As the wheel turns

Is this new or from your archives?

Jeez, after all that exposition Uncle Ken never got around to answering the question as near as I could tell.  But that's okay, it's all part of his charm; he contains multitudes!  I was looking at some of his older works and I wish he would go back to those linoleum block prints; pretty good, in my opinion.

But it's little unsettling to see how well he writes from the point of view of a little girl.  Not that there's anything wrong with that and I'm sure that any pretty pirate dresses are for inspirational purposes only.

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Another year is down the tubes and I hope we can all have some black-eyed peas, greens, and cornbread to ring in the new year.  I'm going to see if I can get some decent time-lapse shots of the fireworks that are going off downtown at midnight.  It's a big deal, it is said, with many locations along the river involved.  I'll have to see about that but meanwhile, Happy New Year, gentlemen.

the puddle girls 2

 The photo came first.  It was in a copy of the Chicago Historical Society Magazine as part of an article on poor kids at the turn of the century.  What struck me was not so much that they were poor as their different attitudes stepping into the puddle.  Sarah on the left is not sold on the idea but is going along with it.  Julia in the center is just so damn sure of herself, and her sister Bess is following along because she would follow her sister anywhere.  

I wanted to paint the scene maybe fifteen years ago, and I made a few attempts, but failed utterly.  It's hard to paint a group of people together because they all have to have the same proportions, but what was hardest was trying to get the expressions on the girls' faces.  If you try to enlarge them the details blur.  Anyway I tried them and failed, then tried them again some years later with no success, and maybe one more time and again nada.

I am not sure what brought them up lately, but I have finished painting all my bugs  

http://www.bckat.us/KenSchadt/bugs/index.htm 

and I am not sure what my next series will be, and there is a winter break in the watercolor class so I kind of have some free time and I thought I will try it again.  But maybe I will do it a little different.  I will first paint them using only sepia and then I will add some other colors to that, but still they will be mostly monochrome.  

Here is what I have so far.

Yeah I know, not so hot, grotesque even, but this is all very preliminary, we will see where it goes.

But I was so fascinated by their different attitudes that I made up a story about them.  And the story is based on those Harold Robbins style potboilers of the fifties like The Carpetbaggers, lurid tales of beautiful people fighting over money with lots of violence and sex and betrayal.

There is none of that in the story so far, but I am just setting it up,

The photo had fallen out of the magazine years ago and I had like twenty or thirty of those magazines and I didn't want to go through them all and I thought of this facebook page, Forgotten Chicago.  People are always posting things like My uncle Joe Blow had a bar on Damen Avenue in the forties, I don't know where on Damen or what it was called, does anybody remember it or have a photo?  And bam, an hour later there is a photo of the bar, and people with  fond memories of good ol Joe Blow.

So I posted the photo and where I had found it, and asked if anybody had any info on it.  I got like fifty responses (and five hundred likes), and people loved the photo and had this and that to say about it, but there was not a word of where it was taken or when or anything.

Well shit.  I did an image search and there was a book that used the image on the cover.   I google the author's name and came across a mention of her in the fb page of the college she had retired from.  I asked the woman who mentioned her about it, and the handlers of the page and got no response.

I emailed the author of the article and she emailed me back that someone had added the photo to her article and she didn't know anything about it.  I contacted the magazine and it was in some collection of thousands of photos that was not easily searched and I didn't have any access to, and well, I just pestered and finally I came up with the caption and the fact that it had taken place in some settlement house in Bridgeport and not in Pilsen as I had imagined.

Back in prohibition days they had medical liquor much as we have medical marijuana.  You told your doctor you were a helpless alcoholic and he wrote you a script that you could take to the drugstore and get it filled with a fifth.  Walgreens was just beginning then and all that booze money fueled their success.  I read that somewhere and I will do research on it later.

That radical at the end of Beagles's post, never saw him before in my life, nope, nope, I don't know nuthin about him.

Another installment on the story of the puddle girls next year.

This is Different But I Like It

 Is this new or from your archives?  Either way, it represents a departure from what we have come to recognize as Uncle Ken's Style.  Was the story inspired by the photo, or did you search for a photo to match the story?  The part about the men lining up for prescription whiskey puzzled me.  Does that mean the story is set during Prohibition? 

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Anybody y'all know?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/at-parole-hearing-david-gilbert-described-radical-journey/ar-AAShO56?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

The puddle girls

 So, what do you guys think about this?

I didn't hardly know her then, her family had just moved into the neighborhood. Mrs. Becker had introduced her into my second grade class maybe a week previous.  She had just stepped out from behind that old wooden fence tugging her little sister behind her, "Hey Sarah," she called out, I was surprised she knew my name, later I would learn she was good at that stuff, "There's a lake out here."

A lake, I thought, hardly likely in Kaufman's prairie, it was a vacant lot, we called them prairies in those days, but she had that way about her, when she called you, you followed, and so I did, and when I came through the hole in the fence it was just a big puddle.

"That's no lake," I said, because I was a smart girl.

"No," she said, "It's not, it's a sea.  It's the deep blue sea."

Which it wasn't either, but just as she said it, it seemed, the sun broke out of the clouds, it had been raining all day, that's why there was a puddle, but now it was blue under the sky and it looked deep.

"Come," she said, "We must walk into the deep blue sea."

I didn't want to do it.  I was wearing my new shoes, and I was wearing my Easter dress too, which had looked so good when my mother had put me into it and patted down the part with the shiny buttons and given me a little shove out the door towards the church.  But when I started out down 18th Street and saw the other people walking towards the church in their Easter clothes compared to them it didn't look so good at all, and I ducked into the alleyway and ended up by that old wooden fence that ran along Kaufman's prairie.

"I don't know," I said.

"Oh come on," she said, and went to take my hand.

I shrugged her off.  She shrugged and stepped right into the puddle, dragging her little sister behind her.

She didn't look back, but I knew she knew I would follow her, and I did, and the mud sloshed into my new shoes, but looking up a bit from my shoes, it was blue, it was the deep blue sea, just like she said it was.  She had that way about her.

"We are," she said, "We are pirates."

Her sister clutching her sleeve in one hand and holding a mud-specked sky-blue Easter egg in the other, piped up, "Pirates."

"Pirates," she affirmed, "Pirates in pretty dresses."

"Pirates in pretty dresses on Easter morn, our ship wrecked on a rocky shore by the storm-tossed waters, stepping out into the sky-blue sea."  Where had I gotten that from?  Probably from some poem Mrs Becker had made us memorize.

She looked back at me and smiled.  I knew that we would be friends forever.

She sang the loudest at assemblies, not the best, but not bad, and while the rest of us were standing stiff as rods, she was moving. Her shoulders were bobbing up and down and her feet were tapping. At practice in the classroom Mrs. Becker had looked at her with her finger in front of her lips.  "Not so loud, Julia" she had told her, and Julia hushed, but just a little, and come the assembly she sang even louder than in practice, and our class got the biggest applause.  While the rest of us were standing ramrod straight I saw her take a little bow.

I was proud to do her homework.

 I was the smart one, she was the pretty one, that made us about equal, but then in sixth grade she developed and the boys became interested in her and she didn't mind that at all. 

