Pretty Sure It Will Be Dry February As Well

Posted on February 1, 2024 by admin

Not only are we rid of January today, it was the most pleasant weather I can ever remember on a February 1 in northern Illinois: sun out sometimes, temps touching about 50 F.

YouTube algorithms are getting better at their game. Or so it seems. Today they suggested a Mexican ska band, Mexican Nutty Stompers, who have just released an album. The song, “Souvenir.” I was the 83rd listener.

Never mind the delight in finding Mexican ska when you didn’t such a thing existed, whoever the lead singer is, she’s got some voice. I might look into finding out her name, but for now the voice is more than enough.

A snippet from a press release that came a few weeks ago:

Embrace the spirit of Dry January with Hotel ZaZa Memorial City. Dine in at Hotel ZAZA’s Tipping Point Restaurant and Terrace and indulge in exclusive mocktail specials, crafted to make your taste buds dance without the spirits. Throughout the month of January, enjoy a selection of zero-proof concoctions, each priced at just $8.

Closer to my wheelhouse, but not quite in it. Still, I learned a couple of things from the release. One, Hotel ZaZa Memorial City is in Houston. Zaza is a collection of boutique hotels in Texas, in fact, with locations in Austin and Dallas too. I wasn’t familiar with the brand, but it looks posh all right. Also, this is the essence of the luxury hotel business: serving drinks at what would be a very reasonable price, if they contained any alcohol.

Dry January. I had to look around for more information on that, and it turned out to be a thing. Not sure if it’s just a thing of the chattering classes, or has stronger purchase on the steep slopes of American culture, but anyway you can find mainstream articles about it. Never heard of any of that. I’m late to the party, as usual. Or the non-party, considering no alcohol is served. As we all know, alcohol is essential to any fun party. That’s true in song and story.

The concept is simple enough to be a thing: Dry January just means not drinking alcohol during January, presumably timed to come after personal bacchanals in December. The hotel is using the concept to sell mocktails, but people do seem to use the idea to improve their lives. Good for them. I found it a little hard to imagine, though. Every January is Dry January for me.

I did order, and drink, an Old Fashioned at the bar of the Nashville Italian restaurant where we had dinner on the last full night with my friends in November. We were waiting for a table, so we all sat at the bar, enjoying some lively conversation with each other.

We also spent a few minutes watching the bartender, a nattily dressed slip of an African-American young man, maybe 30, who seemed to be everywhere behind the bar doing everything all the time, but mostly assembling the various liquors for his cocktail creations. With an economy and grace to his movements that spoke of years of practice. He was an artist.

So I wanted to order something from him. But what? As I later explained to my friends, a little part of every man wants to be Don Draper, so the drink in front of me was my homage to the character, and a vehicle to provide a nice tip for the bartender.

A little more than 12 years before ordering the Old Fashioned in Nashville, I ordered one in Appleton, Wisconsin on a press trip because I recently heard of the drink on Mad Men and was curious.

But mixed drinks haven’t been how I’ve usually spent my money over the years. All those years later in Nashville, I nursed my Old Fashioned a while – I’m not a hard-drinking TV character, after all – and concluded that I hadn’t had a bar cocktail between those two times, only occasional beer and wine, most of which wasn’t at bars anyway. What’s the term for that? Not teetotaler. Quasi-totaler?

Back to the AGSL

Posted on September 28, 2023 by admin

The Plymouth Church wasn’t actually the last place I visited for Doors Open, it was the last place I planned to visit. But the event still had an hour to run when I walked out of that church on Saturday, so I checked the map and discovered I was within walking distance of the American Geographic Society Library on the UW-Milwaukee campus, which is usually open only Monday to Friday.

Home to 2 million or so items: maps, atlases, photographs, monographs, serials, digital geospatial data and of course globes. Many, many globes.

A divers collection.

Maps on display.

This wasn’t my first visit, though it had been about five years, and I hope not my last. Maps are useful, but also their own reward.

Plymouth Church, Milwaukee

Posted on September 27, 2023 by admin

Tucked away on a side street northeast of downtown Milwaukee, and not far from Lake Michigan to the east and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to the west, is Plymouth Church. I arrived there on Saturday afternoon as the last place on my Doors Open visit.

