wisconsinology

Fictional Characters from Wisconsin #4 - Richard Harrow

2012-01-10T00:07:00.001-06:00

Richard Harrow from BOARDWALK EMPIRE - Everybodies favorite physically and mentally damaged by WWI mob hit man from Wisconsin. In the show, he describes his lonely upbringing on a remote farm - just he, his sister and a lot of hunting and fishing. He's good with a rifle and, lucky for us, is still alive at the end of season 2.
Below is a WWI veteran wearing a cosmetic mask circa 1920. The photo is from this NPR link documenting the story of post-war cosmetic mask making, prosthetics and surgical reconstruction.

205,690 Americans were wounded in WWI. Of that number, about a third were - as a military doctor of the time put it, "horribly disfigured". The stigma of being seen in public added to the psychological burden that these men already carried. In their words, the prosthetic mask makers of World War I "performed miracles". Here's a link to a great Smithsonian post about these faces of war.

Justin Vernon's Tatoo

2012-01-09T23:05:00.000-06:00

Justin Vernon, the popular Eau Claire musician and leader of Bon Iver, proudly sports a Wisconsinology approved tatoo. Yes, those are counties. It reads, "I said remember this is how it should be". Who was it that said, "All the great stories and riches of a million lifetimes are in your own backyard"? Eight thumbs up.

Helen and Howard Hawks

2011-11-03T21:57:00.003-05:00

1898. Helen Hawks with her son, future Hollywood legend, Howard Hawks. She was the former Helen Howard, daughter of the wealthy Neenah industrialist, C.W. Howard. C.W. was a larger than life character - loud, often drunk, a fabulist and sometime amateur thespian who would become fictionalized as "Barney Glasgow" in Edna Ferber's 1935 best seller, COME AND GET IT. The book was described by Ferber, a girl from the nearby river city of Appleton, as "primarily a story of the rape of America by the wholesale robber barons of that day." Pictured below is Helen's best friend, Theda Clark. She was the daughter of Charles Clark,a co-founder of the Kimberly-Clark corporation. The two women were the leading lights of Neenah, a small city well on it's way to becoming one of the wealthiest cities in the United States. Headstrong, intelligent and independent, the two women attended college together. Later, they would both marry men of considerable wealth from Goshen,Indiana. Helen to Frank Hawks and Theda to Will Peters. The two are thought by many to become the template for the strong women's roles that are typical in Howard's films - the prototype of what would be known as the Hawksian woman. Howard Hawks was born in Goshen, Indiana in 1896. The family moved to Neenah, where Theda and Will Peters were waiting for them, in 1899. Theda Clark's tragic death in 1903 while giving birth to a daughter, coupled with Helen's failing health due to being continually pregnant(five children in short order)prompted the family's move to Pasadena, California in 1906. The Hawks would, however, spend their summers in Neenah until Howard was 15 years old.

C. W. Howard, the grand old Lion of the paper industry, died in 1916 at the age of seventy. He was buried in a family plot at Oak Hill cemetary in Neenah. Years later, Helen, now a devout Christian Scientist and proponent of cremation, returned to her hometown. She had her father, mother, and brother Neil - who had drowned in Lake Winnebago at the age of 5 - dug up and cremated. " After mixing the ashes in an urn, she went out to Riverside Park and threw it in the river, where it was discovered decades later, with the names and dates still legible, by scuba divers. " Howard Hawks was the first director assigned to the 1936 film version of COME AND GET IT. He was later removed from the project and replaced by William Wyler. Producer Sam Goldwyn felt that Hawks was "too close" to the material to deliver a good movie.

The photos are from Neenah Public Library Local History Collection at the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/WI/NeenahLocHist

Jim Zwerg, the Freedom Rider from Appleton

2011-05-16T11:16:00.000-05:00

Appleton's Jim Zwerg is that rarest of human beings - A Christian who is actually a Christian. Imagine that. Here's a post by John Blake at CNN.

Editor's note: This is an excerpt from John Blake's 2004 book "Children of the Movement." The PBS documentary "Freedom Riders," which airs Monday at 9 p.m. ET, features James Zwerg, now 71. Blake interviewed him in 2003.

The mob was already waiting for James Zwerg by the time the Greyhound bus eased into the station in Montgomery, Alabama. Looking out the window, Zwerg could see men gripping baseball bats, chains and clubs. They had sealed off the streets leading to the bus station and chased away news photographers. They didn't want anyone to witness what they were about to do. Zwerg accepted his worst fear: He was going to die today. Only the night before, Zwerg had prayed for the strength to not strike back in anger. He was among the 18 white and black college students from Nashville who had decided to take the bus trip through the segregated South in 1961. They called themselves Freedom Riders. Their goal was to desegregate public transportation.

Zwerg had not planned to go, but the night before, some students had asked him to join them. To summon his courage, Zwerg stayed up late, reading Psalm 27, the scripture that the students had picked to read during a group prayer before their trip. "The Lord is my light and my salvation, of whom shall I fear?" the Psalm began. But there was another passage at the end that touched Zwerg in a place the other students didn't know about: "Though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will receive me." Zwerg's parents had forsaken him for joining the civil rights movement. That same night, he had written a letter that was to be handed to them in case he was killed. It explained his decision to join the Freedom Riders. Zwerg called his mother to tell her where he was going.
"Don't go. Don't go," she said. "You can't do this to your father."
"I have no choice. I have to," he said. "You killed your father," his mother replied. Then she hung up. The Greyhound bus doors hissed open. Zwerg had volunteered to go first. The mob swarmed him as he stepped off the bus, yelling, "Nigger lover! Nigger lover!" Then, as the mob grabbed him, Zwerg closed his eyes and bowed his head to pray. "The Lord is my light and salvation, of whom shall I fear ... " The mob dragged him away.

What happened next would furnish the civil rights movement with one of its most unforgettable images. Photographers eventually broke through and snapped pictures of what the mob had done to Zwerg and another Freedom Rider, John Lewis. The pictures were broadcast around the world. Zwerg looked like a bloody scarecrow. His eyes were blackened and his suit was splattered with blood. After he was hospitalized, a news crew filmed him in his hospital bed. Barely able to speak, Zwerg declared that violence wouldn't stop him or any of his friends. The Freedom Rides would go on. Zwerg became one of the movement's first heroes. Although his physical wounds healed, the emotional ones took longer. He was wracked with guilt and depression after the beating. He drank too much, contemplated suicide, and finally had to seek therapy.

He was drawn to the Freedom Rides after he was assigned a black roommate while attending Beloit College in Wisconsin. He grew to admire his roommate and was shocked to see how the young man was treated by whites when they went out in public together. So he volunteered to be an exchange student at Fisk University in Nashville, an all-black college, for one semester. He wanted to know how it felt to be a minority.

Zwerg had gone to a city that had become a launching pad for the civil rights movement. He was swept up in the group of Nashville college students who were initiating sit-ins and Freedom Rides. He was awed by their commitment. Zwerg's parents were unaware of the changes taking place in their son. They were enraged when they opened their local newspaper the day after he was attacked and saw the now-famous picture of their battered son on the front page. Zwerg later tried to explain to them that what he did as a Freedom Rider was an outgrowth of what they had taught him, but they remained angry. "These are the two people who instilled my Christian beliefs, my ethics," he says, "and now they were saying, this time when I lived my faith to the fullest, they didn't accept it." Zwerg's anguish was compounded by his father's weak heart. He suffered a heart attack after he learned his son was attacked by a mob, and his mother had a nervous breakdown. "I had a tremendous amount of guilt," he says. Even as the years passed and he was featured in documentaries and history books, Zwerg's parents never gave their approval. They simply stopped discussing that part of his life.

The closest he got to some sort of reconciliation was a conversation with his mother. She told him that her concern was for his dad. "She said, 'You'll never know the shock. We knew you were doing something, but we learned what happened to you from seeing your picture on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal. Until you have a child of your own, you'll never understand." His parents' rejection erased the closeness Zwerg once felt with them. "I had a lot of anger toward them," he says. "How can they treat me this way? This was the most meaningful period of my life. How could they not understand that?" Zwerg took out his anger on himself and on others. After the beating, he returned to college but had trouble being close to anyone. "The two people I loved the most hurt me, so, by God, I wasn't going to love anybody," Zwerg says. "I might meet a girl who I felt was special. One minute, I'd tell her that I loved her, and the next, I told her I didn't want to see her again." Zwerg began to drink heavily during his senior year, and at one time he contemplated suicide. Depressed, he put on his jacket and walked to a pier near campus. He still doesn't remember what happened next. "I remember going out to the pier, but I do not remember coming back," he says. "I awoke the next day in my room, and when I put on my jacket, a straight-edge razor was in a pocket. I didn't remember putting it there."

Though the aftermath of the beating caused Zwerg much emotional pain, the attack also led to one of his most profound religious experiences. He felt something during the mob attack that he still struggles to describe. In "Parting the Waters," Taylor Branch wrote that the mob had swelled to 3,000 people and described what happened to Zwerg: "One of the men grabbed Zwerg's suitcase and smashed him in the face with it. Others slugged him to the ground, and when he was dazed beyond resistance, one man pinned Zwerg's head between his knees so that the others could take turns hitting him." James Zwerg says he never felt as alive as he did when he was a Freedom Rider. Yet in the midst of that savagery, Zwerg says he had the most beautiful experience in his life. "I bowed my head," he says. "I asked God to give me the strength to remain nonviolent and to forgive the people for what they might do. It was very brief, but in that instant, I felt an overwhelming presence. I don't know how else to describe it. A peace came over me. I knew that no matter what happened to me, it was going to be OK. Whether I lived or whether I died, I felt this incredible calm."

Zwerg blacked out and didn't wake up until he was in a car. The mob had continued to beat him after he was unconscious. Being unconscious saved his life, he believes now. His body was relaxed, so it took the punishment better than if he had stiffened up to protect himself. Incredibly, no Freedom Riders were killed during the mob attack. Even after he was taken to a nearby hospital, Zwerg learned later, he was not safe. "A nurse said she drugged me the first night because there was a mob coming within a block of the hospital to lynch me," he says. "She didn't want me to be aware of anything if they got me." Zwerg was in such shock, he doesn't remember the news crew that did make it to his hospital room. In a scene that was played in the "Eyes on the Prize" documentary, a battered Zwerg told the American public that the Freedom Rides would go on. "We will continue our journey, one way or another. We are prepared to die." Zwerg's teeth were fractured and several of his vertebrae were cracked, but he recovered. He also took steps to recover emotionally. He was torn between rejoining the Freedom Riders and attending seminary. Then, as he was being honored by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for his courage, he talked to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. about his career indecision. "He said, 'Jim, go to seminary. You'll touch a lot more lives through pastoring," Zwerg recalls. "Basically, that made up my mind for me." When he entered seminary, Zwerg decided to go through six months of therapy to release the anger and guilt he felt toward his parents. He also thought about a woman he had shunned during his angry college days. "I worked a lot of this through, which made me feel much better," he says. "When I finished, I knew I wanted to see my lady again. So, I called her up that night, asked her out, and asked her to marry me." That woman, Carolyn, said yes. They live together today in Tucson, Arizona.

Zwerg entered the ministry after the beating. But he left in 1975, dejected by the politics of his job. At various times, he was a chamber of commerce lobbyist, an IBM manager, and a business manager at a hospice. He worked for a ministry that put people into low-cost housing. He retired in 1999. He never found the bond he experienced with the other Freedom Riders. "Each of us was stronger because of those we were with," he says. "If I was being beaten, I knew I wasn't alone. I could endure more because I knew everybody there was giving me their strength. Even as someone else was being beaten, I would give them my strength." Though he became a pastor, Zwerg says his most profound exposure to faith came as a Freedom Rider. "I never felt so alive theologically," he says. "My prayer life was never so meaningful. My whole awareness of the power of love when I heard King say in his last utterance, 'I've been to the mountaintop, and I've seen the Promised Land.' I know those of us who were in the movement can say we were there, too."
But coming down from the mountaintop, after the movement, was deflating, Zwerg says. He couldn't find that bond again. "It's a tremendous downer. You look for it everywhere. I've never experienced it since. The closest thing I've experienced to it is the love of my wife." Many of his colleagues had the same struggles. Some couldn't keep jobs because they couldn't handle authority. One stepped in front of a bus and killed himself. Another drank himself to death. Many experienced some type of post-traumatic stress. Zwerg says he still gets choked up about that morning in the Alabama bus station. When I ask what he feels today when he sees that photo of himself, he grows quiet. Then he tells a story.
He says he attended a reunion at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Museum in Alabama. During a ceremony, Zwerg was walking with a crowd of Freedom Rider colleagues when he saw the famous pictures of his battered face in a video and displayed on the museum wall. "I looked at it, and what it brings back to me more than anything else is that I got so much notoriety because I was white," he says. "I looked at that picture and I thought of all the people that never get their names in a book, never get interviewed but literally had given their lives. Who the hell am I to have my picture up there?" He was suddenly flooded with guilt. He started bawling during the ceremony as startled people looked on. Then another Freedom Rider veteran, a strapping black man named Jim Davis, walked over to Zwerg.
Zwerg's voice trembles with emotion as he recalls what Davis said. "He said, 'Jim, you don't realize that it was your words from that hospital bed that were the call to arms for the rest of us." And then, as Davis wrapped his big arms around Zwerg in front of the startled crowd, the two men cried together.

Rachel Maddow sums up Wisconsin's extraordinary Labor History

2011-02-27T00:34:00.007-06:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And she does it quite well, I love it when she describes the Packers as a "collective". The very thought must cause a chill to run down the collective spine of the Tea Party.

Orson talks Wisconsin

2011-02-26T14:56:00.002-06:00

A charming video. The Herb Shriner Show from 1956. Orson weighs in on his Wisconsin roots and "very large" cows.

Jack Penewell and his Twin Six Guitar

2011-02-24T22:55:00.011-06:00

Jack Penewell in his prime with his double six Stella guitar. Jack was a multi-neck instrumentalist - he played a twin 6 string guitar and a twin 6 steel guitar. He also designed the world's first double neck steel guitar (an acoustic model built by Gibson in 1932). Jack was born in Stoughton and lived most of his life in Madison. He recorded sides for Paramount, Wisconsin's legendary blues label. His career hit it's stride in the 1920's and early 30's when he became a featured attraction on the vaudeville circuit. He would continue to hit the stage, cut records and do radio show appearances well into the 60's. Below is an article from a Davenport, Iowa newspaper hyping a Jack Penewell show date. "Ever see a twin six guitar?" it asks.
"You will be allowed that pleasure at the first Tri-City radio-electric show and exposition." And you will too if you click here. Look for more detailed info on the music and life of Jack Penewell in future posts.

January 1944.... Papua, New Guinea

2011-02-24T20:06:00.005-06:00

Candid snaps of Carole Landis. Born Frances Lillian Mary Ridste in Fairchild, Wisconsin on January 1,1919. Actress, singer, author and template for all wounded child blonde bombshell suicides - she truly was (as she was rumored to be) "Jennifer North" in Jaqueline Susann's sleazy best seller, The Valley of the Dolls. During World War II, she loved her boys. No female showbiz personality traveled more miles entertaining them. Malaria and amoebic dysentery (a lethal combination that I and my brothers knew well) nearly killed her. The sudden dull thud of the post war years and a fast fading film career eventually did. (Above photo, Jack Benny's USO Troupe. Top row - Jack Benny, Larry Adler. Bottom row - June Bruner, Martha Tilton, Carole Landis)
Larry Adler was a virtuoso harmonica player - perhaps the greatest ever to play the instrument. Classical composers Ralph Vaughn Williams and Darius Milhaud wrote entire works for him. His later years saw him working with Sting, Elton John and Kate Bush and.....Richie Sambora??!!!!??. Oh well, they can't all be great. He died in England, one of many Americans who were forced abroad during the McCarthy Era(Hello Wisconsin!). Download some
Mp3's and you'll become a Larry Adler fan.

A native Papuan's reaction to Jack Benny's violin playing is very similar to our own.
June Bruner, Larry Adler, Carole and Jack.
Carole climbs down from a PBY.

The Illustrated Man...Amund Dietzel

2011-02-23T19:54:00.010-06:00

Last summer, Milwaukee Tattoo historian and artist (Solid State Tatoo) Jon Reiter released his beautifully designed and exhaustively researched book, These Old Blue Arms: The Life and Work of Amund Dietzel. Click here to view or order.

Amund Dietzel was born in Kristiana (now Oslo), Norway in 1891. At the age of 14, he left his homeland on a merchant ship (at the time, the fourth largest merchant fleet on earth) and spent the next 3 years of his life at sea. The art and significance of tatoos to the insular world of men at sea had a great effect on the young Norwegian. With home made tools and no small amount of drawing skills he went to work learning the art of tatooing by practicing on his shipmates. A timely shipwreck brought an abrupt end to his ocean travels and left him on the the shores of North America. Later, while in Connecticut, he developed a close friendship with a British immigrant tatoo artist named William Grimshaw. The two men inked each others bodies from head to toe (photo above, circa 1914) and hit the carnival circuit. They exhibited themselves, sold photographs of their inked bodies and provided tatoos for curious carnival goers. In 1914, Dietzel arrived in Milwaukee. He liked what he saw. Who wouldn't? America's machine shop was in full stride. The vitality of the immigrant city was a perfect fit for the Norwegian with unusual skills. He would spend the rest of his life in the Cream City. Two World War's worth of tatoo hungry soldiers and sailors from nearby Great Lakes Naval Station brought him both a wealth of customers and worldwide word of mouth advertising. He was soon known as the finest tatoo artist in the midwest.

Milwaukee was at it's nadir as a city when the Milwaukee Common Council banned tattoo parlors in 1967. Dietzel got in the last word, "At least it took the city fifty-one years to find out it doesn't want me. Milwaukee used to be a very nice town." Dietzel passed away in 1974.

Factory Girls

2011-02-23T19:06:00.006-06:00

The photo is labeled as having been taken in Appleton in the 1890's. Two factory girls take a break at a rail yard. From SHORPY, a great site full of hi-res
images from the near and distant past.
In the 1890's, Appletons rail yards - close to cheap hotels, bars, brothels and low rent housing was a drop off spot for tramps, a good place to get drunk, commit suicide or meet with professional and semi-professional prostitutes.
In close-ups, the girls look very much at ease, a sharp contrast to formal portraits of the era. I can't place the exact location. For all I know, It could be the outskirts of Kimberly. Love the girl with the Bozo collar.

Wicked Fox Cities

2010-07-05T12:22:00.005-05:00

My new book, Wicked Fox Cities (History Press) is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. It was a real treat having 85 people show up to hear me read at The Fox Cities Book Fest. I'll be signing books and telling more stories at the Appleton Public Library on July 13th.
Here's a review from The Scene.

The Shimmy Queen

2010-06-20T18:26:00.008-05:00

"One day, the entire pre-World War One map of eastern Europe got up, packed it's bags and moved to Wisconsin."
Author

"First I moved the muscles up top. Then I moved the muscles below, with the top stationary. Then I moved the muscles on the right side, with everything stationary on the left. Then I moved the muscles on the left. Then I sort of rippled all the way up from my feet, with everything."
Gilda Gray on dancing "The Shimmy"

Marianna Michalska, a native of Krakow, was 8 years old when she arrived in Milwaukee. It was 1908. Like many other Polish immigrants, the Michalskas settled south of the city in Cudahy - a hard drinking blue collar town built around a major meat packing plant. According to some accounts, she was married at age 11 and a year later, gave birth to a child. As a teenager she sang and danced her way up and down Cuday's endless saloon row - soon to become the highest concentration of bars on a single street in the entire world...and also in Wisconsin. Her brazen, sexually charged dancing style was a hit. She specialized in voodoo dances - all borrowed from black performers. One dance in particular, the shimmy, she made her own. "I was shaking my chemise at Letzka's Tavern", she reminisced,"It felt right to move my body that way." All the men in Milwaukee County agreed, but Marianna was restless. By age 17, she was sick of motherhood, smoke filled bars, cheap gifts and clumsy advances. She left Cudahy, abandoned her husband and child, changed her name to "Mary Gray" and, for awhile, looked back only once - in 1923, to secure a legal divorce from the man who married her so long ago. Sophie Tucker, the Queen of Broadway, welcomed the dazzling newcomer to New York City and changed her name to "Gilda Gray". Gilda Gray became a sensation. She rose to the top of the pile at the Ziegfeld Follies, introduced the Shimmy to "the world" and was soon headlining her own vaudeville revue, grossing a reported $47,000 a week. Al Jolson crowned her "The Queen of the Shimmy Shakers" and her name became synonymous with sensual dancing. It's by no accident that Rita Hayworth's 1945 breakthrough film about a provocative dancer was named "Gilda". Gilda Grey thought so. She settled out of court with the film's producer.

The 1920's passed like a dream. The decade was her moment. From 1919 to 1929, she would earn well over $4,000,000 and leave a brief, dazzling impression in many memoirs of the era.
"At the Follies passes Gilda Grey, a performer of limited talents gifted with unutterable intensity. Against a flaring background in which all the signs of all of Broadway are crowded together, she sings a commentary on the negro invasion -- It's Getting Very Dark on Old Broadway -- the scene fades and radiolite picks out the white dresses of the chorus, the hands and faces recede into black. And while the chorus sings, Miss Greys voice rises in a deep and shuddering ecstasy to cry out the two words, "Getting darker!""

In 1924, Gilda went to Hollywood. She specialized in playing jazz babies and scantily clad exotic dancers and every film featured the shimmy. One such starring vehicle was Aloma of the South Seas. "...A simmering melodrama of the islands where all white men are no good has herewith arrived and given every evidence of appealing to the public taste. None of the cast was overladen with ability or clothing, but they all performed very energetically. Aloma is just about bad enough and just sufficiently exciting to be a success." And it was. Aloma of the South Seas became number one money making picture of 1926, the fourth all time highest grossing film of the silent era. It is also a lost film, and like many lost films from this era, I have a feeling it will eventually turn up in Milwaukee.

The fun and glitter of the jazz age, it's carefree speech, quaint dances and all of Gilda Gray's millions went south with the economy in 1929. In subsequent decades, she managed to limp along on her past fame but at a far lower pay scale than she was used to. She played herself in both Florenz Ziegfeld bio pics, and managed to get some work as a dancer on Broadway. During World War II she was heavily involved in raising money for the relief of Polish exiles. In the early 50's, a brief moment of 1920's nostalgia and a number of television appearances put Gilda Gray back in public view. She launched her comeback act in Milwaukee. The city welcomed her back with open arms and, for a short time, she was able to work the nightclub circuit. In 1959 she was broke, but happily married and living in Hollywood. Just before Christmas of that year, she suffered a fatal heart attack. She was 58. In an interview published a year before her death she vented on the state of show business as it stood in the late 50's. "Legs," she complained, "seem to have gone out of fashion lately, with the emphasis on beauty centered above the waist." And she yearned for the era of short, spangled skirts when everything seemed livelier. "They might roar more today, honey, but we had more fun." Amen. Below is a clip from Piccadilly, a 1929 film starring Charles Laughton. Gilda is the dancer.

