Bricks

Problem of the day - how does Columbus handle homes and properties that are in the "blight and deterioration" mode.  Until recently ignoring the complaints seem to be how things were handled.

We do have an unenforced ordinance Chapter 18 - BUILDINGS AND BUILDING REGULATIONS ARTICLE VII. - PROPERTY MAINTENANCE CODE that spell it out,

Sec. 18-580. - Penalty. Any person who violates, disobeys, neglects or refuses to comply with any of the provisions of this section shall be subject to a forfeiture as provided in section 1-20 of this Code.

here is a link to what SHOULD be happening according the the current ordinance.

Sec. 1-20. - Citations for Code violations.

So the question is should city council look into making this happen?  There seems to be some resistance to this.  Should we just get rid of the ordinance? Should we actually start to enforce it?

What if enforcing the ordinance costs the city money with extra labor.

Just putting it out there.

We all want a clean community but at what cost?  At what point do we say enough.  When a lawn mower is left on the yard too long?  What are the parameters to come down hard and who is the bad guy here.  Are we messing with peoples lives too much?  It is there land and property to do with what they want.  What is the tipping point where the city says that is it.  When the yard is too long?

Who will have this ultimate power.  questions.

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We are in the home stretch to the election and Clinton holds a 79.1% chance of winning but the gap is closing.   Wall Street actions are pointing to a Clinton landslide with gridlock (Lefty POTUS, righty congress) and all agree a Trump victory will put the American economy into a tight and violent tailspin of uncertainty and chaos.

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Who knows the story of these bricks

I was at a party this past weekend and the homeowners had a few of these which they found buried under their current sidewalk.  Seems they were common a large number of years ago?

I worry is that when James Street is torn up next year they will find these and they will end up in a landfill.

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So in the last week France and Uzbekistan are the #2 and 3 countries to read this blog.  Uzbekistan had 69 page views while France (always up there on page views) had 338  What is up with that!

Amish - EV Melotte

OH OH - I'm running short of the typed pages of my moms words.  I need to get DJ back to transcribing her hand written stuff.

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ANYWAY - remember!  Mullins, Columbus's best outdoor eating venue closes Wednesday for THE DARK TIMES ahead of us (no! not the election) as winter nears.  We should have a nice fall but once the new year hits it gets cold and snowy.  At least NOAA says there is an elevated chance.

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School starts this week and America is having a teacher shortage.  There are fewer teachers and on average the teachers are making less money and school systems are receiving less money from the taxes you are paying  . . to help schools.  

I know a few teachers and they use their own money from their paychecks to buy needed things for their students.  Is that right?  When you go to work do you buy things out of your own pocket to do your job?

America has 1 million more school kids this year but lost 200,000 teachers.  The teacher/student ratio is the highest since 1990.  School funding is 6.6% LESS then 2008.

The good news is that cuts have stopped and some states (not Wisconsin who continues to cut) have increased spending on schools but the real problem is finding teachers.

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Then there is Obamacare and it's problems.

Obamacare has allowed millions to finally get insurance and in that regard it's working.  America is a much healthier place. The problem is that all of a sudden insurance companies are being forced to actually DO THEIR JOBS and are losing money at an alarming rate.

UnitedHealthCare will lose $500 million this year.  Why?  Because they are actually doing their jobs.

Before they would just take money from healthy people who never needed doctors.  NOW - they are forced to pay for low income people and people that had preexisting illnesses.   OUCH - they need to pay doctors?  THAT! was not in the fine print.

So while the GOP wants to block fixing Obamacare and just get rid of it.  Why not try FIXING it. Instead of throwing your hands in the air saying the sky is falling, sit your ass down and fix it.

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OH - shot a 47 last week in the Championship rounds.  Actually had a birdie/par back to back on 11 and 12 in Door Creek.  My problem is I need to stay away from the nightmare holes.  each round I have one or two holes where I bust out a 7 or a 9.  I need better course management and to stop trying to be a hero.  
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OH OH - last night - what was that hatching that took place. Tiny flying bugs everywhere - I mentioned it on Facebook and even people in Green Bay were commenting.
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This spring 6.2 million (7%) Monarch butterfly's were killed in Mexico because of storms  The good news is they covered 10 acres of land which was up from 1.7 acres in 2013 but down from 44 acres 20 years ago.

The Monarchs that you see in Columbus are either the 7th generation that started in Mexico this spring and have flown up from Mexico.  They go to the same plants their late ancestors went to last year - OR - are young and about to fly a few thousand miles to Mexico.  What started in spring and took 7 generations to get here - they have to make it all on their own.  Amazing.

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The emerald ash borer has killed 130 million ash trees which is starting to have an effect on major league baseball as 25% of the bats are made of Ash.  Most are made of Maple.

BTW - my Autumn Blaze Maple tree turned bright red late July.  Totally red.  It still grows and will be one of the last trees to lose it's leaves. WEIRD.  I would worry but it seems healthy and even with full color in July will not drop one leaf early and still has grown a few more feet this year. It's been averaging about 4 feet a year since we planted it.  

I never raked last year, it never dropped it's leaves like a normal tree.  Like 1 leaf a day over 3 months!

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Amish - EV Melotte

 In Holway the area we lived in was almost entirely Old Order Amish. Of the thirty or so pupils attending Lincoln School there were only eight who weren't Amish. They called us the "English."