It is United Church of Christ, one of whose confessional predecessors were New England Congregationalists. Puritans and Separatists, if you go back far enough.

“Alexander Eschweiler, who designed many prominent houses and buildings throughout Milwaukee, served as the architect of the original building,” notes Historic Milwaukee. “His design harkened back to an older pastoral age, replicating the image of an old English church. The beautiful sanctuary is notable for its nine Tiffany windows.”

Maybe eight. A volunteer at the church entrance – a little old church lady (really) – told me that one of the windows was unsigned. It sure enough looks like a Tiffany, but without the lettering, you can only be 99.44% or some other high percentage sure of its pedigree.

I spent a good while looking at the windows, dedicated more than a century ago to a number of early congregants.

Long looks are highly recommended.

Toward the front entrance. At that moment, the afternoon sun obscured the church’s rose window, which rises over the choir balcony.

Obscured unless you got up close. Then it is a thing of wonder.

The window was installed in 1917. Let Bobby Tanzilo, writing in OnMilwaukee, take it from here: “ ‘The window, a large Tiffany art glass, was presented to the church by Mrs. C. W. Noyes in honor of her mother, Marcia Wells, wife of Daniel Wells, who built the Wells Building and for whom Wells Street was named,’ wrote the Sentinel in June 1917.

“The window represents an angel figure bestowing the benediction of peace. This is the seventh memorial window in Plymouth Church.”

1917. How many of the congregation prayed ardently for Peace that upheaval year? For the American men headed for war? For Victory? All in a single breath?

Tanzilo also discusses the artist who did the rose window, and quite possibly the other windows, while working for Tiffany: Clara Burd (d. 1933). That despite the fact that Tiffany didn’t name the artists that worked on its projects.

“Clara Burd was – along with others including Agnes Northrop who designed the 1917 Hartwell Memorial Window that’s at Art Institute of Chicago, Clara Driscoll and others – one of the so-called ‘Tiffany Girls,’ talented women responsible for designing stunning works of art in glass (not only windows, but also lamps and other objects),” Tanzilo wrote.

She did a lot else besides. Such as book illustrations. “The Returning Prodigal” (1911).

The full article is worth a read, and has a full set of pictures of the windows of the church.

Calvary Cemetery, Milwaukee

Posted on September 26, 2023 by admin

Head west on Bluemound Road in Milwaukee – once an Indian trace, later an early paved road – and before long you arrive at Calvary Cemetery. The entrance is easy to spot, though my shot is from inside.

It’s Milwaukee’s oldest Catholic cemetery, counting as a rural cemetery, as it was outside the young city in the 1850s. About 80,000 people repose there these days, including the first mayor of Milwaukee, Solomon Juneau.

I didn’t see his grave. But there were a lot of others, varying in style, age, condition and carved sentiment. The ground has contour and the trees are mature. Everything you need for a picturesque cemetery.

Including some sizable art and a handful of mausoleums.

That’s the stone of the Jung family, early Milwaukee brewers. What was it Jung said about beer being the royal road to the unconscious? No, that was that other Milwaukee brewer, Ziggy Freud. I believe they were rivals.

A good number of priests are buried at Calvary, including some fairly recent internments, such as this long row of Jesuits.

More Jesuits. A wall of Jesuits, with room for a few more.

The cemetery was unusually busy for a cemetery, because it was on the Doors Open Milwaukee list. Not for the grounds or stones, but for the chapel atop the fittingly named Chapel Hill.

“This cream brick Romanesque style chapel was designed by architect Erhard Brielmaier and built in 1899,” says Historic Milwaukee. “A noted designer of Catholic churches around the country, Brielmaier also designed the famous St. Josaphat on the city’s south side, under construction at the same time. The chapel is located on one of the highest elevations in the city with impressive views of Story Hill, Miller Park and the downtown skyline.”

A nonprofit, the Friends of Calvary Cemetery, is overseeing the long and expensive restoration of the chapel. Some decades ago, the Archdiocese had planned to tear it down, but fortunately preservationists prevailed. Members of the Friends showed visitors around the inside on Saturday. We had to sign a waver in case a piece of it fell on us.

The crypt was dark and crypt-like.

