Ogden, Utah, where we lived for many years, when folks want to enjoy outstanding ice cream they head downtown to Asael Farr and Sons Company for some Farr Better Ice Cream. It’s hard to beat that name when staking a championship product claim. The old-time soda fountain atmosphere in the store also is hard to beat. Scoops of Farr Better, first served in 1920, now are sold throughout the West.

Where do you go when you crave “the best” ice cream (or pretzel) in the whole wide world?

AARP: The Wrong Numbers

Sometimes I wonder if AARP loves or hates the people over 50 it claims to serve. The geezer has been a member for about 20 years. Over that time, I've been gradually becoming less enamored with AARP.

Yes, AARP does provide fully mature adults with discounts and special deals on a variety of things. And the organization’s magazine frequently has good advice. However, sometimes it seems AARP should take a closer look at products it endorses.

After years of satisfaction with auto and home insurance provided by The Hartford through AARP, my fondness for the organization took a heavy hit when we were making arrangements to move from Utah to Michigan. We decided the time was right to become a one-car family. I knew Michigan would have .

Is AARP giving you a good number?

somewhat higher rates because it requires “no fault” coverage, but assumed we would be helped by canceling coverage for one vehicle. When a Hartford rep told me what my new rate would be, I was shocked.

A State Farm agent in our destination area gave us better coverage for several hundred dollars a year less than the Hartford quote. It was no “come on” price. Since we made the change, State Farm actually has reduced the premium even further as our driving records stayed good and our lifestyle changed a bit.

I recently renewed our cell phone minutes. Yesterday, AARP sent an e-mail notice of a “Hot Deal!” to buy time plans from Consumer Cellular. The ad shows a delighted geezer couple dialing up someone after enrolling in a plan “starting at $10 a month” and featuring no contract plus free activation. An AARP member discount lowered the cheapest plan fee to $9.50 per month. However, each minute used cost 23.75 cents. The ad claimed activation was a $35 value.

We get limited service, primarily using the phone as a safety device. This is the type of service Consumer Cellular offers through its most inexpensive plan. My renewal deal provided enough minutes for our Tracfone to last us a year. It cost $8.33 a month, with no per-minute charge.  We bought our minutes off the shelf at Walmart. Several different minute amounts at progressively higher rates per month were available. No contract was involved.

Activation was free, and I didn’t have to do it. A clerk in the Walmart electronics section performed that chore while I waited, casting a bit of doubt on the AARP ad claim that activation is a $35 value.

If you’re not fond of Walmart, you can get the same kind of Tracphone deal at Radio Shack and Best Buy, and perhaps similar deals through other plans in other places. And you don’t have to pay AARP dues to get a good deal. You might even be delighted.

Everything but the . . .

Garage sales are just minor blips on the activity schedule of most families. Whatever is cluttering up closets, the basement, or the garage and may have any value at all goes up for grabs. What’s left often goes to Goodwill, The Salvation Army, or the trash collector.

At our place, a garage sale is a big deal.

This year was the 10^th annual community-wide sale sponsored by Ed Giffels, a real estate agent who is one of our neighbors. Giffels gives a yard sign to each participant, pays for advertising, and even provides maps to guide visitors to sale locations. He deserves a real estate commission or several as repayment, and he probably is rewarded. At the very least, the annual event acquaints or reacquaints a lot of people with the location of our community and what the homes look like.

This time, 52 families participated in the one-day event. So many visitors showed up that traffic jams clogged neighborhood streets in several places at various times. At our sale, 167 people bought one or more items, ranging from a 32-foot ladder that went for $100 to a cookie cutter shaped like an elf that brought in 25 cents. 

We've participated in the community sale for four years. You’d think we would be just about out of used stuff to sell, yet total sales this time were the best ever. And we have enough items to have another go at it next year. That probably is due to three factors:

1. Beautiful wife Sandy plans and supervises the sale at our place. Because of her merchandising skill she is becoming known locally as the “queen of garage sales,” and also is referred to as “commander” by her team members. She gets many compliments from visitors on the quality of our items and displays.

2. The “team” contributes items and also staffs our sale. Members are son Lee, his fiancée Karen, Karen’s mother Ilse, and last and least, me. Pay is lunch and dinner provided by Sandy on sale day.  Thus, sale day is somewhat of a family social event.

3. The previous (and only) owners of our home unwittingly supported endless annual sales when they included an over-sized garage in the house design. They probably intended it to hold two vehicles plus a boat, golf cart, or both. We have one car, no boat, and no golf cart. We can store all sorts of stuff in the bonus space with no problem. Although we sent one item to the trash after this year’s sale, Sandy boxed up almost all other leftovers. The boxes will stay out of the way in the garage ready to be unpacked for the 2014 sale.

Sandy's sale area even is prepared for rain, thanks to tents supplied by Lee and Karen. Ilse is the chief cashier.

Sandy has two golden rules for successful garage selling: (1) No dirty or broken items, and (2) No untidy or disorganized displays. Sandy spends two weeks before garage sale day setting things up. She also has devised an efficient system for storing leftovers. Sandy operated a successful craft creation and sales business for many years, and gained a lot of merchandise display expertise along the way.