She didn't care about homework anymore, and she didn't care much if I did her homework or not so I stopped doing it.  Workmen arrived behind the wooden fence and by the time they tore it down Kaufman's prairie was gone and there stood one of those new Walgreens drug stores.  Our daddies lined up for prescription whiskey where we had stepped into the deep blue sea, the pirates in pretty dresses were done.

She had the boys and I had school.  I was the valedictorian which meant that I got to give a speech at graduation.  I was a little daring about it, I called it Pirates in Pretty Dresses which was a little racy for the time, but I made it about stepping into the deep sky blue sea of higher education into a radiant future.  I kept the line, because I still remembered it, about the shipwreck on the rocky shore of the storm-tossed sea, even though it didn't really fit, and when I said it, I looked across the auditorium to where she was sitting, but she was banging knees with tall Steve Hogan, and not paying any attention at all.

I hardly saw her at all in high school. I was in the Scholarship Club, the Poetry Club, and I was on the Student Council.  The student council was supposed to select the senior class play.  I wanted to do something progressive, something about Emma Goldman or the Haymarket Riot.  I made a fiery speech about it, and when I was done the rest of the student council looked at me blankly and chose some cheesy play with a lot of singing and dancing, I don't remember what it was. 

But Julia was in it.  Nobody quite approved of her, but she could sing and she could dance, and more than that, she held the stage.  When she was off the stage the audience fidgeted, when she came back on they were rapt. 

When they came out to take their bows, the principal had the student council take the stage behind them, because I guess that we had selected the play, and maybe because they thought we were good examples for the rest of the class.  Amid the applause she stepped back to me, took my hand, raised it up and then down to join with the actors in the bow, and then she looked at me in that way she had, but I just looked away.

Her grades were lousy, she didn't even graduate, and I went on to the University of Illinois, a proud example of a girl from a hardscrabble neighborhood who had advanced herself.

I studied hard, I wrote poetry, I wrote scholarly papers, I almost never thought of Julia, and the next thing I knew she was in the movies.

wrong again

 Well shit I am totally wrong.  Using the best of my dead reckoning, which is pretty poor, I somehow had the towers to the left of the Deagan tower by the Hancock.  I figured State is only two blocks west of Michigan and considering the great distance away (not all that great in retrospect) of The Ravenswood Senior Living Building the towers must be right next to them.  Dead wrong clear on the other side.  And you know I thought I saw the R R Donnelly building all done up in white to the right of the Deagan but I dismissed the thought because I was so sure of my dead reckoning which has served me so poorly all these years, though I seem to forget this a lot, and as a result I am often lost.

The Ravenswood Senior Living Building though, it just does not have a ring.  The RSLB, not much of a ring either.  What does Old Dog call it when he goes down to the Walgreens to buy gum and happens to strike up a conversation with the flirty young clerk and she asks him where does he hang his hat?

Fun with the time lapse too.  I remember those videos of his subjects when Old Dog was The Lord of the Asian roaches.

I happened to see the Italian Job, not normally a fan of heist movies, except for that one where Ed Norton plays the mentally challenged guy, and that one only because of Ed Norton, but the critics rated it highly.  The thing was, if memory serves me well, what they were heisting was gold, which is a lot more valuable than Christmas trees, and speaking of which I remember seeing some getaway vehicle bouncing away and thinking gold is awfully heavy, those guys must have had enough sense to fortify their shocks so it wouldn't show, but then it turned out that they hadn't, so I don't know, if those crooks didn't know any better than a guy who can't even place his condo on the correct side of the Deagan Building, how smart can they be?

How I waste my time

...I will have to admit that I totally missed the Mackinaw.  I had the correct location but just never zoomed in close enough.

It's easy to forget what powerful tools we have at our fingertips.  I used the measuring tool to measure the Mackinaw, just to make sure I had the right boat, and I came up with 241 feet.  The article in the Sun-Times said it was 240 feet long, close enough for my purposes.  It occurred to me how easy it would be to plan a heist, along the line of the original Italian Job movie, and develop escape routes with pre-planned obstacles and using drones to escape with the loot.  The satellite views will inspire many a criminal, I'm sure.

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...my first thought is where are the towers?

Are you asking about the location of Marina City towers?  If so, go back and look at my "Fun with fotos" post from a couple of weeks ago.  It's tough to get a good image, even on a clear day (none yet), because I'm looking at the north side of the buildings that are never in direct sunlight and those towers blend into the background of the other buildings.  You can see them though, maybe even with the naked eye.  Anyhow, I've been fiddling a lot with time-lapse stuff and here's an animation from yesterday, beginning at 5:58am.  More fun with fotos!

 

towers

 That is some photo Old Dog with the tower standing boldly in the foreground and beyond that a cloudy sunset turning into black night as the lights of the city come on.  A peaceful holiday evening,  This being a Friday Uncle Ken would likely be standing on the platform below the tower having had a pleasant evening of gemutlichkeit with good buddies and taken himself home to his cat in Marina City, were it not that he stayed home that night watching an excellent movie, The Last Duel.

Of course with all photos with even a glimpse of downtown my first thought is where are the towers?

Well that is certainly the Hancock on the left and just to its left is the 900 N Michigan building, and what is that dim rectangular shape just a little further behind them?  Ah it must be that new tower where once the parking lot of Holy Name Cathedral stood, if a parking lot can be said to stand.  I had to look up its name, and was disappointed to discover that it is the banal One Chicago Square, a very sleek and surprisingly handsome building standing relatively in the middle of nowhere skyscraper-wise, still dark because at this point hardly  anybody has moved in yet.  And likely like the Vista on the river it will stay half occupied because its condos will be so dear that only people who already own five or six different luxury condos in different cities will be able to afford them.

Or maybe it is the Sears tower, from such a distance on a muggy night who can tell.  But certainly humble Marina City, with its affordable apartments and friendly folks always ready to extend a heartfelt howdy do is not visible.  Still I wonder if it is visible from Old Dog's new haunts on one of those bright crystal clear noons like we get sometimes when the temps go down to zero.

And speaking of photos of faraway photos and Old Dog I will have to admit that I totally missed the Mackinaw.  I had the correct location but just never zoomed in close enough.  

And to preserve the memory of this Christmas here is a photo from State Street the day before Christmas.

The Three Sisters

 As with many good stories, no two accounts of the sinking of the Rouse Simmons are exactly the same.  I had a little diving experience a long time ago and have been interested in Great Lakes shipwrecks ever since.  One of Old Dog's sources contains a good photo of the wreck, and I noticed that the hull is largely intact and is sitting upright on the bottom.  This leads me to believe that the ship basically filled up with water and sank.  If the bow had been crushed or the hull had been broken in two, it would indicate that the ship might have fallen victim to The Three Sisters.  Legend has it that a storm sometimes produces three huge waves in a row, each one taller than the last.  The doomed ship rides up to the crest of each wave and then plunges down to the trough.  By the time it plunges down the last wave, it just keeps going until it hits bottom.  Modern Great Lakes freighters can be up to a thousand feet long, while the depth of the water seldom exceeds a few hundred feet.  I say it's a legend because I have never heard of an eyewitness account by a survivor. 