“Originally built intended for services, prayers, private contemplation, and as a mausoleum for clergy, only one clergy member was ever buried at the site,” Historic Milwaukee continues. “The structure has two levels: the upper level features the chapel, with its raised sanctuary and high altar, side altars recessed in twin apses, lofty vaulted ceilings, soaring arches and central dome; the lower level is the bi-level mausoleum containing 45 crypts. Reposing directly beneath the main altar is the body of Reverend Idziego Tarasiewicza, interred in 1903.”

Why just him? The authoritative answer seems to be, dunno. Go figure.

Hope Lutheran Church & The Carpenter Mansion

Posted on September 25, 2023 by admin

I went on Saturday to see a church, Hope Lutheran, west of downtown Milwaukee, but I also got a good look at its attached building, the Carpenter Mansion. It’s an unusual Siamese twin-like pairing of structures.

The Carpenter House came first, built in the 1890s as a home for the founder of a thriving commercial bakery and his large family. These days, it’s a little long in the tooth, though a nonprofit is overseeing its restoration, a slow process. Still, handsome cream city brick, artfully put together.

“The gorgeous cream city brick Queen Anne house is a stunner outside even now, with its broad arches squaring off the entry porch – which also has some striking, stumpy and bulbous Romanesque columns – the elegant chimney, the decorative carved panels – including one under another arch, this one a second-story window – and the remains of a turret on the southeast corner of the home, which is perched atop a small hill,” writes Bobby Tanzilo in On Milwaukee.

The newer Hope Lutheran has its charms, too, such as a well-kept exterior.

The church ceiling evokes the ribs of an upside-down boat, like an impromptu meeting place for members of the early church. In that, and its elegant and simple lines, Hope Lutheran reminded me of St. Paul’s Episcopal in San Antonio, though the structure is even more pronounced in the Texas church.

Also like St. Paul’s, a fine array of stained glass windows.

How often is the Serpent seen in this medium? Not sure how often. Note the nick in the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

The church and the house are connected via a small room. The church bought the house long ago, and most of the first floor is church offices. The upper floors are closed for the ongoing restoration.

I took an interest in the fireplaces.

Artful in their way as the stained glass.

Doors Open Milwaukee 2023: A Nondescript Warehouse, Home to an Enormous Theater Organ

Posted on September 24, 2023 by admin

A summerish weekend as the fall equinox came and went. That made Saturday a good day for Doors Open Milwaukee.

The main event on Sunday was planting the enormous number of tulip bulbs that Yuriko acquired at a yard sale recently for a small price. If half or a quarter or even a tenth produce blooms next spring, there will be a nice display.

How would one start, and profit from, a virtual tulip bubble? Just wondering. Sillier things have happened in our time.

This was the sixth Doors Open for me. Yuriko didn’t feel like it this year, so it was a solo shot up to Milwaukee and back for me. When I was reading about possible sights at Historic Milwaukee’s web site, I came across one for Carma Laboratories, maker of lip balm Carmex.

“The 40,000 square foot building was built by Carma Laboratories approximately thirteen years ago specifically to function as a warehouse and distribution center,” Historic Milwaukee said. “The style of the building is a generic contemporary warehouse made of concrete.”

Well, fine. Why should I go there? Next paragraph:

“Carma Laboratories, the manufacturer of Carmex Lip Balm, is home to the world’s largest theater pipe organ, [which is] housed in its distribution center. The organ contains 6,000 pipes, a concert grand Steinway Piano, numerous percussion instruments and a set of handbells all playable from the organ console.”

Really? Rarely has such a bland opening paragraph been followed by such a wowzer. I knew I had to see that. It was my first stop Saturday morning.

Ordinary exterior indeed.

It’s one building in a district of suburban offices and distribution centers in Franklin, Wisconsin, which is south of Milwaukee proper.

Inside.

The organ is the vast enthusiasm – hobby is hardly the word – of the president of the company, Paul Woelbing, who was on hand to tell visitors about the organ, which has been under construction by the Century Organ Co. for years and isn’t quite finished even now. But enough to belt out a rousing version of the main theme from Star Wars (1977), which was playing when I walked in the door.