Wisconsin Civil War Hero gets Medal of Honor 147 years later

2010-05-19T10:13:00.006-05:00

So, 147 years after Wisconsin's troops saved the union, another forgotten local hero from that conflict surfaces to get his belated medal of honor. On the third day at Gettysburg, there was Picketts Charge. The very focus of this great massed assault was the forward guns of Alonzo Cushing, better known as the Beloit Battery. The tip of the great southern wave crashed into and over these Wisconsin guns. By then, Cushing and his fellow gunners were dead or lying on the ground, badly wounded. The painting above, one of many that depict this moment, shows the southern traitor...I mean General...Lewis Armistead valiantly leading his men over the battery. Confederate high tide and yet another painting celebrating all things lost cause. The assault pretty much ended right there - at Cushings guns. The outcome of the battle was determined well before the charge - Wisconsin's Iron Brigade stopped an entire rebel corps in it's tracks and denied the southern army certain victory. Picketts charge was a last ditch desperate effort and a criminal waste of lives. The painting doesn't show the mortally wounded Cushing and his wrecked battery mowing down rows and rows of advancing rebels. No...all we get is a deluded southern fool with a hat at the end of his sword climbing atop a cannon. Madness. Delusion. Here's the article, I added all things parenthetical...

DELAFIELD, Wis. – Seven score and seven years ago, a wounded Wisconsin soldier stood his ground on the Gettysburg battlefield and made a valiant stand before he was felled by a Confederate bullet.
Now, thanks to the dogged efforts of modern-day supporters, 1st Lt. Alonzo Cushing shall not have died in vain, nor shall his memory have perished from the earth.
Descendants and some Civil War history buffs have been pushing the U.S. Army to award the soldier the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military decoration. They'll soon get their wish.
Secretary of the Army John McHugh has approved their request, leaving a few formal steps before the award becomes official this summer. Cushing will become one of 3,447 recipients of the medal, and the second from the Civil War honored in the last 10 years.
It's an honor that's 147 years overdue, said Margaret Zerwekh. The 90-year-old woman lives on the land in Delafield where Cushing was born, and jokes she's been adopted by the Cushing family for her efforts to see Alonzo recognized.
"I was jumping up and down when I heard it was approved," said Zerwekh, who walks with two canes. "I was terribly excited."
Cushing died on July 3, 1863, the last day of the three-day battle of Gettysburg. He was 22.
The West Point graduate and his men of the Battery A, 4th U.S. Artillery were defending the Union position on Cemetery Ridge against Pickett's Charge, a major Confederate thrust that could have turned the tide in the war.
Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was planning an invasion of the North; both sides knew how important this engagement was.
Cushing commanded about 110 men and six cannons. His small force along with reinforcements stood their ground under artillery bombardment as nearly 13,000 Confederate infantrymen waited to advance.
"Clap your hands as fast as you can — that's as fast as the shells are coming in," said Scott Hartwig, a historian with the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. "They were under terrific fire."
The bombardment lasted two hours. Cushing was wounded in the shoulder and groin, and his battery was left with two guns and no long-range ammunition. His stricken battery should have been withdrawn and replaced with reserve forces, Hartwig said, but Cushing shouted that he would take his guns to the front lines.
"What that means is, 'While I've got a man left to fight, I'll fight,'" Hartwig said. Within minutes, he was killed by a Confederate bullet to the head.
Confederate soldiers advanced into the Union fire, but finally retreated with massive casualties. The South never recovered from the defeat.
The soldier's bravery so inspired one Civil War history buff that he took up Cushing's cause by launching a Facebook page titled "Give Alonzo Cushing the Medal of Honor." Phil Shapiro, a 27-year-old Air Force captain, said such heroism displayed in one of the nation's most pivotal battles deserved recognition, even at this late date.
"We need to honor those people who got our country to where it is," said Shapiro, of Cabot, Ark.
Zerwekh first started campaigning for Cushing in 1987 by writing to Wisconsin Sen. William Proxmire. Proxmire entered comments into the Congressional Record, she said, and she assumed that was as far as it would go. But current Sen. Russ Feingold (Thanks Russ, and take FLW off of your ad) later pitched in and helped Zerwekh and others petition the Army.
After a lengthy review of historical records, the Army agreed earlier this year to recommend the medal.
More than 1,500 soldiers from the Civil War have received the Medal of Honor, according to the Defense Department. The last honoree for Civil War service was Cpl. Andrew Jackson Smith of Clinton, Ill., who received the medal in 2001.
The Cushing name is prominent in the southeastern Wisconsin town of Delafield. A monument to Cushing and two of his brothers — Naval Cmdr. William Cushing and Army 1st Lt. Howard Cushing — stands at Cushing Memorial Park, where the town holds most of its Memorial Day celebrations.
Shapiro, the Facebook fan, said he thought of Alonzo Cushing plenty of times last year as he faced a number of dangerous situations during a five-month stint in Iraq.
"I'd think about what Cushing accomplished, what he was able to deal with at age 22," Shapiro said. "I thought if he could do that then I can certainly deal with whatever I'm facing."

Stalin's Daughter and Wicked Fox Cities

2010-04-16T19:16:00.004-05:00

So....Joseph Stalin's daughter is a Wisconsinite and there's a film about it. Excellent. I would like to thank my cousin, Erik Sigurd Lee, for forwarding this article. On a different note, I will be speaking at the Appleton Library this Sunday, April 18 at 3pm. I'm flogging my new book, Wicked Fox Cities, published by the History Press(historypress.net) in South Carolina. The advert above, taken from the pages of the Appleton Post Crescent, shows what was playing at the Viking theater in downtown Appleton on the very day that Joe McCarthys coffin procession wheeled into Appleton (after being flown in from Washington, D.C.) It's all part of the Fox Cities Book Festival - http://www.foxcitiesbookfestival.org/. I'm the last speaker. Here's a link to an earlier Wisconsinology post about how WARFARIN, also known as UW rat poison, was used to kill old Joe Stalin. I digress, but that's what I do. Here's the article about Stalin's daughter...

By Ryan J. Foley, Associated Press
April 11, 2010

MADISON, Wis. - An independent film is bringing to light a well-kept secret in these parts: Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's only daughter has lived incognito for much of the past two decades in small towns in Wisconsin.

It is unclear whether the 84-year-old who fiercely guards her privacy still lives here today, but Svetlana Alliluyeva has lived at several addresses around Madison in the last 20 years. And in the summer of 2007, a determined film maker tracked her down at an apartment at a retirement home in an undisclosed Wisconsin town for a rare interview that could be the last she gives.

A documentary based on the interview, "Svetlana About Svetlana," tells her fascinating and complex life story, which is probably most noted for her defection to the U.S. during the Cold War. On April 18, the film will be screened at the Wisconsin Film Festival in Madison.

First-time director Lana Parshina said she read Alliluyeva's 1967 memoir, "20 Letters to a Friend," when she was a girl growing up in Moscow and loved it.

When she later became a U.S. citizen and learned Alliluyeva was still alive in Wisconsin, she got the idea for the movie. But first, she had to find the recluse whose father brutally ruled the Soviet Union for 29 years until his death in 1953.

Alliluyeva's first tie to Wisconsin came in the early 1970s when she married William Wesley Peters, a noted architect who was Frank Lloyd Wright's apprentice and lived in Spring Green, Wis., about 40 miles west of Madison. They had a daughter, Olga, before divorcing a few years later. Alliluyeva took on the name Lana Peters, which she still uses.

Wisconsin Film Festival Director Meg Hamel said she grew up with Olga, who now goes by Chrese Evans, in the Madison area and they knew each other as kids. Ironically, Evans has attacked the movie as an invasion of her mother's privacy. Hamel said she feels comfortable showing the film, whose rights were purchased by New York-based Icarus Films.

"This is a little piece of Wisconsin history, which I'm interested in sharing with our audience," she said.

After months of searching for Alliluyeva, Parshina put an ad on Craigslist seeking help, and paid $150 to a man who vowed to find her. Eventually, the man connected her with one of her neighbors, who passed along the interview request.

Alliluyeva called back to tell her to leave her alone. Parshina would not give up, saying she was influenced by her book and wanted to tell her story. Alliluyeva wouldn't budge, warning in one phone message: "Don't try to come here. You'll meet a closed door. I told you — I don't want to see anybody."

Finally, Alliluyeva agreed to allow the 28-year-old Parshina to come because they shared the same name and "I love young people." But she instructed her not to bring any camera equipment and to pretend like she was just a visitor so that her gossipy neighbors, unaware of her identity, wouldn't notice anything unusual.

After they spent one day together, Parshina convinced her to allow her to return with Madison freelance videographer William Q. Hartin to tape an interview.

Hartin said Alliluyeva was "very leery of us," would speak only English, and nearly ended the interview after a question upset her. "We were walking on egg shells the whole time," he recalls.

But after hours of talking, he said, he and Parshina gained her trust. On the second day, Parshina and Alliluyeva spoke in Russian for hours and she opened up. The result is a fascinating interview that includes reflections on her difficult childhood, her defection and her complex identity.

Alliluyeva said she was grateful to the CIA for helping her defect to the U.S. after she departed the Soviet Union for India in 1966, where she left the ashes of her late third husband. Arriving in the U.S., she denounced communism and her father's policies. Her defection embarrassed the ruling communists and was a public relations victory for the U.S.

But Alliluyeva said she ultimately regretted coming to the U.S., saying she never learned anything from America in 40 years and should have stayed in a neutral country like Switzerland.

"People say, 'Stalin's daughter, Stalin's daughter', meaning I'm supposed to walk around with a rifle and shoot the Americans. Or they say, 'no, she came here. She is an American citizen," she says. "No, I'm neither one. I'm somewhere in between. That 'somewhere in between' they can't understand."

Parshina said she did not give away the location of her apartment in the film to protect Alliluyeva from being harassed by journalists and others. Hartin would say only that it was about a 45-minute drive from the city.

After the interview, Parshina says Alliluyeva disappeared again. She changed her phone number, and letters to her address were returned as undeliverable. A neighbor told her she had moved. Parshina said Alliluyeva switched retirement homes every few years to escape notice.

She believes she is still either living in rural Wisconsin, or in Portland, Ore., with her daughter. In e-mail messages, the 37-year-old Evans would not reveal her mother's whereabouts (or her own).

"She was definitely undercover. Nobody knows who she is," Hartin recalled. "She lived in Wisconsin for so long, I would consider her not only an American but a Wisconsinite."

"This is a little piece of Wisconsin history, which I'm interested in sharing with our audience," she said.

After months of searching for Alliluyeva, Parshina put an ad on Craigslist seeking help, and paid $150 to a man who vowed to find her. Eventually, the man connected her with one of her neighbors, who passed along the interview request.

Alliluyeva called back to tell her to leave her alone. Parshina would not give up, saying she was influenced by her book and wanted to tell her story. Alliluyeva wouldn't budge, warning in one phone message: "Don't try to come here. You'll meet a closed door. I told you — I don't want to see anybody."

Finally, Alliluyeva agreed to allow the 28-year-old Parshina to come because they shared the same name and "I love young people." But she instructed her not to bring any camera equipment and to pretend like she was just a visitor so that her gossipy neighbors, unaware of her identity, wouldn't notice anything unusual.

After they spent one day together, Parshina convinced her to allow her to return with Madison freelance videographer William Q. Hartin to tape an interview.

Hartin said Alliluyeva was "very leery of us," would speak only English, and nearly ended the interview after a question upset her. "We were walking on egg shells the whole time," he recalls.

But after hours of talking, he said, he and Parshina gained her trust. On the second day, Parshina and Alliluyeva spoke in Russian for hours and she opened up. The result is a fascinating interview that includes reflections on her difficult childhood, her defection and her complex identity.

Alliluyeva said she was grateful to the CIA for helping her defect to the U.S. after she departed the Soviet Union for India in 1966, where she left the ashes of her late third husband. Arriving in the U.S., she denounced communism and her father's policies. Her defection embarrassed the ruling communists and was a public relations victory for the U.S.

But Alliluyeva said she ultimately regretted coming to the U.S., saying she never learned anything from America in 40 years and should have stayed in a neutral country like Switzerland.

"People say, 'Stalin's daughter, Stalin's daughter', meaning I'm supposed to walk around with a rifle and shoot the Americans. Or they say, 'no, she came here. She is an American citizen," she says. "No, I'm neither one. I'm somewhere in between. That 'somewhere in between' they can't understand."

Parshina said she did not give away the location of her apartment in the film to protect Alliluyeva from being harassed by journalists and others. Hartin would say only that it was about a 45-minute drive from the city.

After the interview, Parshina says Alliluyeva disappeared again. She changed her phone number, and letters to her address were returned as undeliverable. A neighbor told her she had moved. Parshina said Alliluyeva switched retirement homes every few years to escape notice.

She believes she is still either living in rural Wisconsin, or in Portland, Ore., with her daughter. In e-mail messages, the 37-year-old Evans would not reveal her mother's whereabouts (or her own).

"She was definitely undercover. Nobody knows who she is," Hartin recalled. "She lived in Wisconsin for so long, I would consider her not only an American but a Wisconsinite."

But Alliluyeva said she ultimately regretted coming to the U.S., saying she never learned anything from America in 40 years and should have stayed in a neutral country like Switzerland.

"People say, 'Stalin's daughter, Stalin's daughter', meaning I'm supposed to walk around with a rifle and shoot the Americans. Or they say, 'no, she came here. She is an American citizen," she says. "No, I'm neither one. I'm somewhere in between. That 'somewhere in between' they can't understand."

Parshina said she did not give away the location of her apartment in the film to protect Alliluyeva from being harassed by journalists and others. Hartin would say only that it was about a 45-minute drive from the city.

After the interview, Parshina says Alliluyeva disappeared again. She changed her phone number, and letters to her address were returned as undeliverable. A neighbor told her she had moved. Parshina said Alliluyeva switched retirement homes every few years to escape notice.

She believes she is still either living in rural Wisconsin, or in Portland, Ore., with her daughter. In e-mail messages, the 37-year-old Evans would not reveal her mother's whereabouts (or her own).

"She was definitely undercover. Nobody knows who she is," Hartin recalled. "She lived in Wisconsin for so long, I would consider her not only an American but a Wisconsinite."

Oscar Meyer Weinermobile Crashes Into Home Fun Facts

2009-07-18T15:35:00.003-05:00

A few things everyone should know when reading today's #1 news item...Oscar Crashes Into Home.

#1 The Weinermobile was designed by THE industrial designer of the 20th century, Milwaukee's own Brooks Stevens (more here).

#2 The first person to play the role of "Little Oscar" and the first to drive the first Oscar Meyer Weinermobile was rural Watertown's Meinhardt Raabe, better known as the Coroner of Munchkintown from the classic film "The Wizard of Oz" (more here).

#3 The Oscar Meyer plant in Madison's east side is a symbol of that city's nearly forgotten past as somewhat of a blue collar town. But that was long ago.

#4 Todays big news from Wisconsin....Oscar Meyer Weinermobile Crashes into Home.

Wisconsin Death Trip....the movie

2009-06-12T11:53:00.002-05:00

This film was a sensation on the international film festival circuit. Europeans seem get a kick out of our dark side. Let me just say that Wisconsin Death Trip is simply the record of the effects of a major economic depression on a mostly foreign born population during a time (1890's) when there were no safety nets. In the wake of this depression - the explosive growth of social reform and the progressive movement.

Happy Birthday!......... Les Paul turns 94

2009-06-09T09:24:00.004-05:00

Les Paul - inventor, electric guitar pioneer, master showman, father of the multi-track recorder and godfather of 70's hitmaker and fellow Wisconsinite, Steve Miller - turns 94 today. Check out his site....
http://www.lespaulonline.com/index.html

The King of Comedy....Eddie Cline

2009-06-01T20:50:00.005-05:00

Eddie Cline was one of the greatest comedy directors in motion picture history. During a long and prolific career, he played a key role in the best work of Buster Keaton and W C Fields. Today, he is a forgotten man. He was born Kenosha (a town famous for being the hometown of another director, Orson Welles). In his late teens, Cline migrated west and began a career in Hollywood as one of Mack Sennett's Keystone Cops. As a cop, he took his orders from Chief of Keystone Police, La Crosse native and Wisconsinology logo icon, Ford Sterling. Cline, a natural comic with an incredible sense of timing, was soon assisting Sennett as a co-director and gag writer. By early 1916, he was directing two reel comedy shorts - the life blood of the Keystone operation. And then he met Buster Keaton. The two became inseperable. As a comedy writing and directing team they made history. Cline co-wrote and co-directed seventeen of Buster Keaton's shorts, a series of timeless classics that stand up today as the best comedy films of silent era - The Playhouse, The Paleface, The Boat, Cops,,The Three Ages and so many more. At the dawn of the sound era, Cline began a decade long association with W.C. Fields. In 1940, he would direct Field's penultimate film, The Bank Dick. Eddie worked constantly through the 40's and well into the television era of the 50's. The picture below, a directors ad from the 20's, best sums up Eddie's daily state of being...

From the Life archives, Shemp Howard hands Eddie a phony Oscar.

At the top of the page - Eddie and Buster Keaton take a break during the filming of "Cops" in 1922.

Pabst, Miller, Blatz, Schlitz...... in black and white

2009-05-22T20:51:00.004-05:00

Frank Lloyd Wright LEGO: The Guggenheim and Falling Water

2009-05-20T16:06:00.003-05:00

These are amazing, and, may I add...it's about time. A nice tribute to the world's greatest architect - just one of Wisconsin's endless line of brilliantly raging egomaniacs.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation announced today that The LEGO Group is now the exclusive licensed manufacturer of Frank Lloyd Wright Collection® LEGO Architecture sets. The LEGO Group and Adam Reed Tucker of Brickstructures, Inc. officially introduced the LEGO Architecture line in 2008. The line currently consists of six buildings – now including two of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous and recognizable buildings, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and “Fallingwater.”
Both exclusive Frank Lloyd Wright LEGO Architecture sets contain booklets that feature traditional building instructions along with exclusive archival historical material and photographs of each iconic building.

Get yours here...$55 shipped.

The Rocketeers...Madison West Trumps Nation in Rocketry Challenge

2009-05-20T09:11:00.009-05:00

This makes me happier than any Packer victory, and almost happier than most Badger victories. Last year Wisconsin hosted the first ever
rocket race and the city of Sheboygan is already a future NASA spaceport site.
After their graduation, we'll probably lose these kids to other states. Like I always say,"Wisconsin provides the talent, ideas and brain power that keeps those other 49 pitiful excuses for states running."
Of course, the ones who stay home drink themselves into a stupor,go pioneer on us, and commit the weirdest acts of insanity and abnormality ever recorded in US history. But I digress,read on...

West Rocketeers Win National Event
A team from Madison West High School took first place at the Seventh Annual Team America Rocketry Challenge Saturday, taking on the title of national champion.
The four-member team won the rocket competition after spending months perfecting their rocket design. The Team America Rocketry Challenge kicked off last September with hundreds of teams from 45 states and the District of Columbia vying for a chance to compete at the finals held today outside of Washington, D.C. with the top 100 teams.
“Hard work, perseverance, teamwork, and custom electronics are the reasons our rocket performed well today,” said Ben Winokur, team member. He added a key component of their rocket’s success was, “a very intricate active parachute ejection on ascent.”

The team, one of three from Madison West High School, logged the winning score of 20.54. Each point represents a deviation from altitude and time aloft targets, so the lower the score, the better. Festus High School from Festus, Mo., took second place with a score of 25.92 while New Site High School from New Site, Ms., placed third with a score of 36.3
This year, student teams were asked to design, build and launch a model rocket to an altitude of 750 feet with a flight time of 45 seconds and a raw-egg payload situated horizontally to mimic the position of an astronaut. The egg had to return to earth unbroken in order for the launch to qualify.
The winning team will compete this week for international glory in a fly-off against the winners of the UK Aerospace Youth Rocketry Challenge from Royal Liberty School in Essex.
“The students today were absolutely outstanding,”Blakey said. “Each and every team demonstrated a superb grasp of the fundamentals of rocketry using physics, math and teamwork to launch their rocket and spur a terrific competition. This is an encouraging sign that there is a promising pipeline of future employees for our industry.”
The Madison West High School team wins a trip to the International Paris Air Show in June, sponsored for the fourth year by Raytheon Company, a major supporter of the competition. The winning team shares a prize pool of more than $60,000 with other top finishers. Lockheed Martin Corporation provides $5,000 scholarships to each of the top three teams, and teams also will receive an invitation from NASA to participate in its Student Launch Initiative, an advanced rocketry program.
Members of the Madison West High School team are: Jacqui German, Tenzin Sonam, John Schoech and Ben Winokur. Their mentor is Dr. Pavel Pinkas, an engineer, and their teacher is Chris Hager, who teaches biology. The team of high school juniors was sponsored by the Madison Wisconsin community through fundraisers held by the Madison West Rocket Club. The Club opted to raise contributions in the low-tech manner of raking leaves.

Frank Lloyd Wright Lectures Disney Artists...February 25, 1939

2009-05-19T13:33:00.004-05:00

The best analysis of art, film, animation and music I've ever read. Our Mr. Lloyd Wright delivers
once again...he even admits to being surprised by the sometime intelligence of the unwashed masses. Read on...http://www.mouseplanet.com/8788/Why_Frank_Lloyd_Wright_Disliked_Fantasia

Thanks to mouseplanet.com

Only In Milwaukee...."Dookies"

2009-05-05T22:58:00.003-05:00

Only in Milwaukee, a city well known for it's unique slang, are Nike Air Force One shoes called..."Dookies".

John Muir Shows His Inner Pee Wee Herman...

2009-05-01T16:58:00.004-05:00

This is John Muir's clockwork desk. He built it while attending the University of Wisconsin in 1862. "I invented a desk in which the books I had to study were arranged in order at the beginning of each term. I also made a bed which set me on my feet every morning at the hour determined on, and in dark winter mornings just as the bed set me on the floor it lighted a lamp. Then, after the minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was heard and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack below the top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there the number of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided according to the times of recitation, and time required and allotted to each study."
Muir had a way with gadgets. Among his many creations was as "early-rising bed" - an alarm clock device that would raise the sleeper to an upright position at the appointed hour.

John Birch Society Still Fights The Cold War, Socialists, The Federal Reserve and Themselves.

2009-04-26T19:48:00.005-05:00

Hey everybody, I'm back and I've collected quite a pile of Wisconsinology related items to blog about. To begin with, I Found this article in the Appleton Post Crescent www.postcrescent.com. It's a good follow up to an earlier Birch post featured in this blog. I love comedy. When it comes to big laughs and endearing pratfalls, the Birchers rule. A toast: May they live long and may their conspiracies multiply...and most of all, may they remain as they are - utterly harmless.

John Birch Society members still fight the Cold War
Political organization brought its headquarters to Fox Cities 20 years ago this spring

By Ed Lowe • Post-Crescent staff writer
GRAND CHUTE — The young couple sipped chocolate milkshakes in a front-window booth at Culver's, unaware that the low-slung brown office building across the street was command central in the war to save America from a godless conspiracy. By summer, the leafy lower branches of a maple tree will obscure some of the building's silver letters, but on this spring evening the sign was clearly visible. "The John Birch Society," it read. Never heard of it, the couple told a reporter. "Does it ring a bell to you, Staci?" Jesse Van Dera, 22, of Freedom, asked the woman seated across from him. Staci Bogenschutz, 21, also of Freedom, smiled and shook her head. Fifty years after the John Birch Society was founded to thwart a feared communist takeover of the U.S. government, the politically conservative organization's once-high national profile has eroded to little more than a historical footnote.
"My impression is that it is largely ignored (today), having been superseded on the right by think tanks on the one hand and neo-Nazi groups and conservative religious groups on the other," said Pamela Oliver, a University of Wisconsin-Madison sociology professor who in the 1980s co-authored a study of media coverage of the John Birch Society. Though the organization has continued fighting communism even as terrorism has supplanted the Cold War as America's primary security concern, Birchers are prone to battle each other nearly as often as perceived enemies of the United States. Declining membership, financial struggle, political irrelevance and even internal insurgencies that suggest conspiracy theorists themselves are not immune from conspiracy have greatly diminished the organization's place on the American landscape.

