From the Archives: Former state legislator Terri McCormick asks ‘What Sex Is a Republican?’

Former state legislator Terri McCormick asks ‘What Sex Is a Republican?’
December 20, 2011 7:52 PM MST

A former state legislator from Wisconsin, Terri McCormick is the author of a memoir called What Sex Is a Republican? Stories from the Front Lines of American Politics.

One reviewer, the author noted, called it “the first Tea Party book” because of what McCormick identifies as its themes.

“It’s all about integrity of leadership,” she told the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner in an interview early in 2011, while she was attending the national convention of the Republican Liberty Caucus in Arlington, Virginia.

‘Founding principles’

“All the themes are centered around the Constitution, the founding principles, and what we need to do to be a better republic.”

The reason she published the book, McCormick explained, was that she had been asked to write about her experiences as a member of the Wisconsin Assembly, where she served three two-year terms beginning in 2000. She later twice ran for Congress, seeking the Republican nomination in Wisconsin’s Eighth District in 2006 and 2010.

It was while she was serving in the legislature, representing about 60,000 constituents in and around the cities of Appleton and Oshkosh, that McCormick discovered she was a libertarian.

“I didn’t even know that I was a libertarian Republican,” she explained, “until somebody had actually watched my work and said, ‘You know what? You believe in the constitution and free market.”

‘Core values’

To McCormick, that seemed just like common sense.

“I had a set of core values. I readily knew what they were: opportunities, free market systems, and I actually believed the constitution should apply to everybody.”

When it was pointed out that her statements and the legislation she sponsored manifested libertarian values and ideas, she “thought, ‘So that’s where I fit!’” Up to that point, she admitted, that she “didn’t quite know” what a libertarian was, or that she was one herself.

Running for Congress after her self-imposed term limits ended her time in the legislature “was interesting,” McCormick said, noting an odd paradox:

“When I ran for the state house, I was recognized as having ideas and [people] wanted me. When I ran for the U.S. House, I was recognized as an individual with ideas and therefore people didn’t want me.”

Legislative achievements

Prior to her first election to the Wisconsin Assembly, McCormick had worked with various civic groups and drafted the state’s first charter schools law. She helped form a group that lobbied for the law’s passage.

Once elected to office, she chaired the economic development committee, which became her platform for regulatory reform efforts.

Challenging entrenched interests in Madison, McCormick said she “took on the [state’s] capital investment company. In order to have more capital investment readily available, I wrote the small business regulation reform act.”

Her achievements, she added modestly, came about “just by listening to others and working with them.”


Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on December 20, 2011. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

From the Archives: Beloit College identifies political touchstones for 2012’s college freshmen

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 21, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016. I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Beloit College identifies political touchstones for 2012’s college freshmen

Beloit College – not far from presumptive GOP vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan’s hometown of Janesville – has released its latest “Mindset List” of cultural touchstones that are lost on the incoming college class this year, whose members intend to graduate in 2016.

The list includes pop-culture references – for instance, number 10, “On TV and in films, the ditzy dumb blonde female generally has been replaced by a couple of Dumb and Dumber males” – and sports references, such as number 19, “The Green Bay Packers have always celebrated with the Lambeau Leap.”

Daily life

The list also features items and activities from daily life that have changed since 1994, the year most freshman college students of 2012 were born.

Take number 9: “They have never seen an airplane ‘ticket.’” Or number 30: “There have always been blue M&Ms, but no tan ones.”

The 2012 Mindset List also contains several political notes that demonstrate how things have changed – or not – in the past 18 years.

Statesmen and -women

There’s number 8: “Bill Clinton is a senior statesman of whose presidency they have little knowledge.”

Or number 12: “For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world has been a woman’s job in the State Department.”

Some references might seem obscure, like number 24: “White House security has never felt it necessary to wear rubber gloves when gay groups have visited.”

In the category of “the more things change, the more they remain the same,” Beloit College offers number 32: “Newt Gingrich has always been a key figure in politics, trying to change the way America thinks about everything.”

And, a thought that may be shared among many of there elders, there is number 66: “They have no recollection of when Arianna Huffington was a conservative.”

The introduction to this year’s list notes that “each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List, providing a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall. The creation of Beloit’s former Public Affairs Director Ron Nief and Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride, authors of The Mindset Lists of American History: From Typewriters to Text Messages, What Ten Generations of Americans Think Is Normal (John Wiley and Sons), it was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references. It quickly became an internationally monitored catalog of the changing worldview of each new college generation.”

Designed to eliminate confusion: New name for NFL

Rick Sincere at NFL HQ in Ripon, 2012

News comes from Ripon, Wisconsin, that the venerable National Forensic League is changing its name to the National Speech & Debate Association.

The decision was made by the NFL's board last May.  One of the purposes behind the change in nomenclature was to reduce two separate but equally frustrating forms of confusion:  with the National Football League and with the term "forensics" as crime scene investigation procedures, as if the NFL were the trade association for characters played on TV by David Caruso, Ted Danson, and Gary Sinise.

To be fair, the term "forensics" derives from the courtroom rhetoric used by lawyers to prove their case beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Eventually this grew to encompass all the tools used by law enforcement and prosecuting attorneys, from fingerprints to DNA analysis as well as deductive reasoning and argumentation.  Orators and debaters laid claim to the word before the maggot-studying scientists started to use it.

In an FAQ on what used to be the NFL's web site, the reason for the rebranding is explained:

As a communication organization, we need to effectively communicate who we are and what we do. There is a common misunderstanding of “NFL” or “forensics,” including confusion with the National Football League or crime scene investigation; changing our name to focus on the activity of speech and debate will appeal to more students, coaches, alumni, sponsors, and the general public. We believe rebranding the organization as the National Speech & Debate Association will help us strengthen existing relationships, build new partnerships, increase national and local support for speech and debate, and allow us to pursue our mission to the fullest potential.