Cheboygan's paper mill has a long history dating back to the 1860s.  It has had a number of owners since then, some of whom went broke and abandoned their investment.  It had been closed for years when Charmin bought it in the late 1950s, shortly before Procter & Gamble bought Charmin.  I worked there from 1967 till they closed in 1990.  Three years later a former P&G manager bought the mill and restarted it.  This guy used to be my boss at a time when I was the department union steward.  We had some disputes, but I figured I was just doing my job as he was doing his.  I never held a grudge, but he apparently did and was reluctant to hire me back.  Some of my former colleagues eventually persuaded him to bring me in, at least temporarily, to help with the start-up.  I worked there a couple months and then was "laid off for lack of work", coincidently, about the same time some of the guys, unbeknown to me, were trying to bring the union back.  The union initiative failed, and the mill is still being run by that same guy, who now has been there longer than I was.

Waterfront property is prime real estate in these parts.  I don't know the proportion of seasonal homeowners to permanent residents, but many of the seasonal people become permanent upon their retirement.  Cheboygan is a nice place to live, but a poor place to make a living.  It used to be said that our biggest export was high school graduates.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

    

Ho, Ho, Ho

An unbelievably balmy Christmas Eve in the big city, fellas.  Hope everyone finds enough coal in their stockings in case the power goes out.

Last minute reminder

Nearly forgot to remind my colleagues that tonight would be a fine time to watch, or re-watch, the great Finnish Christmas film, Rare Exports.  Santa Claus as you've rarely seen him, the skinny guy and not the fat jolly old elf that Coca-Cola has imprinted on our brains.  Not scary at all, no sir.

 

 

Rossi's, esoteria, and merry Christmas

 I reckon the old tars of the Christmas ship would not be seeking out a touristy thing but would be more comfortable in a raucous dive bar such as Rossi's where they could down tankards of ale and shots of rum and regale the crowd with tales of the bounding main and break spontaneously in old sea shanties.  Pity that I wasn't there to hear their tales.  But I don't get out there near as much as I should, but now that Old Dog brings it up it occurs to me that it would be an excellent spot to down a few this New Years eve.

My favorite story about Rossi's is when some years ago I was entering it with some tourist pals from Saint Joseph Missouri.  Before we could enter the bartender was giving some guy the bum's rush out of there.  As we followed the bartender as he reentered the bar another customer rushed up to him to thank him for ridding the bar of that noxious pest, and the bartender glared at him and said, "You want to go next Pal?"  Yes indeed a great place to drop into on New Years eve.

Now that we have discussed the Rouse Simmons, the patriotic war, and the St Patrick Battalion, here is another piece of esoteric historical trivia that just came over the transom via NPR.   https://sartenada.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/roosevelt-log-cabin-cabana-de-roosevelt-cabane-de-roosevelt-cabana-de-roosevelt/

It is maybe not as historical as the other topics but it does give us that holiday flair complete with photos, and it takes place in Finland, the place of Old Dog's forebears.

Well then Merry Christmas to the dawgs, and hoping to hear from Free Tim Boxer soon.

Diving a little deeper

Glad you liked the video, Mr. Beagles, despite the few glitches.  As my deep dive (get it?) continues I discovered another, more significant error.  According to some Cheddarhead academics in Wisconsin, the Rouse Simmons did, indeed, fly the American flag upside down as a distress signal.  Read about it here: https://www.wiscontext.org/final-voyage-christmas-tree-ship

Another site proved more informative to me, this one including videos and photos of salvaged items, including that leather wallet.  You can even see the anchor on display at the Milwaukee Yacht Club if you ever happen to be in the neighborhood.  Good stuff here: https://halfpuddinghalfsauce.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-rouse-simmons-christmas-tree-ship.html

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Is that paper mill near the Cheboygan Dam the one you worked at, Mr. Beagles?  Looks like an easy commute, even in the winter.  And the paper mill explains all those sunken logs that I mentioned.  I didn't realize that the bridge at State Street was a drawbridge; the steel grating should have given it away.  It's always good to have a local man on the scene.

I'm starting to really enjoy nosing around Cheboygan and its environs; it's a good playground for me to study land use and geography and I understand the allure.  But I'm curious about all the housing along the rivers and lakes; is it mostly seasonal for the downstate vacation crowd?  An awful lot of homes, it seems to me.

Good Job Old Dog!

 My comments about the Rouse Simons came from a book that I read some years ago and I was working from memory.  This is one case where the movie was way better than the book, it contained more factual information and was presented in a more professional manner.  There were some typos in the subtitles that the narrator faithfully reproduced when he spoke.  Also, as any boy scout can tell you, flying the American flag at half-mast is not a distress signal, it's a sign of mourning for someone who has recently died.  The actual distress signal is flying the flag upside down.  These are the only two things that I found wrong with the video.  Everything else was top notch.

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The Cheboygan Dam is located right behind the paper mill.  The lock can accommodate boats over 40 feet long and raises them 15 feet above the downstream water level.  It was originally built in the 1860s by the Slack Water Navigation Company, a consortium of logging interests, to facilitate floating logs down the Inland Waterway.  In those days, the present paper mill was a water powered sawmill, and some of the original structure is part of the paper mill complex even unto this day.  At some point the sawmill switched to electric power, which it generated onsite.  Eventually, the dam, lock and generator became owned by Consumer's Power and the electricity was fed into the grid.  Shortly before I moved here, Consumer's sold or gave the site to the state because they said the generator was too small for their purposes.  They still maintain a garage for their trucks there, but the state owns everything else except the flume that runs under the paper mill.  

The generator had been removed before I came to work at the mill, but a new one was installed by Procter & Gamble around 1980.  At the time, it generated about 10% of the power we used, but only when it was operating.  Like the Alverno Dam, the builders of the Cheboygan Dam agreed to maintain the water level upstream at a certain level forever, and this contract was binding on its successors. There is a sensor in Mullet Lake that automatically shuts off the generator when the water level falls below a certain point.  It's kind of hard to restart the generator after an automatic shutdown, so the operators try to anticipate it and shut it down manually, then they don't start it up again until they determine there is enough water in the system to run it for at least a day or two.

There are only two bridges crossing the river in Cheboygan, the State Street drawbridge and the Lincoln Avenue Bridge.  It's not really an inconvenience for us because there is no direct route to town from Beaglesonia anyway.  Lincoln Avenue dead ends in the swamp, so we have to either go north to State Street or south to Van Yea Road, thence north on Lafayette to Lincoln Avenue.  It's only about a 15-minute drive either way.

Abrahamson Road is so named because it goes to the old Abrahamson farm.  It continues as a two-track after that but soon peters out in the swamp.

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Is Festivus a real thing?  I remember it from the old Seinfeld show and thought it was fictitious, but the Weather Channel showed a Festivus greeting on one of its displays this morning.

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I read something once about the St. Patrick's Brigade in National Geographic, but the Wiki article goes into more detail.  

Happy Festivus!

Uncle Ken's newspaper link about the Coast Guard's Mackinaw and the followup by Mr. Beagles have sent the Old Dog on a fine excursion; it feels like I've returned from a vacation, following the rivers and streams of upstate Michigan.