I was entranced with the Amish people. I loved everything about them, their strange but so becoming clothes, their clean, fat farms, their clip-clop footed horses and secretive black buggies, the way they talked, and most of all their unfailing courtesy. Once in a fast and wild game during noon hour a smaller boy slammed into me and knocked me down. Instantly the game stopped. Instantly the boy was leaning over me anxiously saying, "I'm so sorry! Is thee hurt?" and an older boy was helping me to my feet and telling him, "Learn to look where thee's going, William." and a girl was exclaiming over my slightly scraped elbow and leading me by the hand to the teacher, Miss Bergman, for cleaning and a bandage. The fall hadn't shaken me, but the concern did. At Washington School the whole pack would have tromped right over me.

There were two things that made Lincoln School special for me. One was that for the first time in my life I had friends. They were Amish, and we weren't allowed to visit in each other's homes, but from the time we met on the way to school until we parted on the way home, we were friends. The other special thing was that for the first time I had a classmate, non-Amish, who was accustomed to getting straight "A''s without a struggle. Since we both wanted, and expected, to stay Top Dog, Eugene and I both threw ourselves into a brain-battle and became learnaholics. At the end of the year Miss Bergman  insisted, with report cards to prove it, that we finished in an exact tie. I've never believed that. I've always wondered if she was kind enough to not want either of us to lose or wise enough to not want either of us to win.

Miss Bergman is a shadowy figure in my memory. She may have been a much better teacher than I realized at the time. She had to prepare eight of us for High School, while not offending the Amish parents who wanted their children to learn nothing of "the world" beyond reading, writing and arithmetic. It's significant of the problem that no books except textbooks were ever allowed in Lincoln School.

   -EV Melotte

LOST - EV Melotte

Some other news I forgot to mention about Columbus and it's is that I think Columbus is having a growth spurt for the first time in like . . . . 100 years!

That is Bailey on the far left with her sisters, Sydney and Cadance. Bailey will be in the class of '34 and Jenny (mother) already knows 13 other class of '34s living in Columbus.

Of course they will graduate from the same old high school . . .you know, the one with mold in the carpets and furniture and asbestos in the ceiling?

BUT - who needs a new school when we can rent huge blowers.  Columbus has a fantastic school system that draws people . . . . . except for the over crowding and lack of bathrooms in the high school.  I believe people who do not want a new school also do not want Columbus to grow and increase it's tax base.  

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BEES - I'm not fond of those garbage bees that fly around you and into your drink as you try to relax but DJ and I found a fix.

Bees are highly territorial so if you put a couple of these near you they will fly in, look around and fly away.  It actually works.  They think the bags are bee hives.

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I had a friend get his plug pulled last night after a massive heart attack Tuesday.  He was 46.   Paul was not the kind of guy that went to the Doctor or really paid attention to his health.  They just could not get his heart to stay running and he had suffered too much brain damage. RIP my friend.

AND YOU GUYS - TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.

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I could not make it to the Council Listening Session - The last two nights of golf league and the Championships rounds were in full swing.

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Took our car to AMS to get an augmentation to the stereo system.  The car is the perfect listening cube for music.  Enclosed and totally controllable. AMS is in the Verona area - God I hate that area.  Houses exploding, nightmarish traffic, crime.  Columbus is such a fantastic place. I gotta go back there around 3:00    OMG   Fitch-rona sucks.

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LOST

The house in Holway, that we moved into when I was eleven, was set about a quarter of a mile back into a vast tract of woods. The woods had been logged over many years previously. They were re-grown by then, but were still traversed by miles of winding, twisting, circling, branching off and re-joining logging trails of the kind called "corduroy." These were made of logs laid tightly adjoining across the trail, and the trails led hither and yonder to wherever the loggers happened to be working.

Pa knew those trails fairly well. He'd done a little logging there himself. The only one road I'd ever been on was the one that led from our back yard to a field of Mr. Frohmann's where we could cross the road to the Frohmann farm. I'd gone that way twice with Pa.

One beautiful fall afternoon, walking home from school, I was deep into a conversation with Rebecca Rademacher and Henry Frohmann. Rather than break it off at their side road I turned off with them, left them at the edge of the Frohmann field, and started home on the trail through the woods.

I was daydreaming. I was dawdling along, kicking up fallen leaves, tossing fallen pine cones, being an eleven year old girl on a sunny, blue-and-gold afternoon.

After quite a while it occurred to me that I'd been walking on that trail for-----quite a while. Surely I should be almost home by now. And I hadn't come to that really sharp bend yet-----

I stopped and looked around. Nothing looked familiar, but it probably wouldn't. I'd never really noticed my surroundings when I'd come through here with Pa I tried walking back a few hundred feet. Surely I'd have noticed that uprooted tree if we'd
passed it together. Or would I? I hadn't noticed it when I passed it a few minutes ago---

I must have missed my turn-off. I seemed to remember a "Y" junction a ways back. I'd taken the right-hand branch. I probably should have taken the other one. I went back and took the left-hand one.
After a little way that branch turned north and came to a "T" corner. That wasn't right, I would certainly have remembered a "T" comer. I went back, retraced my steps until I came to another "Y." That looked right for a long way, but it wasn't O.K. I'd just have to go back to the field and start over.

I couldn't find the field.