I have written on previous occasions about the positive impact speech and debate have had on my life and career.  Participating in debate through Marquette University High School's Webster Club and coaching younger debaters at the Georgetown University Forensics Institute (there's that word again) for three summers gave me analytical skills that I use every day.  Writing a blog post is not so different from writing a debate brief.  There just aren't as many bodies piled up on the podium, and you don't breathlessly tell your readers to "pull that across your flow."

It's too bad that popular culture has seldom offered a realistic view of speech and debate.  (Even the well-received play, Speech & Debate by Stephen Karam, is off the mark.)  Films like Thumbsucker and Listen to Me deserve thumbs up for effort but raspberries for accuracy.

The only recognizable portrayal of competitive speech on the high school circuit I have found is in James Magruder's novel, Sugarless.  In a brief review of that book in 2010, I wrote:

I don't read much fiction, in general, but when I received a review copy of James Magruder's Sugarless late last year, I simply could not put it down.

It has been almost a year since I read the book, but I still think about it because it resonates with my personal experience so much: not in every aspect, but hitting a sufficient number of points on the matrix to make me believe it.

Sugarless is the story of Rick, a 15-year-old high school student in suburban Chicago during the mid-1970s who, almost purely by chance, ends up on the speech team and finds out he has a talent for dramatic interpretation (or dramatic interp, for those in the know).

Magruder's verisimilitude about high school forensics struck me more than anything else in the book, even the parts about the protaganist's struggle with coming out as gay in an era far less accepting of that than it is now. His descriptions of the scenes at speech tournaments are amazingly accurate, and his portrayals of coaches and competitors are eerily familiar to me.

The one detail that other readers might find difficult to believe is the choice of the protaganist's speech coach to have him do an excerpt from Mart Crowley's play, The Boys in the Band. People unfamiliar with high school forensics may think that a play about gay men would be off-limits, especially in 1976, and especially in the American Midwest.

The truth is, a cutting from The Boys in the Band was circulating at that time, and my own coach asked me to do it. For reasons unrelated to the content of the piece, I ended up doing a different selection. (If I recall correctly, it was the courtroom scene in A Man for All Seasons, a far more conventional choice.) So I can testify against the doubters that an excerpt from The Boys in the Band was, indeed, being performed on the high school forensics circuit in the mid-1970s.

Having just seen the excellent documentary about Crowley and his play, Making the Boys, at the Virginia Film Festival, my memories of reading Sugarless earlier this year and my own experience in high school rushed back to me.

I recommend Sugarless to anyone who has competed in speech and debate or to anyone who was once a gay teenager. It's an excellent book, and a compelling read -- a real achievement for a first-time novelist, even one who, like Magruder, is an accomplished playwright and translator.

I would love to see Sugarless on screen, although I doubt that's likely to happen anytime soon. Too niche; too talky; too gay -- but delicious all the same.

Having mentioned Sugarless, I should also note Mark Oppenheimer's relatable, readable memoir, Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate. Oppenheimer portrays accurately the debate environment in which he competed, but that was not policy debate under the auspices of the NFL or the NCFL (National Catholic Forensic League). It was, rather, a self-contained regional circuit populated by New England prep school teams, different from the kind of debate people tend to encounter elsewhere in the country (Upper Midwest, Texas) and even in today's urban debate leagues. My review of Wisenheimer was published in December 2010.

While old-timers like myself may feel the rebranding of the National Forensic League into the National Speech & Debate Association (no approved acronym or abbreviation ) is a rejection of the organization's historical roots, at least it is an accurately descriptive moniker for the group.  It requires no more explanation than what can fit on a business card.

A final note:  it was announced earlier this month that the policy debate topic for the 2014-15 school year will be "Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its non-military exploration and/or development of the Earth's oceans."

Ocean policy got me into college and was one-quarter of my master's degree -- but those are stories for another time, another day.

Better Late than Never: National Ice Cream Month 2011

While many of us are still in the midst of one of the most persistently hot months in living memory, it may be appropriate, before it gets too late, to remember that July is National Ice Cream Month.

See?  Just thinking about the cold creaminess sliding over your tongue and down your throat makes the heat seem less like Hades and more like heaven.

The first National Ice Cream Month was declared by President Ronald Reagan, pursuant to a congressional resolution, in 1984.  In a proclamation dated July 9, 1984, Reagan said:

Ice cream is a nutritious and wholesome food, enjoyed by over ninety percent of the people of the United States.  It enjoys a reputation as the perfect dessert and snack food.  Over eight hundred and eighty-seven million gallons of ice cream were consumed in the United States in 1983.

The ice cream industry generates approximately $3.5 billion in annual sales and provides jobs for thousands of citizens.  Indeed, nearly ten percent of all the milk produced by United States dairy farmers is used to produce ice cream, thereby contributing substantially to the economic well-being of the Nation's dairy industry.

Those numbers have changed somewhat in the ensuing quarter-century.  According to the International Dairy Foods Association,

The U.S. ice cream industry generates more than $21 billion in annual sales and provides jobs for thousands of citizens. About 9% of all the milk produced by U.S. dairy farmers is used to produce ice cream, contributing significantly to the economic well-being of the nation's dairy industry.

(Someone else will have to do the math for me to figure out whether the growth of the ice cream industry has kept pace with inflation, surpassed it, or underperformed.)

Over the years, Members of Congress have paid tribute to ice cream, either during National Ice Cream Month itself or in the preceding month of June, which has been designated National Dairy Month since the 1930s (either 1937 or 1939, depending on the source).