A grand time, indeed, but what's this statement from Uncle Ken?

Too bad that the Mackinaw was not in port on the day the satellite took that photo.

Hmmm...the Google Earth and Google Maps that I'm using are showing the ship, plain as day, moored at the Coast Guard Station.  The Alverno Dam shows up clearly, also.  Maybe I'm just looking at those images differently as I zoom in, lots of fun making little discoveries in the waterways.  Did you see the dam on the Cheboygan River, and the lock facility?  It looks like there are a lot of logs or timbers at the bottom of the river; must be a good story behind that.

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Anyhow, there's a lot going on with the Christmas Ship and it's fascinating.  There were dozens of ships that made late season runs north for Christmas trees.  All of those ships sold their trees to middlemen, the exception being the captain of the Rouse Simmons, who sold his trees directly to the public from the docked ship.  Once he made a little profit he would give the remaining trees away.  Did you know that one of the investors in the ship was the Simmons guy of mattress fame?  The internet said so, so it must be true.  I know you guys aren't YouTube fans to the extent that I am, but in good example of synchronicity there was a recent video about the Rouse Simmons and it's tragic fate.  See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhstVJuqZUY&list=WL&index=2

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This talk of waterways has got me wondering, how does Mr. Beagles get to the Walmart across the river?  It looks like there are only two crossings available, neither of which is a straight shot from Beaglesonia.  And what's the deal with Abrahamson Road?  It looks odd, being at an angle like that and dead straight for nearly a mile.

As Mr. Beagles followed the river to Mullet Lake, I followed the Black River south from Black Lake.  Near as I can tell it fizzles out about two miles north of Hetherton in Otswego County.  At this point, it's elevation is about 500 feet higher than it's entrance at Black Lake.  Another fun excursion is following Little Black River from Black Lake. It doesn't look like much, barely a trickle in some spots as it meanders west, even looking like dry land to me.

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Free Tim Boxer is back

Ha, ha, he never left. For the past year he was listed as one of the contributors.  Consider this snippet from November 16, 2020: PS, just now invited the commentator Free Tim to take part in the blog, waiting to hear from him.  I thought it odd that he would only post comments when he had full posting privileges but maybe he didn't know that you have to log in to Blogspot to get things rolling.

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Finally, getting back to that Sun-Times article about the Mackinaw, did Uncle Ken mosey on down the street to Rossi's and stand some Coasties a round?  Long time since I've been in Rossi's but I can't see it as much of a tourist spot unless it's changed, a lot.

 

 

DUM dum de da DUM DUM

 Alright Tim,  I have emailed you, and am assuming the email on your blog is still correct, and blogspot is sending you an invitation to become a author on this blog.

I feel that we ought to have some kind of celebration, something with caps and gowns and playing Pomp and Circumstance. In my capacity as a substitute teacher I witnessed many practices and actual graduations.  Knowing eighth graders as the hellions they were in my classroom I expected them to be all rowdy and making fun of the process, but they took the whole thing very seriously, doing that stutter step to the DUM dum de da DUM DUM, walking up to the stage from the sides of the auditorium, looking for all the world like newly matured humans casting aside the spit balls of youth and eager to march proudly across high school and college and post graduation and solve cancer.  Just as We, Brothers of The Institute, spread enlightenment to the world.

Before I write a post I generally have a vague idea of what I am going to say, but once I start writing I will sail off on any old wind that blows.  I am not saying that's the right way, but that's what I do.  

The New Yorker recently reran Shirley Jackson's Lottery.  There was a little bit of a boomlet of interest in her in response to the movie Shirley, which took a few liberties and sometimes sailed off any old wind that blew, but that made it a pretty good movie.  This thing where a movie has to be just like the book or just like the facts of a book is so much bushwa if you ask me, but others may have different opinions.

But I am trying to generate opinions here, put a little something on The Institute dish to get the other dawgs out here and writing about stuff and introducing themselves to Free Tim Boxer, and while I'm on the subject do you want to choose an Official Institute moniker?

Okay only nine more days to the year and one of them is Christmas, so let's get cracking.

Free Tim Boxer is back

 As the Dawgs know when we begin a new post we click on New Post and go to another page where we have to click on another New Post before we can begin to spin our tale off to the world. But New Post is not the only option on that second page, there is also a Comments option, and from time I check out what is there, and I did so this morning and there were four new posts by Free Tim Boxer, who we were just about to induct into The Institute last year when he suddenly dropped out of sight, apparently having swapped computers and lost a link.

Well he is back, he has four new comments.  I am wondering Tim if you would like to become an author on the blog?

Glad to hear about your taking the kids out skating.  Like dancing, it's one of those things I regret never taking up.  My sisters did it a bit and I remember peeking into the boxes where they kept their skates and seeing how narrow the blades were despaired of ever making figure eights, or zeroes, or even ones.

I have been hoping to hear from Old Dawg about his days of aspiring to unicyclism.  At the current time we have electric unicyclists joining the scooters on the street here.  It's a simple machine, just a wheel and two things to put your feet on from which I guess you can steer it and control the speed.  Seems like most riders are dressed in black and sneer at death.  But I have to admit that they look way cool.

I can't quite place that thing about whispering WHOM to oysters.  Is that from The Walrus and the Carpenter?

That thing about blinking our lights at people a hundred light years away got me to thinking about a Grubhub to Nu2 Draconis 
A where that little deli has those great pastrami sandwiches.  You would hop into your almost-speed-of-light rocket and be there in like five minutes, well your time, a hundred years for the folks back home and get back to Earth five minutes later with the sandwich still warm, and the great to the tenth grandkids of the guy who shoved that twenty in your hand would take the sandwich and you would hand them the change.

Beagles, I know about the Fenians and Shay's Rebellion, but have you heard of Saint Patrick's Battalion?    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Battalion

Oh Canada

 I didn't post last night because I got involved looking up the Patriot War, of which I had no previous knowledge.  I've often wondered why we don't hear a lot about Canada in the news.  Seems like we should be more interested in Canada than, say, Afghanistan.  Maybe it's because not much happens in Canada these days, but it was not always so.

During the American Revolution, there was at least one incursion into Canada in an attempt to persuade the Canadians to join our guys in rebellion against the Crown.  The Canadians were not interested and chased the Americans back across the border.  Before that there was a long history of violent confrontations between rival fur companies on both sides of the border, which wasn't very well defined in those days anyway.  During the War of 1812, the British torching of Washington, D.C. was in retaliation for a raid that the Americans had made into Canada.  Fun fact: If the burning of Washington had not been interrupted by a hurricane, we might all be speaking English today. 

I disagree with the assertion that the Patriot War was inconsequential.  Of course, it was nothing like the wars we have today, but it inspired the U.S. and Canada to get together to advance their mutual interests. 