But 20 years ago this spring, when the John Birch Society moved its headquarters to the current location west of Appleton, home of then-chief executive officer G. Allen Bubolz, the group was hard to overlook — its unassuming small-town base notwithstanding. In Grand Chute, the society's new headquarters shared a hometown with one of its best-known heroes, U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Like McCarthy, the Birchers achieved notoriety for an obsession with exposing communist infiltrators during the Cold War. The organization is named for John Birch, a missionary and Army Air Force surveillance officer killed by communists in China 10 days after the end of World War II, making him the first American casualty of the Cold War.
During the Cold War, the John Birch Society branded President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, as a "dedicated, conscious agent of the communist conspiracy." Years later, the group derided President Ronald Reagan, also a Republican, as a "lackey" of the perceived communist conspiracy.

Communist agents infiltrated or manipulated every level of the American government, John Birch Society founder Robert Welch claimed.

Art Thompson, the organization's 70-year-old chief executive officer, believes the John Birch Society saved America. Thompson, a widower turned newlywed in March, possesses a deep voice, a hearty laugh and a genuine fear that democracy poses a fundamental threat to the American Way.
"If it hadn't been for the John Birch Society, the United States, as we know it, would no longer exist," he said. "John Q. Public has no perception of that because we fought so many battles behind the scenes. It would have be a more controlled society, a less prosperous society. We probably would have lost the Constitution already."

Thompson, who became chief executive officer after a purge of other key Birchers in 2005, has a head full of secrets he is sworn to protect. "We don't want to let the enemy know our strengths or our weaknesses," he said. "The enemy" includes communists, socialists and most federal agencies, which Birchers would dismantle if they could.

"The progressive income tax? That was a communist plan," Thompson said. "The centralization of credit in the hands of the state, that's the Federal Reserve."
Birchers maintain that both measures were taken without the authority granted by the Constitution. Democracy too, they argue, represents a corruption of the founding fathers' intentions and a recipe for mob rule.

The subterranean passageway linking the John Birch Society's headquarters to its research and publications center stretches 72 feet. The eastern wall of the corridor features 48 framed photographs, 37 are black and white. All the photos show the organization's late founder, Robert Welch, the candy-company magnate who in December 1958 rallied 11 businessmen to join the counterinsurgency he would lead. Current President John F. McManus, 74, the society's featured spokesman for four decades, said its influence has never been greater, thanks largely to the Internet. But influence alone doesn't pay the bills. "When we say 'growing influence,' we'd like to say that it is all translating into a strong growth in membership, but it's not," McManus said. McManus now is halfway through a 45-city speaking tour targeting Federal Reserve monetary policies and knows the pitch by heart. "The combination of the government and the Federal Reserve are destroying the dollar and setting us up for world currency, world control, world government," he said.

The motive?

"Power," he said. "History is filled with people who wanted power over mankind."
For its members, like David Stertz, 38, of Clintonville, a mechanical engineer at Metso Paper in Appleton, knowledge of the great conspiracy is simply a fact of life.
"I've been working here since '96, so everyone here knows if something sounds alarming coming from stranger, it's not alarming when it's coming from me," Stertz said. " 'It's just David talking.' They're used to it, I guess."
But for all his vigilance, Stertz is among a dwindling breed. The John Birch Society's rigid organizational structure, featuring top-to-bottom communication lines, has undermined its ability to grow, Oliver said, citing research gathered in the 1980s. The structure the John Birch Society used then was of the type used by clandestine groups seeking maximum security. It stifled interaction and coordination opportunities among Birch agents in the field, she said.
"It's hard to mobilize large numbers of people when you don't know whom you're supposed to be working with," Oliver said.
Chip Berlet, the senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a think tank near Boston that observes right-wing groups, said the John Birch Society remains despite its resistance to stray from its founder's playbook. "As far as external indications go, it looks like they're still moving forward with their agenda of proving to the American people that a giant conspiracy controls all world history," said Berlet, who has studied the John Birch Society for 30 years.

In 1989, as staffers at the former Birch headquarters near Boston prepared for the move to the Fox Cities, Berlet stopped by. Berlet identified himself as an archivist, he said, and asked for the chance to poke through the discarded printed materials in the overflowing Dumpster outside. Permission granted, he told of a few of the discoveries in an alternative paper, the Boston Phoenix. The stacks of paper revealed an internal revolt in 1974 causing the John Birch Society's section leader in Illinois to resign and then send letters to other members alleging fiscal misdeeds among administrators. The episode fueled "scores" of resignations in Minnesota and Illinois, he wrote. Berlet also uncovered a foot-thick stack of printouts bearing the names of "all 24,000 Birch members" on file in late 1987.Over the years, membership has varied, topping out at nearly 100,000 in the mid-1960s. Members and former members share a disdain for government and the establishment. "The problem is they think a secret elite controls the banks, the colleges, the media and their job is to inform the public," Berlet said, referring to Welch's belief that a sinister conspiracy was afoot long before the communists arrived on the scene. "Whether (the John Birch Society targets) the Rockefellers or the Illuminati or the Jews or the Muslims, it's toxic to democracy.
If you believe your opponent is part of this secret, nefarious plan on behalf of evil, if not Satan himself, there is no … compromise possible in the public square."
Welcome to Appleton
The society's pending arrival in the Fox Cities was announced in The Post-Crescent on March 7, 1989. "We chose Appleton because it was my hometown," Bubolz, the Appleton businessman who brought the John Birch Society headquarters to his hometown, told The Post-Crescent earlier this month. The move to the Midwest also was a cost-cutting move, allowing the John Birch Society to vacate offices on both coasts.
Bubolz was then second in command at Appleton-based Secura Insurance Cos. when he took the top post at the John Birch Society in 1988, knowing the organization was millions in debt.
Secura, faced with irate customers, publicly disassociated itself from the John Birch Society and Bubolz, who had worked at Secura for 37 years, soon resigned.
As head of the John Birch Society, Bubolz's first major order of business was trimming headquarters staff by about half. In 1991, as the Soviet Union collapsed and much of the world celebrated the perceived death of communism itself, the Birch executive board pushed Bubolz to step aside. "They said I'd put everything back into the realm of possibility well enough that they thought they could go on without me," Bubolz said.

Bubolz remains a John Birch Society member, but identifies more closely with a new rival, the Freedom First Society, founded by ousted Birch leaders and led by the deposed CEO.
The leaders of the new society, which also follows the rigid course set by Robert Welch, contend they left the John Birch Society in October 2005 after learning it faced "an imminent coup orchestrated from within."

The accusations of past and present administrators are shown in disquieting detail on the Web site maintained by Don Fotheringham, 82, a former Birch officer, who claims his former employer has strayed from Welch's absolute vision, compromised its ideals because the new leaders are now "more interested in popularity than purpose."
The site, www.donfoth.com, which is rife with words such as mutiny, coup and revolution, mostly in internal memos and letters dealing with sensitive personnel matters, suggests just how far a Welch disciple will go to expose a conspiracy, real or imagined.
One letter, addressed to "Dear Fellow Patriot," concludes:
"(A)s Robert Welch wrote in February 1974, let's do 'what we can do to restore some sanity to a world that seems to be losing both its mind and its heart.'"

Written by Ed Lowe elowe@postcrescent.com

Thanks Post Crescent! www.postcrescent.com

Here Comes Hildegarde...again

2009-02-18T13:17:00.005-06:00

Here she is, the small town Wisconsin girl who became the #1 cabaret performer in the entire world. It is said that Liberace borrowed heavily from Hildegarde and when one notes the addition of a candelabra atop her piano in the late 1930's, it all becomes clear. They had many similarities: both Wisconsinites, both at the very top of their fields, both household names in their own lifetime and both gay. I've given Hildegarde her own category and wrote about her here. Interesting note - not too long after this film was made her love of long white gloves ignited an international fashion craze.

Brooks Stevens...Designer of the 20th Century

2009-02-17T09:23:00.020-06:00

"Total worldwide income generated by products emanating from his Milwaukee studio exceeded 5 billion dollars a year..There were few places on the planet that Stevens could visit without encountering at least one product that he either designed or influenced."

"By the mid fifties it seemed that everything - and I mean everything - from the alarm clock on your night stand, all the cookware in your kitchen, the car you drove,the toys out on the lawn, the logo and the bottle of your favorite beer, almost everything you would see or use from the moment you got up until you went to bed was designed by Brooks Stevens."

Just as Frank Lloyd Wright is not a merely "an architect" and Orson Welles is not merely "a director" and Harry Houdini is not merely "a Magician"...Brooks Stevens is not "an industrial designer".... he is, for all practical(take note you effetes out there, I said practical) purposes, THE industrial designer.
He designed the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile (first piloted by the original Little Oscar, Wisconsin's own Meinhardt Raabe click here, better known to one and all as the Coroner of Munchkintown in the classic 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz.) Like Orson Welles, Brooks was the son of a successful inventor who created a number of major innovations in the early days of automobile production (I'll say it again, Detroit merely assembled cars...most of the parts and pieces and major innovations were first created here). He could not have born in a better place. The variety, invention and vitality that was Milwaukee in the first half of the 20th century was unmatched. America's Machine Shop, America's Toolbox, The City That Makes Things..... all well deserved monikers. Stevens was devoted to his hometown. Like so so many others (don't get me started on them), he could easily have set up shop in New York or Chicago. Instead, he made Milwaukee his lifelong home, and it was in Milwaukee that he became the first industrial designer in America to have a museum retrospective. Among his initial accomplishments are numerous "firsts" - the first motor home, the first electric clothes dryer with a glass window, and the first electric steam iron. He designed the new look of the Miller Brewery from the ground up - everything from the buildings to the logo. He introduced colored cookware and appliances to the kitchens of 1950's America, designed numerous automobiles and coined the dreaded phrase "planned obsolesence". Evinrude and Johnson outboard motors, Lawn Boy mowers, Cushman scooters, carts, and motorcycles, the Willys Overland Jeepster, and the 1949 Harley-Davidson Hydra-glide motorcycle....
The 1962 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk...

The Toastalator...

And what a great meeting of Wisconsin minds - Milwaukee's Brook Stevens and the Hamilton Mfg Company of Two Rivers, Wisconsin - inventors of the electric dryer....
The grill of a 1959 Chrysler Scimitar Wagon...
...A tiny sample of his work, I'd like to close with a Brook Stevens quote concerning the Oscar Meyer Wiener Mobile,"There's nothing more aerodynamic than a wiener." ...Clifford Brook Stevens, 1911-1995.

Hawaiian Guitar Students, 1937

2009-02-11T14:51:00.006-06:00

1937. The Wisconsin branch of the Honolulu Conservatory of Music. The popularity of the steel guitar was at its peak and the Ohahu teaching method made it accessible to the entire world. The instrument was introduced to the mainland through the chautauqua circuit. Hawaiian bands and solo artists traveled across the states playing tent shows in rural areas and vaudeville theaters in larger cities. It was the first electric guitar and very first instrument to be heard in a sound film by a paying audience when multi-instrumentalist Roy Smeck appeared in a Vitaphone short that preceded the 1924 feature production of Don Juan. If a solid body electric steel guitar was too expensive the alternative was a cheap and easy deal - A 25 cent metal bridge placed on the neck of a cheap six string acoustic guitar raised the strings to a sufficient height and converted any regular six string guitar into a steel guitar. Add a metal bar to slide on the strings and finger picks and you were ready to go. Wisconsin has produced many unique steel guitarists - from the Goose Island Rambler's Smokey George Gilbertson(Madison) to Asleep at the Wheel's current steel man, Eddie Rivers from Beaver Dam. Click on the picture, it's huge, and let me know if you recognize anyone.

Death Comes To The Naturalist......and so does a Hockey Mom

2009-02-08T11:45:00.017-06:00

Wisconsin has a long history as a stomping ground for Naturalists. (Come to think of it, our state has quite a history of producing noted Naturists as well) John Muir arrived as a young child and was raised in the Badger state through his college years and Aldo Leopold spent the last half of his life here. Charles Leslie McKay was born in Appleton in 1855. He was part of the very first generation of children to be born in the city (then town), a group that included "the genius of 19th century surgery", John Benjamin Murphy. He grew up in a time of rapid change. The town was growing, foreign born residents (among them a newly arrived child who would eventually take the name Harry Houdini) outnumbered the native Americans, the Fox River locks opened the the great waterway to shipping and new lumber based industries were emerging. McKay spent his young years roaming nearby fields, endless creeks and deep ravines, observing and collecting plants and animals. In 1873, he began his undergrad studies at the Appleton Collegiate Institute, a new college that was attracting what, in years to come, would be regarded as an all star faculty - among them was David Starr Jordan, naturalist, ichthyologist, pioneering ecologist and future President and Chancellor of Stanford University in California. Jordan was young, informal and enthusiastic about his work. His only rule being that he and his students did their work in the field. Together, Jordan and his small group of students roamed the Fox River Valley collecting specimens and observing the workings of the natural world. McKay immediately proved to be the most gifted of the group and Jordan took him under his wing. In spite of a very successful first year, a fast growing national financial panic forced the closure of the fledgling institute. Its buildings and property were eventually handed over to the towns other college, Lawrence University. Jordan had to move on. McKay followed his mentor to Butler University and then Indiana University. He eventually graduated from Cornell and found an opportunity for his line of work in the US Army Signal Corps.
Spencer Fullerton Baird of the Smithsonian Institution was selecting Signal Corps Officers for assignment to remote stations. Officers were chosen based on their level of scientific training. McKay proved to be an ideal candidate.
In 1881 he was assigned to Nushagak, a remote post in the Bering Sea on the north side of Bristol Bay in Alaska. He plunged into his work with an overabundence of enthusiasm and skill. For the next two years the young scientist sent back specimen packed crates and volumes of notes to the Smithsonian. In 1882 he sent back a pair of birds that would forever bear his name....McKay's Bunting. In April of 1883, after a hard winter and alone in a canoe laden with supplies, he eagerly embarked on a spring collecting trip. He was never heard from again. Some accounts mention horrific late winter weather conditions that lead to his "native built canoe being overturned in a stormy river". Others mention his death as being the "result of foul play". It remains a mystery.

August 2009. From an interesting Scottish bird blog post entitled Sarah Palin and Charles McKay.(click here for original post)
There are only about 6000 McKay’s buntings in the world. They only breed on two islands in the Bering Sea; St. Matthew Island and Hall island. They winter on the coast of Alaska, and can be found in Bristol Bay.
Breeding on two Arctic islands McKay’s buntings could be threatened by global warming as the Bering Sea rises due to melting icebergs and the icecap.
Bristol Bay, the very area where Charles McKay first discovered these buntings, is now under threat from a proposed Gold and Copper mine that would be sited in the area called Pebble Mine.
Bristol Bay is also the site of one of the world’s biggest salmon fisheries. This is also at risk from the proposed mine. And its this very place that Sarah Palin wants to see the Pebble Mine located. The most worrying thing is that both Sarah Palin and Barack Obama were against Alaska’s Proposition 4 which would have prevented mining companies dumping their chemicals into the state water supply and rivers; it may have even prevented the Pebble Mine being built. It narrowly was defeated recently giving the mining companies a huge boost. Indeed, it seems Sarah Palin even broke the law to campaign against Proposition 4. The door is now open for the Pebble Mine.

....and perhaps, so much for McKays Bunting.

A short list of Famous Wisconsinites with Scottish Ancestry - Douglas MacArthur, Arthur MacArthur, Billy Mitchell, John Muir, Charles McKay, Alexander Mitchell (Billys Grandfather,Mitchell Park, Mitchell Street,
Milwaukee Road Railroad, Marine Bank,etc etc.)

Buddy in Wisconsin.....Eau Claire January 26, 1959

2009-02-05T14:23:00.004-06:00

Buddy, Waylon,guitarist Tommy Allsup, Dion and the Belmonts and Ritchie Valens in an amazing set of photos taken by Joanie Swenson during The Winter Dance Party stop in Eau Claire at Fournier's Ballroom.

More photos, including pictures from Kenosha, Racine and Green Bay legs of the Winter Dance Party tour can be found at this site.

Front Page, Sheboygan Press...December 10, 1929

2009-02-04T10:28:00.005-06:00

This is a huge file. Click on it and read. It's 1929, the financial ball has been dropped and the great depression is ramping up...

The John Birch Society...

2009-01-30T21:25:00.008-06:00

...is based in Appleton, Wisconsin. The society was named after Captain John Birch. During WWII, Birch was an American military intelligence officer...he was also a Baptist missionary. In 1945, he was supposedly murdered by elements of the Red Army while on official business in China. Apparently, the US government made no effort to save him or, in the aftermath of his death, recognize his apparent martyrdom. Birch is the name, face and driving back story of this organization's (so far) five decade mission. The John Birch Society was founded by former ardent Baptist turned Unitarian Nutjob of all trades, Robert W. Welch Jr., in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1958. Welch immediately gained some notoriety for calling President Dwight D Eisenhower a "conscious, dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy" and the John Birch Society was off and running. I've been reading JBS literature in an effort to try to understand whatever it is they are, and I'm still not sure that I have fully grasped some of their finer boilerplate points. It's a message that cannot be broken down into simple slogans or sound bytes, although they do have this one: "Less Government, More Responsibility, and, With God's Help, a Better World." They really need an outside PR firm. That slogan is mouthfull, completely lacking the simple, easy to remember power of....oh...something like....."Hope". The John Birch Society is opposed to any form of "internationalism', "globalism" or "new world order". They dislike the Rockefellers and the entire Trilateral Commission gang including members George H W Bush and Jimmy Carter (I have to admit, I'm with them on disliking those two clowns).
They have repeatedly opposed overseas war and "they have issued calls to "Bring Our Troops Home" in every conflict since its founding, including Vietnam." They oppose communism, facism and socialism (any redistribution of wealth). They are equally opposed to rampant capitalism and see great evil in worldwide corporate power. They especially oppose the United Nations and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). To the normal, everyday Democrat or Republican, they can be a mountain of contradictions - a Dem can easily agree with the anti-corporate power part of the JBS message and then back off at the first sign of United Nations bashing. Birchers must really hate Star Trek with it's United Earth and Federation of Planets. To the public, they are frequently portrayed as uber conservatives and they do define the label "conservative", "In the United States, a conservative is one who seeks to support and retain the traditional institutions of the U.S. government, including the rule of law under the Constitution, and the political doctrines of individual rights and freedom as espoused by the Founding Fathers." The "founding fathers" part continuously pops up in their literature. It's time to quote myself:"Never trust anyone who liberally uses the words "founding fathers." Birch Society power rose to a peak in the anti-commie early 60's, fell flat on it's face for a couple of decades and then peaked again with the emergence of the new right in the early 90's. Right now, they appear to be treading water. The move to Appleton is recent. The JBS complex here has the look of a standard issue industrial park office. Don't be fooled. A large, interconnected system of tunnels, storage,and office space(covering more acreage than the buildings above)lies underground. The John Birch Society publishes a magazine, The New American and is currently just beginning to enter the world of web based new media. Are they proto conservatives? Are they so far to the right that they've become the extreme left? Or are they merely Libertarians with a twist? I don't know. I do know that they have a martyr and that no organized movement with a martyr at the helm ever quietly faded away.

NBA's Greatest Wisconsin-Born Players

2009-01-29T14:36:00.006-06:00

Thanks to Southside Andy G., Wisconsin's #1 all time basketball guru/art director.
(An interesting list. Made me think of the many Wisconsin-born players who got into the NBA but either exited early (UWGB's Logan Vandervelden from Valders, Wis.)or were badly injured before they could really blossom (All time leading NCAA 3 point percentage shooter- UWGB's Tony Bennett, born and raised in Green Bay, currently NCAA coach of the year with Washington State)
By Truman Reed http://www.nba.com/bucks/news/MB_090114.html
1. Terry Porter
The pride of Milwaukee's South Division High School and the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Porter was chosen by the Portland Trail Blazers with the 24th selection in the 1985 NBA Draft and blossomed into an NBA All-Star in 1990 and '91. Porter scored 15,586 career points, but more significantly was one of the mainstays of a Trail Blazers team that ranked among the NBA's best from 1985-95. During that span, the 6-foot-3-inch guard became the Trail Blazers' all-time assists leader with 5,319. He had his jersey No. 30 retired by Portland in December of last year. He also played three seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves, one with the Miami Heat and three with the San Antonio Spirs. Following his playing career, Porter entered the coaching ranks as an assistant with the Sacramento Kings in 2002. After returning to Milwaukee to serve as head coach of the Bucks from 2003-05, he worked as an assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons from 2005-08 before becoming head coach of the Phoenix Suns in 2008.

2. Fred Brown
Many who caught the act of Milwaukee Lincoln High School's teams of 1966 and '67 consider them the most dominant Wisconsin has ever seen. Milwaukee natives Brown and Clarence Sherod were two of the linchpins of those ballclubs. One rival City Conference coach, who went on to coach at the NCAA Division-I level, called Brown the best high-school player he had ever seen. The 6-foot-3-inch Brown, who picked up the nickname "Downtown" for his long-range marksmanship, played two seasons and became a third-team All-American at the University of Iowa before scoring 14,018 points over a 13-year NBA career with the Seattle Super Sonics. He averaged a career-best 23.1 points per game, which placed him eighth in the league, in 1975-76, and ranked among the NBA's top 10 free-throw shooters seven times.

3. Latrell Sprewell
Yet another Milwaukee native, Sprewell starred at Washington High School before becoming one of the nation's premier junior college players at Three Rivers Community College of Poplar Bluff, Mo., and then a standout at the University of Alabama. Don Nelson and the Golden State Warriors made Sprewell the 24th selection in the first round of the 1992 NBA Draft, and he went on to score 16,712 career points over a span of 13 years. The 6-foot-5-inch guard made NBA All-Star Game appearances in 1994, '95, '97 and 2001 -- the first three with the Warriors and the last with the New York Knicks. He made the all-NBA First Team and all-NBA Defensive Second Team following the 1993-94 campaign and averaged a career-best 24.2 points per outing in 1996-97.

4. Caron Butler
Butler, who was born in Racine and began his prep career at Racine Park High School before spending his senior season at Maine Central Institute, entered the NBA as the 10th overall pick in the 2002 draft by the Miami Heat. He was a first-team all-NBA Rookie Team selection in 2003 before being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers and then the Washington Wizards. The 6-foot-7-inch forward emerged as an NBA All-Star with the Wizards in 2006-07 and again last season, when he averaged career highs of 20.3 points and 4.9 assists per game. He entered the current campaign with 7,314 career points over six seasons.