One of the best tributes came from then-Senator Alfonse D'Amato on June 17, 1993, found on page S7531 of the Congressional Record for that date (due to the eccentricities of the thomas.loc.gov database, this link may or may not work).  D'Amato's remarks are worth reading in full:

Mr. President, I rise today to extol the virtues of ice cream, scrumptious concoction which has found its way into the hearts of fans across the globe. From Jamaican rum raisin to Chinese green tea to Georgia peach; from Hawaiian coffee to New York super fudge chunk, there is an ice cream flavor to please every palate, tempt every taste bud, and sooth every stomach.

To celebrate this unique eating experience, next month, July, is National Ice Cream Month, dedicate to American's love of ice cream. As an appropriate reflection of this national devotion, the United States leads the world in per capita production of ice cream and related products.

In 1992, American workers produced a record 1.49 billion gallons of these frozen desserts, which comes out to over 23 quarts per person. Being an enthusiastic ice cream loving State, New York's contribution to this number was a whopping 65 million gallons.

The enjoyment of ice cream spreads to all nations, ages, genders, and even crosses political party lines. As it has been said many times, to be happy, you must take the time out to enjoy the small things in life. This afternoon to celebrate the 11th annual Capitol Hill ice cream party, I would like to introduce a bipartisan personal stimulus package--eat more ice cream.

While never rising to mark National Ice Cream Month itself, former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold at least twice gave nearly identical floor speeches commemorating National Dairy Month, in which he mentioned ice cream prominently.  (A third Feinfold tribute, dated June 24, 2004, is entirely different.)

On June 4, 1998, Feingold said (page S5657 of the Congressional Record) in part:

Other Wisconsin dairy firsts include: the development of Colby cheese in 1874, the creation of brick cheese in 1875, the first dairy school in America- established in 1891 at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the first statewide dairy show in the U.S. in 1928, and the creation of the world-record holding 40,060 pound, Grade-A Cheddar cheese in 1988. And Wisconsin also can claim one of the best-tasting inventions in the history of dairy industry: the creation of the first ice cream sundae in 1881.

On June 9, 1999, Feingold also said (page S6811 of the Congressional Record) in part:

Other Wisconsin dairy firsts include: the development of Colby cheese in 1874, the creation of brick cheese in 1875, the first dairy school in America--established in 1891 at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the first statewide dairy show in the U.S. in 1928, and the creation of the world-record holding 40,060 pound, Grade-A Cheddar cheese in 1988. And Wisconsin also can claim one of the best-tasting inventions in the history of dairy industry: the creation of the first ice cream sundae in 1881.

As it happens, Hilde Lee, who writes about food history and traditions in a weekly column in the Charlottesville Daily Progress, told the story of the invention of the ice cream sundae in the Wisconsin chapter of her 1992 book, Taste of the States: A Food History of America:

The ice cream sundae originated in Ed Berners' ice cream parlor in Two Rivers in 1881.  It seems that one summer evening one of Berners' customers, George Hallauer, dropped in and ordered a dish of ice cream.  Hallauer saw a bottle of chocolate syrup, which Berners used to make sodas.  "Why don't you put some of the chocolate on the ice cream?" Hallauer asked.  Berners complained it would ruin the flavor of his ice cream, but Hallauer insisted he wanted to try it anyway.

Chocolate-topped ice cream became the rage of the town, and Berners began experimenting with other flavors and with toppings of nuts or a generous dish of apple cider.

The name sundae, however, was born in the neighboring town of Manitowoc.  George Giffy, also the owner of an ice cream parlor, served the embellished ice cream dishes only on Sundays.  One weekday, a little girl ordered a dish of ice cream "with stuff on it."  When told that he only served it on Sundays, the child said, "This must be Sunday, for it's the kind of ice cream I want."  Giffy gave it to her, and from then on the dish was called Sunday.  How the spelling evolved into sundae is not known.

Not every member of Congress has been so kind in regard to National Ice Cream Month.  Back in 1992, former Colorado Congressman Joel Hefley complained about commemorative days, weeks, and months as a waste of the taxpayers' money and of legislators' time.  He said in a one-minute speech on the floor of the House on August 12 of that year (page H8027 of the Congressional Record):

Mr. Speaker, in the last few years, Congress has picked up a lot of nasty little habits that cost taxpayers big bucks.

To pad their legislative accomplishments, some Members of Congress have taken to introducing one commemorative bill after another in hopes of stroking every special interest group that knocks on their door. In fact, 30 percent of all public laws are commemoratives. That is why we now have a `National Tap Dance Day,' a `National Ice Cream Month ,' an `Elvis Presley Day,' a `Karate Kids Just Say No to Drugs Month' and a `National Quilting Day.'

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Elvis Presley or people who enjoy quilting, and I think it is great that we have positive role models against drugs. I also love to indulge my taste buds with ice cream from time to time, but to get these bills passed, we spend close to $350,000 a year to do it.

There are two bills working their way through Congress that would create a commission to advise the President on proposals for national commemorative events. It would cost half as much and accomplish the same thing. Plus, it would give Congress more time to deal with the more difficult and important issues of the day.

Commemoratives get my vote for `Porker of the Week' award.

The fact that Hefley was correct should not deter us, however, from celebrating National Ice Cream Month privately.

For example, The Jewish Daily Forward has marked this month this year by running a series of articles about ice cream, accompanied by recipes for delicious (and, presumably, kosher) ice cream dishes.

Introducing the "Frozen Friday" series, Dan Friedman lets his imagination run wild in an article called "Religion, Politics, and Ice Cream, Oh My!":

People are fascinated with the idea of the afterlife and whether Jews believe in Heaven and Hell. Now, I’m no professional theologian, but I think that if I died and was greeted by a smiling minyan of Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Mr. Häagen and Mrs. Dasz, Joseph Edy and Moshe-Lev Dreyer, Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins, Sharon Breyer and Malky “Dairy” Queen bearing free samples that, for me, would be heaven.