“When Woelbing and his late father, Donald, were inspecting a vacant warehouse for the expansion of Carma Labs, the acoustics of the cavernous building gave him some inspiration,” says the American Theatre Organ Society. “Woebling, a collector of paintings, old Harleys, and self-playing musical instruments, naturally thought of a pipe organ for the space.”

Woelbing at the console, programing the instrument ready for another piece, but I forget what.

Not Toccata and Fugue in D minor, though I’m sure that played at some point during the day. Still, the piece that did play was equally rousing, seeming to fill the space from top to bottom. Theater organs aren’t an enthusiasm of mine particularly, but I know a powerful instrument when I hear one.

This recorded concert from this summer gives some idea of its power and range, but not quite like being there.

The sound is one thing, but I’d say the icing on the cake is the location. We’ve all heard organs of various sorts in various places — including a few theaters — but in an obscure warehouse in an obscure corner of the Midwest? Sweet icing indeed.

The organ’s many parts occupy only part of the warehouse. The rest is exactly that – warehouse space, which was roped off to us casual visitors on Saturday.

“The nucleus of the instrument is the 3/15 Wurlitzer organ that was originally installed in Chicago’s Nortown Theatre,” says ATOS. “Denver organ enthusiast Dr. Bruce Belshaw purchased the organ in the 1950s and installed it in his home, before it made the current move to the Franklin, Wisconsin warehouse.

“With many additions, the now 90-rank instrument has extensive tonal colors. The organ has been used for annual company holiday parties, and Woebling’s desire is to share the instrument and music with the community.”

The Peshtigo Fire Museum & Fire Cemetery

Posted on August 27, 2023 by admin

You can drive from Sault Ste. Marie to metro Chicago in a day. It would be a long day, maybe eight or nine hours depending on traffic, construction, etc., but you can do it. I decided against such a long day, breaking the trip roughly in half by spending the last night of the drive around Lake Superior – which I was leaving far behind by this point – in Marinette, Wisconsin.

One reason: so I could enjoy a leisurely drive through the UP, including westward on Michigan 28 and then south on National Forest 13 through Hiawatha National Forest.

These are roads unlikely to make it on conventional best-drive lists, except for one that I might compile myself according to idiosyncratic lights, which might also include the Icefields Parkway, Lake Shore Drive, Alamo Heights Blvd., North Carolina 12 on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands, among others that come to mind. That the UP has two such favorite roads says something about the car-commercial driving to be had in the mostly forested UP.

Light enough traffic, at least on National Forest 13, that you can stand on the center line and take pictures at your leisure.

Another thing about NF 13: It took me to Pete’s Lake once upon a few times, and again on August 5, though I didn’t camp this time or experience a thunderstorm or yahoos yelling in the distance. It remains a sentimental favorite spot.

On the morning of August 6, I finally headed home, with one more stop in mind: Peshtigo, Wisconsin, a place that demonstrates, if nothing else, that the human mind is a creature of habit.

That includes me. I only mentioned the town in passing in 2006, when we stopped at the Peshtigo Fire Museum.

The building is a former Congregational church, on the site of a Catholic church that burned down in the firestorm of 1871 – which remains the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history, according to the National Fire Protection Association. Remarkably, the Maui wildfire is, for now, placed at fifth; modernity can’t protect us from everything.

“On the night of October 8, 1871, in Peshtigo, a lumber town about seven miles southwest of the Michigan-Wisconsin border, hundreds of people died: burned by fire, suffocating from smoke, or drowning or succumbing to hypothermia while trying to shelter in the Peshtigo River,” notes USA Today.

“But the fire also raged across Oconto and Marinette counties into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, while another blaze burned across the bay of Green Bay in Brown, Door, and Kewaunee counties.”

No one knows exactly how many people perished in the Peshtigo fire — I’ve seen varying estimates, all in the low thousands — but it was certainly more than in the Great Chicago Fire, which happened the same day. Which one is mostly remembered? Chicago, of course, thus illustrating a habit of mind. Once a thing enters the tapestry of the popular imagination, it can crowd out similar events.

Peshtigo isn’t a large museum, but it is full of stuff.

The museum includes much information and a few artifacts from the fire, though naturally not much survived. The fire itself is illustrated not by photography, but artwork.