The geezer should have learned long ago not to questions Sandy’s decisions, but after last year’s sale I weakened. We had remodeled our kitchen and one big leftover was the old sink. It was a rather large, white enameled, cast iron model—free of cracks and chips, but, frankly, not very appealing. It didn't sell or attract much interest on sale day, and it wouldn't fit in a box as a normal holdover item. After tripping over it or having to move it a time or two on routine garage errands, I suggested the trash was the proper place for the old kitchen sink.

“No way,” Sandy said. “That sink will sell.”

“Nonsense,” I grumbled. “Who would want that old thing?”

To prove her point, Sandy advertised the sink on Craigslist, and it sold within a week for $200. The buyer was delighted with his purchase.

In matters of used-item merchandising, it is unwise to question the judgment of garage sale “queens” or “commanders.”

This Boat Won't Float

How bizarre can a news item be? It’s hard to believe that Spain spent huge amounts of money on a new submarine that won’t float, but the Associated Press and other sources say it’s true.

Spanish engineers made a miscalculation in the design; it appears that way back in the early planning stages someone put a decimal point in the wrong place. As a result, the first of a new class of diesel-powered subs is 70 tons overweight. Officials fear if it goes to sea it will be able to dive but won’t be able to resurface.

To fix things, the Spanish Defense Ministry will pay our Electric Boat Company $14 million for a three-year study to determine how to reconfigure the submarine to make it useful. Spain already has

It dives, but doesn't surface!

invested about $2.9 billion in its new S-80 submarine program.

If it ever sails, Spain’s modern submarine armada will include four 233-foot-long boats. Each will carry a crew of 32, eight special forces personnel, and advanced weapons systems for surface and anti-submarine warfare.

When I finished guffawing about how a single misguided decimal point could create such havoc, I nearly cried thinking about this fiasco on another level. Spain has one of Europe’s weakest economies; unemployment stands near 25 percent. The banking system required huge bailouts to stay afloat, and substantial cuts in government pensions and social programs have gone into effect or are on the horizon. How could the Spanish government justify tossing big bucks into a new underwater adventure?

Exactly which foreign powers are threatening Spain?  None come to mind. Internal conflicts, however, are another matter. In the Pyrenees Mountains the Basque population occasionally launches various forms of violence against Spaniards they view as occupiers of their ancestral lands. To the east of the Basques, all of the Catalonia region is gearing up for a referendum next year on whether to secede from Spain. The Catalans think they are paying much more to the central government in taxes than they get back in services. Maybe the S-80 program is a factor; the new subs are being built in Cartagena, not Barcelona.

If the Basques and Catalans have developed navies to back their demands, it would be yet another bizarre news story. Both groups are fairly peaceful at the moment, so naval warfare involving them probably is not even a remote possibility.

We might wonder, then, why a cash-strapped Spanish government has blown $2.9 billion on four submarines whose only apparent reason for existence is to train for the day that some unknown enemy might attack Iberia from the sea.

If Spain, a land without serious external enemies, can’t curtail wasteful military weapons spending in the face of financial pressure from all sides, can we ever expect U.S. legislators to rein in the unnecessary weapons spending sponsored by our powerful military-industrial complex? 

Our Forest Favorite

We noticed a tree service employee consulting with a neighbor for several hours one recent morning. When beautiful wife Sandy walked over to learn what was going on, he tried to sell his services to “improve” our part of the wooded area that runs along the back of our properties.

It was no sale. His first suggestion was to remove a stately hickory growing six feet from one corner of our deck. It shades a good part of our house as well as about a third of the deck. It’s a nice cooling neighbor to have nearby on hot summer days, and a great place for birds to perch as they make sure all is safe on the way to Sandy’s feeders. The tree expert thought it was a hazard that might fall on our home. Sandy told him we’d take our chances.

Old stub well-dressed for summer

The next, and last, suggestion, Sandy said, was removal of “that ugly old stub of a dead oak,” which is clearly viewed through my office window. “What?” I shouted. “That’s the neatest thing in our woods.”

“I knew how you’d react to that plan,” Sandy said. “So I thanked him for sharing his ideas and told him we might get back to him sometime.”

That “ugly old stub” actually is quite lovely this time of year with a luxurious covering of vines. It may be dead but it is part of life for many lively critters. It’s great fun to watch gray squirrels chase each other in and out of the stub’s several cavities. Usually the participants in the games are their namesake color, but now and then a mutant “black” squirrel joins the party. A rarer thrill is watching a pileated woodpecker methodically developing a new cavity.

A variety of insects carry out less elegant, but perhaps more useful, activities in the hollowed-out base of the stub. They provide a good lesson in how Mom Nature replenishes her domain by converting dead residents to enriched soils where new generations will thrive.

The insect work and advancing decay eventually will fell our old stub. As long as I’m around to marvel at the forest life it enhances, nothing will be done to hurry that day.

Mysteries Great and Small

This Sunday the Rev. Jill McAllister, minister at People’s Church in Kalamazoo, did what I thought was an outstanding job of addressing “The Great Mystery”—who are we, where did we come from, and what is the meaning of life?  Several times, she quoted statements by Forrest Church, a leading Unitarian-Universalist minister, author, and theologian.