The series also includes a reminiscence of Naomi Zeveloff about her distant relatives who were the founders of Häagen-Dazs. It turns out to be a typically touching story of immigrant success, by-the-bootstraps-style.

Reuben and Rose were distantly related Polish Jews who moved to Brooklyn and married in 1936. Though the Häagen-Dazs web site would have you believe that it was Reuben’s advanced palate that foretold the couple’s success, the truth is that Reuben got into the ice cream business because it was a lucrative way to start out in America. When Reuben first hitched his horse to a wagon and began hawking his mother’s ice cream to restaurants in the Bronx, he joined a small group of Jewish ice cream vendors who roamed the city, cooling summer fevers with an icy treat.

Reuben sold the family’s ice cream for three decades before forging his own path. While most ice cream manufacturers cut costs by concocting a sweet, milky mixture that could barely pass for ice cream, Reuben created a fatty, dense ice cream in three flavors — chocolate, vanilla, and coffee — and marketed it to the city’s upscale restaurants. Rose came up with a vaguely Scandinavian name. Häagen-Dazs has no meaning; in fact, the umlat above the first ‘a’ and the combined ‘zs’ are unheard of in Scandinavian languages. Nonetheless, the couple slapped a map of Scandinavia on the lid of the ice cream containers and New Yorkers got a taste of the “European” delicacy.

“By word of mouth,” it became popular, “people tasted it and it was really good,” said Harriet Leitz, Reuben’s first cousin. “When you compared the ice cream, one was like garbage and the other was like cream.”

.... From the beginning, Häagen-Dazs prided itself on its simple recipe of fresh cream, milk, and eggs.

In 1983, Reuben and Rose sold the company to Pillsbury, which was bought out by General Mills in 2001. (Dreyer’s, a subsidiary of Nestle, now makes the ice cream in the U.S. and Canada.) The couple made a fortune, and spent much of it supporting Israel through right-wing causes, funding organizations devoted to bringing Jews from Europe and Asia to settle the West Bank. Rose in particular became a fixture in Zionist circles, sitting on the board of the Zionist Organizations of America.

Somehow Naomi Sugar's article about ice cream sodas works in a mention of the cocktail that originated in Washington, D.C., and which was recently celebrated in a legislative commemorative resolution from the District of Columbia City Council:

Legend has it that Colonel Joe Rickey invented the lime rickey in the 1880s after a bar tender at Shoomaker’s in Washington DC added a lime to the Colonel’s morning drink. A decade later it became a sensation when mixed with gin. To honor the raspberry lime rickey, a summer staple, bartenders in Washington, DC have declared July as National Rickey Month. So, I suppose it’s apropos that I’ve made a raspberry lime rickey ice cream soda for national ice cream month and national rickey month!

(For those who are interested, Garrett Peck has a more detailed history of the rickey in his recent book, Prohibition in Washington, D.C.: How Dry We Weren't.)

Finally, Rivka Friedman offers a recipe for cinnamon swirl ice cream as the end of her quest for a "Jewish" ice cream flavor:

Is there such a thing? I thought about milk and honey ice cream (too cliched); date and pomegranate ice cream (more Israeli than Jewish); even ricotta-brown sugar ice cream, supposedly inspired by kugel (such a stretch!). The ideas, they didn’t come so quickly. I was stuck. But it’s National Ice Cream Month and I had committed to being part JCarrot’s Frozen Fridays. So there was no way out: I’d be figuring out a Jewish ice cream flavor, yes I would.

Although it is "National" Ice Cream Month, it should be noted that love for ice cream is an international phenomenon, as a story filed by United Press International on July 28 makes clear.

It seems that classes in making ice-cream desserts offered at the headquarters of Carpagiani, a Bologna-based manufacturer of ice-cream-making equipment, attracted some 12,000 students in the past year.

Kaori Ito (does that sound like an Italian name to you?), the director of the school, told Sky News (as reported by UPI) that "the people who come here are people who want a career change. The average age is 35-40. They are ready to drop what they're doing and open a new chapter in their lives."

The report was distributed by UPI under its "Odd News" category. Is it really so odd, though, that people would flock to learn about ice cream?

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

One morning earlier this week, as I was preparing to leave for the Tuesday Morning Group Coalition monthly meeting in Richmond, I became aware of the presence of several emergency vehicles in and near my cul de sac: fire trucks, an ambulance, and at least one police car.

At first I thought there was a fire, but it turned out to be something different -- an idling car had escaped its parking brake and crashed into a nearby house.

While both the car and home owner must have been grateful that the damage was not significant (and that nobody was hurt), the incident flashed a memory of mine.

During my first year as a blogger, I wrote about the time my house nearly burned down. That was 34 years ago today: July 17, 1975. The fire was big enough that it landed on the first page of the local newspaper on July 24 (the Wauwatosa News-Times, founded in 1898 but now, as far as I know, defunct) -- with not one but two photographs.



One picture appeared above the fold.



The caption reads:

In the Line of Duty

PARAMEDIC JESSE MORENO (right) ministered to a fellow-paramedic, Acting Lieutenant Jim Filber, who suffered from smoke inhalation while serving at the scene of a residence fire July 17. Awaiting treatment, Lt. John Accola mirrored the exhaustion of local firemen who fought the $50,000 blaze. Also on the scene was Reserve Policeman Grant Schmidt, one of several members of the Police and Fire Reserves who aided at the scene. Moreno and five other firemen also were treated later for smoke inhalation. Story on Pg. 3. (Photo by Arthur C. Hombsch)

The second picture appeared below the fold, but in the prominent lower right-hand corner.