5. Don Kojis
Kojis scored 1,398 points during his prep heyday at Milwaukee's Notre Dame High School from 1954-57, averaging 31.3 points in his senior year. The 6-foot-3-inch forward stayed close to home and staked his claim to collegiate fame at Marquette University. He led the Warriors in scoring twice and in rebounding three times, averaging 18.6 points and 15.1 rebounds over his three years at MU, and left the school as the program’s all-time leading scorer. He had his jersey No. 44 retired by the school. Kojis was chosen in the second round of the 1961 NBA Draft by the Chicago Packers with the 12th overall selection. The 6-foot-3-inch Kojis began making his mark as a pro when the NBA had just nine teams, competing against a who's who of Hall-of-Famers. He developed into an NBA All-Star, representing the San Diego Rockets in 1968 and '69, finishing 10th in the league in scoring in 1968-69 at 22.5 points a game and ripping down 9.5 rebounds a night. He amassed 7,314 points over his 12-year pro career with the Rockets, the Baltimore Bullets, the Detroit Pistons and the Chicago Bulls.

6. Nick Van Exel

Van Exel, born and raised in Kenosha, was a scoring machine at St. Joseph’s High School, compiling 1,282 career points and leading the WISAA State Tournament in scoring in both his junior and senior years. He developed into a combo guard during his years at Trinity (Texas) Valley Community College and the University of Cincinnati. The 6-foot-1-inch southpaw guard became a first-team All-American under coach Bob Huggins with the Bearcats, yet was relegated to the second round of the 1993 NBA Draft before being selected with the 37th overall pick by the Los Angeles Lakers. Van Exel considered his draft position a snub and used that to his advantage throughout a 13-year NBA career that spanned 880 games. He racked up 12,658 points and 5,777 assists. He made an NBA All-Star Game appearance in 1998 during a season in which he averaged 15.4 points and 7.8 assists for the Lakers. He enjoyed his most prolific scoring season in 2001-02, averaging 19.1 points during combined stints with the Denver Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks. He later played for the Golden State Warriors, Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs and logged a total of 76 career playoff appearances.

7. Jim Chones

Chones enjoyed a dominant career at Racine Park and St. Catherine’s high schools. He led St Cat’s to the WISAA state title and a 26-0 record in his senior year and was named UPI State Player of the Year. The 6-foot-11-inch center moved on to play for Coach Al McGuire at Marquette University and became a first-team All-American in his junior year, 1972-73. He left school after that season and broke into the professional ranks with the New York Nets of the American Basketball Association, averaging 11.4 points and 7.1 rebounds as a rookie. He spent the following year with the ABA’s Carolina Cougars before making his NBA debut in 1974 with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He went on to play eight NBA seasons with the Cavs, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Washington Bullets, earning a championship ring with the Lakers in 1980. He retired following the 1981-82 season with ABA/NBA totals of 9,821 points and 6,427 rebounds over 788 games.

8. Devin Harris

Harris, a Milwaukee product, garnered 1,083 points during his Wauwatosa East career, which spanned 1998-2001. He tallied 582 points in his senior campaign and was named AP Player of the Year and Wisconsin’s Mr. Basketball. The 6-foot-3-inch guard spent his next three years 80 miles westward at the University of Wisconsin, where he broke into the starting lineup as a freshman and helped the Badgers win the Big Ten Conference championship. Wisconsin repeated as Big Ten champ in Harris’ sophomore year. He enjoyed a breakthrough season as a junior, averaging 19.5 points, 4.4 assists and 4.3 rebounds to earn the Big Ten Player of the Year Award as well as second-team All-American honors. He was chosen in the first round of the 2004 NBA Draft with the fifth overall pick by the Washington Wizards, who traded his draft rights the same day to the Dallas Mavericks. He played 251 regular-season games and 38 playoff contests over three and a half years with Dallas before being dealt to the New Jersey Nets in a Feb. 19, 2008 deal that sent Jason Kidd to the Mavericks. He averaged 15.4 points in 25 games with the Nets to finish the season, bringing his career total to 2,749 points. He is enjoying a breakout year for New Jersey in 2008-09, averaging 23.1 points and 6.6 assists. And many believe his best days are still ahead of him.

9. Kurt Nimphius

Veteran Wisconsin prep basketball fans will remember the 6-foot-10-inch Nimphius towering over the competition in leading South Milwaukee High School to the 1976 WIAA Class A state championship (over Coach Dick Bennett’s Eau Claire Memorial team in the title game). After scoring 97 points in his three state tourney games, 695 as a senior and 986 for his career, Nimphius, who was born in Milwaukee, was named UPI State Player of the Year. He went on to play four seasons at Arizona State University, then was taken in the third round of the 1980 NBA Draft by the Denver Nuggets. He made his NBA debut in 1982 and played a total of 564 games through 1990, totaling 3,602 points and 2,472 rebounds while wearing the uniforms of the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers, Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs and Philadelphia 76ers.

10. (tie)

Joe Wolf & Tony Smith

Wolf, a native of Kohler, was voted the top high school basketball player in Wisconsin history by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel when the state marked the 100th anniversary of its state tournament in 2005. The 6-foot-11-inch Wolf scored 2,086 points over a four-year career at tiny Kohler High School that spanned 1979-83 and played in the 1983 McDonald’s All-American Game. He helped the Blue Bombers win three WIAA Class C state championships and was named AP and UPI State Player of the Year and Wisconsin’s Mr. Basketball following his senior year. Wolf played four seasons at the University of North Carolina, accumulating 1,231 points and 707 rebounds, and was chosen 13th overall in the first round of the 1987 NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Clippers. During his 11 NBA seasons, Wolf played for the Clippers, the Denver Nuggets, the Boston Celtics, the Portland Trail Blazers, the Charlotte Hornets, the Orlando Magic and the Bucks. In 592 games, he scored 1,279 points and collected 1,933 rebounds. He put in two-year head-coaching stints with the Idaho Stampede and Colorado 14ers of the National Basketball Development League from 2004-08 before joining the Bucks staff as an assistant coach last summer.

Smith, a Milwaukee native, was a standout at Wauwatosa East High School from 1983-86. He scored 1,006 points during his years in a Red Raiders uniform, including 500 in his senior campaign. He was a first-team AP and UPI All-Stater as a senior and went on to star at the collegiate level just a few miles away from Tosa East at Marquette University. The 6-foot-3-inch guard established MU records for points in a game (44) and season scoring average (23.8 ppg) and was named an All-American in 1990. MU’s fifth all-time leading scorer was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round of the 1990 NBA Draft with the 51st overall pick. Smith split his 10 NBA seasons with the Lakers, the Phoenix Suns, the Miami Heat, the Charlotte Hornets, the Bucks and the Atlanta Hawks. He scored 2,504 points in 457 career games spanning 1990 through 2001. He is now a television analyst for Bucks games on FSN

Cable Oddities #1...Sexy Shears

2009-01-28T23:03:00.007-06:00

This ad has to be seen to be believed. It's an actual business in the Fox River Valley. Excellent NE Wisconsin accents on the phone number tag..."Toooo-oh tooo-oh tooo-oh...". Enjoy...

The Tour From Hell...Buddy Holly's frozen trek through Wisconsin

2009-01-27T13:04:00.012-06:00

Buddy Holly, subzero temperatures and Northern Wisconsin. What more do you want? Here's a very nicely written (By Pamela Huey) account of the ill fated winter dance party tour - a tour that was, like the Edmund Fitzgerald, launched in Milwaukee. The photos above show Buddy in Green Bay. This article is from StarTribune.com in Minnesota.

The Tour From Hell
by Pamela Huey

The rickety old bus pulled out of the Duluth Armory late on Saturday, Jan. 31, 1959, and headed across St. Louis Bay into the frigid Wisconsin night. On board were some exhausted, stinky rock 'n' rollers and their harried manager. The Winter Dance Party tour had just finished its ninth gig in as many days and was headed east for Appleton and Green Bay, for shows 10 and 11 on Sunday.
But as the temperature plunged to around 30 below and the wind howled, fate intervened. The southbound bus creaked to a stop as it struggled up an incline on Hwy. 51 about 10 miles south of Hurley. Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens, Waylon Jennings, Dion and the others were stranded on a remote highway in the northern Wisconsin forest. They huddled under blankets and burned newspapers to try to stay warm. Buddy's drummer was nursing painful frostbitten feet. It was the night the music almost died.
As Holly fans from around the world converge on Iowa's Surf Ballroom to remember his death in a plane crash 50 years ago and celebrate his music, the little-known story of the Wisconsin bus breakdown and the rest of the grueling tour is worth telling to understand why Holly chartered the airplane at Mason City. Holly had reluctantly signed onto the midwinter Midwest tour because he needed the money. But after 11 days of touring, he was tired -- tired of the endless miles on frozen buses, tired of performing in dirty clothes, tired of bickering with his manager in Clovis, N.M., and tired of sleeping sitting up on hard seats. By all accounts, the rockers gave a rousing performance in Clear Lake on Feb. 2, 1959. But rather than get on that cold bus again to travel 365 miles to Moorhead, Holly, J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) and Valens got on a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza that crashed into a cornfield in a snowstorm just after takeoff. All three and pilot Roger Peterson were killed.
The story of "The Day the Music Died" is legend -- made more famous by Don McLean's '70s song "American Pie." Not so well known is what some call the "Tour from Hell."

Brutally cold
The midwinter tour was particularly difficult for Texans Holly and his reconstituted Crickets, and for Valens, a Southern California boy who hadn't packed a winter coat.
"It was so cold on the bus that we'd have to wear all our clothes, coats and everything. ... I couldn't believe how cold it was," wrote Waylon Jennings, who played bass for Holly on the tour. The original Crickets were back in Texas.
General Artists Corp. had organized the tour with no thought to geographic sanity.
"They didn't care," says Holly historian Bill Griggs. "It was like they threw darts at a map. . ... The tour from hell -- that's what they named it -- and it's not a bad name."
Griggs, who long ago moved to Holly's home town of Lubbock, Texas, from Connecticut, estimates they had used five different buses before driving into Clear Lake -- "reconditioned school buses, not good enough for school kids."
The tour started in Milwaukee on Friday, Jan. 23, 1959. It then zig-zagged during the next 11 days from Wisconsin to Minnesota to Wisconsin to Minnesota to Iowa to Minnesota to Wisconsin to Iowa to Minnesota.
There were no roadies to help set up and pack up, and only icy two-lane highways to get from town to town.
On Saturday, Jan. 31, the tour made its second-longest haul -- 368 miles from Fort Dodge, Iowa, to Duluth. Bob Dylan, then a young high schooler from Hibbing named Robert Zimmerman, has told the story of making eye contact with Holly.
"He was great. He was incredible. I mean, I'll never forget the image of seeing Buddy Holly up on the bandstand," Dylan told the Rolling Stone in 1984.
The Duluth show ran until about 11 p.m. The balky bus had been kept in the Armory basement to stay warm. Tour members packed up and headed into the brutally cold Wisconsin night.
Tommy Allsup, the Crickets' lead guitarist who will be in Clear Lake at the big 50th anniversary bash on Feb. 2, has vivid memories of that next unscheduled stop on Hwy. 51. "We had started up this incline, it was snowing real bad, and the bus just started going slower and slower, and the lights got dimmer and dimmer, and all of a sudden the bus stopped," Allsup recalls.
"The driver said, 'The bus is frozen,' ... It was so cold, and we were just sitting there right in the middle of the road. Everybody started thinking we were about to freeze to death."

Dion's Belmonts started lighting newspapers to generate warmth. Holly's drummer Carl Bunch was in pain and having difficulty moving his legs. Allsup looked at his feet; they had turned brown. At that moment, they saw headlights in the distance. "It seemed like it took forever to get to us."
A sheriff's deputy, who had been alerted by a passing trucker, sized up the dire situation and got four cars to take the musicians to Hurley. He also got Bunch to the hospital in nearby Ironwood, Mich., where the drummer would learn two days later about the plane crash.
The Iron County Miner carried a short item on the rescue -- published three days after the crash -- calling the stranded entourage an orchestra. "The men were lightly dressed and suffered from extreme cold of 35 below zero that morning with no heat in the bus while they waited for someone to come along."
There are few people in Hurley still alive who remember that night. One is Gene Calvetti, now 85, who towed the bus to his dad's garage. He recalls arriving at the scene to find the guys "complaining about the cold and scared of bears." He also remembers that the bus engine "was shot."
The singers ended up at the Club Carnival in Hurley to get something to eat. Some went to a hotel in Ironwood to get a short night's rest. The next day, they headed to Green Bay by train and Greyhound bus; the Appleton show was canceled (damn!!!).
Monday, Feb. 2 was supposed to be an off-day. But at the last minute, tour organizers booked Clear Lake. So it was back on the bus for the 355-mile trip.
"We tried to hang our wrinkled suits in the aisle, and after a while, it got kind of ripe in there. We smelled like goats," Jennings wrote.
Allsup puts it another way: "We were running out of white shirts and underwear."
But the awful conditions also sparked camaraderie, story telling and lots of jamming.
Dion described in his autobiography how he and Holly huddled under blankets.
"Through the dark hours while we waited for something to happen, we would tell each other stories. Him, about Lubbock. Me, about the Bronx. I could always get a laugh out of him -- soft and low like his drawl ..."
John Mueller, who plays Buddy Holly in a traveling road show called "Winter Dance Party," has rare insight into what the '50s performers endured. In 1999, Mueller and the other musicians tried to replicate '59 tour. It was the 40th anniversary of the plane crash, and he wanted to honor the '59 tour by going back to the original cities and original venues. "By the time we got to Clear Lake, I had lost my voice, I had lost about 10 to 15 pounds, I was just physically exhausted, as was everybody in the group. The grueling nature of the tour, following the exact geographic routing, it really hit me in the head why they chartered the plane," said Mueller, whose group traveled in warm, comfortable minivans.
Griggs, who has dedicated his life to Holly's music and story, thinks the Wisconsin bus breakdown was the last straw.
"Buddy had his mind made up then. He thought, 'I don't want to go another 400 miles on this bus.' "

As many a Holly aficionado knows, Allsup and Jennings were supposed to be on the plane. But they gave up their seats to Valens and the Bopper, who was sick. Allsup lost out to Valens in a last-minute coin toss. When Buddy learned that Waylon's seat had gone to the Bopper, he told his bass player with a grin, "Well, I hope your damned bus freezes up again."
"Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes," responded Jennings, who was haunted for years by that exchange. Holly headed for the plane, and the bus headed for Moorhead.
Holly buffs also know that 15-year-old Robert Velline of Fargo, and his band -- named at the last minute the Shadows -- filled in at the Moorhead Armory show the next night. Velline became Bobby Vee, who now lives near St. Cloud. At 65, he is still touring the country and once again is part of this year's Clear Lake show.
"I shamelessly do a tribute to Holly in just about every show that I do. He was my Elvis, as much as I loved Elvis, Buddy was the guy who spoke to me."

Thanks to Guy Weber and Pete Anderson.

Schlitz with Vitamin D....Whaaa?

2009-01-25T09:53:00.008-06:00

From the December, 1936 issue of American Magazine. You are looking at two great Wisconsin achievements combined into one product. A brilliant idea in need of a revival, only in Wisconsin would a major Beer company figure out a way to fortify beer with vitamin D, a vitamin first successfully injected into foods and patented at the University of Wisconsin (click here). Read on...
Keep Sunny Summer Health - Drink Schlitz All Winter
TO help retain the peak of sunny summer health—to help maintain rugged resistance to winter colds and sickness— drink Schlitz, with Sunshine Vitamin D.
"As the summer sun heads south; as days grow shorter and stormier—we get less and less of sunshine’s benefits. Likewise, our ordinary foods are lacking in Sunshine Vitamin D, so essential to robust vitality."
Schlitz, with Sunshine Vitamin D *, gives you the sunny source of health you need the whole year around. Beer is good for you— but Schlitz, with Sunshine Vitamin D, is extra good for you. It has all the old-time Schlitz Flavor and Bouquet brewed to mellow ripe perfection under Precise Enzyme Control, with new health benefits and at no increase in price.
Drink Schlitz regularly—every day — for health with enjoyment. Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each 12-ounce bottle or can of SCHLITZ contains 100 U. 5. P. XL Units of Sunshine Vitamin D. SCHLITZ brewer’s yeast contains pro-vitamin D which is activated directly by the ultra-violet rays of the sun to form Vitamin D. (Protected by U. S. Letters Patent.) Schlitz WITH SUNSHINE VITAMIN-D The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous.
I Found this at the Modern Mechanix site. Click on the photo to enlarge.

The Art of Jack Carson....and those two guys from Milwaukee

2009-01-23T10:19:00.010-06:00

From the 1930's until his untimely death in the early 60's, Jack Carson was a fixture on the silver screen. The 6' 2" actor was born in Canada and moved to Milwaukee as a toddler and always considered the Cream City his hometown. Jack was an alumnus of Hartford School in Milwaukee and St. John's Military Academy in Delafield. During his Hollywood run he loved to come home and hunt and fish with fellow Wisconsin native and Two Guys From Milwaukee co-star, Dennis Morgan. Professionaly, he was a complete master at chewing up the scenery. He thrived during the vaudeville era and brought that hard learned craft with some added subtlety to the silver screen. Very few actors could share the frame with him. Add him to the list of Wisconsinites who completely dominated Hollywood's Golden Era - it's a mind boggling role call: Spencer Tracy, Frederick March, Pat O'brien, Howard Hawks, Orson Welles, The Laemmle Family (Universal Studios), Nicholas Ray, Fred MacMurray, Don Ameche, Carol Landis, Dennis Morgan, Ray "Crash" Corrigan, etc. etc. etc.
In 1947 Jack was the guest of honor at the Wisconsin State Fair. Here he is giving 1947's Wisconsin Dairy Queen a peck on the cheek and competing in an ice cream eating contest with John Schroeder of West Bend and Jackie Frost of Madison. The photos are from this excellent Jack Carson fan site.

The "Two Guys..." trailer is obviously recorded off of Turner Classic Movies, my favorite TV channel and a wonderful website that I can't get enough of. On a personal note, several years ago I directed and animated this now defunct (it ran for about 7 years) intro piece for TCM.

We filmed the whole thing over several months on a large animation stage in downtown Milwaukees third ward. But I digress....Here's a fitting closing shot of Jack with Dennis Morgan, those two guys from Milwaukee.

Chi Coltrane...Remember Chi Coltrane?

2009-01-17T18:31:00.007-06:00

It's pronounced "shy". She was born and raised in and around Racine. She didn't come from money. Her family moved a lot, a habit that forced her to bounce around from school to school. Finding solace in music, she mastered several instruments including piano. (She was inspired to play the piano by watching fellow Wisconsinite Liberace on TV.) By age 17 she was playing nightclubs across the state line in Chicago - another one of those unique, fully formed at a young age, musical talents that her generation seemed to mass produce. In 1972, she hit the Nations top 40 airwaves with "Thunder and Lightning"....and then she disappeared.
She certainly was beautiful, extremely talented and what a voice. Being a young teenager in 1972 and seeing Chi Coltrane on TV was powerful stuff. I remember her well.

The Flagellants...Carl Von Marr und Der Fuhrer

2009-01-16T17:22:00.013-06:00

Carl Marr was a Wisconsin boy. He was born in 1858 in a small house on Knapp Street in Milwaukee to artist parents. He studied painting under the tutelage of Heinrich Vianden, a painter of landscapes (with more than a touch of Bob Ross in him) who would become Wisconsin's first and probably most influential painting teacher. At 17, Marr moved to Germany. He eventually found himself in Munich, at the time a very modern and vibrant city. Success followed him. In 1893 he became a professor and later, director of Munich's famed Royal Academy. In doing so, and unknown to him at the time of his accepting the position, he had to relinquish his US citizenship. By then, he was already world famous. His epic painting "The Flagellants" was the late 19th century equivalent of a major blockbuster film. In the new century, the awards and achievements kept piling up....
1 - In 1909, at the height of his international fame, Kaiser Wilhelm himself bestowed to Marr the Order of the Red Eagle Third Class. With this honor came the placing of the prefix "von" before his name.

2 - In 1912, after recieving the Commendatore Cross of the Royal Order by King Victor Emanuel of Italy and the Order of St. Michael Second Class from Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, he became Baron Carl Von Marr.

3- In 1916, he married into The Messerschmitt family. (That's like marrying a Pabst, a Miller, a Blatz, a Davidson an Allis, a Chalmers, a Kimberly and a Clark combined......and then getting lifetime Packer tickets.)

4 - In 1917, he recieved the title "Geheimer Hofrat" - Privy Councilor and advisor to the Bavarian government. He was now "Baron Carl Von Marr Geheimer Hofrat zum Bavaria"....or something like that.

5 - Finally,and I almost forgot to mention, He was rumored to be Adolf Hitlers favorite painter. Hitler, a devoted fan of flagellation, admired Von Marr so much that he kept a portrait of him. Trouble was, Von Marr hated Hitler and the Nazis. He worked during the early 1930's to get Jewish painters to safe places out of Germany.

After a lifetime of achievement as both a painter and a teacher, he recieved an award that mattered more to him than any other of the gold medals or prestigious titles. In 1929, Carl Marr came home to Wisconsin to recieve an honorary degree from The University of Wisconsin. It would be his final visit to his homeland. In 1936 he died in Munich and was buried there. Lucky for us, The Flagellants and much of his work is the property of the City of Milwaukee and is on permanent display at The Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend. If you haven't seen Marr's magnum opus in person, I urge you to go. It's one big painting.

(I would like to inject to the usual e-mail writers, all two of you, who constantly (and politely)chide me for calling The University of Wisconsin "The University of Wisconsin" and not "The University of Wisconsin - Madison". I'm sorry, but there is only one University of Wisconsin and it's not, as much as I like those schools,it's not Eau Claire or GB or Oshkosh or LaCrosse or Menasha or whatever else. OK? ok.)

"I have battled against this modern craze, the jazz expressions in the field of art, but I have not succeeded in stemming it or securing a return to true details. I adhere to the old school of art with all that is implied in the same. I cannot reconcile myself to the present-day trend". Carl Von Marr on modernism.

Captain Nemo of Oshkosh...Richard Raddatz

2009-01-11T11:59:00.009-06:00

A photo of Richard Raddatz submarine in dry dock near the Fox River, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 1897.
Many thanks to Tom Claasen for the New York Times links and for being the impetus for this post.

