It's my dutch blood that makes me so stubborn so I can understand the 17 folks who got arrested in Amsterdam today. They were squatting, either in protest or celebration (I'm not sure which), a law that went into effect a year ago that bans squatting.
I would have, probably, been right there with them except for the fact that my squatting days are over. I can squat alright but the old bones just don't have the strength to un-squat anymore.
AUGUST 2014
Saturday, October 01, 2011
SO, HOW COME I NEVER HEARD OF BEEDLES BAR AND RESTAURANT?
I can't believe someone, in the family, hasn't been there. I discovered them on TWITTER and then checked out their website. Which you can look over right here. Looks like a nice place.
THIS IS THE LAST DAY OF OKTOBERFEST IN LA CROSSE
I'm sure there are still some die-hard festers who will spend the day at the fest grounds.
By the way, if you're planning a trip to Europe, National Geographic Traveler has a nice article on the best beer trips in the "old country" Click here to check it out.
By the way, if you're planning a trip to Europe, National Geographic Traveler has a nice article on the best beer trips in the "old country" Click here to check it out.
FOR SALE
Willard has a 1973 HAMM'S BEAR DECANTER for sale. These are hard to find for collectors and are listed on the internet at almost $200.00. He's selling his for $85.00.
HERE WE GO AGAIN
Here we go again. Manning Beef, out of California, is recalling 80,000 pounds of beef. It may be tainted with E. coli which is something I really want to stay away from. In its worst forms, it can cause kidney failure.
WORLD TRAVEL
For those of you into travel, there's a great Norwegian travel story on the BBC website this morning. Take a look here: BBC
CLOSE TO FREEZING!
In fact, some folks were BELOW FREEZING this morning. It was 34, in La Crosse, at 6 A.M. but 27 at Sparta. Austin (Minnesota) was right at 32 and Rochester had 36. If this keeps up I'll have to get my parka out.
WHAT DAY IS IT?
I just put a load of clothes in the laundry. I never wash clothes on the weekend but it has been Friday to me since I got out of bed.
I just discovered it was Saturday when I ordered pills from Walgreen's and their response was that they'll be ready for pick-up on Sunday. I always get next day pick-up so I did some research and, sure enough, this is Saturday!
Every day a few thousand more brain cells become extinct.
I just discovered it was Saturday when I ordered pills from Walgreen's and their response was that they'll be ready for pick-up on Sunday. I always get next day pick-up so I did some research and, sure enough, this is Saturday!
Every day a few thousand more brain cells become extinct.
WHERE'S THE BEST HOTEL IN THE U.S.A.?
The Global Vacation Trips website has a video showing the top 10 hotels in the USA and I was surprised to see the best of them all is pretty close to home!
BOY! HOW THE TIMES CHANGE
I had to chuckle, this morning, about another story in the La Crosse Tribune about a competition the grade school kids are having in which they can earn points for walking to school.
Back in the days, when I was in grade school, you either walked or you didn't get there at all. As I recall, we didn't get points for anything.
The story brought back memories of how mad Gladys would get when she saw Dad and I walking to school. He was going to work at the high school, upstairs, and I was going to school at the grade school downstairs.
Dad and I would walk past the Nelson house wearing light jackets that were, usually, not even buttoned up and we never got a cold or the flu. Gladys, on the other hand, would bundle up Jeff and Kathy with so many clothes they could hardly walk and they'd be sick with a cold or flu from October to May.
Now, we've gone from the simpler days of old to the outrageous days of now...with a bit of help from the freaky Fox folks. Blowing a sneeze into a circus
OUR FIRST ROUNDABOUT
I'm anxious to make the trip out to Rita and Rogers place to see the first roundabout in La Crosse County which is just about finished. There's a story and picture in the LA CROSSE TRIBUNE this morning: ROUNDABOUT STORY
Friday, September 30, 2011
DONNIE REPORTS ON THE TEXAS "COLD" FRONT
"We are enjoying a cool front this weekend, our high only getting up to a "chilly" 90 degrees."
WIND DAMAGE
It looks like those high winds caused problems all over Wisconsin yesterday. In Door County so many trees and power lines were blown down that they've had to close all the state parks and trails until they can get the mess cleaned up.
LYNNE SENT THIS. I THINK YOU'LL LIKE IT.
This is a story of an aging couple Told by their son who was President of NBC NEWS.
This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News.
In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed.
Here goes... My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet. "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it." At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: "Oh, bull shit!" she said. "He hit a horse." "Well," my father said, "there was that, too."
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.
Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work. Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)
He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored."
If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre. "No left turns," he said. "What?" I asked. "No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.
As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn." "What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it.. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights." "You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again." I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked. "No," he said " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)
He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.
A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said.. "Yes," he said, "you're right."
He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet."
An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have." A short time later, he died. I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot.
I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns. "
Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the one's who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance,take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it."
ENJOY LIFE NOW !!!!!!
This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News.
In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed.
Here goes... My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet. "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it." At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: "Oh, bull shit!" she said. "He hit a horse." "Well," my father said, "there was that, too."
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.
Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work. Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)
He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored."
If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre. "No left turns," he said. "What?" I asked. "No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.
As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn." "What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it.. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights." "You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again." I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked. "No," he said " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)
He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.
A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said.. "Yes," he said, "you're right."
He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet."
An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have." A short time later, he died. I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot.
I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because he quit taking left turns. "
Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the one's who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance,take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it."
ENJOY LIFE NOW !!!!!!
BOOKS
Did you know that Rin Tin Tin was listed in the Los Angeles phone book. Did you know he made more money than his human co-stars?
I sure didn't know that but it's all in the new book"Rin Tin Tin: The life and the legend" by Susan Orlean. Read the review in in THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
I sure didn't know that but it's all in the new book"Rin Tin Tin: The life and the legend" by Susan Orlean. Read the review in in THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
WE'RE ALL GETTING OLD
Angie Dickinson celebrates her 80th birthday today and its 76 candles for Johnny Mathis.
WHAT IS ASK A STUPID QUESTION DAY?
Here's your stupid answer. According to Wikipedia, the holiday was created by teachers back in the 1980's as a way to encourage students to ask more questions in class.
THOSE AWFUL WINDS ARE GONE
I hope none of your lawn furniture blew away yesterday. That wind was really something. Some of the higher wind gusts included:
- Viroqua 40 MPH
- La Crosse 51 MPH
- Rochester 56 MPH
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