Those references set me thinking about one of the minor mysteries in my life—did I or did I not, meet Forrest Church back in 1974?  I pondered the question briefly six years ago while writing a passage in 

Forrest's father, Sen. Frank Church (Wikipedia)

my memoir, “Days with the Dads: Recollections of a Small-Time Journalist.” Included was a story about encounters with the Church family. One was a fairly lengthy conversation with Forrest’s parents. Years later, beautiful wife Sandy and I stayed several nights in the Church family home in Boise, ID after it had been converted to a bed and breakfast.

Because my memory of the first encounter with the Churches was more concerned with a personal lesson in humility than precisely who all the characters in the story were, I spent no time researching the identity of the young man who was present. Here is an excerpt from the story in my book:

“Merely spotting or exchanging only a few words with a famous person is, of course, nothing like spending a little time talking with one. I've had only a handful of those opportunities. One momentarily inflated my ego, but then quickly took the excess wind out of my young sails.

“In 1974 (while serving as Public Information Officer for the Boise National Forest), I was directed to drive over to the Sawtooth National Forest from my duty station in Boise, hook up with my boss at Redfish Lake, and then attend a meeting with some other people at the lodge on the lakeshore. My boss was Forest Supervisor Ed Maw, a man with many years of service in Idaho and other places in the Intermountain West.

“I got there early, and was the only person around as I stood outside the lodge having a smoke and waiting for Maw. Out of the lodge came a handsome man dressed in western-style clothes. A lovely woman and a young man accompanied him. They came directly to me (I was in uniform), and started a conversation about what my job was, why I was there, and what my thoughts were about some of the National Forest management issues of the time . . . .

“The whole situation put me on cloud nine. Here was little old me exchanging chit chat with members of one of the most prominent families in the state, and Senator Frank Church was among the best-known politicians in the country. He served in the U.S. Senate for 24 years, leading many national initiatives. He was a prominent contender for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1976, losing out to Jimmy Carter. His wife Bethine, the lady in our little discussion group that day, was the daughter of a former Idaho governor and was engaged in many high-profile activities of her own.

“By the time Maw approached us, I was pretty pumped up about the prospect of introducing my boss to my famous newfound friends. It didn’t happen. Senator Church stuck out his hand and said, ‘Hi, ya, Eddie.’ He and my boss were well acquainted. I was treated to a good dose of instant humility.”

About 30 years later, I read “The Jefferson Bible,” a document the famous president spent years assembling. Forrest Church wrote a lengthy introduction to the work. That caused me to wonder if the young man I met at Redfish Lake was Forrest. I started doing some research to determine that, but other matters intervened and I never got back to it.

Rev. McAllister’s sermon on Sunday caused me to wonder once again. This time, I checked some dates. The research proved conclusively that I could not have met Forrest Church that day in 1974 at Redfish Lake. He would have been quite a few years older than the lad I talked with. It must have been his younger brother, Chase, who Wikipedia tells us still lives in Boise. Forrest Church died at age 61 in 2009.

Although I’m slightly disappointed at learning I cannot claim a personal encounter with the famous cleric, it is always a pleasure to ponder some of the inspirational words he left behind.

   

Inequality Isn't All Bad

The geezer reads several blogs devoted largely to bemoaning the evils of discrimination against older folks. One problem often addressed is lack of equal employment opportunities. Another involves cost-of-living adjustments that fail to recognize increased needs of seniors for expensive health services.

However, news from a nearby city, Portage, MI, shows the old caution, “be careful what you wish for,” might sometimes be good advice.

For many years, every Portage homeowner age 62 or older got a 10 percent discount on water and sewer bills. A rate study committee appointed by the City Council recently recommended eliminating

What? No discount!

the senior citizen discount program because it was “found to be noncompliant with current nondiscrimination requirements” by giving one age group a preference over another. The city attorney agreed, saying the program favoring oldsters probably was unconstitutional, and could cause problems for some city bond sales.

As a consequence, about 3,000 elderly Portage residents lost their rate benefit. Surely at least a few believed they deserved the break. How many appeared at a hearing to protest the change? Zero!

What’s next? Will Applebee’s cancel my 10 percent senior discount because some miscreant seeks a ruling that it is unconstitutional? Will Denny’s start charging full price for my morning coffee? Will all who favor seniors fall in line in a sort of discount domino effect? Carried to the extreme, this kind of stuff could put insurance goliath AARP out of business.

Clearly, demands for equality should be considered carefully. After all, anyone can see we geezers deserve to be more equal than others.

Don't Touch Our Tree

It almost seems that a ghostly hand reaches into the federal bureaucracy every now and then to resurrect an old, bad idea.

Back in the 1970s, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, a Nixon appointee, sought to diminish the stature of the U.S. Forest Service as he took a reactionary stance in the face of growing environmental concerns. Butz made it clear that one of his under secretaries would be running the show, not the Chief of the Forest Service who traditionally had operated rather independently. 

According to Char Miller, who directs the environmental analysis program at Pomona College in California and writes frequently on western resource management topics, Butz soon learned that Forest

Mr. Secretary, spare our tree.