At the turn of the 19th century, Wisconsin lead the nation in new ideas, education, political reform and invention. The entire east coast of the state from the paper making capital of the world that was the Fox River Valley to Milwaukee, "America's machine shop", a heavily industrialized city that was in the business of providing cutting edge machinery to the industrialized world.
The state was long practiced in being first in the nation at nearly everything (click on "firsts" in the categories column). Almost every car part that Henry Ford would later figure out an assembly method for, was invented in Wisconsin. The Car frame was invented here. The fortune that Orson Welles inherited came from his fathers invention of the first practical all weather automobile headlight, etc. etc. It's a very long list, well documented in this blog. In 1897, Richard Raddatz, a young mechanical engineer from Oshkosh, an industrial city seated midway along the shores of Lake Winnebago between Fon Du Lac to the south and the interconnected cities of Fox River Valley to the north, was hard hard at work putting his new creation, a submarine, through a series of trial runs on Lake Winnebago, The Fox River and Lake Butte Des Morts. Raddatz had solved the critical issues that had vexed sub inventors of the past, namely, submersion control and air supply. In June, the 65 foot long, 31 ton vessel slid into the Fox River. Like Nemo's Nautilus, it was a war ship. It's pointed iron beak was designed to ram surface ships. Raddatz and his wealthy Oshkosh investors clearly had their eye on winning a contract with the US Navy. The sub had many innovations. When running on the surface, the submarine relied on a kerosene engine. It's average speed was 14 miles per hour on the surface and 10 miles per hour submerged. When submerged, it switched over to a 30 cell electric storage battery and a light years ahead of it's time air supply system that Raddatz would forever remain tight lipped about. He designed the sub to run submerged for over 24 hours with a crew of 3. At the time, this was an unheard of feat. The tests continued into autumn. The local press sang its praises (almost daily) and in November The New York Times sent a correspondent to see what all the fuss was about. The subsequent article brought Raddatz some name recognition and caught the attention of John P. Holland, the not yet credited inventor of the first practical submarine. Holland had launched his own creation one month before Raddatz. His vessel was the first submarine to run submerged for any considerable distance, and the first to combine electric motors for submerged travel and gasoline engines for use on the surface. Although the performance specs of Holland's sub paled in comparison to Raddatz' invention, Holland had the ear of the United States Navy. In 1898, Raddatz sold his submersible to a Milwaukee business man named "Mr. Lyendecker" and the vessel was moved by rail to Milwaukee for further testing on Lake Michigan. Raddatz is said to have moved to Philadelphia, where it is believed he found employment with John P. Holland. That would explain some of the radical air supply and ballast improvements that were made to Hollands submersible between the years 1897 and 1900, when he delivered his first vessel to the US Navy. Conspiracy time. Flash forward. 20 years ago I remember a semi drunken conversation at a bar in Madison with an older, unreformed, Reagan-hating hippie intellectual (what other kind is there?). He was working on a book - never published, of course - that would reveal America's long standing, complicit involvment with the arms makers of Germany and the power they hold over us to this day. He claimed that Milwaukee was the conduit of this long standing relationship and that it all began when a group of Milwaukee businessmen sold the secrets of Richard Raddatz' submersible to the Kaiser, thus paving the way for German undersea dominance in both world wars. Ya, right. Here's the real end of the tale, courtesy the website of one of my favorite places to visit, The Oshkosh Public Museum. "There are conflicting versions of the fate of the Raddatz submarine. One version states that after the initial tests in Lake Michigan, the Raddatz submarine rusted away on Jones Island until it was sold for scrap. The second version states that the Raddatz submarine was sold to the Holland Boat Co. in Philadelphia and tested in the Atlantic Ocean."
It would be another 68 years before another, albeit less ambitious, submersible would ply the waters of the Fox River. Here is another view of Raddatz' submersible
from The Oshkosh Public Museum. If I remember correctly, the museum has a two blade propellor from Raddatz' sub. Check out the smokestacks and the Oshkosh city skyline in the background. I love smokestacks!

Here's a link to The New York Times Nov. 1897 piece about Raddatz. I want to say it again...."I love smokestacks!"

Adventures in Taxidermy

2009-01-09T22:18:00.006-06:00

A typical display from Sam Sanfillippo's taxidermy museum, located in the basement of the Cress Funeral Home in Madison. More on this museum and the source of this photo can be found at Extreme Craft. Wisconsin is the home of a number of taxidermy schools including the very seriously named American Institute of Taxidermy located in Boulder Junction. The Dan Rinehart Taxidermy School in Edgerton wins the most square feet award by being located in a massive former tobacco warehouse. Taxidermy has a long and serious history in our state. Some of our most famous and infamous citizens, from alpha archeologist Roy Chapman Andrews to psycho king Ed Gein practised taxidermy. I prefer the playful mounts of Sam Sanfillipo to the standard issue hyper realism that dominates the craft. A movement, recently coined as "Rogue Taxidermy" and begun in sideshows and carnivals, is beginning to spread across the nation. The look of Rogue Taxidermy can be best described as the interchanging of body parts between various species to create an all together new creature....like a jackalope or, better...a Hodag.

Going to a Party....Neenah, 1929

2009-01-07T21:30:00.002-06:00

Click to enlarge. Courtesy of Shorpy, a great place to be.

Harry and the Little People....A Troop of Dwarves in Barron County

2009-01-06T23:35:00.012-06:00

The Weird, Strange, Haunted, Supernatural, Odd Wisconsin field is both crowded and popular. New books appear every year and websites are in abundance. We are often held up as being the shining light of UFO sightings, odd happenings and strange behavior. Folkorist and Wisconsinite Robert Gard went so far as to claim that Wisconsin may have more ghosts per square mile than any other state in America. I'm not too sure about that. One story that runs through many of these sites and books is the late Harry Anderson's childhood memory of a long ago summer night in Barron County...
Summer, 1919. One night, as he walked down an isolated country road near Barron, Wisconsin, 13-year-old Harry Anderson saw something distinctly odd. Twenty little men, trooped in single file and heading in his direction, were visible in the bright moonlight. Even as they passed him, they paid him no attention. Young Anderson noticed they were dressed in leather knee pants held up by suspenders. They wore no shirts, they were bald, and their skin was pale white. Though all were making "mumbling" sounds, they did not appear to be communicating with each other. Terrified, Anderson continued on his way and did not look back. The bizarre encounter remained vivid in his memory for the rest of his life.

Here's a more elaborate version of Harry's story as it appeared in Fate Magazine....
On a late summer's night in 1919, thirteen- year-old Harry Anderson, his family and some friends went for a drive in the family's new Ford Model T automobile.
At about 10 p.m., as they were headed back to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the car's engine began running a little rough. Papa Anderson eased it to a halt on the southbound lane of Highway 25.
"We're running low on oil," he said, handing the oil can to his son. "Head on up the road, Harry, and see if you can get some old farmer to lend you some."
And so, with the empty oil can swinging from his hand, Harry hiked down the darkened road. A roadside sign told him he was just outside Barron, Wis., about five miles west of Rice Lake. Seeing the roof of a farmhouse on the horizon, he took a shortcut across a cornfield.
The farmer filled Harry's oil can for him, and, "as he was walking back, he saw twenty little men walking towards him in single file. They had bald heads and white skins, and wore leather 'knee-pants' held up by braces over their shoulders.
Startled, Harry ducked behind a red maple tree, staying out of sight as the dwarfish platoon marched by. His ears caught fragments of their conversation, mostly mutterings and a quirky little song.
"We won't stop fighting
Till the end of the war
In Nineteen-Hundred
and Ninety-Four.
Sound off--one, two
Sound off--three, four
Detail, one, two, three, four
One--two...three--four!
The column marched on into the forest, leaving Harry, in his own words, "heart pumping and terrified."

Now, I do know exactly what a row of little men singing a song looks like...

That there are already two variants to the tale showcases my favorite human trait - creativity and the sheer joy of embellishing or "punching up" stories. Very much like the four gospels in the Bible where the plain, straightforward first tale of Mark is followed by three insanely melodramatic, overly romantic and political embellishments that are Mathew, Luke and John. But lets get back to Harry before I go on a diatribe about religion. By paranormal standards, Harry's tale is unusual. Little People sitings are hard to come by. I've heard or read tales of little people (or hidden folk called huldre creatures)who have followed Norwegian families as they moved from the old country to Wisconsin, and Barron County does have a history of both Norwegians and unusual happenings. But what are these Germanic looking little men doing in what for so long was Indian land? Barron County also has some Czechs,more Irish (who,it goes without saying,are world famous for their little people)and the usual large number of Germans. To add a new wrinkle to the tale, the Winnebago Tribe of Barron County has reported recent sightings of their own little people: "In past years Indian fairy folk have been seen by Chippewa near a waterfall in Rice Lake and Indian hunters have heard the noise made by their stone hammers when parties of these little folks were engaged in quarrying the stone for pipe and ornament making." I'll be following Harry Anderson's tale as it evolves and spreads across the internet. In the meantime, I can't wait to take a summer drive to Barron County.

Hannah's Postcards #2...plumes are out and no pie for cousin Dick

2009-01-04T11:46:00.015-06:00

More postcards from my Great Aunt, Hannah Mickelson. We first ran into this collection here. In that previous post we met her lovesick suitor, Joe, and her stingy brother Wilmer, a great lakes ship captain. As I noted earlier, these people got around the state with great ease. Trains ran everywhere. At the time these cards were written, roughly 1903 to 1921, one could easily live in a small town, take a day trip to Chicago or Milwaukee and be home for supper. I drive to Milwaukee and Chicago all the time and the drive a major chore. Was transportation in 1912 better? Yes.
Hannah had a gaggle of sisters in law. In the card below, with it's lovely view of Pinckney Street in Madison, she gets some timely and very straightforward words of fashion advice from sister in law "Minnie" (my grandmother, Amelia Mickelson Anderson)and Minnie's older, fashion guru cousin in law, Della. It's safe to say that by 1912 plumes were "out" in Wisconsin. I cranked the contrast on the back of the card to make the handwriting more legible. Click on any image to enlarge.
Dear Hannah,
If I were you I wouldn't get a plume as they are all out of date. I spoke to Della about it and she said she wouldn't have it if she got one for nothing.
Loving Sis,
Minnie

This next card, showing a nice but fairly common scene of the ship canal in Sturgeon Bay, reveals some kind of long simmering feud or past slight that was never reconciled. The result is horrific...a Sunday visit with no pie.
Dear H&M (Hannah and Meyer),
I've got so much to tell you but I haven't got time to write a letter but anyway Rasmus Olsen and family are awful sore at Dick and I for coming up that Sunday they had some pie too and would'nt put it on because Lida and Dick were their(sic) ha ha - am awful sorry and they are going around and telling everybody... The card is signed by Dick's wife, Alida.

Finally, leaping back to 1906, here's another card from Hannah's sad sack suitor, Joe. The picture of the Mendota, Wisconsin train station is representative of the large number of smaller train stations that served the smaller towns and rural communities of Wisconsin. In this card we find that Joe is "hard at work...but would rather be in Deerfield tonight." Poor guy. Hannah soon married somebody else.

At the very top of this post is a wonderful scene of Manitowoc.
The city has apparently decided that it needs a nickname or catchphrase or some such thing. Nice try. I wish it was true. The city fathers of the time show an understanding of a basic truth: life in the business world is much easier when you have some kind of catchphrase, schtick or any simple one line summation of what you are. The card was sent by Hannah's brother, Captain Wilmer Robertson. I remember him as an exceedingly grumpy old Norwegian bachelor who always wore the coat and hat of his long ago trade. The back of the card reveals him once again complaining about the lack of business in the great lakes shipping lanes.

University of Wisconsin Dorm Room circa 1905

2008-12-27T18:37:00.006-06:00

Two photos from the archives of Square America, the best "found photo" site on the web. Basic dorm room decor has changed very little over time. Click to enlarge.

Brandy Old Fashioned....a reposting for the holidays

2008-12-25T15:24:00.004-06:00

By popular demand. E-mails have demanded that I reprint this excellent post on Brandy Old Fashioneds complete with aa official Wisconsinology approved and tested recipe. That's our very own Carole Landis in the photo below enjoying our state's greatest drink. As always, she looks fantastic.

This has happened to me in Chicago, San Francisco, Kansas City, Los Angeles, NYC. I go into a bar and ask for my favorite drink (also known as Wisconsin's proudest moment of liquid defiance) "Brandy old fashioned.....sour." The bartender will always shake his head and say, "Never heard of it". Not to worry. I always carry the recipe in my wallet. Remember, if you are from Wisconsin, it's your duty to drink this drink. No other state, except the U.P.(which is ours anyway) has a clue. It's # 3 on my list of 128 things that make us different. In the above picture, Wisconsinology Co-Editor Carole Landis is seen enjoying this distinct and delicious drink. Here it is...and yes there can be slight variations.

Start with an 8 -10 oz Old Fashioned glass (a rocks glass)

Add 1 sugar cube and soak it in angostura bitters - saturate the cube - no more,no less.

a splash of soda. Sweet =7-up Sour = Grapefruit soda or Grafs 50/50

Muddle the sugar/bitters/soda mixture until frothy. Please use a muddler. This is so important.

wait 15 seconds. The frothy mixture needs air time.

Add 2 -3oz of good brandy. I prefer Korbel. One quick stir(optional).

fill glass with ice and top off with earlier choice of soda (sweet or sour)

Garnish with cherries, orange, lemon, or broccoli

Lift glass, think about Robert La Follette and Fuzzy Thurston. Say something
German, Polish, Waloon, Dutch, Hmong, Spanish, Norwegian, Welsh, Irish, Icelandic, Danish, French Canadian, Swiss, Slovenian,bohemian, Finnish,Ukranian, Russian, etc etc etc etc you get the picture.

A word about Brandy consumption. For over a hundred years Wisconsin was the King. Recently however, the District of Columbia(?????) stole our crown. Why? Because of a massive hip hop based PR campaign in D.C. during the 90's and because of apathy and cluelessness among our younger residents (who have no respect for history or tradition and drink crap like Captain Morgan Rum). Nonetheless, Korbel still ships over 40% of it's total yearly output to Wisconsin.... and....it's a tight race. We can get our crown back. We still spend more money on the stuff than anyone else. Madison takes the honors as our Brandy consumption center.
Never ever drink and drive. Instead, demand that the State subsidize your long closed neighborhood taverns and open them back up so you can drink and walk, watch Packer and Badger games and socialize the way your ancestors meant you to socialize - with happiness and goodwill and bitter hatred for the Michigan Wolverines. It's called Gemutlichheit and I can't type umlauts.

Butch Vig

2008-12-19T12:06:00.008-06:00

Madison. The 80's.Not many record producers are known by name. Phil Spector is one and, to a lesser extent, Mutt Lange is another (although his fame with the general public is more as the ex Mr. Shania Twain). However, people everywhere seem to know who Butch Vig is. He has many monikers, "The Godfather of Grunge Music", "That drummer guy in Garbage who produced Nirvana's first record..."etc etc. To me, Butch is a true lover of classic whiny power pop, afternoons spent slugging down icy cold beers on the union terrace, a big fan of The Green Bay Packers and, I would like to add, one hell of a Polka drummer. He was also a guy who toughed it out through endless pickup bands, underfunded recording projects and lean times with little or no money. He first learned his craft in a small basement recording setup run by his future Garbage bandmate, Steve Marker. This was followed by a move to an empty office space in the former Gisholt Machine Co. Building on East Washington Street which would lead to the studios final move to a modest brick building across the street. This was, and is today, Smart Studios - another instantly recognizable name to musicians and music fans around the world. For us, it's a living, breathing monument to local music history. It's our Sun Studios. In the 1980's, Madison had a vibrant music scene. Bands were finally being courted by labels and many long standing local groups were peaking in popularity. None were more popular than Vig's band, Spooner. Their shows were one big wall to wall dance party. Spooner's lead singer and songwriter was Nebraska native Doug Erickson. As the decade progressed, Spooner would disband and Erickson and Vig would join forces with Phil Davis and Tom Lavarda, both alumni of a popular mid 70's Madison band called Buzz Gunderson. The band they formed, Firetown, scored a strong regional hit off an LP that Vig produced. The song was "I'll Carry The Torch For You". A record industry bidding war followed and Firetown soon found themselves signed to Atlantic Records, a major record company with a storied past. Two LP's (the company picked up the first record and released it nationally) and a touring schedule followed. Things didn't work out. Shortly after the release of the second LP, the band folded and Vig, armed with a little extra knowledge gained from watching a so-called big time record producer at work during the second Firetown recording session in NYC, returned home to concentrate on his own production work at Smart Studios. His style, most clearly defined by his work with Madison's Killdozer and later, The Smashing Pumpkins was instantly recognizable - a layered, very dense, pop sound. I remember many Butchism's from this time. I hope he doesn't mind my using a couple. They stick in my head as examples of (1) his production technique in the late 80's, "When in doubt...overdub." And (2) his Wisconsin boy approach to any problem, "It's nothing an icy cold beer couldn't fix." Butch hit the big time for real in the early nineties when he produced Nirvana's Nevermind, a national #1 culture changing, hair band destroying, smash hit that ushered in a new era of music. A few years later he and former Firetown/Spooner bandmate Erickson rounded up long time recording partner/guitarist Steve Marker, brought singer Shirley Manson over from Scotland and created the band, Garbage. More hits, more international success and a James Bond movie theme followed. At present, Garbage, having completed a good 10 year run, is no more. Butch Vig continues like always when he is between bands - he's a busy record producer now working out of LA.

Pictured at the top are three members of Firetown, L to R - bassist Tom Lavarda(Lomira,Wis), Butch Vig(Viroqua, Wis) and Phil Davis(La Crosse, Wis). The bottom photo shows Smart Studios at it's former Gisholt Machine Building location. Steve Marker (looking like he'd rather be somewhere else) and Phil Davis listen to a playback. Tom Lavarda is far more than being merely "an almnus of Buzz Gunderson". A virtuoso bass player, he is the son of Lomira cheesemaker and ace jazz guitarist, Gino Lavarda. Tom began his music career in the 60's. He played bass for the popular Vilas Craig and the Viscounts, moved to San Francisco with Madison's Mendelbaum Blues Band and scored a major deal recording on the Warner Brothers label with Lamb, a California band. In the 70's and 80's, he played with dozens of top Wisconsin bands, The Beans, Out of the West and Buzz Gunderson among them.
In 1982, I married The Former Soap Box Derby Queen in Neenah, Wisconsin. We had a Polish wedding. The band was accordionist Cliff Bentz and his Polkateers. Phil Davis from Firetown was there. So were Tom Lavarda and Butch Vig. Tom and Butch were the Polkateers. They were excellent.

The Most Expensive Car....The Heine Velox

2008-12-19T10:27:00.011-06:00

Gustav Heine was an instrument maker who began building cars at the turn of the century. A confirmed Californian, he was driven east by the San Francisco earthquake to Milwaukee.In 1921 he bought the Economy Steel Manufacturing Company and began building the Heine-Velox - a custom, hand built luxury car that sat on a huge low gravity frame with a 148 inch wheel base. It had hydraulic brakes on all wheels,a cold weather starting system and pivoting windows. It's massive frame was powered by a Weidely V12 engine (Weidely Motors, Indianapolis) and It's dashboard was set at a recently innovated 45 degree angle. They weren't cheap. A sedan cost $17,000 and the Victoria cost $25,000, a stunning sum of money in 1921. Other luxury cars, including Rolls Royce, were selling for under $10,000. Three sedans and a Victoria were completed over a period a of two years. A fifth, high end custom Limo, was started but never completed. In 1923, Heine folded the company and returned to California. A Heine-Velox sedan, restored after having been reduced to being a chicken coop, supposedly can be viewed at the Imperial Auto Museum in Las Vegas. The only other known remaining Heine Velox is in the hands of a private collector. While Gustav Heine was packing his bags and preparing to take the train to the golden state, the Lafayette Motor Car Company was arriving. Lafayette set up shop in Milwaukee in 1922. We know it today by the name of it's president and eventual namesake, Charles W Nash. And speaking of Milwaukee and 1921........
Andy Pafko, the future Milwaukee Brave great, 1952 Topps baseball card #1, and later a member of the Chicago Cubs (no comment), was born in Boyceville, Wisconsin in 1921. Andy is a great guy, a proud Slovak and he loves polka music....and who would'nt want a 1921 American LaFrance Fire Engine with a Milwaukee FD designation for Christmas? Just look at it.

Snow Miser Heat Miser......The Music Man who defined Christmas for a new generation

2008-12-11T11:17:00.008-06:00

It's once again that time of year when the show biz Gods look down at Appleton resident Maury Laws, smile and shower him with residual checks. Maury worked with all the greats - Perry Como, Burl Ives, Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, Judy Collins, Danny Thomas, Fred Astaire. During televisions golden age he orchestrated and composed music for countless variety shows, commercials and recording artists. But it was his first job as a musical director that made him famous. The year was 1964 and the show was the Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass Christmas special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - soon to become the longest running special in television history and for Laws, the springboard for dozens of animated specials that he would arrange and compose for. At first, he mostly re-arranged popular Christmas hits like "Rudolph" and "Frosty The Snowman" and composed incidental (dramatic background) music. Soon, he was doing it all. For the new generations that have never known a Christmas without endless replaying of the Rankin Bass shows, Maury's original composition "Snow Miser,Heat Miser" from The Year Without Santa Claus is now a bonafide standard whose popularity far eclipses both Frosty and Rudolf. Maury is a World War II combat veteran whose professional music career stretches back to the pre-war days of live radio broadcast. He continues working today. Not many composers can say that they've had their music sung in a major motion picture by California Governor (and UW Superior grad) Arnold Schwarzenneger.... Maury can.
Here's Arnold trying to conduct his villainous crew to a sing along of the music of Maury Laws in Batman and Robin.

I can't resist throwing in Maury's "Do The Mummy" from the Rankin Bass feature film Mad Monster Party. Saw it in Madison at the Orpheum on a triple bill.

The Field House

2008-12-10T10:18:00.007-06:00

Here's a shot of the UW field house taken in 1949 from the open source Life Magazine collection. Known to one and all as "The Barn", it was the home of the greatest college boxing team in the nation. During the 30's, 40's and 50's, Coach John Walsh's UW teams won eight national championships, 134 matches,and 38 individual NCAA championships - an unprecedented feat. The death of Badger Charlie Mohr during a match at the 1960 NCAA championships brought down the program. The end of UW boxing was the end of college boxing. Today the great Field House is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Inside and tucked away in a back hallway are the fading pictures of the great Badger boxing teams. The north side of the building facing into Camp Randall Stadium is obscured, nearly buried, (in my opinion desecrated) by pointless rows of cheap seats courtesy of the football program. Who the hell came up with that idea?

Here's an Amazon link to Doug Moe's book Lords of the Ring, the triumph and tragedy of college boxings greatest team. I can't say enough about this book and I've worn out my wallet buying copies for friends. Let's just say, it's the greatest. Buy it. Now. And speaking of UW boxing, stay tuned for a future post about the last coach of the UW boxing team, Vernon Woodward.

The Champ Arrives In Cream City

2008-12-09T23:58:00.006-06:00

Milwaukee, October 2, 1912. Jack Johnson, the heavy weight champion of the world, is pictured standing beside his car. He drove to Milwaukee from Chicago to attend the Vanderbilt Cup race. Milwaukee was the major auto racing mecca at the time. It was the home of the the first auto race track in the world (click here), it hosted the American Grand Prix, and is located in the state that not only hosted the worlds first auto race (click here) but also gave America it's first automobile. Jack Johnson was in deep trouble when this picture was taken. The powers that be were out to get him. Detectives hounded his every move. Johnson's outgoing open personality wasn't helping. Two weeks after this photo was taken a Milwaukee woman would accuse Johnson of seducing her daughter. It was the last straw. Johnson fled to Europe. My grandfather, a devoted fight fan, saw Johnson a few years later in Cottage Grove. By then, the Champ was reduced to making a living on the temperance circuit giving talks about the evils of alcohol and gambling. I love boxing. I became a fan at a very young age watching world bantam weight champ Gabriel "Flash" Elorde ("the greatest world junior lightweight boxing champion in WBC history") on black and white television. Wisconsin was a boxing mecca every bit the equivalent of it's lofty stature in the car racing world. Our UW boxing team was the greatest in NCAA history, Beloit was the training ground of world champions, Milwaukee was our fat city, Heavy Weight Champ Jim Hall fled to Neenah in order to escape the man who owned his bones (click here) and who could forget boxing legend Verne Woodward's "Junior Badger Boxers" program? Of course, sometime during the 60's, the concerned weenies and Lawyers of the world spoiled everything. NCAA boxing ended. Now, few can even remember the standing room only excitement of the UW boxing matches. I was too young to see the Badgers in action, so let me quote my father, "The excitement was incredible, the(UW) football games don't compare. They don't even come close"
The photo is from our beloved State Historical Society.