International relations[edit]

In geopolitical terms, the Rebellions and the Patriot War altered the landscape of relations between Britain and British colonial authorities, on one hand, and the American government on the other.^[9] Both nations were dedicated to a peace policy, due to a budding financial crisis, and to a sense of perceived disadvantage, which both felt equally. Both were legitimately concerned about the disruption in relations which radical ideas might foment through further rebellion and raids (this was a greater worry to the British than to the Americans). An unprecedented level of cooperation occurred in diplomatic and military circles. In the United States, in addition to dialogue, the administration of Martin Van Buren used its military forces and local authorities in the enforcement of a new Neutrality Act, encouraged the prosecution of filibusters, and actively deterred American citizens from subversive activities abroad. Thus the Patriot War contributed to the construction of more recent Anglo-American and Canada-U.S. relations; it also led, more immediately, to a backlash among U.S. citizens regarding the seeming overreach of federal authority.^[32]

Patriot War - Wikipedia 

In the process of researching the Patriot War, I stumbled across this one.  It didn't do much for U.S. - Canadian relations, but it helped convince the Canadians to form their disparate territories into a federal union, much like Shay's Rebellion did for what would become the United States of America.

Fenian raids - Wikipedia

Shays' Rebellion - Wikipedia

space exploration

 Well done Beagles.  Following your directions with one finger on your narrative and another on the google map and making it bigger and smaller and switching between road and satellite views I was able to zone in on the dam and the various rivers and lakes that make up the inland waterway.  As NPR was discussing the James Webb Telescope which is launching on Christmas Eve I was envisioning Indians slipping their canoes into narrow slippery rivers.  

What an exciting thing it must have been to be traveling along the rivers and lakes of the inland waterways.  They must have wondered if they took a left instead of a right and kept on going what would they run across.  What if they just kept going, what was out there in the big wide world?  

And so goes the James Webb.  Well we already know what is out there, or more precisely what it looks like from here.  And it is not going that far from the earth, but it will be looking deep into space, deep into where the big bang banged long ago.  But that is not what is getting all the ink.  What is getting all the ink is little green men.  Well we are social animals we want to, you know, have someone to chat with during those long years before the sun explodes or, surviving that, when the universe is nothing but sparse cold smithereens.  

There doesn't seem to be that much to the patriotic war.  Seems like just a bunch of malcontent Canadians and opportunistic Americans, and neither Canada or the USA had wanted much to do with them.  Most of them ended up shipped to Australia.  There was a shadowy group of soreheads who became the Hunters' Lodge and I wonder if they were a forerunner to Michigan's famous militias.

Solstice tomorrow morning.  Days will be technically getting longer but it seems like there are a couple weeks of stutter stepping before we begin to gain one or more whole minutes per day.

The Inland Waterway - Main Branch

 The Alverno Dam doesn't appear on the road map view, you have to switch to the satellite view and zoom in.  It is approached from Black River Road to the east via Kensington Road.

There is some high ground around the Gaylord - Grayling area, but Michigan doesn't just slope one way.  The Inland Waterway drains a substantial portion of the Northern Lower Peninsula, but not all of it.  For example, when we reach the upper end of the waterway, there is a narrow strip of land between Round Lake and Little Traverse Bay, which is the divide between two watersheds.  The rain that falls on the west side of Highway 119 flows down to Lake Michigan, while the rain that falls on the east side of 119 ends up in Lake Huron via our Inland Waterway.

Now we resume our journey.  At the south end of Mullet Lake is the mouth of the Indian River, not to be confused with the mouth of the Pigeon River to the east.  First, we traverse a large marsh known as The Spreads, through which the narrow navigable channel threads.  Above the I-75 bridge the channel narrows even more and the speed of the current increases.  We leave the marsh behind and travel through the town of Indian River, which changes to "Tuscarora" when you zoom in.  This duality may be explained by the fact that Indian River is not incorporated as a village or city and is governed by Tuscarora Township, although everybody calls it Indian River.  

Be that as it may, the Indian River flows out of Burt Lake, which is shaped kind of like the State or Michigan except that the thumb is on the other side.  At the end of this thumb, we come to the mouth of the Crooked River, not to be confused with the mouth of the Maple River to its north.  The Crooked River leads us through some marshes and the town of Alanson to the east end of Crooked Lake.  The west end of Crooked Lake brings us to the end of our journey.  There is a marshy creek that connects Crooked Lake to Round Lake.  This creek is not considered navigable, but it looks like you could slip a canoe through there, which is what the Indians must have done back in the day.  From Round Lake it's only a short portage to Little Traverse Bay.

The Indians used the Inland Waterway as an alternate route to Mackinac Island when the weather was rough on Lake Michigan.  Mackinac Island had religious significance for the Indians, who gathered there once a year to discuss tribal business and conduct ceremonies.  It also became a big trading post during our fur trapping era.  Cheboygan developed as a lesser trading post during the 19th Century and is a poplar shopping destination even unto this day. 

  

the patriot wars

 I can see now where the Cheboygan and Black are two separate rivers,  I can see where it looks like the Cheboygan river comes out of Mullet Lake.  I can see a town named Alverno, but I can't find any Alverno dam.   I think it was explained to me earlier that between the Upper Peninsula and the thumb part of Michigan is the Lower Peninsula.  Is the higher ground at the center of the LP and water flows from there into Lake Huron and Lake Michigan?

Looking at the big map I realize how little I know of the great lakes.  Part of Lake Ontario is south of the tip of Lake Michigan.  Which leads me to an astounding question, is Chicago north of a part of Canada?

Of course I went to the google which gave me no clear answer, but apparently not.  But going back to google earth I discovered Pelee Island in western Lake Erie that looks like it is as far south as, say Gage Park.  I will have to investigate this further, and also the matter of the Patriot War which sounds very interesting.

The Inland Waterway - Black River Branch

 When you trace the Cheboygan River south from The Straits, you are going upstream.  A few miles upstream of the town, you come to The Forks, where the Black River joins the Cheboygan River.  The Black River is much wider than the Cheboygan River, so it's understandable that you might mistake it for the mainstream.  My satellite view calls this stretch the "Upper Black River", but this is incorrect.  The real Upper Black flows into Black Lake from the southwest.  It's a pretty small stream, so you will need to zoom way in to see it.  The Upper Black drains a whole lot of land, all the way to the county line, and likely beyond that, but I can't trace it any farther.  

Black Lake was much smaller before the Alverno Dam was built.  I don't know the date, but it was originally used to generate electricity.  Back in the 1970s, the power company didn't want the dam anymore, so they tried to get permission to remove it and abandon the site.  Turned out that there was an old treaty that required the dam builder and its successors to maintain Black Lake at a certain level forever.  The state might have taken it over for a while, I don't remember, but a private outfit ended up owning it and, last I heard, they were still generating on a small scale. 

Now we go back downstream until we return to The Forks.  The Black River is not really Black but, its water is noticeably darker than the Cheboygan River water upstream of The Forks.  This is not due to pollution, it's caused by natural tannin that leaches out of tree bark and other vegetation through which the Upper Black flows.  As previously noted, the Cheboygan River channel is narrower than the Black River channel, but it has a swifter current.  The Black River ends at The Forks, from there on down, it's all the Cheboygan River.  If we continue up the Cheboygan River channel from The Forks, we soon come to Mullet Lake, from where we will continue our journey in the next installment.

the winter of my accomplishment

 That was a pretty good story about Cheboygan.  Too bad that the Mackinaw was not in port on the day the satellite took that photo.  Oh here's something I forgot.  I traced the Cheboygan river southwards and it appears to drain into/come out of Black Lake (which I might add looks terrific in its satellite photo) and I am wondering what is going on there.  Sometimes a river will expand into a lake but will still drain out at the other end of the lake but I don't see any other river coming out of that lake.