By then the sun was going down and I was walking in deep shadow. The woods on either side were darkening and so thick with brush that I couldn't see into them. All I could see was the corduroy trail curving out of sight ahead of me and behind me, and a little bit of sky. I looked up at the sky. If the sun was almost set, why was the sky lightest in the northeast?

I had an awful realization. On those twisty trails I had lost my sense of direction.

I sat down on the trail and closed my eyes to try to re-orient myself. I could get it right with my eyes closed but as soon as I opened them it all flipped wrong again.

Still, if that was west, then this was south and south is how I had to go. Or---was it? Maybe I'd gone way east or west of the house. Or even south of it. Well,if l went any direction consistently I'd come out of the woods somewhere.

But couldn't go any direction consistently if I stayed on the trails and Pa had said no one must ever leave the trails until he'd marked all the bogs with red flags. He'd said some of them were almost like quicksand. He said the bogs accounted for a lot of the curves in the trails.

I started walking again.

It grew darker. They would have finished supper by now. They wouldn't know where I was. I'd never come home this way before--

I started noticing a rustle in the trees behind me on my left. Just wind---but it was only behind me and only on my left. It felt creepy down my back. Finally I looked back, just for the reassurance that there wasn't anything there. What I saw was a huge cat shape in a leap from one tree to the next. "Huge" is relevant-but believe me a cat shape of around three feet in body length, plus the length of legs in the middle of a leap, is huge when you're alone in deep woods at dusk and weren't really expecting to see anything.

Pa had said there was a bobcat in the woods. Pa had said bobcats wouldn't attack humans except in self-defense. Pa had said we'd probably never see it, but if we did we should just leave it alone. He hadn't said what we should do if it wouldn't leave us alone.

It followed me. Sometimes it was in the trees, sometimes it slithered through the brush, sometimes it padded down the trail thirty feet behind me. "Bobcats don't attack humans." "Bobcats don't attack humans.'' It didn't comfort me much.

It was getting darker, it was getting colder, the moon was rising in the wrong place, the corduroy trails had come alive and were writhing around like snakes, I was being followed by the shining eyes and silent feet of a wild animal who was acting like no wild animal ever did, it was weird, it was eerie, and I was stumbling along log roads that went nowhere. I was in a nightmare that had turned real--

At some point I broke completely. I backed up against a big tree that had grown up directly against the trail, clutching at the trunk with my arms stretched behind me around the trunk, shaking and sobbing. No tears,I was too terrified for tears. Just dry sobs. Utterly demoralized. The cat, who had been slinking along the trail behind me, leaped into a tree just across the trail. His body disappeared in the shadows, but his glowing eyes watched me without blinking.

I stayed there, clutching the tree and shaking and sobbing for what seemed like the rest of my life.

Much later I heard, far-off, faint but unmistakable, a familiar sound.

"Ho-0-0-0-0!"

My father's voice. Deep-throated, full-lunged, carrying incredibly far. When Ma blew her police whistle to call Pa in from the woods, Pa would answer "Ho-o-o !"  to acknowledge that he'd heard it. This was longer, a searching sort of "Ho-0-0-0-0!" He was looking for me.

My legs went wobbly with relief. I yelled as loud as I could. ''Pa! I'm here! Over here!" The bobcat made one great leap and the watching eyes disappeared in a rattle of dry leaves. I had a split-second thought that I should have thought to yell at it before, but knew I'd have been too scared to do it even if I'd thought of it. That was only for a split­ second though, I was straining to hear an answer from Pa. Nothing. I kept shouting and listening. Pa kept on "Ho-o-o-ing!" and listening, but Obviously he wasn't hearing me. My thin little eleven-year-old voice couldn't carry that distance, couldn't penetrate such thick woods.

I was crying tears of desperation when I remembered my hog call. Pa had heard it, at lowered volume, every day for all the years we'd had pigs, and once, at full volume, it had brought the runaway pigs back from the deep woods. The next time I heard Pa call I cupped my hands around my mouth, opened up my throat, took a deep, deep breath and from the bottom of my belly I called, "Soooooo-eeeeeeeeee! Soooooooo-eeeeeeeeet Heee-ya-a-a-a-Cb pwoig-pwoig-pwoig  Heee-ya-a-a-a-Cb pwoig-pwoig-pwoig

The answer came instantly. 'Ho!" "Ho!" followed by something that I thought was "Stay there!" (It was.)

Every few minutes Pa called "Ho!" and I answered with my hog call. His voice slowly came closer. After a time, surely more than half an hour, surely not more than an hour and a half, I saw Pa coming around the next curve, carrying a lantern and my winter coat.

I was most awfully glad to see him.  

  _ EV Melotte

Columbus positivity - EV Melotte Flashbacks

We are in a stretch of weather that is SUMMER NORMAL.  No extreme highs or lows,  just a long string of average weather for late summer.  Upper 70s and an 80 here and there with passing thunderstorms off and on.  AWESOME.

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Columbus - I am so optimistic about how Columbus is growing.  So much good news.  I tend not to talk about Columbus as much as before as some people seem to think that since I'm an alderman I have to say everything exactly correct or else I'm giving out false information . . . like I'm some sort of news agency or something.

However - last year we had approximately 16 new homes built and this year another 10 are slated along with a four-plex. But there are other signs.  A national company, organically, decided Columbus was a good place to set up shop without "us" recruiting them. They did their own market research and O'Reilly Automotive decided they could make money in Columbus. We were a good place to grow their business - THAT is a good sign.