Service people would put up a fight when their traditions and prerogatives were challenged. In a recent “High Country News” article, Miller said:

"Earl Butz . . . was a profane man known for his hair-trigger temper and rough handling of subordinates. So when the Chief of the Forest Service stood him up for a meeting, Butz unloaded in response: 'There are four branches of government,' he reportedly snarled, 'the executive, legislative, judicial and the Gawd-damn U.S. Forest Service.'”

Butz wasn’t the only Secretary of Agriculture, Republican or Democrat, who sought to tighten control over the Forest Service. Although agency chiefs gradually were forced to yield considerable decision-making power to the parent department, they succeeded in maintaining a degree of distance from politics at the top of the Forest Service. To this day every chief has been a career natural resource professional, not an inexperienced political appointee.

Agriculture asserted its predominance in another way. This idea was to change the way people referred to the Forest Service and the other 19 agencies USDA supervised. That was done after a “study” by department design specialists resulted in publication of a “USDA Design Manual.”

The design manual mandated use of “USDA Forest Service” instead of the traditional “U.S. Forest Service” in publications and news releases and on exhibits, letterheads, and elsewhere. There was no choice.

Those of us who headed Forest Service publishing and public information units were told clearly at a national meeting that the new identification specs were mandatory, not just guidelines. There were a few veiled references to the ability of the Department of Agriculture to cause withdrawal of our regional authorities to publish if we did not comply.

We complied, but we didn't like it. Old hands grumbled and continued to privately proclaim they worked for the “U.S. Forest Service.” They thought the change was akin to the U.S. Marines suddenly becoming known as the USDOD Marines. Upon retirement, no longer in the clutches of the Secretary of Agriculture, I and a great many others immediately dropped the USDA label in our writings and public statements. The U.S. Forest Service lived on, although unofficially.

In the big scheme of things, small matters like agency labeling tend to escape media attention. The general public, understandably and rightly so, is interested in what government does or doesn't do, and cares very little about the precise identity of its agents. To federal workers, however, the name of the outfit they work for is an important morale factor.  Most of those I've known share a desire to identify with a well-defined group known to do quality work, just as most private sector employees do.

Recently, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack dredged up the old name game as a pet project. Officials wasted gobs of time and money over three years developing “One Brand.” The idea was to cancel all traditional agency signs and symbols and replace them with one Department of Agriculture logo. Guess what? The change was made quietly by issuing a “Visual Standards Guide.” Sound familiar? Shades of the 70s!

The directive stripped the Forest Service of its pine tree emblem, in one form or another, the mark of the agency since 1910. Current employees had to gnash their teeth and quietly accept the order. Retirees didn’t have to conform, and they didn’t. They went on the attack, bombarding Vilsack, members of congress, and anyone else who would listen with objections. According to Char Miller:

“Their opposition took on the air of a revival meeting.  They talked about the emblematic power of the Pine Tree logo to bind them to one another and to the land they helped steward.  The evocative shield and the uniform to which it was pinned testified to their devoted public service, they said. Shedding these symbols, and the emotional attachments they held, seemed like a deliberate attack on their collective history. These defenders proved a potent collective, and so overwhelming was their opposition that it forced the Agriculture Department’s hand.”

“In a one-sentence release April 4, the department granted the Forest Service an exemption to its One Brand directive. You could hear the hosannas from agency retirees and staffers a mile off.”

Miller titled his commentary, “Don’t Mess with the Forest Service.”

Of course, the headline was designed merely as an attention getter. Miller ended his article with a more important statement:

“As the dustup with the Forest Service suggests, a proud institutional history is a sustaining source of workplace identity and individual satisfaction. That’s a core value even Earl Butz might have respected.” 

Taxing the Good Guys

That master of irony, Oscar Wilde, got off many good lines during his creative writing career. Perhaps best known is “No good deed goes unpunished.”

We are about to see good deeds by many Michiganders punished for no good reason if a bill now before the state legislature becomes law. The bill would raise registration fees for owners of hybrid and electric vehicles.

How crazy can our local law makers get? Apparently, some would ignore 40 years of national policy intended to replace gas-guzzling vehicles with more efficient models. The original idea was to reduce or eliminate our dependence on imported oil. A more important reason that has come into sharper focus

Less Woulld Be Better

recently is to reduce excessive consumption of fuels whose use contributes to air pollution and climate change.

Going to hybrid or electric vehicles has a big impact. Our family car gets relatively good gas mileage. However, we could do much better. I've done the math. If we replaced our aging sedan with a comparable Toyota Prius or Ford C-Max, we would double our gas mileage. 

Making that significant contribution to environmental quality would cost us about $5,000, the difference between the hybrid price and a gasoline-only auto with comparable features. People who own hybrids were willing to back their beliefs about environmental quality with cash, although they probably could recoup the investment with savings at the pump over the life of the vehicle.

I know several Prius owners (the C-Max wasn't sold in the U.S. until this year.) None bought their cars to save money. Every one of them made the purchase to help enhance the environment. Punishing them with higher taxes would be idiotic. 