This day next week it will be Christmas eve, and the week after that will be new year's eve, and then it will be the new year.  The new year strikes me as being a lot like the new moon, a whole lot of nothing.  A vast white ocean with minor holiday (MLK, Valentine's day, Groundhog day) and nothing much to do but watch the days ever so slowly get longer.  

Kind of a time to get things done, clean up the house, write that novel, get your shit really together without those pesky vacations and old pals dropping in and spring cleaning, and oh, it's just too nice a day to do anything but sit on the veranda and sip lemonade.

I've been on an organizing my house thing since last week, a couple closets, a bookcase in my bedroom, so much more to go.  Starting out you think that you are going to get rid of so much shit, but then you come across all this stuff that you haven't touched in years but it's still perfectly good, and just deciding what to do takes up so much brain power that you are just happy to know what is where that you just pass it on.  

Do you guys have a slop drawer, where you keep very sentimental stuff, and sometimes stuff just slips in there and you continue to keep it just because you have already kept it so long?  How about this?  I still have my high school diploma.  You know despite those four long years I put in there, no prospective employer has ever asked to see it.

Ok there it is.  As god is my witness this year I will throw out my high school diploma, boom there it is.  Already I am having misgivings, but I will be strong.  Off it goes.  And now when the tender shoots shoot up yellow green I will be able to look upon this winter and feel like I have accomplished something.

Why Not Cheboygan?

The original Christmas Ship did not sail from Cheboygan, I think its home port was Chicago.  The owner came up to the Upper Peninsula to harvest wild Christmas trees for the Chicago market.  

I don't know why the old Mackinaw was docked in Cheboygan instead of Mackinaw City or Sault Saint Marie.  It may have been because there was a war going on and they didn't want all their ships in one place making a tempting target.  If you look at the satellite view, you will see the Mackinaw's dock near the mouth of the river.  It doesn't stick out, it runs along the shore parallel to the channel.  Just upstream of the dock is the turning basin, a wide spot that was dredged out to enable the ship to turn around and face downstream so it would be ready to go the next time it was called out.  Other than that, there is not much room for a big ship to dock in the river.  One exception is a large tug and barge that comes periodically to unload gasoline at the small tank farm.  I don't think they use the turning basin, they back out after unloading.

Cheboygan started out as an Indian village and became a trading post during our fur trapping era.  Marine traffic was mostly canoes in those days, so they didn't need a lot of dock space.  

During our logging era, there were two or three big sawmills and numerous smaller ones in and around Cheboygan.  Logs were floated down the river and cut into boards that were loaded into sailing schooners that were small ships by today's standards. There were some docks that projected out into the straits to accommodate the lumber schooners, but they were made out of wood and eventually rotted away.  On a clear day you can still see traces of these docks underwater.  After they ran out of timber close to the water, they ran narrow gauge railroad tracks out into the woods and skidded the logs with animal power to where they could be loaded.  One outfit had a railroad steam engine that had been converted to run on treads like a tank, with two skis where the front wheels would have been.  

cheboygan

 What I wondered about was why Cheboygan?  Why was Cheboygan the start of the journey?  I don't mean any disrespect to the proud town but viewing it from google maps there doesn't seem to any port.  I see a couple harbors but they seem only big enough for small fishing boats and pleasure craft.  So where does the Mackinaw harbor?

How is it a big deal in Cheboygan?  Do they gather at lakeside to cheer the sailors on and then gather in watering holes to tell tall tales and sing sea shanties deep into the night?  

I have read that when the west was being won there were not enough trees in that arid land and Wisconsin and Michigan were nothing but trees so they chopped them all down and they went down the lake to Chicago where they were cut into boards and put on trains so that the western settlers would not have to live in mud houses anymore.

Well maybe it was the river then, maybe they chopped the trees down and floated them down the river and put them on Great Lakes shipping boats to go south.  But again where did those shipping boats dock?

I went to wiki for more info but didn't find much as to why Cheboygan is there, probably not much farming there, maybe as a port on what was once a teeming trade route.

I did learn that it was home to a cyclecar manufacturer, which were cars halfway between motorcycles and automobiles.  

Well I am just spitballing here, when we have a guy who has lived there for about fifty years right here in the Institute smoking room, so I will let him tell the story.

Christmas Ships

 Yes, the Christmas Ship is kind of a big deal in Cheboygan.  That was an excellent write up in the Sun-Times, but I'll see if I can fill in some more details.

This is actually the second Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw.  The first one was launched during World War II because they wanted to keep Great Lakes shipping shiping open year-round for the war effort.  Year-round shipping was discontinued after the war, but it has been revived a few times since then.  Each time, it proved to be more trouble than it was worth and was subsequently abandoned.  They do still keep some lanes open for local traffic, but the Sault Locks close down from December till March or April, blocking the passage from Lake Superior to Lake Huron.  When the first Mackinaw was decommissioned and turned into a floating museum in Mackinaw City, the second Mackinaw was docked in Cheboygan, right where the first Mackinaw used to be.

The original Christmas Ship probably sank because it was overloaded.  There was a bumper harvest of trees that year, and the owner sent whatever the ship couldn't carry by rail to Chicago.  The ship got into some freezing rain, which likely coated the ship's rigging and the trees stacked on deck with ice, causing the ship to become top heavy and unable to navigate the rough seas that it encountered next.  I don't believe the wreckage was ever found.  When the ship didn't show up, the owner's widow sold the trees that came by rail, and continued to do so, year after year, until she got too old to do it.  She maintained her husband's tradition of always saving some trees to give away to needy families.

you could have knocked my socks off

 this morning reading the paper with the cat on my lap and I came across this paragraph: 

This year, the Mackinaw brought about 1,200 pine trees, which are given to needy families. The drop-off in early December capped a five-day mission that started in Cheboygan, Michigan, on Lake Huron.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/12/14/22820993/coast-guard-christmas-tree-ship-mackinaw-chicago-navy-pier-lake-michigan

Does Beagles know anything about this?  Is it a big deal in Cheboygan?

Ravenswood

 This is one of those glamour photos of downtown, taken from the roof of the London House which is all gussied up like a French whorehouse at Christmastime.  I am posting it because if you look at the tower on the right and look just above that row of lights about a quarter of the way up (our laundry room and storage lockers) in the center is my string of lights.

That photo I took in Old Dog's direction was on a muggy day of which we get a lot downtown. I meant to get another shot on those clear, crisp as an October apple, days, but by then Old Dog had indicated that he could not see the tower from his window so I gave up.

Maybe I should try again, things get very crisp often in the winter.  The line between the lake and the sky is so sharp that you fear it might cut you eye if you looked at it too long.  I wonder if Old Dog can see Marina City with his naked eye.  I suppose even if I couldn't see his building I could take a photo in the general direction and then fuck with it until Ravenswood Manor came into view.  It would be a big help if Old Dog could tell me if it is left or right of the Wrigley Building looking from the east tower.  