Then there is Fromm Brothers Fur and Ginseng Farm which you might know as Fromm Family Foods who now make pet food for independent pet food stores.  Because Columbus has in the past 4 years become business friendly and as they say "the climate has changed in Columbus"  they are doubling the size of their factory which will have an impact on the financial books of Columbus and in the past 5 years they have seen sales increase 7 fold.

I have heard this a few times in the past few months. "The business climate has changed in Columbus"  we are actually a place companies are looking at all of a sudden.  We are not anti-business like in the past.  Look at the TIF area by the Travel Center.  That has been a great success so far and is exceeding expectations with growth.  Our problem now is we are land locked.  Columbus does not have a lot of land for expansion.

On a personal note I feel the city council is continuing to attract people that really want to help Columbus, not just to fill the empty seats.  Columbus has come a long way in the last 4 years.  Are there problems? Sure, but if I look back on where we were and where we are  -  wow.  You might not see it but there is palpable growth (which rereading this does not make sense,   palpable "able to be touched or felt.".

When I moved here there was some serious doom and gloom darkness hovering over Cbus. What a depressed little city this was.    

Now, our financials are in real good shape, roads are being torn up and fixed. Departments are working in unison.  Houses are being built, new business are arriving and more coming (we need more PIZZA places and craft beer establishments).

Then we have an Olympian from Columbus and let's not forget a Major League baseball player who pitched against Lou Gehrig . . Bob Poser.  I'll have more on him at some other time.  I did a lot of research look at box scores from the 1900s.

So - I went to bed last night feeling pretty darn good about Columbus which if you are an alderman is a good thing as we get zero positive feedback - it's pretty much a constant stream of complaints and insults in this job.  WHICH - I honestly totally understand but it can wear on you.

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EV Melotte - FLASHBACK'S


Summer of 1936. I am walking along a scythed path at the edge of the hay-field. It is very hot. The sun burns through my shirt. I am being pelted with grasshoppers. It feels as if I am surrounded by dozens of hands tossing acorns at me. Some hit me and bounce away, but most cling with scratchy feet. I walk with my hands over my face, breathing and seeing through the slits between my fingers, to keep the grasshoppers out of my nose and eyes.

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Holway, in the winter of '39-'40. I am eleven. I am angry with my mother. It has something to do with her favoritism of Wayne. It's always been there, rve always accepted it as natural, after all, he's a film. For some reason this particular time is too much. I am I am furious! I pull on my coat and cap, grab my mittens and galoshes. Mother says, "Just where do you think you're going?" I answer, "Out!" and open the door. Mother is saying, "You get back here!" rm outside, pulling on my galoshes, sliding into my skis. Mother is at the door. "Evelyn May Granzow you come back here this minute!" I ski down the long driveway.

Before I reach the creek crossing I cut into the woods toward a place where the creek bank is very high and steep. Much too steep to attempt on skis that have only an instep strap to keep them on. It's about twenty feet high and it doesn't level off to the bottom. The steep bank breaks off sharply at the snow and ice covered creek. If I made it to the bottom the ski tips would be on the creek and the back ends would be on the bank and the middles would be in the air. It might even break the skis. I turn back to get a good run at it and ski as fast as ever I can to that bank, go over, fall down, lose my skis, slide and tumble and fall and land on the ice with a thud that knocks my breath out. I get up, recover my skis, climb out, put the skis back on and do it again.

And again, and again, and again.

EV Melotte

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NOT MORE WHEAT - EV Melotte

I skipped the Agora Art Fair this weekend. The weather just looked to poor and after having bad weather the week before I could tell it was goign to be a headache.  With the forecast for rain on and off and particularly during set up it was just too much for me to handle.

Saturday as the day when O I was of course watching the weather every 5 minutes and it would have been half nice and half not.  Then on the 10:00 news there was a piece about the art fair and they showed a small crowd and they interfered the artists that are always right next to us.

DJ says "HEY LOOK IT'S THEM".   Very night artists that we like and they were being interviewed but as they talk they have both hands on their canopy trying to keep it from blowing away.  They even mentioned ME . . .well . . .sort of . . by saying a number of artists did not show up.  LOL

They must have asked about the empty 10x10 space next to them.

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Weather - upper 70's and maybe a low 80 once but for the next 10 days great weather.  Maybe a Thunderstorm Wednesday and Sunday but that is about it.  

As for this winter.  Warmer then average up to December but watch out after December. Below normal temps and above average snow. January through March.

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Wheat - E.V. Melotte

One day, sometime in the middle of the 1930s Pa hitched a ride into Medford in the milk truck to buy supplies. There he found that the government, finding itself with excess wheat on it's hands, was giving it away to farmers to feed to their cattle. Pa must have convinced the officials that he had an enormous herd because he came home with ten 100-pound sacks of food grade wheat.

Saying, "That's too damn good for the cows," he hauled it into the kitchen, along with an ugly but impressive coffee grinder that he'd bought to utilize this new food supply. The grinder was cast iron painted bright red, with six legs that spread over a good eighteen inches, and about twelve inches high. It had a bulbous container squatting on top of the legs, and a hand crank. It looked like a huge red spider. It fascinated me.