A much better idea is to simply raise the tax on gasoline to get the increased road maintenance money we need. That would create a bigger incentive for millions of us to reduce our carbon footprints by “trading up” to one of the growing number of fuel-efficient vehicles on the market today. It also would reduce at least some unnecessary driving, and that would help, too.

Pothole Paranoia

This time of year we seem obsessed with potholes, often for good reason. I just returned from a short shopping trip, and spent most of the journey dodging about a dozen large cracks and crevasses in access roads and the state highway that covered most of the route.

Yes, we can fear them. I couldn't avoid one giant, deep pothole in a side street—cars were on either side of me as I turned onto the highway. Even at 20 m.p.h., the impact made me think both front wheels had separated from the car. Luckily, that didn't happen. However, a couple more jolts like that and the old family sedan will face a trip to a service station for an alignment, or worse, to straighten everything out. We had to do that last year following pothole season.

Local media are featuring potholes. Cartoonists are making fun of them in their creations. Potholes are very close (following comments about continuing bad “spring” weather) to being the No. 1 conversation starter when strangers meet.

The Governor of Michigan has proposed bold action. He wants to increase gasoline taxes and vehicle registration fees to raise more than a billion dollars earmarked for road and bridge reconstruction and repairs. At the rate the public is bitching about the condition of our highways and byways, one would think the Gov’s plan would carry the day with room to spare.  Not so.

Led by conservative legislators in Gov. Snyder’s own Republican Party, opponents of the proposal so far have succeeded in blocking it.  Some version may yet pass, but anything that smells like a tax increase is going to face a rough road (pun intended).

Recent opinion polls show a big majority of voters wants the roads fixed, but many don’t want to pay one cent in increased taxes to do the job. A number of trite sayings might apply here. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” seems to fit as well as any.

Automate It and They Will Recycle

Previous posts (Sept. 3, 2009 and Oct. 2, 2011) discussed early recycling research at the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory. I had a special assignment to do technical editing for project personnel, and also to handle public information tasks. Recycling was a hot topic in the early 1970s. Handling media inquiries and responding to requests for presentations at schools and civic organizations kept me hopping.

To do my work well, I had to have a good understanding of the goals of the research and what was involved. To provide that understanding, Project Leader Wayne Carr spent many hours with me explaining his philosophy and why and how the Forest Products Lab group was working in the area they had chosen. Carr was a chemical engineer with experience in

Good words to live by

the pulp and paper industry. He also was a dedicated environmentalist. He taught me a lot.

Carr’s basic thesis was that despite all the good intentions of many people, recycling systems requiring much work by household members would never solve landfill problems.  Carr firmly believed that although some Americans could be motivated to clean and separate their household trash for recycling, at least as many would not participate even in the best-designed and publicized programs.

Carr saw the need for a new automated industry where homeowners could continue to toss all their garbage and trash into single containers for collection. The waste then would be transported to processing centers for separation and shipment to various manufacturing facilities to be remade into products.

We’re not there yet, but many American cities and towns are well on the way. In San Francisco, a city with serious landfill shortages, the mayor recently announced a goal of 100 percent recycling, with composting the garbage part of household waste as the final step.

Was Carr right about individuals making an effort to recycle? He was if recent history where we live is a good indicator.

Our home is in a rural township. When we moved here five years ago the recycling system in place was cumbersome.  We had to separate trash into cardboard (only small, flat pieces), paper, food cans, and very few plastic items, and then carry it in individual tubs to the curb for monthly pick-up. The majority of township residents ignored the program, and just continued to toss everything into one container for pickup and transport to a landfill.

At the start of 2012, the township changed the recycling program and the residents’ part in it became a whole lot easier. Each home got one 96-gallon container (more for an extra $20 each per year). We could toss all types of paper, cardboard, and metal cans plus many kinds of plastic containers into it and wheel it to the roadside for pickup and transport to a separation center. Weekly pickups of all else went on as before. Our typical “all else” now fills one very small bag, much less than half of what it was under the old system even though we had been conscientious recyclers.

What happened to participation? Under the old “tubs sort-and-carry” program only 35 percent of homes in the township recycled. After six months of the new single-container operation, 51 percent of households were recycling and the tonnage of material collected had increased by 108 percent.  By the end of the year, program growth forced the township to add a whole new collection route for recycling pickups.

Let’s hope the good recycling news keeps coming, where we live and across the nation. Unless immigration (legal and illegal) is drastically reduced or the reproduction rate drops dramatically, the population of the U.S. is projected to double in the next 70 to 80 years. Where will we find landfill space then? 

Rolling Out Those Barrels . . . Again

Sometimes what goes around really does come around.

When I was a teenager quite a few small Wisconsin cities had their own breweries. That wasn’t surprising. German-Americans who enjoyed their lagers and pilsners were the largest ethnic group in the state. They still are—in the 2010 Census 42.6 percent of Wisconsinites claimed German heritage.