Its caption reads:

Fire-Call Figures

LEAVING THE SCENE of a major fire last Thursday night, Wauwatosa Fire Chief Byard Sheldon (in white coat) followed Jim Washcovick, on-duty assistant chief, as the two left the Richard Sincere home at 1503 N. 70th St. The fire had just been brought under control after having been fought for almost three hours. Eight Tosa firemen were treated for smoke inhalation from the blaze which caused an estimated $50,000 damage to the residence and its contents. (Photo by Arthur C. Hombsch)

The story on page 3 provided a few more details than the captions on page 1 did.



The text reads:

Nine Tosa Firemen Treated after $50,000 Blaze

Three Wauwatosa firemen were taken to hospitals and six more treated for smoke inhalation at the scene of a $50,000 blaze at 1503 N. 70th St. July 17, according to the latest Wauwatosa Fire Department report.

The fire began when wiring in a pinball machine short-circuited. The fire quickly spread from its origin in a basement recreation room through air ducts to other portions of the house. Damage was estimated at $35,000 to the house and $15,000 to contents.

Three firemen suffering from smoke inhalation were transported to hospitals. Firefighter Larry Tesch was taken to County General and Firefighters Peter Ernst and Lee Werner were taken to St. Luke’s.

Among those treated at the scene were Asst. Chief James Washcovick, who strained some shoulder and arm muscles moving a hose to the second floor; Lts. John Accola and Frank Jankowski, and Firefighters Jesse Moreno, George Polly and James Filber. Filber also sustained a burn on his leg and Jankowski was treated for a cut hand.

One of the interesting things about finding the Wauwatosa News-Times report on my family's personal adversity was seeing some of the items in the paper that put the event in historical context. For instance, there was this photo/story about the new Bicentennial coins being produced by the U.S. Mint:



The caption says:

'Change' of Design

A BIG CHANGE IN SMALL CHANGE will appear when these new Bicentennial coins start circulating throughout the nation and, of course, in Wauwatosa. The quarter, half-dollar and dollar shown here will bear the same head but the dates 1776-1976 will be stamped underneath. On the tails of the three coins are a colonial drummer on the quarter; Independence Hall on the half-dollar; and the Liberty Bell and moon on the dollar. The Federal Reserve System will start distributing the Bicentennial half-dollar to financial institutions July 7. The other two coins will be released by the U.S. Mint before the end of the year.

What really demonstrates the historical context are the advertisements scattered throughout the newspaper. For instance, these two restaurant ads (fish fry with a free stein of beer $2.65! prime rib dinner $5.95!) would make anyone's mouth water, Pavlov-dog style:





Then there are the ads that remind us how much technology (and our expectations and familiarity of it) has changed.

Remember typewriters? And typewriter shops?



Remember when people paid to have a television repaired, rather than just buying a new one?



Now here's something I don't remember: Businesses offering lessons in how to use a microwave oven. Did anyone reading this ever take a class like this?



By coincidence, I just bought a new microwave the other day. I paid $39.00 at Walmart to replace one that I bought just about three years ago at Target. That one shorted out. The microwave oven I had before that lasted more than 20 years: I bought it in 1984 at Sears for about $400, which was a lot of money back then.

Oh, for the good ol' days!

Post script: That same issue of the Wauwatosa News-Times also included a feature article about St. Bernard's Studio Theatre's summer production of Hello, Dolly!



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Addenda to the 'Getting High' Series

Back in February, I posted four videos I called the "Getting High" series. Two of the videos were from Wisconsin (the top of the state capitol, the peak of Rib Mountain), one was from Michigan's Upper Peninsula (Copper Peak ski flying hill), and the last was from Los Angeles (the Getty museum complex).

I have two more additions to the "Getting High" series.

The first is archival footage I found in some old home movies taken by my grandfather, Chester J. Michalak, in the early 1960s. This film was made while flying over the resort community of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, with its extensive chain of lakes. My best guess is that this dates from August 1960, but it could be a year or two older or younger.

The second is more recent. In March 2007, Richard Morrison and I made a trip to Las Vegas, and we visited the Hoover Dam, which rises from the depths of Black Canyon, impeding the Colorado River and creating Lake Mead. Some of the video is taken from inside the bowels of the dam, where the electrical generators are located, and some of it is from the edge of the canyon and from the top of the roadway that traverses the dam itself.

Getting High in Wisconsin, Part III:



Getting High in Nevada, Part I:



Getting High in Nevada, Part II:

The videos from Nevada were taken just a few days after I purchased my digital video camera, so I was not as adept as I could have been in shooting the scenery. I have learned a lot since then, so I apologize for the intermittent shakiness and quick, unsteady zooms.

A Tale of Two State Capitols

Last July, while vacationing in Wisconsin, I took a self-guided tour of the state capitol building in Madison with some friends. Thanks to state Senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), we were able to climb to the top of the rotunda dome, and even into the lantern that caps the building.

Last weekend, while attending the Republican Party of Virginia's state convention, I was part of a group invited to tour the state capitol building in Richmond by Delegate Rob Bell. Delegate Bell -- who represents constituents in Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, and Orange counties -- arranged for Bruce F. Jamerson, Clerk of the House of Delegates and Keeper of the Rolls of the Commonwealth, to guide the tour.

What follows is video of both tours.

First, the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, which is said to be the tallest of all the state capitol buildings. This video is primarily of the interior of the building.

This next video may be recognizable as part of the previously published "Getting High" series.

I have more material on the Virginia State Capitol, which was designed by Thomas Jefferson and is the second-oldest state capitol building in the country. (The Maryland State Capitol in Annapolis was built earlier than the one in Richmond.)