Oh wait a minute.  Further research reveals that it is not Ravenswood Manor, it is Ravenswood Senior Living, a much handsomer building, and plugging that into google earth I can see that it is definitely to the left of Wrigley.  I'll go up to the roof on the next sunny crisp day and see what I can get out of my hundred buck andriod.

I always liked the name Ravenswood which brings up a vision of a dark leafy forest full of cawing birds.  At one time I dug into it and came to the disappointing fact that it was called that because a fellow named Ravenswood was a big investor, but that was a false memory that I just learned looking it up.  It was the name of the development company doubtless chosen for the image it brings to mind.

And one of the developers was John H Kedzie.  I always wondered about the name of that street, it never seemed to fit in with the dignified names of the north/south main streets.  And what do you know, he is interred in Rosehill, a cemetery I have done much sketching.  The first warm spell we get after the holidays I shall have to go there and look him up, and while I am in the hood it would behoove me well to drop by Ravenswood Senior living and see if I can see Marina City.

Oh look here is his own little tower

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_H._Kedzie_Memorial_Rosehill_Cemetery_Chicago_2019-0437.jpg

Pretty snazzy huh?

Fun with fotos

Remember this pic that Uncle Ken posted this past August?  It was taken from the roof of his building showing the lights of Wrigley Field and he speculated that he might be able to see my building on a clear day.  I had my doubts; there are a lot of tall buildings between here and there.

I spent a lot of time looking for Marina City with my telescope but the downtown area always seems to be hazy and I had no luck.  It turns out I wasn't looking in the correct direction; I was too far east.  I was estimating the direction based on what I thought was Trump Tower but I had the wrong building because it was blocked by the Deagan Building.  A lot of time was spent on Google Earth, connecting the various locations and I finally got it right.  It's a lot of fun to go flying through the sky with the 3-D view and I wonder how they get such good images of all the buildings.  The view of my building is a couple of years old and it even shows the graffiti when the building was vacant.  A strange site, to be sure.

Anyhow, the following image shows the  view of Marina City from my easternmost window.  The first image is the original from my newly repaired digital camera, the second image is an enhanced version, and the final image is a detail section that shows Marina City in all of its glory.  Turned out pretty good, I think, since the building isn't in direct sunlight.  According to Google Earth I'm about five miles from Marina City, as the crow flies.  I'm starting to feel like the guy in that 60s movie Blow-Up, wondering what I'll find if I start looking closely at these telephoto images.  Cameras and computers are a dandy combination, don't you think? 

bushwa

 I have my doubts about it how applicable that law is, seems a bit of a stretch to me, seems like under the prosecutor's application, a lot of criminal acts could be considered terrorism, but I guess that will be for the lawyers to wrangle.  Funny that we haven't heard anything from Fieger.  Usually in a big time case like this the lawyers for both sides want to get a lot of what their argument is out early before the jury is chosen so as to influence their opinion.  Or that's what they say in the movies.

But my question is why the prosecutor is doing it.  She seems to be claiming that this will make it justice for all the kids not just the ones that were killed, which I am not buying.  I suspect she is doing it so as to be seen to be throwing the book at the kid, as being tough on crime and er, terrorism so people will be sure to vote for her next election day.

And the reason that we have police and courts is so that justice is meted out for all of us.  It may not work out that way in all cases, but that is the theory.  It's so that people don't have to mete out that justice on their own, which satisfying as some people find that, is destabilizing for government.  

When the kid is convicted of whatever charge goes down, that will be justice for all of us, this terrorism charge is just a bunch of bushwa.

When Texas wrote that abominable abortion law they meant to keep it out of the courts by giving individual people the right to sue people they thought were abetting abortion, the dodge being that then the abettors would not be able to sue the government for redress because it was Mr Soandso, not the government that had been bringing the case against him.  Strikes me also as so much bushwa. 

And now the governor of California is going to use the same principle to prosecute ownership of assault rifles.  And as strongly as I feel that this country would be a better place without Mr Soandso packing those things, I deplore this future California law for the means.

But if the right is going to use it on abortion for their purposes, isn't it only fair that we use it for our purposes?

It's a Michigan State Law

After I signed off last night, it occurred to me that the source I quoted was referring to federal law, and that what we were looking for might be covered under state law.  It was getting late, even for me, so I resolved to tackle that search tonight.  Here's what I found:

The terrorism charge is provided under Michigan law for "an act that is intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population", in this case, the Oxford High School community.^[65]

Oxford High School shooting - Wikipedia

Michigan law defines an act of terrorism as a "willful and deliberate act that is all of the following:"

"An act that would be a violent felony under the laws of this state, whether or not committed in this state.

"An act that the person knows or has reason to know is dangerous to human life.

"An act that is intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence or affect the conduct of government or a unit of government through intimidation or coercion."

Ethan Crumbley: Here's why the suspected Michigan school shooter has been charged with terrorism - CNN

Michigan Legislature - Section 750.543b

After reading this, I think our local law enforcement would have a tough time pinning a terrorism charge on those goofballs who have been making fake threats online, as their activity meets the third criteria, but not the first two.  They certainly should be charged with something, but I don't think this is it.

I'm sure there will be more news coverage of the Oxford shooting as the investigation unfolds.  Right now the media seems to have other fish to fry, but they will come back to warm this one up sooner or later.

**********************************************************************

I tend to agree with Uncle Ken's idea of what Heaven should be like, but it's not up to either of us to make that decision.  I'm not even sure anymore that there is an afterlife but, if there is, I doubt whether any of the great religious leaders of history knew any more about it than we do.  

happy skating

 

Never learned to ice skate myself.  At some point my sisters took it up and I remember looking at their skates and seeing how thin the blade was and wondering how the hell did they do it,  Still wonder about that, but I do like to watch.

My favorite movie is Badlands, whose director, Terrence Malick, is kind of a philosophic guy.  In the Tree of Life there is a scene at the end where all the characters appear again and they are wearing biblical clothing in some rocky desert and just walking around, not saying anything, just kind of looking at each other and the sky and milling about.  Well what the hell was that all about?  Afterwards I cranked up the google machine and looked it up, but everybody else was puzzled about it too, and of course the director was not giving any explanation.

Well I just marked it down as a flaw.  Still a good movie.  There is an excellent twenty minute sequence which begins with the big bang and goes on to the creation of the planet, the dinosaurs and finally that apple of God's eye, the big ape with the gargantuan brain which is really cool.  Anyway I gave it three stars and went on with my life.

And then a few years back I found myself at the skating rink at Millennium park and it hit me like a bolt from the blue.  That's what Malick should have done with the end of his movie.  He should have put all the characters in winter clothes and had them on an ice rink, still the same inscrutable expressions on their faces, but now instead of ambling randomly, going round and round, going forward but not really getting anywhere, just round and round and round.

When I was very young my conception of heaven was like the one in the cartoons, wearing a robe walking around on clouds looking down at what was going on on earth, having wings, being able to fly.  Pretty cool.