The Court Martial That Rocked The World!

2008-12-08T10:02:00.006-06:00

In Otto Preminger's 1955 film, Gary Cooper portrayed the Father of the United States Air force as, well, Gary Cooper.
In real life, Billy Mitchell was flamboyant, outgoing, talkative to a fault. He came from one the wealthiest families in Milwaukee. His was a brilliant, rebellious mind that wasn't afraid to say "I'm right and I'll tell you why." An attitude that reminds me daily of the entire population of South Milwaukee and Cudahy. I previously profiled Mitchell here. He is one of a large, dominating group of Wisconsinites who, quite literally, defined every aspect of 20th century America. Oh, by the way, the film bombed.

Chicago Tribune Article on a Milwaukee Neighborhood ends with a Cheese Reference.

2008-12-06T16:12:00.007-06:00

Milwaukee neighborhoods could print own money
2 neighborhoods consider printing own currency for exclusive use in local stores

By Erika Slife
December 3, 2008
They may be talking funny money, but it's not funny business.
Residents from the Milwaukee neighborhoods of Riverwest and East Side are scheduled to meet Wednesday to discuss printing their own money. The idea is that the local cash could be used at neighborhood stores and businesses, thus encouraging local spending. The result, supporters hope, would be a bustling local economy, even as the rest of the nation deals with a recession.
"You have all these people who have local currency, and they're going to spend it at local stores," said Sura Faraj, a community organizer who is helping spearhead the plan. "They can't spend it at the Wal-Mart or the Home Depot, but they can spend it at their local hardware store or their local grocery store."
Incentives could be used to entice consumers into using the new money. For example, perhaps they could trade $100 U.S. for $110 local, essentially netting them a 10 percent discount at participating stores.
It's not a new concept—experts estimate there are at least 2,000 local currencies all over the world—but it is a practice that tends to burgeon during economic downturns. During the Great Depression, scores of communities relied on their own currencies. And it's completely legal.
As long as communities don't create coins, or print bills that resemble federal dollars, organizations are free to produce their own greenbacks—and they'd don't even have to be green.
In Wisconsin, could that mean dough that looks like cheese?

It never ends. Tribune writer Erika Slife finishes a potentially interesting article with yet another a cheese joke. What can I say? What Erika missed is a unique to Milwaukee and Milwaukee only back story. Milwaukee, a city with a storied political past and the longest running socialist city government in US history, has been down this road before.....many, many times. Hey, but the story is about Wisconsin, don't forget to mention cheese.

The Last Ride of the First Electric Trolley in the United States

2008-12-04T23:53:00.008-06:00

Appleton, 1930. Actual film of the last ride of the first electric trolley system in this country. The original film was badly warped and dry to the point of becoming brittle. I got a hold of it and had it restored and transferred to video sometime in the mid 90's. It was later put together in the form you see here (complete with interviews of the sons and daughters of men who worked on the trolley) by Mitch Irish at Irish Sounds. You all know Irish Sounds...They created the Menards jingle, which I first wrote about here. A brief post on the Nation's first electric city is here. Many thanks to Fred Vermeern for posting this clip on his youtube channel.

Alex Rodriguez, Foxes, Rattlers and the summer of 1994

2008-12-01T09:35:00.019-06:00

Of all the minor league towns in this state, few have a longer or more storied history than than Appleton. It's a convoluted tale with many stops, starts and name changes. Lets just say that by 1958, a team that had been known as the Papermakers was now the Foxes. In 1994, the Appleton Foxes played two blocks from my house at Goodland Field, a 1940's era baseball park that could have easily been mistaken for the aging high school sports facility that it was. The Foxes still wore their 70's era uniforms and the sight of them warming up and taking batting practice at the old field was easily visible from any of the bordering streets in the old, close to downtown neighborhood that surrounded the field. From my home office window I could hear them play. The sounds of a small, enthusiastic crowd and the announcer came through very clearly, especially on nights when a distant thunder storm was approaching. The loudest cheers that summer were for an exciting new prospect who had just moved into a small duplex in town with his mother. "At bat, Alex Rodriguez....Rodriguez" The talk was that The Foxes parent team (The Seattle Mariners) had snagged the greatest all around phenom ever. That's right, ever. Many storied players got their start in this town: Goose Gossage, Bucky Dent, Boog Powell, Carlos May and David Ortiz. Cal Ripken Sr. and Earl Weaver were among those who managed the teams. But none of them were this guy. I walked down to see them play a few times. Night games were best. The stands had never been so full or out of state license plates so plentiful. The kid was definitely a draw. It was a perfect summer, my kids were small and I didn't have to travel as much as I usually do. It was also the final summer for the Appleton Foxes. One day, Tim Robertson, a neighbor of mine who was in advertising came by my house. He and a designer named Donna Frankenburg had come up with a proposed name change for the Foxes. The team would be soon moving to a brand new ballpark in Grand Chute, just west of Appleton, near the mall and they needed a complete makeover. Donna, who also happened to be a complete baseball nut, had come up with a new name, a new uniform design, team colors, and so much more. They came to me because they needed a cap logo (cap insignia). One problem. I don't do logos or insignias. In fact, I don't do still pictures. I'm a filmmaker. I only do motion. What the hell. That afternoon I came up with a cap logo for the new team - The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. The following year, the new team and the logo were a big hit. The logo in particular had become a national seller. It was the first of a new kind of minor league logo. Within a few years and in the midst of a renaming frenzy that swept the nations minor league towns, dozens of other teams across the nation were sporting new logos with their versions of our snarling mascot front and center. I saw several in San Francisco, a friend spotted a "gang" sporting TR caps in San Diego. The Arizona Diamondbacks would later send an investigative team of mid level execs to Appleton look into how this logo thing got so successful. Well, it took about two hours and none of us involved were paid for our services. Crazy. Here's the rub. I don't really like The Timber Rattlers or their stadium out near the mall or their ubiquitous hat design (it's all over this town, you can't escape it). I miss that summer. 1994. When the Appleton Foxes and Alex Rodriguez played two blocks from my house in a small, open stadium that was built a half century before.

This is the original sketch of the Timber Rattler cap insignia.

Here's a version I did for a local paper.

Here's a copy of the final ink version, simplified for cap stitching.

Lost and Forgotten Beer Brands of Wisconsin....Official Master List

2008-11-25T09:34:00.008-06:00

Attention my fellow Wisconsinites. I'm compiling a master list of long lost and recently lost Wisconsin Beer Brands. This is a subject near and dear to my heart as I recently suffered the worst possible blow that can befall a Wisconsinite....I've become allergic to beer. My brother, a wine industry veteran for over 30 years described the process, "..for some people, drinking beer is like mainlining histamines." Back to topic. I'm inviting any and all suggestions to be made in the comments section. The master list will be lined up right here in this post and become fodder for a future ongoing in depth series. I already know that the sheer size and beauty of this list will make all beer making posers worldwide get on their knees and cry. As for my condition, I can only hope for a cure and maybe a telethon...
starring Lawrence Duchow and the Red Raven Orchestra, Robin and the Three Hoods, Romy Gosz, George Liberace, closeup magic from Orson Welles, presented by Big John Schermerhorn, some street poetry from Roundy Coughlin, Jerry Dean at the anchor desk, TV stars Albert the Alley Cat and Dr. Cadavarino, announcer Ray Scott, and so much more....

The First Phone Answering Machine...Joseph Zimmerman, the other Wizard of Waukesha

2008-11-24T21:45:00.006-06:00

Just when I promised myself that I would swear off posting yet another in a ridiculously long string of firsts associated with this state...
Joseph Zimmerman invented the first telephone answering machine. He was born in Kenosha in 1912, graduated from Marquette University with a degree in electrical engineering and served in the Army during WW II. He was one of the first soldiers to set foot on Omaha beach during D-Day and survived some of the toughest fighting on the European front. After the war he settled in Waukesha and began tinkering with various ideas in his basement workshop. What he came up with in 1948 (patented in '49) was both world changing and, in hindsight, easy to dismiss as trivial. He invented the first successful telephone answering machine. It was marketed around the world as the Electronic Secretary and it immediately turned heads and caught the attention of major companies. It certainly wasn't the first attempt at such a device. Phone answering devices go back to the 1890's. However, most of these inventions proved impractical to use and impossible to replicate. Zimmerman did what Milwaukee does best - He took an idea that had been floating around for some time and made it practical. The Electronic Secretary Model R1 used a 78-rpm record player (78s rule!) inside a box that weighed more than 36 kilograms. When the phone rang, the machine would lift the telephone receiver from its cradle and play a recorded greeting. A wire recorder on top of a second, smaller box would then tape messages. In his time, he held many patents. Among them was a security device that, very much like OnStar, automatically dials a phone number and conveys information in case of an emergency. Joseph Zimmerman died at the age of 92 in 2004. He is pictured above with his groundbreaking invention.

American Ghoul

2008-11-23T15:42:00.010-06:00

November 1957. More photos from the Ed Gein file at Life magazine all of which are erroneously captioned. He is called a "mass murderer". He wasn't. He was convicted in court of killing Bernice Worden. In his lifetime, he may have killed three others,including his brother and a local tavern owner named Mary Hogan. What Ed is guilty of was far more demented and perversely imaginative. Ed liked graveyards. He was a serial grave robber, and what he did with the bodies is what captured the public imagination. To this day he is continually and wrongly tagged as a serial killer. He is shown below, first being taken in for the murder of Bernice Worden, hatless in the middle photo with his lawyer William Belter, and finally, seated in court with his trademark hat on.

Braves...A 1957 World View

2008-11-22T14:53:00.005-06:00

A parade down Wisconsin Avenue for the World Champion 1957 Milwaukee Braves. I see that Around The World In Eighty Days has been held over(6 months and counting) at The Strand. Nice Photo. Great detail. Click it.

House of Gein

2008-11-20T17:29:00.006-06:00

November, 1957. They came from all over the state to see...

The chair in this photo has a seat made from human skin.

The house was a mess. Newspapers, garbage, body parts...

Everywhere a mess...

...except his Mother's room, unchanged since her death a decade before.

Life Magazine is putting its photo library online. These are Life photos.
Check out this link and search away. Thanks Life.
http://images.google.com/hosted/life

J P Hayes...... Honestly

2008-11-20T11:13:00.004-06:00

Pro golfer J.P. Hayes is as honest as we like to think we are. I'm proud to say that J P is a Wisconsinite, born and raised in Appleton. This comes from Yahoo Sports....

By Jay Busbee

The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching. John Wooden said that, or maybe it was Spider-Man. Whatever, it still holds true; being noble and upstanding is easy enough when you've got people watching, but when you're alone with yourself, when you could do the wrong thing (or avoid the right thing) and get away with it, well -- that's when you find out what kind of person you are. By that standard, then, J.P. Hayes is among the best that sports has to offer. He played a nonconforming ball for a single hole of the second stage of Q School last weekend. He realized it more than a day after the "violation," called it on himself, and thus disqualified himself from Q School ... with some severe, career-altering effects down the line.

So how did this go down? So easily, you'll cringe:
On his 12th hole of the first round at Deerwood Country Club last Wednesday, Hayes' caddie reached into his golf bag, pulled out a ball and flipped it to Hayes, who missed the green with his tee shot. He then chipped on and marked his ball. It was then that Hayes realized the ball was not the same model Titleist with which he had started his round. That was in violation of the one-ball rule, which stipulates that a player must play the same model throughout a round. Okay, so, two-stroke penalty, no big deal. He recovered well enough to put himself in position to finish in the top 20 and advance to the third and final round of Q School. The top 25 finishers in that round, plus ties, earn exempt status for the entire 2009 PGA season. So, breathe deep, think about how close you came to disaster, then tee it up for the next round. Only, while Hayes was breathing deep, he realized something else -- not only did he play the wrong ball, he might have played a ball that wasn't even approved for play at all. "It was a Titleist prototype, and somehow it had gotten into my bag," he said. "It had been four weeks since Titleist gave me some prototype balls and I tested them. I have no idea how or why it was still in there ... I called an official in Houston that night and said, 'I think I may have a problem. He said they'd call Titleist the next day. I pretty much knew at that point I was going to be disqualified." Now, the easy move here would be to either do nothing or blame the caddy. Hayes rose above both those temptations, putting all the blame on himself and asserting that everybody else on the PGA in his shoes would have done the exact same thing. We'll never know, but let's hope so. Also, Hayes already has more than $7 million in career earnings, so it's not like he'd consigned himself to another year working the counter at the Quik Stop. But still, knowing you're taking yourself out of the running for a year of career stability and wealth takes some serious situational ethics.

Would you do it?
Actually. No. I cheat at golf all the time, which makes me even prouder of J.P. than I was at the top of the page.

Link: http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/blog/devil_ball_golf/post/J-P-Hayes-is-as-honest-as-we-like-to-think-we-a?urn=golf,123304

Wisconsin Bands #11....Dr Bop and the Headliners

2008-11-20T08:59:00.008-06:00

The emergence of Dr. Bop and the Headliners was one of the surest signs that the protest era that had dominated the University of Wisconsin campus and the national news in recent years was coming to a close. In the early 70's, Longhairs were packing Marsh Shapiro's Nitty Gritty to see a band that violated every rule of the then current hip code. They wore stage suits, each member portrayed a likeable character, they smiled, they talked to the audience, they were funny, they embraced every show biz cliche in the book and they played 50's music. The classic early Dr. Bop lineup was singer The White Raven, Jerry Lee Larry, Troy Sharmell, Speedo, Ferret De Monte Cristo (pronounced "Ferray")and, on the drums and expertly handling the duties of Master of Ceremonies, Mike Riegel aka Dr. Bop. Let me make it clear, although they played 50's music, they were NOT Sha Na Na. (Sorry, it's time for my Sha Na Na joke. A caustic husband looks back on his not so great wedding night: "Our wedding night reminded me of Woodstock. It was cold, damp, it rained a lot and oddly, Sha Na Na was there.") The band always invited the audience into their world. They were so good at it that we wanted to believe that they lived the off stage lives of the flamboyant showbiz types that they portrayed on stage. By 1972, they exploded out of Madison, toured the nation constantly and were making good money. They were the only musicians I knew who could not only live alone in a nice house, but own it as well. They worked hard, often two hundred plus nights a year. Touring was rough. Lead guitarist Kenny Champion (aka "Speedo") once told me about how sweat stained and filthy their white tuxedos would get after playing so many nights without a break..."They look great from a distance, but don't get too close". The endless nights took it's toll, and the band shed many members along the way. Larry Robertson aka "Jerry Lee Larry the boy you wanna marry"left the group very early in it's run. He went country. He formed Harmony Grits with Pat McDonald (he's the Green Bay guy who wrote 80's hit "My Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades"), and after a stint playing bass with Deerfield recording star Big Irv Lampman, he took up the pedal steel guitar and formed The Mad City Rangers with Jerry Burns and Verne "Wisco Woody" Woodward jr.(son of UW's last boxing coach, Verne Woodward). Troy Sharmell and The White Raven were gone by the mid 70's and Kenny Champion evenually got off the road, put his guitar aside and, like Larry Robertson before him, also took up the pedal steel. Trust me, the instrument did have a definite romantic allure in the mid 70's. Dr. Bop (Mike Riegel) and Ferret De Monte Cristo (Ned Engleghart) carried on with new members. After a brief lull and a period of experimentation known as "Dr. Bop's Nouveau Cabaret Orchestra", the band returned with a vengeance in the late 70's with guitar powerhouse, Mike Dowling aka "Guy Raye", girl singer Ena Anka, and a full time on stage bartender who served up drinks to the band by the ton and caught their comically thrown back empty glasses and pitchers with a baseball glove. They were great, they will always be Wisconsin's premiere show band, and here's the thing......I can't ever think of them without smiling. What greater legacy is there?
The boys are pictured above, looking good and very young in the early 70's. If I'm not mistaken, L to R Doctor Bop, Troy Sharmell, The White Raven, Speedo! and Ferret De Monte Cristo.

James Bond and the Flying AMC Matador....Another outstanding cinematic moment for Kenosha!

2008-11-17T21:12:00.010-06:00

Tosa Steve sent me this....

With Bond in the news, isn't it time to appreciate the fine AMC products featured in "The Man with the Golden Gun"? The great thing is they both fly!
First off, Bond steals a brand new 1974 AMC Hornet from an AMC showroom and heads off in pursuit of bad guys Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) and Nick Nack (Herve Villechaize)!

Actual Dialogue:
Sheriff Pepper: You're not thinkin' of...
Bond: I sure am, boy! Ever heard of Evel Knievel? (cue custom built stunt Hornet #1)

Sheriff Pepper: Woww-eee!! I ain't never done that before!
Bond: Neither have I, actually.

Next up is a beautiful bronze AMC Matador Coupe driven by bad guys Scaramanga and Nick Nack. Bond chases after them in his AMC Hornet, but Scaramanga manages to lose him. They head to a barn where he quite reasonably attaches a set of wings and a jet engine to the Matador. He and Nick Nack then fly back to his island (Fantasy Island?). Oh, yeah, I forgot, Bond Girl Britt Ekland is stuck in the trunk. She gets a scare when the trunk lid opens and she discovers she’s flying several thousand feet in the air in the trunk of a jet-propelled Wisconsin-made 1974 AMC Flying Matador “007 Edition”! Beautiful!

The above photo defies description.

Kenosha’s proudest cinematic moment! - TosaSteve
Rumour has it that Britt Ekland bought herself a Pacer at the end of the shoot. America's greatest car. So great that both Bond and the supercool villain drive one. Put that in your BMW and smoke it.

NY Times Story on Drinking in Wisconsin

2008-11-17T20:47:00.002-06:00

Hey, we made the New York Times again!....dated November 16....now, where did I set my Jameson and water for chrissake...

EDGERTON, Wis. — When a 15-year-old comes into Wile-e’s bar looking for a cold beer, the bartender, Mike Whaley, is happy to serve it up — as long as a parent is there to give permission.
“If they’re 15, 16, 17, it’s fine if they want to sit down and have a few beers,” said Mr. Whaley, who owns the tavern in this small town in southern Wisconsin. While it might raise some eyebrows in most of America, it is perfectly legal in Wisconsin. Minors can drink alcohol in a bar or restaurant in Wisconsin if they are accompanied by a parent or legal guardian who gives consent. While there is no state law setting a minimum age, bartenders can use their discretion in deciding whom to serve.

When it comes to drinking, it seems, no state keeps pace with Wisconsin. This state, long famous for its breweries, has led the nation in binge drinking in every year since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began its surveys on the problem more than a decade ago. Binge drinking is defined as five drinks in a sitting for a man, four for a woman. People in Wisconsin are more likely than anywhere else to drive drunk, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The state has among the highest incidence of drunken driving deaths in the United States.

Now some Wisconsin health officials and civic leaders are calling for the state to sober up. A coalition called All-Wisconsin Alcohol Risk Education started a campaign last week to push for tougher drunken driving laws, an increase in screening for alcohol abuse at health clinics and a greater awareness of drinking problems generally. “Our goal is to dramatically change the laws, culture and behaviors in Wisconsin,” said Dr. Robert N. Golden, the dean of the medical school, calling the state “an island of excessive consumption.” He said state agencies would use a $12.6 million federal grant to step up screening, intervention and referral services at 20 locations around Wisconsin. The campaign comes after a series in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel titled “Wasted in Wisconsin,” which chronicled the prodigious imbibing among residents of the state, as well as the state’s reluctance to crack down on alcohol abuse.

Drunken drivers in Wisconsin are not charged with a felony until they have been arrested a fifth time. Wisconsin law prohibits sobriety checks by the police, a common practice in other states. Wisconsin has long been famous for making and drinking beer. Going back to the 1800s, almost every town in the state had its own brewery. Milwaukee was the home of Miller, Pabst and Schlitz. Now Miller is the only big brewery in the city.

Most people in Wisconsin say the beer-drinking traditions reflect the customs of German immigrants, passed down generations. More than 40 percent of Wisconsin residents can trace their ancestry to Germany. Some experts, though, are skeptical of the ethnic explanation. It has been a very long time, after all, since German was spoken in the beer halls of Wisconsin. Whatever the reason, plenty of Wisconsin people say they need to make no apologies for their fondness for drinking. “I work 70, 80 hours a week, and sometimes I just want to relax,” said Luke Gersich, 31, an engineering technician, who drank a Miller as he watched the Monday Night Football game at Wile-e’s tavern. On a weeknight, he said he might drink seven or eight beers. On a weekend, it might be closer to 12. In Wisconsin, people often say, there is always a bar around the next corner. But drinking is scarcely limited to taverns. A Friday fish fry at a Wisconsin church will almost surely include beer. The state counts some 5,000 holders of liquor licenses, the most per capita of any state, said Peter Madland, the executive director of the Tavern League of Wisconsin. “We’re not ashamed of it,” Mr. Madland said. He said anti-alcohol campaigns were efforts to “demonize” people who simply liked to kick back and relax with some drinks.

“It’s gotten to the point where people are afraid to have a couple of beers after work and drive home, for fear they’ll be labeled a criminal,” he said. “At lunch, people are afraid if they order a beer someone will think they have a drinking problem.” But the drinkers have typically had plenty of advocates in the State Legislature. State Representative Marlin Schneider, for example, sees sobriety checkpoints as an intrusion on Constitutional rights of due process.

As for allowing minors to drink in bars with their parents, Mr. Schneider said the law simply allowed for parents to educate and supervise the youthful drinking. “If they’re going to drink anyhow,” said Mr. Schneider, Democrat of Wisconsin Rapids, “it’s better to do it with the parents than to sneak around.”

Technically speaking, the sale is between the bartender and the parent or legal guardian, who then gives the drink to the minor. The bartender has the discretion to decide whether the minor can drink in the establishment. Before he owned Wile-e’s, Mr. Whaley said there were some cases where he had to say no to a parent. “I’ve had situations where a parent was going to buy drinks for a kid who looked 8 or 10 years old,” he said, “and I had to say, ‘That’s a no-go.’ ”

He also has a rule in his tavern that under-age drinkers must leave by 9 p.m. “When it gets later in the night, people don’t want a bunch of kids running around,” he said. One recent night, a lanky, blond-haired 17-year-old boy shot pool at the bar with his dad. Both were drinking soda.

In Mr. Whaley’s view, the bar can be a suitable place for families to gather, especially when the beloved Green Bay Packers are on the television. “On game days, a buddy of mine will come to the bar with his 2-year-old, his 8-year-old and his 10-year-old,” Mr. Whaley said. “He might get a little drunk. But his wife just has a few cocktails. It’s no big deal. Everybody has a good time.”
More Articles in US » A version of this article appeared in print on November 16, 2008, on page A16 of the New York edition.