The tour was a real history lesson. Who knew, for instance, that Mr. Jefferson's capitol was almost torn down in the post-Civil War era, but that lack of funds prevented the demolition?

Mr. Jamerson's narration is well worth the time of watching this nine-part video series. (The whole thing lasts for about an hour.)

Part I:



Part II:



Part III:



Part IV:



Part V:



Part VI:



Part VII:



Part VIII:



Part IX:

Note, in Part VII, that Keith Drake tells about his experience as a Virginia Elector, casting his vote for George W. Bush in 2004 in a ceremony in the Old Senate Chamber. (The Virginia members of the Electoral College will meet in that same place on December 15 to cast their ballots.)

Delegate Bell also takes some time, in Parts VIII and IX, to give us some "inside baseball" about how the House of Delegates works -- where members sit, how they determine when to take a break in the lounge, when to stop eating because the cameras are aimed at them, and so forth.

Just Barely a Yankee

Doug Mataconis posted a link to a dialect test that purports to determine whether the test-taker is a "Yankee" or a "Dixie."

I scored "49% (Yankee). Barely into the Yankee category."

For his part, Doug scored 35 percent, a "definitive Yankee."

New Jersey native D.J. McGuire is surprised to find out he's "barely into the Dixie category" at 55 percent.

What surprises me about my score is that so many of the explanatory notes attached to the questions point, correctly, to my roots in Wisconsin. (I still think of a water fountain as a "bubbler," for instance.) But I guess my use of "y'all" trumps that -- and I have, after all, spent the greater part of my life in the Mid-Atlantic region, rather than in the upper Midwest of my birth.

As Doug suggests, try out the quiz for yourself. Feel free to report your score in the comments area, below.

(This quiz started circulating through Vivian Paige, who is shocked to learn she "only scored 57% - barely Dixie. How the heck is that possible?")

Travelers' Carnival

Another blog carnival -- this one the "Carnival of Cities" -- picked up one of my personal favorite recent posts to feature this week: my videoblog showcasing Hurley, Wisconsin, and Ironwood, Michigan. (That post included a peek at the Iron County Historical Museum and a conversation with innkeeper Gene Cisewski, as well as a visit to the Upper Peninsula's Hiawatha statue.)

The Carnival of Cities covers the whole world, in categories like "Cities in Europe," "Cities in Australasia," and "Cities in the Americas." It turns out that Hurley is one of two U.S. cities featured in the current carnival. Under the heading of "Cities in the Americas," host-blog Family Travel lists the following:

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada paulmct presents Tickets Please - Or Else posted at Bloggin’ Off, saying, “There’s a lot to like about Vancouver, but…” Don’t tase me, bro!

Trinidad, Cuba Matthew Hamilton describes this dilapidated colonial jewel near Cuba’s Caribbean coast, posted at his blog Furgo Y Agua - Travels In Latin America.

Hurley, Wisconsin, USA Rick Sincere gives an interesting peek into Hurley’s history and includes video from his visit to Hurley on his blog Rick Sincere News and Thoughts, saying, “Hurley, Wisconsin, is a small city (population less than 2,000) but it and its 'twin city' of Ironwood, Michigan, are nonetheless legally designated as cities.”

St. Louis, Missouri, USA As the host, I thought I’d throw in a Family Travel blog post featuring the storied Gateway Arch, on the Mississippi river in downtown St. Louis.

Next week's Carnival of Cities will be hosted at Roaming Tales on April 30, followed by the Jeffersoniad's Leslie Carbone on May 7.

A Visit to Hurley and Ironwood

Last July, during a cross-country trip that took me to Milwaukee and Los Angeles and points in-between, I made a long detour to Northern Wisconsin, where I visited mon ami ancien Gene Cisewski, who now runs a bed-and-breakfast inn in the small town of Hurley, near the Michigan border.

While Hurley now has a population of just about 1,200 residents, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was a boom town. Hurley grew up as a market center for the iron mining industry that stretched across Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Novelist Edna Ferber, who had previously portrayed the American South of the same period in Show Boat (the basis for the musical play of the same name), spent time in Hurley doing research for a book that became Come and Get It (which itself became a movie and won Walter Brennan an Academy Award).

The Hurley that Ferber knew was a town of saloons and bordellos. One of Hurley's great mysteries continues to be "who killed Lotta Morgan?" (Morgan was a lady of easy virtue, and therefore one of the town's leading citizens, when she was murdered.) Al Capone's brother, Ralph, settled in Hurley, which was a popular summer destination for Chicago-based mobsters (as was Manitowish Waters, about 20 miles to the south, where John Dillinger had a shoot-out with the FBI).

The town is much quieter today, but it still is said to have the most bars per capita of any municipality in Wisconsin, and Silver Street, the main drag, seems to offer proof of that claim.

Innkeeper Cisewski is also a former member of the Iron County Board of Supervisors and now serves as president of the Iron County Historical Society. During our visit, Gene hosted an event at the Iron County Historical Museum, which is just about a block from his own historic home, the Anton-Walsh House on Copper Street. I captured some of the event, and a good number of the museum's exhibits, on video:

Someday I might also post the still-unedited video of that night's speaker, a writer who specializes in the history of Italian immigrants to the United States. (Italian-Americans make up an astounding 19 percent of Iron County's population.)