But the preachers that took the altar at Elsdon Methodist Church could not back that up.  Their version was considerably more abstract.  I got the vision of everybody in this huge auditorium and on the stage there was God.  And you just sat in your seat, and you looked at God and you loved him and that was pretty much it, just going on for eternity.  Did not seem too cool.

Seems like the bible is kind of down on life on earth, a vale of tears and all that, woes and sorrows and struggles to get to heaven.  But I rather like it here.  I like the scenery and the food.  Oh there are some crappy things, too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, sickness and disease, injustice and stupidity, but all in all things are pretty good, and I'd like to just smooth out those rough spots, not so cold in the winter, not so hot in the summer, no sickness, not so much pain.  That would be plenty good for me.

Kind of like being on an ice rink, rich and poor, skilled and unskilled, young and old, and everybody getting along just fine, and when somebody falls on their butt, they are not really hurt and they get up laughing, and everybody else is laughing too, not at them, but with them.  Just the way heaven should be.  Oh, but maybe the music would be better, not so much organ and definitely no disco.

I came across some more news in something called The Daily Kos.  There was an interview with a neighbor who said they were terrible parents, going out and getting drunk and leaving the eight year old kid alone, big Trumpists, and the father had a six figure income, but it didn't say what his or her occupation was.  Still curious to me about how little is getting out.  I wonder if that has something to do with lawyers.

Terrorism Law

I am also confused about the terrorism charge.  According to this source, a person can only be charged with terrorism if he acted on behalf of a foreign agency that has been classified as a terrorist organization.  This source is a little old, but it was all I was able to readily find on the subject.  

Why The Government Can't Bring Terrorism Charges In Charlottesville : NPR

Since the Oxford shooting, there have been numerous online threats made to Michigan schools, mostly Down Below, but a few even in God's Country.  Last I heard, Cheboygan Area Schools has had two such incidents.  Both of the perpetrators were quickly tracked down and arrested.  One is a local kid and the other one lives in Northwest Canada.  Our local law enforcement contacted the Canadian authorities, who reportedly arrested that one.  Our sheriff and at least one from a neighboring county have made statements to local media that such conduct will be prosecuted as terrorism, even if the threat is bogus, which these two seem to have been.  I'm sure we will be hearing more on the subject, and personal details about the Crumbley parents, as the investigation unfolds.  

Lawsuits in America, what can I say about that?  I seemed to remember that the plaintifs' lawyer was kind of famous, or maybe "notorious" would be a better word.  I found this about him on Wiki:

Geoffrey Fieger - Wikipedia

suing

 I wonder about the kid being charged with terrorism?  What kind of law is that, and how does it define terrorism?  And he is a lead pipe cinch to be convicted of four murders, why bother to charge him with anything else?

And why are they suing the school district?  Did the school district have some policy that mandates that kids who threaten shooting be allowed to return to class no matter what?  It would make more sense to sue the school officials at the school at the time, but of course there is no money there.  And how culpable are they?  Was this kid a known nut?  Had he done stuff like this before?  Normally by now we would have known most of his history, there would be comments from teachers and students telling what they knew about the kid.  But there is nothing. 

It seems to me that the parents are the ones who are mainly guilty in this case.  I'm saying this because I am assuming the kid is nuts, but again we need more information on that.  The fact that they both hired top-notch lawyers indicate that they have money.  But where did it come from?  What are their jobs?  How come nobody knows?

And this suing thing.  I think the rationale is that by allowing people to sue the guilty are punished, and therefore they are unlikely to sin again, and just knowing they can be sued, they are more likely to walk the straight and narrow and this makes for a better world.  But how does this apply to government agencies? 

If the suers win ten million dollars this will be no skin off the nose of the government officials. The people paying the fine will be the taxpayers, and the money going to the suers will not be available for the public good, so what is accomplished?

It's kind of like the cops in Chicago, and other cities I presume, who shoot people with seeming impunity, and then the laws being the way they are, largely skate, and then the city is sued for a pile of money, and they generally lose and then that money is not available to hire more cops that politicians are always promising when they run for office.  And the cop who did it is likely to not even be fired, so what incentive does he have to not shoot with impunity?

So, I don't know, what's up with that?

Update on the Crumbley Case

I saw this on the TV news this evening, and also found this article on my news app:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/family-of-two-student-survivors-of-michigan-massacre-sue-school-district-officials-for-not-preventing-it/ar-AARFiqB?rt=0&ocid=Win10NewsApp&referrerID=InAppShare

The plaintiffs' lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger, is a well-known grandstander who likes to take on high profile cases like this.  You may remember him from the Dr. Jack Kevorkian (Dr. Death) case.  I seem to remember that he ran for some political office once, but he didn't win.  Of course, that doesn't mean the case has no merit, I'm just saying.  

spinning wheel got to go round

 Well art you know, art means a lot of different things to different people.  How can you appoint anyone as the greatest artist in the world?  But to have a personal favorite artist is a fine thing, and it would have been interesting to hear a longer explanation of why Old Dog feels this way.  But then that is one of those teacher's things you know:

Johnny:  Hey Teach is French Guinea in Africa or South America?

Teach:  A very good question Johnny.  Why don't you do some research on the subject and come in tomorrow with a five page report on it that you have examined for spelling and grammatical errors, and enclosed in those transparent binder things which I find so groovy, burnt sienna would be an excellent color?

Johnny (sotto voce): As god is my witness I will never ask a question in class again.

Teach (sotto voce): Good.

But I did go to the wiki, and saw some of his artwork and it was ok you know if you like that kind of stuff, but then I came across this: He is also a unicyclist.  and I remembered that this subject had come up more than once back in the days when we did seminars back at the Ten Cat.  Old Dog would go silent and a faraway look would pass his visage as he broached the subject.  And I was all what makes you think you could do that, and why would you want to do that, and Old Dog just sighed.  If you have to ask, you could never understand.  And juggling, Old Dog once opined on how he could have been a juggler and we borrowed a couple oranges from Dick the owner, who was not smiling when we returned them battered and bruised.  

I am claiming artistic license in these tales though I think I have the essential drift, and yes Old Betsy is as Beagles says it is.

How come things are so fucked up when Man is this excellent specimen with his walking on two legs and those opposable thumbs and that gargantuan brain?  Well that is a biggy, I suspect that it is at the heart of all those long learned barroom discussions that go deep into the night.  

We are not all in it to make a perfect world.  Some people are just in it to make a lot of money, or to crush their enemies, or just to win the heart of dark-haired Susie sitting at the end of the bar eyeing the hunky bartender who we all know is a braggart and a lout, and in no way could give her the life that a unicyclist, which we intend to become shortly, could.

And the guys who do want to make a perfect world, they have different ideas of what a perfect world would be like, and in pursuing their aims often do more harm than the guys who are in it for themselves.

What happened to the Crumbleys?  They appear to have dropped off the face of the earth.  Now we are at the trial of the lady cop who shot instead of tazed.  I'm inclined to give her a pass on murder.  Sometimes no matter how well we have trained and how long we have been doing something we just fuck up.  We don't even need a crazy genome to explain it, just statistics.