Spring City Chronicle

… and then he was gone and no one knew where.

But thankfully there were some, about one in three or four. People who didn’t know him before they had stopped by that first time, people who grew up with him and people who had lost touch with him over the years and found him again, who had made stopping at his corner an almost daily part of their lives because they felt at home there. They would rather sit about the kitchen table than the living room and discuss what they had read. It was a comfortable place where they got the jokes and enjoyed the product. Those people were a treasure to him. A treat to be gratefully savored. They would be missed. He wished them long lives, good sleep, good health, good luck and flannel sheets when the winter came.

To squelch any possible rumors, I’m not dying any faster than you are, though I wish I had a nickel for every time a doctor has said to me, “We don’t normally see that in someone your age.”  The e-mail box in the sidebar is not going on hiatus, so drop me a line if you feel like it. I’ll probably answer because of that obsessive compulsive personality thing of mine. Frequent the blogs in the sidebar, because I do and there’s some good stuff going on in them. 2010 sure looks like an interesting year, but that’s a decision for another day. Today is all we have and all that matters. Goodbye for now. Goodnight, Allison.

Right now, I can’t think of a better closing number:

I tried six ways from Sunday to chop the intro and just get the music, but WordPress won’t allow it. Music starts at :17. I could have imbedded the video with the slide show but the video loops if you do that and it becomes anti-climactic.

Well, second thoughts? You bet. Old men don’t like change, even when they are the ones deciding to change. If I were to come back, it wouldn’t be on a daily basis, that’s more work than I want to do. We’ll see. I can always change my mind. See you on the way out the door tomorrow.

• I’ll  be at least 58 years old next weekend, so talk loudly.
• Would you want to live in the City of Pewaukee or City of Pewaukee Lake?
• Good luck to all the local high school teams!
• They will rebuild the Kwik Trip on St. Paul. They’ll make it bigger so they can hold more beer in the coolers.
• It wouldn’t be a dispatch without a picture of Mayor Larry and some over-sized scissors.

• Remember to listen to Peter Ostroushko play “Horizontal Hold” on December 21st when you are putting on the flannel sheets for the winter.
• Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I watched Geraldo Rivera’s visit to Al Capone’s “vault” and they found some broken bottles. One of the great non-happenings in live TV history.
• “Destination Truth” is having its best season ever and watch “Storm Chasers”. Of all the “ghost” shows, “Extreme Paranormal” is the worst as it makes me uncomfortable and they don’t find anything. “Ghost Hunters” is still the best. What happened to “Most Haunted”?

• 

  Kris Williams from Ghost Hunters

• The picture was taken by Amy Bruni, also from “Ghost Hunters”, and was posted on her Twitter account.
• Most of the Twitter accounts I follow are women. Does that make me a stalker?
• I’m serious about building a replacement for the Waukesha Expo in downtown Waukesha. You want to give a permanent, year-round boost to downtown businesses? Build a small convention center/arena. People would actually have a reason to book rooms at the Clarke Hotel.

• 

  Larry Nelson Memorial Center

• A final Sound Off.

Native American Prayer

Oh, Great Spirit
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me, I am small and weak,
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold
the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things
you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have
hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my Spirit may come to you without shame.

(translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887)
published in Native American Prayers – by the Episcopal Church.

I’m grateful for a health system which allows me to call a dentist’s voice mail in a private practice at 5:40 a.m. about a terrible pain in my jaw and by 10:20 be taking an oral cortical steroid created for profit by our pharmaceutical industry which takes the pain away and an antibiotic which (hopefully) takes the cause of the pain away and provides jobs to a private company and profits to private investors.

For I have been in an emergency room of a public hospital and seen recipients of government-run public insurance (Medicaid) get turned away with what was probably similar jaw pain. They were told to go to a public Medicaid-funded clinic, where they would, no doubt, sit for hours in pain.

I am again grateful for the absence of pain.

I’m grateful that I have worked with good people over the last 40 years in several jobs who forgave me my failings and made me look better than I was. I’m grateful for a car which starts when I turn the key. I’m grateful for the three pillows on my bed which let me rest my head. I’ve grateful when I have no pain, which isn’t today, darn it. That root canal is beginning to ache. Suffering catfish, he scraped it all out. What could be hurting?

• Let me be the next to let you know that Darryl E. looks to be throwing his hat into the mayor ring:

“Want to let you know that I pulled nomination papers today to  run for Waukesha mayor. That makes six so far who have pulled papers for mayor.

Darryl Enriquez: Publisher of waukeshanewsonline.com”

• An interesting decision. A political novice with insight. Hmm.
• I will not be running for mayor.
• This is a stunning about-face.
• I have to go to work.

Well that was as perfect an October day as one could hope for. Temperature in the mid-to upper-60’s with plenty of sunshine. The Packers win in a laugher. The Vikings lose, the Bears get the snot kicked out of them, had some laughs with some guys, raked some leaves, had the perfect apple tart, for all that, I am grateful. For this is a gratitude week.

Tomorrow is one of those 7:00 starts at work, so be prepared for choppy posting. But I think I’m only working today and tomorrow, so the rest of this final week should continue unabated.

• Don’t you think the police have to do more than tell this guy to stay away from elementary schools?
• There’s already a Kwik Trip at 1809 W. St. Paul which isn’t that old. I wonder what their plans are.
• That Sunset video store space already has a new tenant.
• Want to invest in a Waukesha company? Generac is having an IPO.
• Congratulations to President Obama on his first foreign burning in effigy.
• Look at this booshwa from the AP: High jobless rate could be new normal -Many jobs lost could be gone forever. These are the apologists for this Democratic administration. No conservative or, hopefully Republican, would ever say something like this. The job situation can be fixed. Tax credits to small businesses who hire workers would be a start. Not laying a health insurance or union requirement on small businesses would be a start. Declaring defeat: The Democratic Party way.
• Andrew Bogut of the Milwaukee Bucks made the Forbes list of the NBA’s Most Overpaid players. They’re probably still paying Glenn Robinson, so I’d pick him.
• Viking fans, you’re sitting at home saying, “Well, it wasn’t Favre’s fault that the ball bounced off the receiver’s hands and lost the game.” Welcome to the world of Favre apologists. The thing to know in this world is: Nothing bad is ever Brett Favre’s fault. We know. We lived in that world for many years.
• Here’s the Cleveland paper’s article. I have nothing to complain about yesterday, the Packers were near-perfect.