Original Link http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/us/16wisconsin.html?emc=eta1

Dave Dudley ....Truck Drivin' Son of a Gun

2008-11-13T14:11:00.004-06:00

Our very own David Darwin Pedruska, aka Dave Dudley, aka The Father of Truck Drivin' Music. He was born, raised, lived and died in Wisconsin. Here he performs another classic. The little guy interviewing Dave Dudley is Charlie Louvin. Dave should, I said should be joining fellow Wisconsinites Pee Wee King and Felice Bryant in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Great song. Great house band, Hal Rugg on steel guitar.

The Onion....and the Money Hole

2008-11-13T10:44:00.004-06:00

Yes, America's most treasured national humor publication, The Onion, is Wisconsin born and bred. I find it amazing that in my lifetime, and in the face of the mess that the Republicans (another Wisconsin invention, although the original Republicans would not recognize the current bunch) have left us in, that we would need 1930's era Will Rogers type humor to ease the pain of the current economic black hole...

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

theonion.com

And thanks to Tosa Steve.

Orphans #1

2008-11-11T18:32:00.009-06:00

From my photo collection. I don't know who these people are. I only know that these photographs were taken in Wisconsin. They come from various albums I've collected over the years. This group is odds and ends. I'm just beginning to get at my collection. Click to enlarge. They only become beautiful when you click them.A single page from a photo album. I found this in the closet of an apartment in Madison."Jean and Margaret" was written beneath this photo. It was on a loose scrapbook page laying at the bottom of an old box in an antique store.
"Seniors from Potter, 1927" was inscribed on the back of this photo.
A bicyclist from Mayville. Who could possibly forget the international bicycle craze of the 1880's?.
Somebody explain this one. Looks like Klondike fever. Are they going to Alaska? Just being men? Or are they going hunting? Photo from Fond Du Lac.
And finally, a young lady catching the glorious Lake Michigan sun on the deck of a steamer? I don't know. Another photo that fell on the floor of an antique store long, long ago.

Oscar Anderson's Gas Station and Grocery...Cottage Grove, Wisconsin

2008-11-06T21:14:00.019-06:00

(These photos are huge and full of old world detail. Click to enlarge.)
For over 20 years, Carl Oscar Anderson ran the Anderson Skelly Station and Grocery on the northeast corner of county N and BB. He was my Grandfather. I only knew him briefly. In every possible way, he was from another century. He was born in Wisconsin in 1874 and was raised on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota. His unwed Norwegian immigrant mother ran the Reservation Post Office. How she got that job, I'll never know. Young Oscar spent his teenage years delivering mail on horseback across several Dakota counties. During that time, he transported or delivered just about every conceivable item, including dead bodies. He always said, "I don't mind the dead....it's the live ones that'll get you." He returned to Wisconsin, and settled for awhile in the east side of Madison. He became a Mason by trade and did considerable work on the Capitol Theater(now center) and many other buildings in the downtown area. He also became friends with Fighting Bob La Follette and followed him in lock step to the very end. He is pictured below standing behind the counter at his store in 1937 with his son,Franklin (my Dad) and my grandmother, Amelia (Mickelson) of Deerfield. Not pictured is his other son, Leonard, a future grocer (the M&A store in Deerfield) and my favorite writer of all things Wisconsin for the local paper.

Pictured below are Oscar, myself, and my cousin Susie. Just out of range in the photo is Oscars fiddle. Like many musically inclined squareheads of his generation, he played Norwegian fiddle tunes. The year was 1959. Four years later, Oscar died and was buried in the cemetery at St. Paul Liberty Lutheran Church just off hwy 12 and 18 at the edge of Liberty Prairie near Deerfield. This is actually a vacation photo. Shortly after this picture was taken I had to go home, half way around the world to a lumber plantation on a small Island in the Philippines, just north of Borneo. Oscars station still stands...as a home. The pumps are long gone and what was the store is now a living room.

The Electric Pacer... A pioneering effort on America's greatest car

2008-11-04T08:04:00.007-06:00

(I found this very timely Pacer post here...this site can't have enough great Pacer posts.)
The energy crisis of the early 1970's generated great interest in electric vehicles, to reduce U.S. dependency upon fossil fuels. The U.S. Department of Energy initiated several electric vehicle programs to spur development. Fleet users were encouraged to utilize electric vehicles as much as possible. Out of this environment, Electric Vehicle Associates (EVA), Incorporated and the Change of Pace Electric Pacer came to be!
High school vocational education teachers in Cleveland, Ohio as a student project started EVA. EVA had converted various vehicles to electric power, but when the Pacer hit the scene, it made the ideal electric vehicle. The Pacer was strong, large on the inside, and small on the outside (for the 1970's). The large interior volume was ideal for carrying the lead acid batteries, battery charger, and motor controller that was required for the vehicle. The Change of Pace was a stellar performer. Top speed was in excess of 55 mph, 0 to 30 mph was achieved in less than 12 seconds, and the range was 30 to 50 miles, per SAE J227A schedules.
At first EVA purchased the Pacer as a complete vehicle. The engine, fuel tank, and other components not required for the electric vehicle were removed, and then the electric components were installed. As fleet orders for the vehicle were received, EVA purchased the Pacer from AMC without the gasoline components, and EVA installed the electric components.
The Pacer was not modified externally by EVA. The electric components added weight to the Pacer, bringing the curb weight up to 4150 pounds. Modification of the suspension was required to accommodate the additional weight. The instrument panel was supplemented with a voltmeter and an ammeter to assist the driver. The electric motor was a 15 KW unit with forced air ventilation. The motor controller was an electronic SCR unit. The energy came from twenty deep discharge lead acid 6-volt batteries connected in series to provide a 120-volt traction system. The battery charger was installed on board and could be powered from 110-volt or 220-volt ac power systems. A transmission was used, and either a manual or automatic ransmission was available. Front disc brakes were provided. DR78x14 steel belted radial tires were installed to accommodate the additional weight of the batteries. A 10,000 BTU gasoline heater was provided. Most Pacer accessories were available, including air conditioning and stereo radios.
The various Pacer models were converted, but the station wagon was the most popular conversion for fleet use. Many individuals purchased the Change of Pace, and these could be very exciting automobiles, especially when cost was not an issue. Some of these cars had every option available, and they were really very nice automobiles.
The Change of Pace was driven the same as a gasoline powered Pacer, and the operation was invisible to most drivers. The car was completely silent when stopped, which is a very unusual experience. It seems that the car has stalled, but it is ready to go whenever the accelerator is depressed. Electric vehicles produce maximum torque at start, so they feel very energetic. The additional weight and modified suspension produced a very smooth ride.
The batteries required significant maintenance. The batteries had to be fully recharged after every use, or would be damaged. Recharging required several hours, depending upon how much the batteries were discharged. The batteries had to have water added every few weeks, depending upon use. The batteries posed the biggest problem for the Change of Pace. EVA stopped production of the Change of Pace, when the Pacer was no longer available from AMC, and EVA went out of business shortly thereafter.
EVA made well over 100 Change of Pace Pacers, and then turned to Ford Fairmonts and Ford Escorts after the Pacer (they didn't have nearly the character that the Pacer had). Long Island Light in New York was the largest fleet purchaser of the Change of Pace Pacer.
Found at this site.

Fred and Nancy

2008-11-02T22:16:00.005-06:00

(From my cousin Steve, writing live from Menominee, Wisconsin...)

If you can remember the Sixties at all, you have to consider how cars helped define the era. It was a time of tail-finned Detroit behemoths, VW micro-buses, the arrival of muscle cars and the first few Japanese imports. I vividly remember seeing the first model Mustang on display at Swede Severson's Ford dealership in Frank's and my hometown. On TV, there was the Batmobile, the MunsterMobile, the Corvette of Route 66 and the Clampett's rolling junk wagon of The Beverly Hillbillies, among many others. But the one vehicle I really wanted was a flying Model T like the one piloted by Carroll College alumnus and Beaver Dam native Fred MacMurray in The Absent-Minded Professor and Son of Flubber. Yup, the Flubber-Mobile, totally uncool but oddly appealing as it wobbled into the air with Professor Ned Brainard at the wheel.
Though born in Illinois, Fred moved with his family to Beaver Dam as a five-year-old and attended Carroll College on a full scholarship. His saxophone playing caught the ear a of a bandleader and Fred moved from a career as a singer and saxophone player to being one of Hollywood's most recognizable faces in films. Though best known for his nice-guy light comedy roles in Disney films and the pipe-smoking always-around-the-house-dad (What did he do for a living?), he's more memorable as the conniving insurance agent who aids Barbara Stanwyck in plotting her husband's murder in Double Indemnity, the adulterous executive cheating with Shirley MacLaine in Billy Wilder's The Apartment and the self-serving, cowardly naval officer in The Caine Mutiny.
Sitting in the passenger seat of the Flying Ford was another Badger, Wauwatosa East High School grad Nancy Olson who played Professor Brainard's loved interest and, in the second film, wife Betsy Carlisle. After transferring to UCLA from UW-Madison, she was discovered and cast in Sunset Boulevard with Hollywood heavyweights Bill Holden and Gloria Swanson. She earned an Academy Award best-supporting actress nomination for that one and played so well against Holden they appeared together in several other films, including the noir-ish detective drama and under-rated Union Station. Her marriage to Alan Jay Lerner, lyricist for Camelot, put her career on hold for a number of years and except for some Disney and TV work, never recovered. She had an uncredited role in the Robin Williams thoroughly unmemorable remake, Flubber.
Fred brought some small-town Wisconsin habits to Hollywood with him. In my home town, he would have been called "tight". Though one of Hollywood's highest paid actors (in 1943 he earned $420,000) he brown-bagged his lunch to the set of My Three Sons and one of his co-stars noted he bought dyed Easter eggs to the set weeks after the holiday so as not waste them. I think he also earns a place in the category of Smoking Badgers since I doubt if anyone can think of Steve Douglas providing advice to his three sons without a pipe in hand, punctuating each point with a jab of the stem.
Fred died of leukemia in 1991. Nancy is still around.

Pictured above are Nancy Olson and Bill Holden in a scene from Sunset Boulevard and a mid-career portrait of Fred MacMurray.

Here's a list of my favorite 60's cars...most are George Barris creations. Now repeat after me, "George Barris, craftsman....Chuck Barris, genius."

1- Grampa Munster's Dragula
2- The Munsters Coach
3- The Paul Revere and the Raiders Wagon
4- Hank Kimball's truck from Green Acres
5- Dean Martin's Matt Helm mobile
6- James Bond's Aston Martin
7- George Harrison's first Jaguar XKE
8- Anything with wheels on Fireball XL5
9- The Green Hornet Mobile
10-The Secret Agent Man car

Halloween, A Tale of Two Kenoshans...Martians Invade Earth, 70 Years Ago Today

2008-10-30T10:35:00.011-05:00

Oct. 30, 1938. At age 24 Orson Welles was a household name. The recent Time magazine cover boy, already a star of stage and radio, was about to make history, and for the next few decades, make his name synonymous with Halloween. Fellow Kenoshan, 30 year old Don Ameche, was another household name. The handsome leading man, popular on the silver screen, also had a featured role on the weekly Chase and Sanborn Hour radio show starring Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. While millions of Americans tuned in weekly to Orson's radio program that featured plays directed, sometimes written by and sometimes starring the boy wonder, millions more tuned in to the Chase Sanborn Hour. On this night, 70 years ago, Orson's Mercury Players were presenting The War of the Worlds, H G Wells half century old tale of Martian invasion. Orson turned the tale into a reality radio take of an actual Martian invasion of earth and he did it brilliantly. Many listeners panicked. Armed service recruiting stations were suddenly filled with young men volunteering to fight the alien invaders, some families fled their urban homes and sought refuge in rural hills and woodlands, people filled churches and town halls looking for answers. "In Concrete, Washington all hell broke loose. During the initial invasion portion of the broadcast, a power failure plunged almost the entire town of 1,000 into darkness. Some listeners fainted while others grabbed their families to head into the mountains. One citizen was said to have jumped up out of his chair and, in bare feet, run two miles to the center of town. Some men grabbed their guns, and one Catholic businessman got his wife into the car, drove to the nearest service station and demanded gasoline. Without paying the attendant, he rushed to Bellingham, WA (50 miles away) to see his priest for a last-minute absolution of sins. He reportedly told the gas-station attendant that paying for the gas "[wouldn't] make any difference, everyone is going to die!" Ironically, it was the other Kenosha native, Don Ameche, appearing on the Chase & Sanborn Hour broadcast, who is credited with calming the nation that night. The pleasant, comedic tones of Don, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy plus the lack of any sense of emergency on their part seemed to help many who were checking back and forth between the two stations get through the night with little worry.
The subsequent news of the panic turned the broadcast into a national scandal. The broadcast did contain a number of explanations that it was merely a radio play, but most people missed the beginning the program and were in full panic mode by the time the next disclaimer arrived 40 minutes later.
Who was to blame for this unprecedented act of modernism run amok? Orson Welles, of course. The boy wonder was treated to a congressional inquiry during which he appologized to the "stricken" nation. The event soon became legend and Orson turned his confident eye toward Hollywood.
Don Ameche would continue his very successful career. His portrayal of Alexander Graham Bell in 1939 would make his name synonymous with the telephone. For the next two decades, many Americans would refer to the telephone as the "ameche". His only failure was his inability to convince his cousin, football legend Alan Ameche, to attend Notre Dame instead of the University of Wisconsin....and for that reason, I'm almost tempted to dislike him. But, as everyone knows, it's impossible to dislike the easy going star.

Trust me on this: Orson Welles invented or profoundly influenced all that is known today as "popular media". Period.

Wisconsin Action Figures #3....Who else?

2008-10-29T23:04:00.002-05:00

The Liberace celebrity doll is from the Legend Series from 1986. He is 17" tall, fully jointed, and made of vinyl. He has painted features, vibrant facial coloring, and molded painted brown hair. He comes dressed in his original silver lame' pants, black lame' cummerbund, white shirt with lace front and rhinestone buttons, black lame' bowtie, black and silver paisley jacket with silver lame' lapels, silver lame' shoes, and magnificent silver lame' cape. All his rings are still on his fingers.

You have to admire the attention to detail. I'm looking forward to the George Liberace figure.

Vinnie and Abe...and William and Franz and Ulysses

2008-10-29T00:22:00.010-05:00

Vinnie (Lavinia) Ream was born in a log cabin in 1847 in Madison, a small growing community in what was then the far western wilderness. Wolves still prowled at night, parts of the Isthmus were completely snake infested. Explosive growth that would quickly make the area unrecognizable to anyone from the pre 1850 era was still a few years away. As a young girl, Vinnie's first exposure to art came from nearby Winnebago Indians who taught her to paint and draw. She grew up to become a wildly successful, self-taught sculptor and the first woman to win a government commission for a statue. When she was 19, President Lincoln sat for her (a half an hour a day for five months) while she sculpted his bust. In spite of Mrs. Lincoln's open disapproval of the young sculptor, the President and Vinnie became fast friends. The successful completion of the bust would eventually lead to her receiving a $5,000 commission (and further disapproval from a now widowed Mrs Lincoln) for a full length statue of the President...a work that now stands in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Many more commissions would follow and many more great men would become immortalized by her hands and placed in city squares and government buildings. Among her many subjects were General Grant, Admiral David Farragut and Franz Liszt. Among her greatest admirers was General William Tecumseh Sherman. Their supposed platonic relationship had Washington tongues wagging for decades. It was said of her,"She loved the company of older men of great stature. They in turn loved her charm and fawning attention." Vinnie Ream's final work was a statue of, Seqoiah, the creator of the Cherokee alphabet. She died in 1914, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. A statue of Sappho, muse of all artists, adorns her headstone.

Trains... and the end of the automobile era

2008-10-24T12:04:00.016-05:00

I recently found a collection of postcards belonging to one of my great aunts, Hannah (Robertson) Mickelson of Deerfield, Wisconsin. The cards, dated August,1903 to December,1921, record an almost weekly correspondence between Hannah and a very large, tight knit Norwegian family of brothers, sisters, sisters and brothers-in-law ,cousins and a lonesome former boyfriend named "Joe". Written on the cards are typical friendly greetings, wishing you a speedy recovery, nice weather today, next Sunday's get together, mixed with a not so typical correspondence with her brother, a grumpy Great Lakes Steamer Captain named Wilmer who constantly reports on the sharp financial downturn in the shipping business. All of them are post marked in towns and cities across the state. While reading them, It didn't take long to figure out that these people got around long distances on a daily basis. One of the sisters-in-law, another Deerfield resident, had a job...in Milwaukee. She took the train every morning (an easy, fast ride on the Madison/Milwaukee run that stopped at my former hometown) and returned in time for 6pm supper. During my lifetime, such a daily trip was unthinkable. As a boy growing up in the 60's and 70's, my family used to travel to Milwaukee once a year. This trip, a mere 60 miles, was such a big deal - we might as well have been driving to Los Angeles. Since finding the postcards, I've heard many similar train stories from neighbors here in Appleton. One person rode a daily train to Milwaukee, another had a train commute to Green Bay, others told of a weekly Oshkosh to Chicago run for business, shopping trips from Appleton to Chicago and weekends visiting relatives in Madison. It all made so much sense. My Dad told me long ago, "By 1939, you could go anywhere, anytime, night or day... nothing was out of the question." And, as he said later when rail beds were being converted into hiking/bicyle trails, "those goddamned bicycle trails are destroying our nation's greatest asset!!" He's right. In recent months, the world my generation knew - the post World War II era of huge automobiles, urban flight, a world dominant US economy and unrestrained free enterprise has come to an end. I spent a good portion of that time driving an average 30,000 miles a year. I would gladly give it up for any kind of rail service.
Below are random scans from the collection. Double click to enlarge. First up, is downtown Menominee, Michigan dated 1907...

The Schlitz Palm Garden in Milwaukee, so elegant, from 1919...

A baseball team in Sawyer, Wisconsin. 1912...

My favorite! City Hall, downtown Milwaukee, dated 1907...

Elvis in La Crosse 1956

2008-10-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

Great backstage radio interview from 1956..."Ahv never been'n these parts before..."

Polka Music...May it rest in peace

2008-10-22T06:25:00.007-05:00

In 1920, 75 percent of all Wisconsinites were either foreign born or were the children of foreign born parents. The wave of immigration fear that swept over the once mostly yankee population of the 1800's was in the past. This new generation survived the depression, fought WWII and witnessed two post war booms - one economic, and one with deep ties to european cultural heritage. By 1946, Wisconsin had more dance halls and ballrooms than any other state. It was a major brass and wood instrument manufacturing center, an accordion import hub and it hosted the most diverse eastern European population in the United States. The polka boom seemed inevitable and from 1946 until the early 1950's the music reached peak popularity. Television brought it into every living room and live Sunday broadcasts dominated the airwaves across the Badger state well into the 1970's. Dairyland Jubilee, The Dick Rodgers Show, Polka Party Playtime (I wish I'd seen that one), the list is long. Every region had it's own self proclaimed "Polka King". My generation - a generation I like to call "The Worst Generation" - would, in part, reject this music with a zeal not seen since the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and replace it with a mixture of bland late 60's and 70's music known today as Classic Rock. Meanwhile, Polka would survive a few premature death notices, a few more mini revivals and a small boom known as "the fat 70's" - when touring polka bands made good money playing a strong bar, social club and ballroom circuit fueled by the pocket books of now middle to late middle aged members of the World War II generation. Today, the situation is bleak. The "kids" don't polka....at all. The generation that put Polka into the national limelight will soon be gone. Ballrooms are empty and abandoned. The once vital tavern circuit, still viewed as numerous from an out of state point of view, is a shell of it's former self. I'm saddened to say this, but Polka is in it's death throes and it's not coming back. Don't get me wrong - Great bands are still out there and Halls, Clubs and Taverns still book Polka music...but the audience isn't there. I've seen wild, overcrowded, far more vital polka shows in Texas - a state that can today easily claim the title as "the capital of polka music". Our state dance will live on, but only as a museum piece - a simplified, cartoon shadow of it's former self.
Pictured above are two Fox River Valley boys: Bandleader, Dick Rodgers (l), and one of America's all time great accordion players - Dick Metko (r).
As a postscript and while we're on the subject of museum pieces - could we please....please....I'm begging you my fellow Wisconsinites...please petition for one day of the week where radio stations, bars and muzak operators are not allowed to play Classic Rock. that's all I'm asking.

Green Bay, 1820

2008-10-21T21:51:00.005-05:00

La Baye, summer 1820. The residents of this great fur trading outpost are described "... free from religious restraint, noted for their love of sport and lavish entertaining, where the fiddle led a merry dance in which young and old joined."
Green Bay had just recently been handed over to the Americans after nearly a half century of Laissez Faire British rule. It was then called Baye Verte. The arrival of a handful of American troops on August 7, 1816 and the construction of Fort Howard marked a new era. However, La Baye remained a settlement of mostly French speaking Metis, a few British fur traders and the very first agents of the American Fur Company. Bands of Menominee, Potawatomi, Winnebago and Chippewa moved freely up and down the Fox River often camping in large numbers near the growing settlement. Green Bay was a line of small log cabins and bark shacks dotting each side of the fox river from the river's outlet to the rapids at present day De Pere. The east shore would soon be the site of larger homes and cabins built by American Fur Company employees, the De Langlade, Porlier and Grignon families (all of them Metis) and newly arrived American speculators and officials. For the moment it would be, "...a delightful and congenial comingling."

Smoking Badgers #1

2008-10-18T21:18:00.009-05:00

Some Wisconsinites were born with a golden pipe in their mouth...

Frank Lloyd Wright strikes the sartorial pose of a confident genius....the only pose that he was capable of.

Liberace, the king of all entertainment, was a consumate chain smoker....

Orson always knew how to hold a pipe...

Director and rebel with a cause, Nicholas Ray - a chain smoker since age 11....
Alpha dinosaur hunter, Roy Chapman Andrews, as depicted in the Thom Ross painting,Roy Chapman Andrews in the Gobi Desert.
And finally....My brother Geoff lights one up with the old man - Lake Ripley, 1952.

Wisconsin Graves #2......The Secret of Colonel John Wales Jefferson

2008-10-16T21:46:00.011-05:00

(Cousin Steve, a frequent contributer to Wisconsinology, wrote this article. Steve previously transcribed this very popular post and has always been supportive of this blog.)
When John Wayles Jefferson took command of the 8th Wisconsin Infantry in 1863, he had a unique personal connection to the Union he'd sworn to protect and defend. His grandfather was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the United States. Yet it was a link he couldn't acknowledge. None of his fellow officers or troops ever knew that he was the grandson of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, the slave with whom Jefferson had as many as six children.
Colonel Jefferson was born in Virginia to Eston Hemings, the youngest child of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Eston had been freed at the age of 21 and married a free black daughter of a Jewish merchant and a slave. Eston was partially educated at Monticello where he and the other Hemmings children had been house slaves. A talented violinist, he led a dance band that was quite successful around his home region. Eventually, Eston and his wife, two sons and daughter moved to Madison. Little is known about his life in Madison but apparently both he and his wife passed as white people in the city. His daughter was married there and his two sons became successful hotel operators, managing the Wisconsin House near the Capitol in the 1850s until the Civil War began.
John Wales Jefferson, took command of Wisconsin's famous "eagle regiment" in 1863. He took part in the great Vicksburg campaign, was wounded and mustered out in Madison in 1864. After the war, He moved to Memphis and became a successful businessman. When he died in 1892, his body was interred at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison in the family plot. He had never married. A neighbor who knew of his family history reported that Jefferson had begged him to keep his "colored blood" a secret.
The Jefferson-Hemings connection has been very controversial for many years. Physical evidence of recent years is playing out in its favor. Members of the Hemings family clearly carry the Jefferson Y chromosome. In a further twist to the story, Sally's father had also been another white slave owner, John Wayles, who was Thomas Jefferson's father-in-law. Yes, Jefferson's beloved wife Martha and Sally Hemings were half-sisters.
Wisconsin graveyards hold many fascinating stories, but few are as deeply rooted in the beginnings of our country and the not-so-secret life of one of our Founding Fathers as the one at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison.

