Clowns Selling Cheeseburgers

Kaasa farmstead

I took this and a few other photos on what used to be Curt Hanson's land (maybe it still is??) .

The reason I bring this up was Tuesday night I attended the Columbus Agribusiness Dinner and a few of my images were on display. One of them being my Cows which was a gift to Ben Brencel the Secretary of Wisconsin Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection and I'm told will soon be hanging in their office.  (I should have asked him about my stolen laptop from that "business" in Columbus).

This means that I not only have an image hanging in the Secretary of the  Department of Agriculture and Consumer Protection but also The Attorney General's office in the Department of Justice.

My goal is to infiltrate all Government Agencies! 

It was a pretty entertaining time but to be honest I was totally lost when it came to the speakers and I did not have a clue what they were talking about.   Oh, I understood the words but they were meaningless to me and I thought perhaps I was having a stroke.

I believe at one point the speaker said something on the order of:
 
Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense.

WHAT???  I know the words but . . . . .I quickly took a few aspirin and survived the night.

I gave a 8x12 of the Kaasa farmstead (or what is left of it) to Curt Hanson a few months ago and Tuesday I had a 20x30 printed on metal impregnated paper and got it back Monday and it looks AWESOME!!  Not sure what to do with it but I gotta say it looks sweet, it almost glows.

ANYWAY - I've been under a little stress the last few weeks (4 days actually) as I had a candidates forum. Some of you might remember that I'm running for City Council as the Moderate candidate (who knew I would be the moderate) and last night was the big TV show in front of a crowd of literally thousands (maybe 20).

All went well except my opponent was a no show.

We were given 12 question to prepare for and I was ready, but then we found out that each of us would only get to answer four of those questions which was rather disappointing because I had a drinking game all set.  Every time I say "family first community" take a shot.

Not once did I have a chance to say those famous catch phrase words. sigh!  It was a conspiracy against me and the tavern league is investigating.

HOWEVER - I did get to say one thing which I'm pretty sure will be headlines in newspapers across the country and I'll have to go buy a USA Today today so I can save it.

CLOWNS SELLING CHEESEBURGERS! 

Sadly the Mayor of our fine Community is filing paperwork as I speak to have me excommunicated from Columbus because he mistakenly thinks I was talking about him.  You see he also owns Mullins Shortstop which sells great cheeseburgers in the NORTH EAST Gateway to Columbus and is in the middle of a massive land-grab and was last seen wringing his hands and laughing with evil glee as he levels historic (old) gas stations.

But I digress. 

The actual quote was about the SOUTH WEST Gateway to Columbus. The question was:

What should the City's role be with future development on the Gateway area? 

Obviously, I should have countered with . . . "WHICH Gateway area!!"

Enerpac already draws attention to Columbus and we need to make sure the quality of this development matches or augments this area. I don’t want this area to be crowded with Clowns Selling Cheeseburgers. When we develop this area, this needs to have class!

I  was asked some good questions though but a few good ones I missed.

I did not get the question about our Library which might be good because I might have found out that half the city was born in Kentucky when I said:

At the Public Library Association's bi-annual conference last week, someone referred to our square footage  as "Kentucky levels."

But the Senior Center question I wish I would have been asked:

Many people when they think of the Senior Center they think it’s a place where old people go to hang out.

True true

I toured the Senior Center last year and was flabbergasted with how many different tools are at their disposal.  YET – every year their budget seems to drop another $10,000.

My father in law is 88 and a living survivor of the USS Indy and my mom is 87 living in Illinois with my bother and both love being around people their age so they can talk about us crazy youngsters and how we don’t really know what we are doing. 

I consider the Senior Center as one of the most important parts of the city because it offers a wide range of health, recreation, education and most importantly social interaction to the greatest generation and soon my generation, the 2nd greatest generation.  Our senior center is a huge social support system that combats loneliness and depression.

After all the seniors that frequent the Senior Center are responsible for you and me.  They deserve our attention and respect.

There was a study of 800 seniors that started going to a senior center and after one year,

46% felt less lonely,
48% had reduced levels of stress,
43% were more satisfied with life and
40% either increased or started exercising and here is the kicker,
49% laugh more frequently

To say our senior center is important is an understatement  

OH - I was just informed that someone thought I said our SCHOOLS are failing. The infrastructure is failing not the schools.

AAAARRRGH - my cat is DRIVING ME CRAZY!! This is him 10 minutes ago when I called him a good kitty.  NOW - he is walking back and forth on my keyboard and and stepping on everything he can find, I can not get rid of him.

Here is the forum  - ARGHH  DAMN YOU CAT . . . in it's entirety - I can't watch it.  I wish we had teleprompters.

http://vimeo.com/89573523


Columbus Council Candidate Forum from Columbus Wisconsin on Vimeo.

I'll have more question I did not have an opportunity to answer in coming blogs!

Go Bucky

Rod