German-Americans founded big Milwaukee brewers—Pabst, Schlitz, and Miller.  German immigrants also brought their brew meister skills to the smaller cities. I recall some local brands--Oconto, Chief Oshkosh, Point, North Star, Old Style, Marathon, Feuerbach, Lithia, Leinenkugel, and Rhinelander. Of the small brewers I remember, only the makers of Point and Leinenkugel survived as independents whose products now can be found on supermarket shelves in Wisconsin and some nearby states

A recent University of Wisconsin history note says the state had 85 breweries in the 1930s. By the 1980s, only 10 remained. None of the 10 was considered “small.”

Local breweries gradually disappeared because the large operators mechanized operations

Nowadays, name it, and someone is brewing it.

and exercised superior advertising muscle. As elsewhere in corporate America, mergers and buyouts reduced the number of big breweries. Miller is the only national brewery operating in Milwaukee today.

I remember when the Chicago Tribune, our family newspaper, published tabulations on the business page reporting the competition (in millions of barrels) between Schlitz and Budweiser for the honor of being the biggest beer producer in the world. Schlitz, which at the time proudly proclaiming it was “the beer that made Milwaukee famous,” dropped out of that competition in the late 1950s and declined until it finally ceased to exist as an independent.

As Wisconsin natives, beautiful wife Sandy and I occasionally enjoyed the benefits of having breweries close at hand. When we lived in the Milwaukee area, we took advantage of public tours offered by Schlitz, Pabst, and Blatz. Blatz was the smallest of the three, but many Milwaukeeans thought it brewed the best beer.

All Milwaukee brewers provided free beers and snacks at the conclusion of tours. At Pabst, tourists could guzzle four glasses of the company’s products. That certainly gave visitors a happy feeling about their hosts. Nowadays, it might get you a DUI citation on the way home!

Although each brewery had something unique in its operation or history, the most unusual brewery feature we learned about was not found in Milwaukee. It was 18 miles from my hometown in Rhinelander, then a city of about 9,000. When we visited The Rhinelander Brewing Company, it had not produced beer for many years and the name was changed. A prosperous doctor had acquired the property and converted it into a winery.

The original owner was a German-American who incorporated several old-world features into his operation. One was a little park behind the brewery where employees could sip the company’s product on breaks, at lunch, or after work. The park was still there when we visited, but small samples of cherry wine were served elsewhere. Other breweries were known to provide free beer to employees, so the Rhinelander “beer garden” probably was not unique. The one-of-a-kind feature of the Rhinelander brewery-winery was an archway entrance to a large tunnel in the basement of the main building. Our tour guide explained:

“The original brewery owner loved his beer, and he wanted it handy anytime he was thirsty. He had the tunnel dug from the basement of his house across the street to the basement of the brewery so he could quickly make a trip to get a fresh beer even if he woke up thirsty in the middle of the night.”

Ah, the privileges of an old-time brewery owner. The beer tunnel long ago fell into disuse, but “Rhinelander” beer is back. The brand now is produced by one of 30 microbreweries in Wisconsin. The micros sell less than 15,000 barrels each per year. The big Milwaukee brewer, Miller, has annual production exceeding six million barrels.  Between those extremes are seven Wisconsin breweries classified as “regional.”

In addition to the 30 micros, my old home state now has 31 brewpubs. There was no such thing as a brewpub when I was a young man living in Wisconsin. As do the micros, they produce an array of “craft” beers and ales.

Small breweries have been opening everywhere in the U.S. since a brewing comeback started in the 1990s. The Brewers Association, which represents 2,400 breweries and brewpubs, said craft beer set production and sales records last year, and the number of locations continues to grow.

My new home state of Michigan now has 120 breweries, 19 of them added last year. California, the growth leader, gained 56 new brewers in 2012. The national growth rate was 12 percent.

You can’t walk through a tunnel in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, to get your favorite brew, but you can find one to suit your taste just about everywhere else.

Mechanically Challenged Motorist Gets a Break

The geezer knows how to check the oil in a car and change a flat tire. And that’s about it. For all else I seek out good service places. They can be hard to find.

A couple of weeks ago the battery in our aging, but still reliable, Pontiac entered the sixth year of its projected five-year life. That told even me a replacement was in order. I mentioned it to our son, and he recommended a course of action that savvy members of his generation would follow.

“Check the owner’s manual to see what kind of battery you need,” he said. “Then spend a little time searching the internet to find out a fair price for a good product and who in your area sells and installs

the better brands. Make a few phone calls and find the best deal.”

That sounded like a lot of trouble, but the computer search wasn’t. I quickly determined that a reasonable price for a good-quality battery and installation would be $100 to $110. The car needed an oil change, so I took it in for that at a familiar full-service garage. It was a chance to confirm my need for a new unit and get one local price at the same time. I asked them to test the battery. They did that for free.

The service manager appeared a few minutes after I settled in at the waiting room. “You sure do need a battery." he said. "We’ve got one in stock, and can fix you right up.”

“What’s the cost?” 

“$150.” 

“Go ahead with the oil change, but I’ll pass on the battery for now."

I waited longer than usual for the oil change.

The manager returned, looking a bit sheepish. His question surprised me: “What would you say if we get that new battery in your car for $81?”

“I’d say, put it in,” I said.

“I’m glad, because our mechanic screwed up and already has it installed. Your old battery has been trashed.”

