Nostalgia: December 2007: "It is More than the bricks that you seek"

 

Recently our town restored the brick street downtown, in an effort to revitalize the downtown business district.

On the way back from the ceremony of dedication, I happened to bump into a local historian and we chatted for a while. She asked me how I liked bricks. I mentioned that while I was a history major and indeed had specialized in the period of 1900 to 1930, and loved the homes, and indeed lived in one built in 1912 just identical to the one my grandpa had built himself in 1912, with the hardwood floors and such, I still felt that folks were really being nostalgic for something larger.

"What?" she asked.

"Well," I went on, in the days before World War I, there was a connectedness of small communities-----yes there is a size factor------and when folks remember the time of the bricked streets, it is really that close community that they miss. It was a real time once-----and only the bricks remain of it now.

Nostalgia: 2014: Tales From Normal,Mn: FICTION: Distinguished Trust Representative urges Investors to Hold

 A distinguished executive from the Frozen Tundra Investment Fund was in Normal, Mn. this morning to speak at the Big Minnow Rotary Society of Normal, Mn.,,,a group of older bass fisherman in these parts...and after his presentation, in which he urged the locals to keep their holdings in stocks and bonds and not sell in a panic, because he was hoping to sell those shares held in margin accounts on a short sale for his company and make a killing...as he had been doing for all the past year...well...the bass fishermen were pretty stunned, and then after a second cup of coffee they got a little angry...why...just to think that all of the baby boomer generation had been fed a bunch of pablum to be long term investors so that the wise guys could sell them short and make a killing just made them furious....stay tuned as I follow this story...

Nostalgia: OpEd: 2010: Evansville Budgets: Getting to Zero: DeJa Vu

 

OpEd: Evansville: Budgets: "Getting to ZERO" 2010

All across America cities and states are facing difficult budget seasons where they review the programs of the past that cannot be funded given the decline in revenue from federal or state aids, or tax revenue. The first of the attempts is to hold the line in actual dollars spent to prior year levels---as opposed to a rubber stamp for a 4% increase or so. The days of the rubber stamp are over.

The difficulty with the ZERO is that to get to zero requires that if wage contracts are honored, some programs and yes some staff have to be furloughed....yes some fees have to go up....and some taxes have to go up. There is just no other way the arithmetic works, unless we have some "grants" to bail us out, the "grants" being from the federal government, which is us, and which will, and is coming to get us in taxes as we speak....

In each of the past four decades there have been times of austerity. If you flip back you can remember or research these---from the recession of 1970 and the closing of Gisholt Machine Works in Madison, to the layoffs at Oscar Meyer, to the recession of 1981 to the Crash of 1986 etc.....

The Past is gone. 

This is going to be a difficult budget season for everyone, and the deal has been changed on the State and Federal level. The days of everyone advocating for themselves and working to see their pet projects approved is over....Programs will be cut....Sacrifices will be made....as they have in the past. Dreams for programs will be put on hold for a later date--delayed and not destroyed....When things get better we can take the dreams out of the file cabinet and plan....or maybe our kids will take the files out of the file cabinet.

This is not the time for unseemly ranting...It is the time to reflect on how to make reasonable promises that can be kept over time...and review the ones that have been made in the past that are in jeopardy of being broken. Were the promises from the State to our schools broken? Will the promises to our seniors be broken? Will the promises to our civil pensioners be broken?

Nostalgia: August 2013: Tales From Normal, Mn: Bystander Arrested for thinking thoughts of possibly asking a question: FICTION

 

Bystander arrested for thinking thoughts of possibly raising a question: Tales from Normal, Mn.: FICTION

Just got the text...seems a bass fisherman was walking around a state Capitol Near Normal, Mn and watching the horsemen on large horses patrolling, and the very heavily armed police...was thinking in his head of a question that might be asked...and he was promptly arrested...seems that even thinking a thought these days is considered wayward activity...so it's not just living the straight life...but thinkin the straight and narrow, very narrow life too that is the new thing in Normal, Mn.. 

Nostalgia: 2011: Austerity Days Come to Normal, Mn: Fiction

 

Austerity Days" Come to Normal, Mn: Fiction

Just the got the text today that there is a huge celebration in Normal, Mn. this weekend for "Austerity Days." All of the most conservative pundits in the country have been yelling for austerity, yelling that people have too much debt, yelling that it is all the other guys fault----but up in Normal, Mn. austerity has arrived....nobody is spending anything....and the city is set to celebrate. 

If you get near Garrison this weekend, just look for the large signs---to celebrate the return of life of the 1950's one store will be selling hamburgers for .25 and also beer will be really cheap...but then it always has been cheap in Normal, Mn. Sure business owners would like you to buy something, but bein that it is austerity days, they will be real laid back on the sales technique. Stop on by. It should be fun.