Ma wasn't happy, with the wheat or with the grinder, but wheat was good food, and Pa was adamant.

Our every morning oatmeal breakfast was switched to every morning boiled wheat. That was a relief to me as I always had trouble swallowing the slippery texture of oatmeal.

Nobody objected to cracked wheat bread, or to having ground wheat added to the meat loaf or the vegetable soup. We didn't like finding it in the green beans or carrots or applesauce, but we ate it. We children quickly learned to scoop our gravy off the top of the bowl because the wheat particles settled to the bottom, but when Pa realized what we were doing he established a new rule. We had to stir the gravy immediately before taking any.

Pa found a good use for wheat as a coffee substitute. We couldn't afford the luxury of coffee, so Pa was in the habit of having a cup of hot water with his breakfast. He now had Ma keep a shallow pan of wheat in the oven at all times. Since the cook stove fire        was always burning the wheat soon baked to a dark coffee-brown. When it was just short of charring it was taken out, cooled and put through the grinder. It brewed up nicely into a pot of ersatz coffee. It was bitter, but with plenty of cream and a spoonful of molasses it was a lot more satisfying that hot water.

As the family learned to accept it, Ma grew more and more lavish in her uses of that wheat. Looking back from an objective distance of over sixty years I'm certain that Ma was grimly determined to force Pa into saying, "Enough"!"

Pa was a stubborn man.

Ma was a stubborn woman.

We gradually became accustomed to eating crunchy pancakes, flat cakes and chewy tomato soup.

Ma's winning move was a work of genius. Pa liked to finish his breakfast with a big slice of apple pie. That wasn't extravagant, we grew our own apples and rendered our own lard, so every morning he had his piece of pie. One morning he was served a slice of pie with a crust so full of cracked wheat that it looked like aquarium gravel. Pa looked at it for a long time before he tried a bite, and chewed for a long time before he pushed the  rest away.

Nothing was said in front of the children, but from that day on the use of wheat was confined to cereal, coffee, bread and such dishes as wouldn't advertise it's presence.

I don't believe we ever used up that full half-ton. We left the farm in 1939 and we didn't take any wheat with us. Maybe we left it there. Maybe Pa sold it or gave it to a neighbor. Maybe, who knows, he even fed it to the cows.

EV Melotte

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DJ made this awesome cake this weekend.  We took some photos

I said it looks like a giant donut

It was amazingly good.

Railroad Spikes - EV Melotte

Is it not wonderful waking up to thunder?  Sometimes after a lot of sun a rainy day is nice . . . unless the plan was to mow a grass that is already too tall.

The forecast is looking pretty bleak for tomorrow for the Agora Art Fair (my superbowl).  I loath skipping art fairs because they  1. cost a lot of money  2. Collectors tend to follow me and buy stuff and 3. a lot of guilt,  but the problem is putting $3000 of art work in harms way due to weather not including a $3000 canopy and a LOT of physical labor setting up tearing down and literally being on my feet, being cheery and talking to people for 9 straight hours.

I'm not sure how many people realize how much work an art fair is - I SURE DIDN'T before I started doing them.

With 90% chance of thunderstorms along with wind  . . . . . it's not looking good.   I skipped Lake Mills last year. Told my friend Cassius Callender not to go (he was there already) and a massive storm hit ruining many of his works and creating a mud bath.   SO - I'm 1 for 1 on skipping so far.

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Golfed the Legends of Bergamont yesterday and was tearing up the course . . . . until the last two holes, 8 and 9.  We started on the tough back nine and I was cruising on the front (last) nine when I seemed to lose concentration taking a 7 and a 9 on the last two holes.  I was actually ALMOST going to break 90 for the first time in my life. Well, I had a chance at least.  Just a total break down.

There was a conversation about the decline of golf on Facebook and one comment was how horrible golf courses are for the environment with the amount of junk and water they spray on the course.

Look at it this way.  If Madison had never built The Bridges, what would that swamp land be doing now, strip malls?  Low income housing? Shop-Ko?   How about Monona,  More strip malls?  A Wal-Mart?  Golf courses keep away massive parking lots of concrete and big box stores and instead they have trees and grass and wild animals.  We saw a fox running across the course yesterday,  The water used goes back into the ground water and helps cities pay for things because someone has to buy the water.  Water ain't free.

So yea - golf courses do use a lot of pesticides but look at what would happen if not for a course.      

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22% of the methane that is created by the US is from cow farts.  Add another 8% from their poop!

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Trumps unfavorable rating is up to 65%, up from 58%.  This might be a problem for him.  Clinton is in the low 50s.

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Daily Fantasy Sports is the new online poker and it's legal. I'm seeing the same type of people playing as I did on online poker.  I've been doing some testing looking at the competition.  The $1 games have most of the action. The $2 games have people that are starting to understand how to play. Then the $5 games the competition is worse then the $1 games as you get the gamblers trying to make a quick killing.  Just like online poker where the higher table you play the dumber people are (up to a point).

I have yet to test the $5000 games  LOL

All you have to do is beat 50% and you win in the conservative games.

Fanduel

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I might have posted this one but I'm just going down the line.

Railroad Spikes  - EV Melotte

Pa came across a railroad spike in the hayfield. On checking with old-time residents he found that way back when that area had been logged a logging railroad had passed through there.