The savings was nice, but I’m still probably far in the red from paying exorbitant charges that creative mechanics have foisted on me over the years. But it was good to win one for the mechanically challenged for a change.

Private Schwartz Takes Command

Readers of the comics know Private Beetle Bailey as a soldier who often is on the receiving end of his sergeant’s wrath for dodging work. Private Schwartz was an adroit work-avoider with whom the geezer served in the U.S. Army in the late 1950s.

Beetle Bailey and Schwartz had one thing in common—neither ever advanced beyond buck private, the lowest rank in the army.

Schwartz might have designed a broom assembly line

Beetle apparently has failed to earn even a single stripe during his long cartoon career because of inept soldiering. Schwartz never rose above buck private because he was a conscientious objector.

I don’t recall Schwartz’s first name, and with good reason—I never used it. GI’s in the 1950s seldom referred to fellow soldiers by their first names unless they were the closest of buddies. I was stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, assigned to the Artillery and Missile School for 22 months, and only remember addressing two pals by their first names in all that time. Schwartz and I never became “old army buddies,” although we lived in the same barracks room with about 25 other men for more than a year. Nevertheless, I was reasonably well-acquainted with Schwartz.

Private Schwartz was a New Yorker who had a master’s degree in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was a fast-talking charmer who managed to wriggle his way out of disciplinary actions, although he was questioned about shirking his duties numerous times. Those of us who tried to stay out of trouble by doing our jobs fairly diligently marveled at Schwartz’s ability to drop out of sight for hours at a time and yet usually stay in the good graces of his superiors.

What was a conscientious objector (CO) doing in the army?  Mature adults are familiar with the COs who were morally opposed to serving in the military. When conscription was in effect, throughout much of recent American military history, COs were drafted along with other young males and assigned to alternative civilian duties, usually in health care fields. A little known fact is that many of these COs volunteered for arduous nonmilitary duties to prove they did not lack courage. For example, several hundred fulfilled their service obligations doing tough work for the U.S. Forest Service as smoke jumpers parachuting from low-flying aircraft to fight fires in remote areas during World War II.

Schwartz was among a different group of draftees who objected to using weapons but were not opposed to serving in military units that did not have combat roles. Our unit’s mission was training, not fighting. Schwartz served as sort of a general flunky. He helped the unit carpenter on occasion, kept the grounds around the barracks clean, and handled various other menial jobs assigned by a sergeant responsible for building maintenance.

Our unit did have weapons locked up in an arms room. The rifles and pistols were signed out to men required to guard prisoners or the payroll (I got both those assignments occasionally) or to stand guard near missile sites. Schwartz was exempt from those duties, as was another CO whose sole responsibility was to run the unit coffee shop. Apparently, part of the army’s handling of the non-combat draftees included a policy to never promote them.

Schwartz and our coffee shop operator were the only two buck privates among the 850 men in our battery, one of the largest artillery units in the army. Everyone else outranked them, including several hundred master sergeants who had key roles on instruction teams or in administration. A lieutenant colonel commanded our unit.

Schwartz displayed the kind of creativity shown by Private Bailey in the cartoon reproduced here shortly after our commander got a new superior officer—a “full bird” colonel named Hardman. He lived up to his name. Col. Hardman decided almost immediately that everything about our unit was sloppy, and we needed to shape up or face unpleasant consequences.

The shape-up orders came quickly, and all sorts of actions followed. Every decrepit wall and foot locker in the barracks was repaired and painted a uniform green. All the cots and lockers were rearranged into precise order. We started having daily formations at sunrise to count heads and weekly spit and polish inspections with everything we owned on display.

Just when things seemed in order, Col. Hardman told our commander he had two weeks to get every boot and shoe out from their usual resting places beneath our cots and into proper “military display” positions. The ultimatum included no advice about what proper military positions for shoes and boots were, or how to create them. About 300 single men lived in the barracks, so a lot of footwear was involved.

Several meetings in our commander’s office produced no useful ideas. Then Private Schwartz came to the rescue. He devised a plan for a combination foot locker and footwear display stand that could be positioned at the foot of every cot. Schwartz talked the unit carpenter into making a prototype. Our commander approved.

The building maintenance crew and a few special recruits went to work in the basement. They produced ten display racks in their first full day of labor. Having 290 more racks ready for Col. Hardman’s inspection 12 days away appeared to be a pipe dream.

Two days later, a happy unit commander appeared in the Sergeant Major’s office where I worked. “Sergeant Wesner,” he said to the top kick, “your men are doing a helluva job on this display rack project. They’ve got it whipped. Col. Hardman is in for a surprise.”

I sneaked down to the basement a while later to see exactly how any crew could have an impossible task “whipped.” There was Schwartz sitting in a swivel chair supervising three specialists, four privates first class, two buck sergeants, and his own supervisor, a sergeant first class, as they sawed boards and assembled display units in perfect order, one after another, in a line around the room. A completed unit was carried to the next room for painting at ten minute intervals.

Everyone was hard at work except Schwartz. After all, he had set up an assembly line, and would anyone expect Henry Ford to labor on his own lines? Private Schwartz clearly had assumed command of the display rack operation, and no one was disputing his authority.  Schwartz was honorably discharged about eight months later, still without a single stripe.