Nostalgia: 2008: Bear Markets ---The Poem

In bear markets

things
go
down
stocks
hope
families
dreams
health
faith and
people
too

On a
global
view
Over the
long
haul
In
a greater
good
larger
macroeconomic
sense
In the
divine
order
of things
according
to Greenspan
they might be
good
HUH?

For
me
it's
cash
cash
cash
that counts
when
bear markets
mean
bare

Nostalgia: 2008: "Past Results do not guarantee Future Performance".

 Ed. note: This is a post from The Traders Blue Book from 2008: It is one of the most popular posts.) Past Results Do Not Guarantee Future Performance." If you do not remember this phrase, you are probably too young to read this post. In virtually every mutual fund brochure or prospectus for a unit trust of whatever investment, there is the caution...... after of course the investment representative has gone over the wonderful result if..... in theoretical terms..... you had invested ....$1....at the Crash of 1929 and invested that in this particular investment....you would have had the wonderful result listed above....." and after speaking of those wonderful theoretical results, there is the caution about ...."Past Results do not guarantee future performance..." Recently, in Evansville, in our own school projections for future school demand for facilities, whether we looked at population projection or building permit historical data, nobody wanted to read the warning----"Past results do not guarantee future performance." Even in the Evansville City budget, the city financial consultant, Greg Johnson, from Ehlers and Associates stated that "proceeding forward with no further General Obligation debt, the future seems to be no problem with debt capacity." The problem, of course, was pointed out by Fred Juergens, who counted 5 million in dreams that were penciled in on the capital investment budget for the year around 2009. It seems we always, as human beings, want the pro forma future not to include the unfortunate expenses of the reality of the things on the horizon. I could go on about flashing lights from dashboards of cars re warnings, but.....I think you get the jist. As a stress reliever, it is important to manage stress and ...a little denial is good. Sometimes....the denial gets too large. Posted by Evansville Observer at 8:58 AM

Nostalgia: 2005: X-19: The story of Don Thompson

 As an Evansville regular of the library, you may notice the silver Honda with the license plate, X19, each morning and you may notice an older gentleman in a burgundy french beret cap. Like clockwork, he enters the library and approaches the circulation department each morn----- "Good morning ladies." " How is everyone this fine morning." "We're just fine, Don How are you this morning? You are a little late."..........

Evansville's X19 has a long history as a WWII veteran and a car dealer in Evansville. .....

During WWII, on the island of Okinawa, X19 served first as a PX manager, and later when the military learned about his ability to take and develop film, as a forward observer. Located very close to the Japanese lines, his job was to telephone, and quickly, the adjustments for Allied artillery. Avoiding detection was survival. This was the third of his landings. First there was Kiska, then Saipai.. The next one, the one he already had his number for, was the landing on Japan. " We were all dead, and we knew it, he said. " We knew the reputation of the resistance in Japan, that all those on the Japan landings would be history." 

After the A-bomb, and the end of the war, X19 returned home to Evansville. There was a long tradition in the automobile business in the family. His step- grandfather had been the first Ford dealer in the State of Wisconsin. His father was the sales manager of the Ford dealership in Evansville, located where the roller rink is now today. X19 began to work in the Evansville dealership. After X19's son returned from the Vietnam war, they got to chatting one afternoon about the car business. The son said he really didn't like the business. X19 said, " Well, that make's two of us. I have been frustrated with it for years and only kept it for you. In fact, Ford had a v8 in 1937 with 60 and 85 HP that got 35mpg, but preferred the big, gas guzzlers that were unreliable. I have never forgiven them for that. It was a big mistake. Let's sell the business." And he did. He is now on his 5th Honda. 

When he sold the dealership number 19, he changed his license to X19. He got the idea from the governor of Wisconsin, who had number 1 on his license plate, and then when he left office, took the number X1. 

In the years since, X19 has served 30 years on the library board, as well as 30 years on the Board of Review. 

I have mentioned in an earlier post on "How to sculpt a David," that the key to creating things is knowing what one does NOT want to become. Carving out the unwanted really defines a person. What caused the gift of length of years Don has been given?--87 1/2. It is all right there on the license plate...... X19.

As you enter the library this halloween, you might sense the spirit of X19, the spirit of Don Thompson. His spirit of service lives.

Nostalgia : 2013: The Legend of Theodore Robinson

 Many years ago, Chris Eager, the then president of UBT bank, and activist in the move to create the Evansville Senior Center, came to a meeting of the Evansville School Board, to introduce the concept of the Evansville Community Center, and why it was expanded to a broader concept to get public support...during the question and answer period, he was asked why the middle school was called the "Theodore Robinson Middle School"--to which he replied, " Theodore Robinson was a student here who left and became a great painter in Europe, studying under some of the great masters...and our goal for our city and school should not be to be able to say that we have created graduates that have lived their whole lives in Evansville, but that we have launched students to form successful lives and families and careers." I who had favored the name "Grove School" was stunned, and recognized instantly that Chris was right....I hope to launch our children to the larger world, and even ouselves, and to be able to say to strangers, "I am from Evansville, Wisconsin."