I immediately went out and walked over every foot of that field and found three more spikes. From then on I searched for railroad spikes the way some children search for Indian arrowheads. Pa brought me every one he found. Before we left Goodrich I had thirty-six of them. There is no accounting for the tastes of collectors.

At that time I had never seen a train. I'd seen pictures of them, and had listened enrapt to Pa's big bass voice singing, "Casey Jones" and "The Wabash Cannonball " and especially "John Henry was a steel-drivin' man--." "John Henry's" low notes made goose-bumps run up and down my spine. I don't suppose they really rattled the window-panes, but I always felt like they did.

The romance of the old railroad legends and railroad songs made the actual presence, right here on our land, of solid proof that at one time trains had passed right by fed my imagination. As thrills go, it would compare favorably with finding pterodactyl bones.

When we left Goodrich my spikes were left behind. I didn't miss them at all, but I sure missed searching for them.

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Don't forget - my moms first book is at our library SnapShots along the way: a lifetime of poetry
 - EV Melotte . . . now ranked  #1522 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Literature > American Literature

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Have a great MUCH cooler weekend.

OH - Get to Mullins before summer ends or you will regret it.  

EV Melotte - Clothes

Just so people don't think I passed away I better put something on "paper".

The golf Gods were not as kind to me last night. The were not displeased, just not as forgiving as I the last 4 weeks and I had to make some recovery shots . . .backwards which is never a good sign for a low score.

For instance, I had a great drive but the ball rolls into a trap and then since I'm feeling pretty cocky I accidentally top the ball which then rolls 20 yards to end up literally on the trunk of a tree and the ONLY shot is backwards to the fairway. Never a good sign.   I actually swore.

Then I try to hit a 160 yard 7 iron which is ridiculous for me but it goes 150 and 2 chip shots and a couple putts later . . . . . . sigh.

This morning I'm taking off to play The Legend at Bergamont so I only have a few minutes for this.

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So to fill up space.

EV Melotte - Clothes 

In the l930's girls didn't dress like boys. Designer jeans didn't exist and neither did $150 athletic shoes. In our part of the country the boys wore bib overalls and blue chambray shirts. Girls wore one piece cotton dresses with ties in the back to make them fit longer. Sweatshirts didn't exist, Tee shirts were considered lightweight undershirts. I never saw a pair of bluejeans until we moved to Iowa in 1940.

One of the disadvantages of being the youngest child and the only girl was that the clothes that are passed down to you are boy's clothes. I always wore passed down through-three-brothers bib overalls and chambray shirts at home and frequently wore them to school. In the early grades I never owned more than one dress at a time, and if it got dirty before Friday I went to school in overalls. This bothered me sometimes, but I was never ashamed of it. I remember feeling sorry for, and embarrassed for, any girl who came to school in a dirty dress.

In winter we all wore long underwear. The girls all wore long cotton stockings over it. The stockings were held up with a garter harness which hung from the shoulders with a loose crosspiece around the waist and garters that hung from that since both underwear and stockings were 100% ribbed cotton, (no Spandex in those days,) by the time I got up from Monday morning breakfast the knees of both long johns and stockings bulged out an inch beyond my knees. By Friday the underwear legs would be so stretched out I would have to wrap them around my legs twice just to pull the stockings over them.

In winter snowpants were essential. They were made of a rough wool that hung on to every flake of snow they met. Snow pants always had to be thoroughly swept off with a broom before a child could come into a building. All winter, every house, school and probably church had a broom standing at the door. Above the snow pants I usually wore a sheepskin coat, passed down through three brothers and smelling strongly of cow bam. Then there was a wool cap that covered my ears, a wool scarf wrapped to cover most of my face, rubber galoshes lined with cardboard and leather mittens over wool mittens.

Two and a quarter miles is a long way to walk to school when the temperature is below zero.

The snowpants were no trouble if I was wearing overalls. If it was a day for a dress I had a choice of wearing the skirt outside, and probably having to sit on a cold wet skirt all day, or tucking it into the snowpants and having it emerge looking like I pulled it out from the bottom of the ironing basket and only ironed the top half. Usually I stuffed it in. Comfort was more important than appearance.

My panties and slips, which were called petticoats and bloomers in those days, were  made by Ma out of flour sacks, and bless the woman, she was always careful how she cut them out. On dress-wearing days I never had to worry about having "Pillsbury's Best" printed across my bottom as some of the girls did.

Paoli and Washington School - EV Melotte

Friday we headed to Paoli to set up our canopy early for the Art Fair in Mill Park.   While the art fair in Paoli is in a idyllic setting the place where our canopy is stationed is one of the hardest to get to when there are 50 other artists also setting up - it can be a gridlock.

We get there about 3:30 and drive the car with trailer to the spot, unload and start to set up. We get the Trimline all set and I start to put images on the walls when we notice a few drops of rain on the cardboard boxes outside the tent.

A quick look at the radar and there is a tiny speck of rain so we switch duties. DJ starts to bring the boxes into the canopy as I start to put up that last wall that we had left open for breeze.

Long story short - by the time we were finish both of us were soaked to the bone and there was a monsoon.  All art work was safe and dry.

We get home and an email that night says that "do to the monsoon no vehicles will be allowed onto the grounds Saturday morning and everything will need to be walked in"  . . from a LONG LONG way away.