Pictured above is a portrait of Colonel Jefferson and Don Troiani's famous depiction of the 8th Wisconsin (and it's legendary mascot, Old Abe) assaulting the earthworks outside of Vicksburg.

Wisconsin Bands #10...The Night Train

2008-10-14T13:31:00.008-05:00

The Night Train, as they were in 1967, set up for a teen dance (top photo) at the scenic Deerfield Rod and Gun Club (just off BB between Deerfield and Lake Mills), and posing for the camera in the bottom group photo. The Night Train were Deerfield's addition to the American garage band explosion that followed the mid 60's British invasion. I can hear them now....Gloria, Come on up, Louie Louie, Dirty Water, etc. etc. The Night Train were Pete Anderson on drums and guitar, Geoff Anderson on guitar, Larry Sargent on the Beatle bass and Mark Loftus on vocals. As always, click on the photo for a larger view.

Milwaukee Here I Come...Porter and Dolly sing about BeerTown, USA.

2008-08-05T11:49:00.006-05:00

I'm still taking a break until fall...I just couldn't resist this video.

The Year Mercury Marine Took Over Nascar

2008-06-26T08:20:00.008-05:00

Mercury Marine is the creation of Karl Kiekheafer, a brilliant farm kid/engineer who guided the the company to major success. The company's signature black outboard motors are known the world over. They are the prefered engine of pleasure boaters, speed mavens, and Malay pirates. In 1955, Kiekheafer, flushed with success from the outboard motor business and carrying basket loads of cash decided to go south and dominate Nascar for awhile. In true Wisconsin/German fashion, he brought something new and unheard of to the sport - a highly organized, disciplined team and a sports marketing concept, all of which was new to NASCAR. Veteran drivers who were used to driving their cars to the track and were usually assisted by a hodgepodge pit crews were shocked by what they saw. Kiekhaefers team arrived at Daytona with car transports, matching uniforms, a team filled with groups of specialists and most important - highly detailed corporate sponsorship painted on the cars.
With Tim Flock at the wheel,The team entered 38 events. They scored 18 wins, 18 poles, 32 Top-10 finishes and won the first of two NASCAR championships. A year later, Kiekhaefer had six drivers win a combined 22 wins, 47 Top-10s, and 23 poles in their 64 races. The domination was so complete that other competitors began to accuse the Wisconsin team of cheating. It was all too easy for the Wisconsinites. One pit crew member was overheard to say, "(winning races)is like shooting goldfish in a paper cup".
"Kiekhaefer quit NASCAR in January of 1957 after battling Bill France, over accusations of cheating by the other competitors (though no rules infractions were found under NASCAR's close scrutiny), NASCAR changed the rules to Kiekhaefer's disadvantage, and he didn't want a backlash to affect Mercury sales after fans booed the team."
Here's a short list of "firsts" and other accomplishments -
The team was the first to use dry paper air filters, which are now standard equipment in today's cars.
Set a record lap of 140 mph at the Daytona Beach Road Course.
First major national sponsor to NASCAR (excluding automotive-related companies)
First to do scientific testing of the oil in his race car motors to see what was affecting the performance of his motors via contamination.
First professional team - The cars were professionally painted and detailed. Team members wore uniforms. At a time when most drivers drove their cars to the track, Kiekhaefer used the Mercury Marine box or "van" style trucks with the race cars sticking out the back due to their length. Kiekhaefer and his team came to Nascar, took it over,modernized it, then walked away. Veni, Vidi, Vici, indeed.
Pictured above are Team Kiekhaefer drivers on the white sands of Daytona.

Segways in De Pere

2008-06-26T07:17:00.006-05:00

A December 28, 1900 cartoon from The Brown County Democrat, a daily newspaper from De Pere. 1900 was a great year for predicting what the 20th century would bring. This is the "Footomobile".
The image is from the book Yesterday's Future: The Twentieth Century Begins (Voices from Wisconsin's past.)

Blow up courtesy of Paleo Future.

When Actors Play Wisconsinites #3...Johnny Depp meets Orson Welles

2008-06-16T16:39:00.003-05:00

Johnny Depp, dressed in drag and playing the title role of Ed Wood in the film of the same name, runs into his hero - the world's greatest director,Orson Welles - sitting in a back booth at Musso and Franks Restaurant in Hollywood. Depp's earnest portrayal of the notorious (and in my opinion, brilliant)filmmaker was right on the mark. Unfortunately, Wood was wrongly tagged by many as the "world's worst filmmaker". Little do they know that the worlds greatest worst filmmaker lives and works in...where else?...Wisconsin. I'll have more on our very own errant genius and his many big screen releases in a later post. Orson is played by Vincent D'Onofrio in
the above clip.

We Need A New Flag

2008-06-15T21:48:00.013-05:00

Our State Flag is one big nothingburger. It's right up there with the State Quarter - a design rerouted by our governor from a far more compelling voyageur theme to a standard issue cow/milk/cheese/silo scene. It was easily the most underwhelming quarter in the 50 state collection. Had it not been for a minting error that made some of the early issue coins collectible, it would have deservedly vanished from memory long ago. It does, however, bring to mind some of problems that our flag has...
1 - It's not an original design. It follows the Maine, Delaware, New Hampshire, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Nebraska, Utah mold. The Wisconsin flag is too much like other flags, so much so that in 1979... "Wisconsin lawmakers found that their flag was difficult to distinguish from others. To remedy this, the words "Wisconsin" and "1848" were added to the flag". . This addition, or patch job, or whatever you want to call it increased our flag's lameness factor by 100.
2 - The flag's centerpiece depiction of miner,a great lakes sailor and a badge of industry is too small - there's too much information in that small space to make any kind of impression. A good flag is simple,bold and makes an immediate impact upon the viewer - just think of England and Japan...those are flags!
3 - Texas has a cool flag, Arizona has a cool flag, Hawaii has a cool flag...I'm sick of other states having the cool flag. On the bright side, Colorado has the ugliest flag I've ever seen.
4 - Our flag is so lame that most out of state people consider this to be our state flag....
I've written nearly 400 posts on the out of proportion number of extraordinary, world changing ideas and people who, for better or worse - but always with major impact - have come from Wisconsin. I would like to think that such a profound impact could be represented in a boldly designed flag. Is that too much to ask? One more thing.... at it's best, this state doesn't follow, it leads. Always. Forward.

Speed Demons #2 .....Harry Arminius Miller

2008-06-13T08:54:00.005-05:00

"Harry Arminius Miller single-handedly established the course and credibility of American automobile racing."
Harry Miller made cars, boats and airplanes go faster. He created the first ever "built to race" engines - all with parts built from new light alloy metals that he developed. In 1917, his engines powered one of the most famous race car/driver combinations ever witnessed...The Miller Golden Submarine, driven by Barney Oldfield. He was born and raised in Menominee, Wisconsin. At age 19, he struck out for Los Angeles and immediately made his mark on the automobile industry with a seemingly endless supply of fresh, innovative ideas. He modernized the auto engine with new, lightweight parts and was soon manufacturing engines under his own name.
From 1920 to 1940 the world of auto racing was dominated by Miller race cars and the engines of Miller and his employees Leo Goosen and Fred Offenhauser. These cars had a modern look and feel that influenced generations of industrial designers around the world to push the envelope in their respective fields. Miller, in effect, made time go faster. By 1929, most professional race cars were Miller cars and his name was universally synonymous with any kind of forward motion.
The good times and financial highs of the 20's ended with the arrival of the great depression. In 1931, Harry hit the wall and lost everything. In spite of this, he continued to create a dizzying array of innovations that would change the world of auto racing far into the future. In the cash starved world of the 30's, he worked with the Ford Motor Company and briefly teamed with fellow eccentric genius Preston Tucker to create one of the most beautiful race cars ever to hit the track at the Indianapolis 500. For Miller, the process of creation continued right up to his death in 1943. Harry Arminius Miller, a man who was once described by an employee as being
"...in a perpetual state of thought", died from a heart attack.

Miller's cars won the Indianapolis 500 a total of 10 times and machines powered by Miller or Miller-based Offenhauser engines won the big race another 29, including 43 national championships. At one time or another, almost every major speed and distance record was held by a Miller product. It is a record unequaled by any other manufacturer before or since. Harry Miller made it all happen.

Pictured above is Miller's quantum leap in design and thought, The Golden Submarine - the car that changed the world. Thanks to Cousin Steve from Menominee.

Wisconsin Bands #9.....Big dreams and record deals in NYC

2008-06-12T09:28:00.007-05:00

Musicians Cory Chisel and Adriel Harris of Appleton walk down the streets of New York City after a showcase perfomance for record distributors. Chisel's band, The Wandering Sons was in the city this spring to record their upcoming debut on the RCA label. They were signed to the label by old school recording industry legend Clive Davis. The last Appleton band to record for RCA was Matrix, a mid 70's "jazz fusion"(ugliest two word combination in the English language) band. Photo courtesy the Appleton Post Crescent - here's a link to the entire story, many thanks to Darlene S.

Buried Treasure #1...assorted tales, assault with a crowbar and washed up coins

2008-06-11T00:06:00.011-05:00

French explorers are said to have buried a large bag of gold Indian artifacts, found on an Indian mound, at the East and Black Fork junction of the Black River, by Hatfield Village in Jackson County. Wisconsin is the burial/effigy mound capital of North America. There was a time when they were everywhere and in plain site. The larger conical mounds would tempt any would be grave robbers. Hatfield is an unincorporated community founded by Norbert St. Germaine in 1836 and is best known as the home of Mitchell Redcloud, Jr. - Ho Chunk warrior and Korean War Medal of Honor recipient.

A wagon of gold, worth $200,000, is supposedly buried in a swampy area south of Balsam Lake. It lies seven miles northeast of St. Croix Falls. It belonged to miners returning from Montana. Their treasure laden wagon sank in quicksand-like soil due to heavy rains. Huh??? I know of sphagnum bogs in this area, but quicksand? Here's a possible related news item from Balsam Lake...
A Polk County Sheriff's Deputy had to fire a shot at a Balsam Lake man he says was trying to hit him with a crowbar. It started last Tuesday when deputies say Martin Chapman was trying to pay for gas with silver coins and was causing problems at the gas station. When the officer tried to pull him over, he fled. Investigators say he stopped at a house, got a crowbar and refused to drop it. The officer tasered and pepper-sprayed Chapman, but says he didn't stop and threatened the deputy with the crowbar until the deputy fired a shot.The sheriff says Chapman wasn't hit but pretended to be. He's facing attempted battery to an officer.
The sheriff says Chapman considers himself a sovereign citizen and tried to pay his $35,000 cash bond with 30 silver pieces.

On the lake front of the city of Superior, old gold gold coins have been found. They come from the sunken ship, Benjamin Noble, which was carrying over $100.000 in gold coins at the time of it's sinking. The ship, recklessly overloaded with iron rails, went down in a blinding snowstorm off the Duluth/Superior shore in 1914.

Portage -In 1953, a boy swimming in the Wisconsin River, found three ten pound gold bars on the east river bank half a mile south of Portage. The source of this wealth was a riverboat that sank in 1870 with $100,000 in gold on board.

One mile south of De Soto, artifacts and coins are found washed up along the shore of the Mississippi River. A sunken paddlewheel steamer, the remains of which are sometimes visible at low tide, is the source of the treasure.

Sam "Samoots" Amatuna,one of the many presidents of the Unione Siciliana and a frequent Wisconsin visitor is said to have buried $50,000 in paper currency wrapped in a canvas bundle just north of Pell Lake. He didn't live long enough to collect his stash. He was shot while sitting in a barbers chair in Chicago. Amatuna is also the supposed source of a hidden trove of buried silver coins in the same area.

Jerry Cole...The session man

2008-06-08T15:01:00.005-05:00

His real name was Jerald Edward Kolbrak and he was born and raised in Green Bay. He was 19 years old when he moved to Los Angeles. It was 1959, the peak year of the short-lived guitar instrumental craze and Jerry immediately got a job playing lead guitar with The Champs, a band that was riding the top of the charts with their recently released hit, Tequila. The Champs were unique, every member of the band would become a major session player in LA's exploding recording scene, and Cole was no exception. As a session guitarist he worked with every major name in the music business - The Byrds, The Beach Boys (he's all over Pet Sounds), Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Rick Nelson,Blood, Sweat and Tears, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Roger Miller, Bobby Darin, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lewis, Sonny and Cher and Elvis, just to name a few. He recorded dozens of surf instrumentals as Jerry Cole and his Spacemen and numerous other monikers. His television and film soundtrack work ranged from Hannah Barbera cartoons to Elvis movies. He was the official band leader for Shindig and the Sonny and Cher Show and was part of the studio orchestra on The Andy Williams Show, Carol Burnette Show, The Flip Wilson Show, Tony Orlando and Dawn, Joey Heatherton Specials (It's the least of his credits, but I had to put that in) and The Smothers Brothers. As a session player, he was on Phil Spector's A-list. Henry Mancini and Nelson Riddle always used Jerry. Besides playing guitar, he could write, arrange, conduct, sing and produce. Best of all, he played my personal favorite version of the Munsters Theme. Every minute of everyday, a song that Cole has played on is playing somewhere in the world. The sight and sound of Jerry in a sharkskin stage suit playing instrumentals on his white Fender Jazzmaster is priceless. Jerry Cole passed away this week, he was 68 years old.

Shipwrecks #2...The sinking of the Wisconsin

2008-06-07T10:43:00.007-05:00

Just after 1 am on the morning of October 29, 1929, the package-freight steamer, Wisconsin, was adrift four miles off the Kenosha shoreline. It's Captain, Dougal Morrison, had made the decision earlier in the day to leave the port of Chicago in the midst of a building gale. The 48 year old Milwaukee bound ship had plowed uneasily through twenty foot seas. Now water was flooding its firehold and firemen were working up to their knees in rising water trying to keep the boiler stoked. The old boat was being violently shaken by every wave - It's tied down cargo becoming loose and slamming from side to side within the ship. At 1:30 A.M., Captain Morrison ordered radio man Kenneth Carlson to flash the first message to shore, his initial hope was that the steamer Illinois, soon to be en route to Chicago from Milwaukee, could render assistance...
"We are four miles off Kenosha. Fireholds all flooded. In immediate danger. Please stay with us. May need your help soon. [Signed] "Wisconsin"
1:40 "Please get captain of steamer Illinois. Tell him we need help."
1:43 On shore, Operator Webster relayed message to Captain Delletre of the Illinois, in harbor at Milwaukee.
1:50 "My chain has parted. Tug Butter field trying to turn me around. Will come soon.
[Signed] "Capt. Delletre"
1:52 Operator Webster relayed Delletre's message to the Wisconsin, adding, "Am sending you Racine and Kenosha Coast Guards."
2:15 "Due to sink any time now. For God's sake send help."
2:17 "Hold on, help on way." [Signed] "Webster
2:35 "Fires out. No steam. Rush boats for tow before it is too late. We may save her.
[Signed] "Captain Morrison"
2:50 Captain Morrison repeated message.
3:00 SOS SOS SOS
3:30 "Am drifting in toward Kenosha”
3:40 "Can stay up half hour longer, is help coming?"
3:50 "Can see Coast Guard coming to us. They are about halfway out from Kenosha."
4:00 "Kenosha Coast Guard here. Have attached two of their lines."
4:05 "Coast Guard can do nothing. Is standing by to take off our crew. Are larger boats coming?"
4:08 "Tugboats and other Coast Guard on way. We'll make it yet." [Signed] "Webster"
4:30 "We have received SOS. We are just outside Milwaukee. It will take us two hours to get there. We are starting now. [Signed] "Pere Marquette car ferry"
4:31 "Rush it. [Signed] "Webster"
4:32 "Abandoning ship. Leaving boat now. Can't stay longer. Thanks. Won't forget you.
[Signed] "Wisconsin"
4:34 "Not enough boats for us all.”
[Signed] "Wisconsin"
The Wisconsin went down in the pitch dark, heavy seas of Lake Michigan. Sixteen lives were lost, including Captain Morrison.
The photos show the Wisconsin and below, a diver's shot of a car, still tied down in it's freight hold.

Carl Laemmle Sr. and Universal Studios

2008-06-05T09:06:00.005-05:00

The recent destructive fire on the back lot of Universal Studios had me thinking about "Uncle" Carl Laemmle, it's founder and one time Wisconsin resident. From 1901 to 1906, Carl Laemmle managed the Continental Clothing Company in Oshkosh. While there, he ended up marrying his boss’s daughter,Recha Stern. In search of new business opportunities, the couple moved to Milwaukee. On an investment of $4,000 Laemmle started two nickelodeon movie houses. In 1909 he started the Independent Moving Pictures Company which would later become, after moving to California, Universal Studios. He kept close ties with his former hometown. In 1912 he made a promotional film for the City of Oshkosh - a copy of which still exits.
"The film presents a rare and unique glimpse of Oshkosh and its residents. Horse-drawn steam pumpers, Main Street shoppers, private residences, civic buildings, Paine Lumber employees, and children playing are all captured in time. These images are even more exceptional because they are not frozen in time, but are in motion."
Laemmle is remembered as an eternal optimist - a kind, avuncular man who once provided a way out for hundreds of Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler's Germany by employing them at his studio (in the midst of the depression!). He is pictured above on the lot with his son, Carl jr., the producer of The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, The Mummy and Frankenstein - all massive, timeless hits.
At the same time that Universal Studios was starting up, two brothers from Waukesha were building Hollywood's largest, and ultimately, it's most influential studio....click here.

A Wartime Portrait..The Van Susteren Wedding

2008-06-05T07:43:00.007-05:00

United States Marine, Joseph R McCarthy is the best man at the wedding of his best friend, the future Judge Urban Van Susteren of Appleton. The two men became friends at Marquette law school. Van Susteren would later manage Joe McCarthy's successful 1946 campaign against two term incumbent Robert LaFollette, jr. (Many of Wisconsin's biggest names were rumoured to be in the running during that pivotal year, among the names being tossed around were Orson Welles and Douglas MacArthur.) Van Susteren was a good friend to the troubled politician and like another close McCarthy friend, Robert F. Kennedy - he stuck with him through the bad times. Van Susteren's daughters are Fox news personality Greta Van Susteren and 2006 Democratic candidate for US Senate from Maryland, Lise Van Susteren - both Appleton girls. McCarthy's name elicits an instant reaction from most people, mostly bad. I get it from both sides just for mentioning his name. Few from either side have ever bothered to read any of the many in-depth books that cover the man and his era. As an article in The New Yorker pointed out, "(McCarthy's actions) ...are buried in myth."

Israel's Iron Lady from Milwaukee....Golda Meir

2008-06-04T21:56:00.008-05:00

Golda Meir was a founder of, and later, the fourth Prime Minister of Israel during one of the most turbulent periods of it's short history. She was born in Kiev,Ukraine and raised in Milwaukee. She went to school at the Fourth Street School (Golda Meir School) and graduated from North Division High School in 1915. She soaked up the progressive socialist political atmosphere of Milwaukee, lived briefly in Denver (where she became fully politicized and met her future husband) and returned to become an active member of the Labor Zionist youth movement. With the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine in 1917, she began to plan her immigration. She became a teacher, taught a few years in public schools and in 1921, with her new husband Morris Myerson and her sister, she moved to Israel. The picture above shows Golda as a teenager in Milwaukee.

More Supper Clubs...Marty's Showboat

2008-06-04T08:57:00.003-05:00

Marty's Showboat Supper Club was part of the Northernaire Resort in Three Lakes. Built right after World War II, it was designed by former pro baseball player and local yokel, Cy Williams. "Marty" was the last name of owners, Carl and Bob Marty. The 3,000 acre resort incuded a hotel, four villas and a golf course. The Showboat is still with us - it's the clubhouse for the Big Stone Lake Golf Course, however, the hotel and several lesser outbuildings are gone.

Senator Orson Welles...The Junior Senator from Wisconsin

2008-06-03T10:02:00.004-05:00

"I too had political ambitions, particularly back in the FDR days. I used to help him with speeches and I like to think I was useful to him. I know he thought I should have a serious go at politics some day. Well, some day came. They wanted me to run for the Senate in my home state of Wisconsin, against Joe McCarthy. I could never win because I was an actor—hence, frivolous. And divorced—hence, immoral. And now Ronnie Reagan, who is both, is president."
Orson Welles, 1982

Joseph Bailey's Dam...Northwoods ingenuity

2008-06-02T23:20:00.008-05:00

In the spring of 1864, a Union Army and an accompanying flotilla of gunboats and transports under the command of Admiral David Porter pushed it's way west deep into rebel territory along the banks great Red River. The campaign came to a sudden stop when the army was beaten at the Battle of Mansfield. They were now in full retreat and Porter had orders to turn his fleet around and get back to the Mississippi River. However, it had been a dry year and the water levels were low. The Union fleet was stranded in place - at the falls above Alexandria, Louisiana. The rebel army was closing in. They wanted the fleet and were now certain of it's eventual capture or destruction.
Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey was a seasoned Wisconsin lumberman and civil engineer before the war and with him were the 23rd and 29th Wisconsin - regiments that were packed with lumberjacks, river rats and northwoods regulars. Bailey now proposed a daring plan to Union commanders - using techniques he had learned on Wisconsin's rivers he would dam the Red River and thus raise the water to a level that would allow the vessels, when the dam was broken, to ride over the falls. Porter thought "(Bailey's) proposition was madness…", but he had no choice. The fleet and an entire army were at stake. Under Lieutenant Bailey’s direction and led by the Wisconsin regiments, the Union soldiers worked day and night over a two week stretch to dam the river. When the water level soon rose to a sufficient height, a breach was made in the dam, and the resulting great rush of water carried the flotilla, one by one, over the falls and down river to the eventual safety of the Mississippi River. In the midst of a failed campaign, Bailey had saved the day. The news electrified the nation and Bailey became the celebrity hero of the moment. Congress gave Bailey a gold medal and thanked him for saving them $2,000,000 worth of hardware and men. Admiral Porter gave him a gold sword and wrote him letters of gushing praise, a group naval officers gave him a silver punch bowl valued at $2,000 and Bailey finished the war as a full Brigadier General.
Two years later he was dead...
"On March 21, 1867, Sheriff Joseph Bailey, of Vernon County, Missouri, was murdered by two prisoners he was taking to jail. Joseph Bailey is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, at Fort Scott, Kansas."

"Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Bailey's Dam was the toil expended by the Union soldiers.... Through the hot days and chilly nights they labored diligently despite harassment from the enemy; the depression and fatigue of a long, failed campaign. . . . In many respects, their efforts offer some basis for Porter's claim that Bailey's Dam was "without doubt the greatest engineering feat ever performed."

The remains of Bailey's dam, his "imperishable monument of American energy, ingenuity, and skill", remained intact for decades and can still be seen.