After the lecture and the reception that followed, I interviewed Gene about his house and the bed-and-breakfast business located there. The Anton-Walsh House was one of the first merchant-class homes in Hurley, and Gene ticks off the names of all the owners from the one who built it to the present. He also describes, in excruciatingly delicious detail, the foods he prepares and serves to his guests for breakfast every morning. (I can attest to the tastiness of the wild-rice and cranberry pudding, the various kinds of muffins, and the homemade jams and jellies -- some of which come from grapes grown in the Anton-Walsh House backyard.) Here's a chat with Gene Cisewski:

Nearby Hurley is its "twin city" of Ironwood, just across the Montreal River and the Michigan border. Ironwood has about twice as many residents as Hurley, but it seems to be far less robust, economically speaking. One can tell that it, too, was once a boom town, but today it has a faded, rundown look.

One thing that Ironwood has that nobody else can claim is a 52-foot, 8-ton, Fiberglas statue of Hiawatha, said to be the world's "tallest and largest Indian." (There is a statue of an Indian in Maine that is about ten feet taller, but it's not nearly as large or heavy.) The statue was erected in 1964 and refurbished in 2004.

According to the Ironwood Area Chamber of Commerce,

A giant statue of an Indian chief was felt appropriate as a symbol of the region, although ideas for a sculpture ranged from an iron miner, skier and Ironwoods Red Devil. The Indianhead signs had been a feature of the Gogebic County Highways for many years and had attracted widespread attention. Several larcenous tourists even carted off some of the Indian signs. It was unlikely anyone would be able to carry away the 50 foot Hiawatha.

That's an understatement!

The chamber's web site describes how the statue arrived in Ironwood, and the Erection Ceremony that followed:

Hiawatha was transported on a 70-foot trailer truck on a special route that would reduce the number of sharp curves and low bridges and any other obstacles in transit. The trailer was over 14 feet wide and required a special permit to transport it with a state police escort through each state. Hiawatha traveled on Highway 94, 63 and 77 to Hurley, then north on Highway 51 to US2. Delivery of Hiawatha was set to leave Minneapolis at 2:20 AM Thursday, June 25th and arrived in Ironwood late Thursday evening, a haul of nearly 12 to 14 hours...

Erection of the statue was set for Friday between 3:00 and 4:30 PM. Originally the plans had called for placing the statue on the foundation on Saturday, but due to the need of the large 80-foot crane by the Mauthe Mining Company, it had been advanced to Friday afternoon. The crane needed to extend 90 feet for lifting of the statue to go above the 26-foot beams on the site...

Shortly after Hiawatha arrived, workmen began attaching Hiawatha's right hand. The right arm was made in a slightly extended position and in order to avoid damage while traveling, the wrist and hand were detached when the statue arrived. The Hiawatha statue rested on a base that was eight feet deep and contained 55 yards of concrete and had 5,000 pounds of steel reinforcement mixed in with 15 yards of crushed rock.

There were cheers and hand-clapping from the large crowd of men, women and children that had gathered in the hot sun to see the huge image erected. Many curiously waited the full two hours to see what it would look like once it was firmly secured to its foundation. The raising of the statue was the highlight not only to the crowd, but also fulfilled the dreams of a group of businessmen, known as the Hiawatha Committee, who spent many months planning for the tourist attraction.

(I just know I'm going to start getting strange visits to this blog based on search terms like "men women children huge erection" and "hand-clapping erection ceremony.")

I first visited the Hiawatha statue nearly 41 years ago with my parents. In the video below, you'll see one photo of my mother and me (and two other, unknown children) from August 3, 1967; the rest were all taken on the evening of July 25, 2007:

In the 44 years since it was installed, the Hiawatha statue has become a gathering place for local skateboarders. (My video is not the only one on YouTube that demonstrates this fact.)

The Anton-Walsh House is located at 202 Copper Street, Hurley, Wisconsin 54534-1339; for more information, call 715-561-2065 or send an email to info@anton-walsh.com.

The Iron County Historical Society Museum is in the old county courthouse -- the one with the clock tower that chimes the hours -- at 303 Iron Street, Hurley, Wisconsin 54534. For more information, call 715-561-2244.

The statue of Hiawatha is on Suffolk Street in Ironwood, Michigan. The best directions can be found at RoadsideAmerica.com.

I previously posted video of another attraction close to Hurley, the Copper Peak Ski Flying Hill, under the title, "The 'Getting High' Series" -- which may soon have some addenda.

The Great Elm Grove Train Wreck

"April is the cruelest month," said Eliot. While "breeding lilacs out of the dead land" may not seem to be such a bad thing, one must remember that April also has bred some sad memories: the beginning of the U.S. War Between the States; the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the death of Franklin Roosevelt.

One April day in particular merits, for good and ill, special commemoration. April 19 is the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord (1775), the Waco massacre of 1993, the terrorist attack on Oklahoma City, and one lesser-known event -- the Great Elm Grove Train Wreck of 1958. That last event probably did not get the national attention of the others, but it was certainly vivid to those who lived nearby.

This April 19 will mark 50 years since a train slammed into the train depot in Elm Grove, Wisconsin, with more than two dozen cars jumping the tracks. Fortunately, because it was early on a Saturday morning, nobody was killed or injured. The depot building, however, was destroyed and a sleepy village in suburban Milwaukee was shaken up.

The Waukesha Freeman, the nearest local newspaper, was on the scene and reported the events of that morning in its afternoon edition:

Thirty cars of an eastbound Milwaukee Road freight train jumped the tracks in the village this morning, demolishing the depot and damaging two other buildings.

Two freight cars plowed into the small depot, moving it 30 feet off the foundation and leaving only the roof intact. The station agent, Tom Tracy, 33, was at his rooming house in Elm Grove. He does not work on Saturdays.

Another car shattered a 20 foot section of the nearby Reinders Bros. feed store and a tiny shed. Another 40 foot section of the feed store company's storage room was damaged.

J.A. Jakubec, Milwaukee general superintendent for the railroad, said a hot journal box on one of the freight cars probably caused the accident. When the journal box becomes overheated, the weight of the car collapses on the wheels.