The fair itself was good.  Not great, but good.  This was the 6th time I had done Paoli and it was literally average for Paoli which is good for a smaller show.   Sadly my buddy Cassius Callender was a no show for the 2nd straight art fair as I think he is intimated by my presence  . . . . . . or maybe he made such an amazing amount of money (truly amazing) in Art Fair on the Square because he sold everything so he was forced to cancel Lake Mills and setting up in mud Saturday in Paoli was just a deal breaker.

It was a normal long day - On the road by 7:30 AM and finally home at 9:00PM  Art fairs are long days.

I do want to tell people about a woman who had outstanding photography and is new to the circuit, Lindsay Snow.  The funny thing was that her wife purchased my cow image . . I felt guilty  LOL  

So that was my weekend. As always I was surprised what sold.  The image of the Washington DC Metro sold.

And a couple that just got back from their last trip to Door County because moving south purchased Fish Creek purchased my Fish Creek image.

  ANYWAY - that is my weekend.  Sunday we relaxed and drank a lot of water.  Art Fairs are notorious for not drinking enough liquid.

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More from the writings of EV Melotte

Snapshots from the Past - the upcoming (but don't hold your breath) companion book for Snapshots Along the Way  (now all the way up to #284477 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States on Amazon).

Washington School.

It was two and a quarter miles from home, mostly on a narrow dirt road that ran between heavy woods and past two dilapidated farms. One of the farms was abandoned, the other was the home of of a bad tempered dog and the three roughest, dirtiest, meanest, worst kids in school, maybe in the whole world. The dog didn't scare me, the kids did. They liked to get to school early, (that gave them more time to trip and pinch and punch the weaker kids,) so I usually got to school a few minutes late.

The school was one room, eight grades, thirty-odd pupils, one teacher. I think Mr. Viergutz must have been an exceptionally good teacher. I know I thought he was wonderful, and I got a very good basic education in the five years I went there. Mr. Viergutz had to teach us reading, arithmetic, penmanship, spelling, history, geography, and social studies. He also had to help the little first-graders who sometimes started school without a word of English. (Almost all families in the area spoke German at home.)

Then there were the sixteen-year-old boys who only came to school under duress, when there was no work for them on the farm. Every once in a while Mr.Viergutz had to take off his suit coat, loosen his tie, and take one of them outside to teach him respect.

There was a water pump in the front yard, two outhouses in the back. Along the front of the yard was a line of six pine trees of a kind I've never seen since. They were mature trees with two-foot diameter trunks, not more than twenty-five feet high, and easily as wide. Thick and sturdy branches started two feet from the ground and grew out level.

They were evenly spaced around the tree. You could climb that tree to the height of the school as easily as climbing a circular staircase. Of course we weren't allowed to climb them at all, but almost all of us did, and came back into classes with black pitch on our hands and clothes, which Mr. Viergutz carefully didn't notice.

Inside the building were eight rows of desks, with pews along the front of them.. For classes, each

Wayne and my mom - EV  1934

grade went up to sit in the pews for answering questions, reciting, or working at the blackboards. Mr. Viergutz had his desk on a low platform at the front. In the left front was a wood stove and wood box. At the left back was the water pail, washbowl, communal dipper, soap and the first paper towels I'd ever seen. They felt like construction paper and dried about as well, but I was impressed by them.

We had a one-hour lunch period and two twenty-minute recesses. During these the boys often played a game like softball, except that it only had two bases, with the pitcher half­ way between. It was played with soft rubber balls, because that's all anybody had. If Willie Eckert had brought his bat they used that but if he hadn't any sturdy stick of stovewood sized for gripping would do. The girls skipped rope or played jacks on the cement steps or just gathered in giggling groups, as girls always have and always will.

Sometimes boys and girls joined for games. We played Hide and Seek, Tag, Red Rover, Fox and Geese, Andy-Andy-Over. We played King of the Mountain on a big rockpile in the back corner until Vivian (the middle one of the three terrible kids,) found she could stay King indefinitely by throwing ten-pound rocks down on us. After that the game was forbidden.

I seldom joined in the games. I was non-athletic and timid. I would sit up in my seat in the pine tree (third tree from the right, third branch up,) and watch.

Wayne was "skipped" from the beginning of second grade to fourth grade. He finished eighth grade at age eleven and High School at fifteen. Mr. Viergutz wanted to do the same with me but Pa wouldn't let him. Pa felt that any education beyond reading and basic arithmetic was a handicap for females. "Girls should just be cheerful and obedient. That's what a husband wants."

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The Peddler - EV Melotte

HOT - today and last night golfing.

TODAY - will be hot but copious amounts of rain is coming with chances increasing all day and basically a lot of rain tonight and tomorrow as the front goes past.

Last night I was HOT as I had my best round of golf at Door Creek since August 15th 2012 as I hit a 44 and it all comes down to next week for the 2nd half championship.  The weird thing about golf and why its such a great sport is that no matter how good you do, there are always holes where you could have done better.

So I had my best round and all I'm thinking about are 4 holes with a bad chip shot or a bad drive or a missed putt.  You can never be totally happy golfing no matter how good you do.  Not like bowling where there is a ceiling.  I had a 299 many years ago and that is pretty much the best you can do, I was very happy. Golf?  I could have had a 36 and I still would not be happy . . . . . well . .. that is BS, I would be very happy.   Never mind.

Kewaunee Lighthouse

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The City Council - I was unable to attend a special joint meeting of Council and HLPC being up north but from Alderman Traxler.