Punishment at the Pub?

In honor of our one tenuous link to the Old Sod—a great, great grandfather who lived and is buried in Ireland—beautiful wife Sandy and I traveled the seven miles to J.R. McGonigle’s Pub for a St. Patrick’s Day dinner. The music was loud. The conversations were boisterous. Green abounded, including the color of the beer flowing from one of the taps.

The place was packed. There aren’t that many Irishmen in the state of Michigan. Had anyone called the roll, odds were good it would have revealed the presence of more Schmidts and Skoronskis than O’Rourkes and O’Bannions.

We, of course, ordered the corned beef special. It came with red potatoes and the obligatory chunk of cabbage. The quantity was overwhelming. The quality was another matter, but a mug of Guinness from the non-green tap helped compensate for that. 

Did they take our bread?

When we left, I asked Sandy what she thought of the meal. It seemed as though something was missing. “There wasn’t any bread,” Sandy said. “That meal needs bread to be complete; a slice of rye would have been nice.”

Maybe someone heard me mention that great, great granddaddy was a Scot who migrated to Ireland several hundred years ago. There wasn’t a Catholic bone in his body, and he no doubt did not participate in celebrations of Patrick or any other saint. Did the “little people” punish us for the Scots-Irish part of my heritage by keeping the bread from our table?

My Nonlethal Weapon

Many were surprised when the Transportation Security Administration relaxed rules to let passengers carry small knives aboard planes. Apparently, the U.S. was falling in line after international authorities decided separating cockpits from passenger areas with heavy, locked doors and putting “sky marshals” randomly on flights along with continued bans on some items were sufficient deterrents to skyjacking.

Almost unnoticed in discussions about the advisability of allowing even small knives aboard planes was a provision in the new rules allowing passengers to carry not more than two golf clubs with them. I noticed it, because my putter once made it onto a list of banned items.

It didn’t happen as a result of 9/11.  It happened way back in 1975. About the only airliner security in place then was a brief stroll through a metal detector.

I was sent from Ogden, Utah, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to attend a U.S. Forest Service meeting. When my next-door neighbors heard about it, they insisted I try my best to arrange the trip so I could spend a little time with their daughter and her husband, who had just bought a new house. We liked the young couple, and I financed an extra night’s lodging at my Albuquerque hotel and got an invitation to a golf game and dinner in response.

I didn’t want to be burdened by shipping a whole set of clubs, so I settled on carrying my putter along. I thought having at least one familiar object in my rental club bag might contribute to a decent score on a strange course.

When I checked in at the Salt Lake City airport, the attendant quickly separated the putter from me. “You can’t carry that on the plane,” she announced.

“Why not? It would fit in an overhead bin easily. I also could stash it in the space between the cockpit and the passenger seats.”

“None of that matters,” she said. “You’ll have to check it through as luggage. Here’s a tube we can slide it into, and I’ll tape up the ends.”

“I really don’t believe this,” I said. “Are you sure?”

“Look, sir,” she said,” here’s the regulation. See this entry. Your putter is classified as a lethal weapon.”

“Certainly not by anyone who every saw me try to use it,” I said.

The putter and I arrived safely in Albuquerque. After my meeting ended, my host and I played several holes on a very good course before dinner. I lost the informal game by quite a few strokes. My putter proved to be no threat at all in New Mexico.

A Nominee for Best Film Line

The geezer rarely watches a movie simply because so few have been produced lately that are worth devoting a couple of hours to. Yet it seems while the number of good shows is declining the number of awards film folk bestow on each other is increasing.

It had good lines

So many Oscar winners were named at this year’s Academy Awards that there wasn’t time to allow many recipients to get to the podium to thank their mothers and anyone else they could think of for guiding them to the top of whatever their work is. It’s getting embarrassing. Nevertheless, the Academy is missing an important category.

Every now and then, a memorable line is spoken by one of the pretty people on the silver screen. Remember Rhett Butler telling Scarlett how much he cared? Or, Rick advising Sam to play it?  Such statements should rate a special award for the writer who produced a concise bit of unforgettable prose.

The best statement I’ve heard in the past several years came from a not-so-pretty, but pretty funny, little guy who was operating “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” Sonny Kapoor said:

“Everything will be all right in the end. So if it is not all right, it is not yet the end.”

Hard to top that one. It’s the ultimate optimism. Think of all the times Sonny’s advice could provide welcome reassurance to someone who needs it during your day-to-day activities.

Although the thoughts have nothing in common, for some strange reason, Sonny’s statement reminded me of a saying common in the Forest Service during my working days at the Boise National Forest some 40 years ago:

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

Waking to Winter Wonders

As the latest monster storm was scheduled to pass through on the way to the East Coast, we did our share of moaning and groaning. But when we awoke  Wednesday morning to six new inches of lake effect snow, we marveled at the beauty of winter from every vantage point in our cottage home.

                  From the front door . . .

From the master bedroom . . . 

 From the rear doors . . . 

 

From the kitchen . . . 

 

Who needs spring? Well, this white stuff is OK, but green scenes would be nice for a change.