The derailed cars contained canned peas and corn, paper, packaged flour, lumber, plywood and pulpwood.

A rumor that one of the boxcars was loaded with poison was untrue, Jakubec said.

He predicted that the main line won't be open until tomorrow morning. In the meantime westbound trains are being rerouted by way of Horicon to Portage, and eastbound cars from Portage to Madison to Milwaukee.

Elm Grove Police Chief Harold Graf said he was sitting in his office on Legion Dr. and Juneau blvd. at 6:30am when he heard a "terrific rumble." He knew immediately it was a train, looked up and all he could see was dust, he said. "It all took place in a minute and a half." Graf said. Telephone lines and electric lines were down and the railroad depot was demolished."

One of the freight cars came to rest about 12 feet from the corner of Felden's Tavern just northeast of the crossing. About $300 worth of liquor fell off the shelves and was damaged or destroyed. Phil Felden, who was asleep in the living quarters of the tavern, said, "It sounded like a tornado going through. It rumbled for about five minutes. It jarred us out of bed." Mrs. Felden said it was good fortune that the accident happened when it did. Her four small children ordinarily play outside the tavern in the area where the boxcar came to rest.

Along with hundreds of other gawkers, my grandfather, Chester J. Michalak -- one of the early suburban pioneers of nearby Brookfield -- was drawn to the scene. Unlike most of the others, however, he had his 16mm home-movie camera with him. I believe the three-and-a-half minutes of film footage he recorded may be the only extant moving-picture record of the Great Elm Grove Train Wreck of 1958. (It would be interesting to see if any of the Milwaukee TV stations have similar recordings in their archives but, knowing what we do about the preservation practices of TV stations and networks of that era, the existence of such records is doubtful.)

Here is what I found in a video transfer of my grandfather's film:

Local artist Gil Reid, who years later created a watercolor portrait of the destroyed Elm Grove railroad station, put his own memories of that day on video in 2006:

I suspect that, in about two weeks, the people of Elm Grove and Brookfield and surrounding neighborhoods will be commemorating this event. I hope this rare video will help them in resurrecting the images of that day half a century ago.

The "Getting High" Series

Last July I made a cross-country trip anchored on two events, my high school reunion and my nephew's first birthday. The trip included stops in Illinois (where our plane landed), Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, and California. (I don't include the layover at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport as a "stop.")

George Mason University student Richard Morrison accompanied me on the trip, and we played tourist for most of the two-week journey. I have already posted video from our visit to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. YouTube has a video of "Gavin's First Birthday Cake," which may end up here someday, too -- perhaps in time for Gavin's second birthday.

Along the way, Richard and I had several opportunities to get high. Don't fret, drug warriors: By "get high," I mean nothing more than that we climbed to a height that provided breathtaking vistas of the landscape around us.

Our first climb was to the top of the Wisconsin state capitol building in Madison, courtesy of State Senator Glenn Grothman, who obtained permission to see parts of the capitol usually off-limits to tourists. (There is still more video, so far unedited, of the capitol's chambers, committee rooms, and reception areas -- that will be posted here eventually, too.)

"Getting High in Wisconsin, Part I":

To tell the truth, my acrophobia kept me from going all the way to the top, but Richard braved it along with recent Marquette High graduate Joseph Kay. They provided the most dramatic video.

At Rib Mountain State Park near Wausau, however, Richard and I both reached the summit. Rib Mountain is the third-highest peak in Wisconsin, at 1,940 feet. A 60-foot tower brings the full height to 2,000 feet, with a view on a clear day that encompasses several counties.

I remember visiting Rib Mountain as a child with my parents, but this was my first time there in nearly 40 years. The tower was the same but didn't seem to be quite so high as it was when I was 8 years old.

"Getting High in Wisconsin, Part II":

After Wausau, Richard and I headed farther north, passing through Manitowish Waters, where my family and I used to vacation, and ending up in Hurley, said to be the Wisconsin town with the most taverns per capita. My friend, Gene Cisewski, is the innkeeper of a bed-and-breakfast in downtown Hurley called the Anton-Walsh House. Gene is also president of the local historical society and a former member of the Iron County Board of Supervisors.

Gene took us on a tour of the area, which included a trip to Bayfield and Madeline Island in Lake Superior and to several of the picturesque waterfalls along the Montreal River and other streams that traverse the Wisconsin border with the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (There's plenty of unedited video from those days, too.)

When we crossed the border into Michigan, Gene took us to the Copper Peak Ski Flying Hill, one of the tallest structures used for snow skiing anywhere in the world. Once again, I clung to the floor about halfway up the man-made hill, but Gene and Richard made it all the way to the top, where the view on a clear day encompasses three states and Lake Superior.

Coincidentally, I recently had a chat in Washington with the man who was instrumental in raising the funds to build Copper Peak, and I may write about him and his efforts once I have received permission to do so.

"Getting High in Michigan":

The Midwest is not the most likely place to find great heights with dramatic vistas. That's not so in California. Even the Reagan Library looks down on Simi Valley from a peak of its own.

The day before we went to the Reagan Library, Richard and I visited the Getty Center in Los Angeles, which also sits atop a mount. You can see downtown Los Angeles -- even on a Sunday, enshrouded in smog -- and surrounding canyons from the Getty's plaza.

This video also includes some shots from inside the Getty museum.

"Getting High in Los Angeles":

As I have already suggested, there will be more travel videos posted here as time permits. Last year (2007) was a big travel year for me, with trips to Las Vegas, New Orleans, and Austin, as well as Milwaukee, Hurley, and Los Angeles. That resulted in a lot of raw video that has to be reduced to 10-minute segments suitable for posting to YouTube and cross-posting here.