Two volunteer docents were on hand to spread the word about the fire. It’s the only distinction for modern Peshtigo, pop. 3,400 or so. One was a woman about my age, the other a woman about Ann’s age. Again, good to see young’ins up on their local history.

Speaking of that, the museum is actually more local history than the single incident of the fire, as important as that is. As such, there are many artifacts from the entire spectrum of the town’s history (including in the basement).

Next to the museum is the Peshtigo Fire Cemetery.

Including survivors of the fire.

Along with many who did not.

Too grim a note to end on. Not far south of Peshtigo is a roadside plaque I’d seen before, but not photographed.

“The most obsessive of all of 45th Parallel markers are the plaque-on-rocks sponsored by Frank E. Noyes,” says Roadside America. “We know that he sponsored them because he put his name on every one.

“Frank was 82 years old, a faithful Episcopalian and 32nd degree Mason, and president, general manager, and editor of The Daily Eagle, a Wisconsin newspaper founded by his dad. For reasons lost to time, he became fixated on the intangible world of latitude in 1938 and put up plaques around his home town of Marinette to mark the halfway line.”

There are other such signs, of course, not of Frank Noyes origin, such as at the Montana-Wyoming border, as seen in 2005.

Except for bathroom and gas breaks, the Wisconsin 45th parallel proved to be the last stop of the nearly 2,000 miles around the lake.

Sid Boyum’s Neighborhood

Posted on August 10, 2023 by admin

Some seriously bad news: the destruction of Lahaina, one-time whaling village and short-time capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 19th century, as Maui wildfires torched the historic town. My memories of the place are vague after more than 40 years, but I do remember thinking at the time, how cool is that, a royal capital.

As for Sid Boyum, I never had a thought for him until a few weeks ago, when I read about the outsider artist of that name, whose work is sprinkled in public places in an unpretentious neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin. He’s been dead quite a while, and information about the conservation of his body of work tends to come in rarely updated spurts.

Still, there’s no doubt that much of his work is still easy to see. Such as this one.

“Faces,” according to a concrete plaque.

Syd Boyum died so long ago (1991) that his obits were on paper. Fortunately, they are linkable in our time, including one by a friend of his that that informs us that Syd lived with his many cats, created a fair number of artworks that depicted naked women, and was a fishin’ fool. Also, he won the Burlington Liars Club contest one year, and was a friend of House on the Rock impresario Alex Jordan, who died not long before Syd. This more bare-bones notice stresses his sculpting abilities.

I’d say old Syd did have a knack for sculpture.

“Man-Eating Mushroom,” part of a set.

These particular works are along Atwood Ave., a mostly commercial street that runs through Syd’s neighborhood, which according to the city of Madison is known by the clunky name Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahara. Signs on the ground indicate Schenk’s Corners, at least on the ground near where Atwood and Eastwood Dr. and Division St. meet.

I already knew the area a little: Atwood is home to Monty’s Blue Plate Diner, where we had an (obviously) memorable lunch passing through town five years ago, and took note of the Barrymore Theatre across the street. Both are still standing. The first night of the drive this time around, I had dinner at Monty’s, which served me a most tasty hamburger.

There are many other Boyum works in the neighborhood, but I contented myself with that handful that morning; it was the second day of the drive, and I wanted to head north. But not before I’d taken a stroll through the neighborhood, whatever you call it, to the edge of Lake Monona. Toward that end, I hit the sidewalks.

Monona forms the south shore of the downtown Madison isthmus. A shallow lake known to the Ho-Chunk and which witnessed the death of Otis Redding and members of the Bar-Keys in 1967.

A handsome house near the lakeshore.

In back of that house, a tree house.

That has to be the best tree house placement that I’ve ever seen.

Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison

Posted on August 9, 2023 by admin

I spent the first night of the drive in Madison, Wisconsin, ensconced in a motel room as a late evening thunderstorm, a powerful one, blew through. Little is so pleasing as the sound of wind and thunder and strong rain outside while you are comfortably in your bed – in a rented room.

The next morning dawned clear and warm. So of course the first place I went was a storied old cemetery, a creation of the 19th-century rural cemetery movement, in this case Madison’s Forest Hill Cemetery, dating from 1857. It’s an expansive place.

A small section near the entrance is devoted to Civil War dead.

It was a pre-dog tag war.

A couple of small chapels grace the grounds.

But not a lot of large memorials. Rather, a fair number of mid-sized ones.

Along with many old stones, of course. Some crumbling, as the decades of Wisconsin weather do what they do.

Still, Forest Hill, which is forested but not very hilly, is an active cemetery, with newer stones as well.

Fighting Bob La Follette and some other La Follettes are buried at Forest Hill, but I didn’t look for anyone in particular and didn’t know he was there until later. Seeing his bust at the capitol the day before counted, by my attenuated standards, as visiting a presidential site.

After all, he headed the Progressive ticket almost 100 years ago in ’24, getting a respectable 4.8 million votes (Davis got 8.3 million and Coolidge 15.7 million). He also got some electoral votes – Wisconsin’s 13 — which not all third-party candidates do. George Wallace was the last such candidate to do so, in 1968 with 46 votes, but none can compare to the haul made by TR when he ran as a Bull Moose (88 votes). And I’m not counting the 1860 election; everyone was essentially a third-party candidate that time.

The Wiki data on presidential elections is quite granular. From it, I learned that the county with the highest percentage of Progressive votes in 1924 wasn’t in Wisconsin, but Texas: Comal County, with nearly 74% going for Fighting Bob. That’s a nice go figure fact.

The Wisconsin State Capitol

Posted on August 8, 2023 by admin

When I visited the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison in late July, I didn’t see this building.

Rather, I saw this one, late in the afternoon of the first day of my drive.

The beaux-arts capitol is actually Wisconsin’s fourth, replacing the one pictured in the postcard, which burned down in early 1904. The state tasked George B. Post to design a new structure, which took a while to complete, finally being finished in 1917. Post was known for late 19th-century mansions – paid for by robber barons who wanted to show off – but he also did other elaborate buildings, such as the New York Stock Exchange.

The gilded bronze on the top of the dome is yet another Daniel Chester French work, “Wisconsin.” French was a prolific fellow.

Like the Tiffany Bridge, this wasn’t my first visit to the capitol. That would have been sometime in the late 1980s. Wisconsin is, however, one of the few capitols, along with Texas and Illinois, that I’ve visited more than once.

So this visit didn’t change my vanity map of capitols, but I thought I’d update it anyway (green for interior visits, orange-pink for exteriors only, Hawaii gold because I don’t remember, but I might have seen it).

Lilly and I spent some time in the Wisconsin capitol during a December 2016 visit to Madison. It was cold that day, naturally, and visiting was a relief from the chilly air. This time the building interior was a relief because the day was hot and sticky. Besides, who doesn’t enjoy a view inside the dome?

The interior is as resplendent as the exterior. Badgers were in a few prominent places.

Those paintings are allegories. Liberty in this case, but also Justice, Government and Legislation, on the other three corners.

This capitol doesn’t feature a lot of statuary, unlike some, but there is a bust of Robert M. La Follette, no doubt considered a Wisconsinite among Wisconsinites.

I like these pics of him, lifted from Wikipedia. Fighting Bob all right.

The Assembly chamber was closed, but I could still see Old Abe through the window. He looks down on the legislators, presumably reminding them to do their duty.

I’ve seen Old Abe depicted before: on a tractor and a memorial at Vicksburg. Another Wisconsinite among Wisconsinites: He was the mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment from 1861 to ’64.

“The regiment procured a large, shield-shaped mount and perch to carry the eagle,” says Atlas Obscura. “Old Abe witnessed all of the regiment’s battles. He was taken into combat with the regimental colors… Old Abe participated in 37 battles and skirmishes. The regiment mustered out of service in 1864. On September 26, 1864, his army comrades returned Old Abe to Wisconsin and gifted him to the people of the state.”

When the bird died in 1881, he was stuffed and put on display at the capitol – the one that burned down in 1904, reducing Old Abe to ashes. The one you can see now is another stuffed eagle, doing homage to the mascot. I didn’t remember seeing him on previous visits, but now I have. Huzzah for Old Abe.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Category Archives: Wisconsin