**Water Tower Update**

The City Council accepted the recommendation of HLPC to accept the bid from Hermanson Concrete and Masonry to begin the removal of the remaining loose brick and to report back to the city the condition of the bricks and path forward with possible restoration.

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The Peddler - EV Melotte

During the Depression years a lot of men who had been accountants, bank tellers, and iron workers became door-to-door salesmen. I doubt that they earned a good living at it, but they earned something which probably helped their pride, and quite often they got free meals from their farm customers. They didn't get meals at our house. I don't remember them ever getting into the house at all. The business was all transacted outside, direct from the salesman's car.

I've never known if that was to keep them from knowing how poor we were or if my mother's very proper up bringing forbid her to be alone in the house with a man.

We bought all of our spices and extracts from the Watkins man. I believe we bought all of our medications from the Raleigh man. That's all medications. We never went to doctors. There was a cherry flavored syrup for coughs and a camphorated salve to put up our noses for head colds and rub on our chests for chest colds and wear under a flannel wrap around our necks for a sore throat and I clearly remember being made to swallow some of it once though I can't imagine what it was supposed to help. There was oil of cloves for toothache and iodine for practically everything. Cuts, scrapes, insect bites, warts, and a drop in a glass of water to prevent goiter.

We got our cod liver oil from the Raleigh man. We children each had to have a tablespoon of the stuff every single night of our lives until we were fourteen. The boys escaped it when they left home at that age. When I was fourteen my father left us, and he was the one who insisted on it. There was still half a bottle left, so I just took it to my room and kept on taking my dose every night until I emptied the bottle. I rather missed the bedtime habit when it was gone.

The peddler I liked best was the Tinker, but we weren't allowed to call him a tinker even though he called himself that. My mother said that "tinker" was an offensive term, on the order of "nigger" or "kike." so we called him "the man about the kettles." When his gaily colored truck, emblazoned with the slogan, "Here Comes The Tinker!" pulled up our drive I would run to the house calling, "Ma, here comes the man about the kettles!"

He did sell things, knives and scissors and canning lids and clothespins and glass knobs for coffee percolators and even kettles, but they were sidelines. Mostly he fixed things. He sharpened knives and adjusted scissors and put handles back on kettles and patched the tiny holes that wore through in the bottoms of our tin pots and pans. When he was through with the household mending he and Pa would go out to the barn or tool shed and he'd sharpen saws and mend harness and show Pa a better way to fit a new handle to the ax and all sorts of male-type things.  

Most things Pa could have fixed himself, maybe not as well,(and fitting a new handle on an ax is something that should be done very well indeed,) but Pa enjoyed talking with the tinker and my mother was always relieved to know that things were fixed right.

Pa was good at fixing farm stuff, but he didn't have the understanding or the patience for women's tools. Once he "fixed" a tiny hole in a saucepan by putting a short round-headed bolt and washer through the hole from the outside, with another washer and a nut on the inside. He figured it wouldn't matter if it sat on the stove a bit tilted. It never occurred to him how difficult it would be to get stuck-on food off that nut and quarter-inch end of the bolt. Once he adjusted the loose blades of my mother's best scissors with an eight pound sledgehammer, and got it so tight that it took him both bands and bulging muscles to open them. Ma wouldn't let him fix any more kitchenware, and he bought her a new pair of scissors from the tinker.

He was the only door-to-door salesman who ever came right into the house. He had to, to oil and adjust the sewing machine, tighten the loose back of a kitchen chair, notice when a lamp wick was getting short, so he could sell a new one. I liked the Tinker.

Over the years door-to-door salesmen just sort of faded away, to be replaced with "parties" for Tupperware, cookware, cosmetics and clothing. They have been mostly replaced by telemarketing, and now that you can buy anything from paper clips to a million dollar mansion over the Internet I suppose the telemarketers will soon stop calling I hope so.

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The four latest polls have Donald Trump in 4th place among African Americans.  FOURTH!!  Trump has 2% of the African American vote not only behind Clinton but also Johnson and someone named Stein who is running all of a sudden. Clinton has an 87% chance to win the election (if you believe in science).  Of course nothing is guaranteed. 

It seems people get a lot smarter with the REAL election as the media is all of a sudden asking actual questions and people have started to pay attention which is dooming Trump. Words matter it seems.  

Clinton has ALMOST caught up with media coverage.  Not quite.  But when I have noticed is the lack of TV ad's.  Clinton has $92 million in her war chest.  The last I read is that Trump has $800,000.  

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Gotta go work out and then a BUNCH of matting for the Paoli Art Fair Saturday! 

See ya 

Back home!!

I spent the last bunch of days moving my brother into his new house in Kewaunee.  Not a total move as he still has a business to run on Springfield ILL so the total 100% move is still a year+ away but this was more of a age of discovery in this 1930s house as there are always surprises . . . . such as . .. how does ANY heat get to the 2nd floor.

Luckily he is an a architect who works on historical homes so he can figure out things I can not imagine.  We turned on the furnace and NOPE - there are no air ducts reaching the 2nd floor.  hmmmmmm  You would think that in a 70 year old house someone would have noticed this.

The house is crazy big for $95K (the goign price for a large house in Kewaunee). The garage and studio is bigger then my house I think. Three bedrooms, huge yard.  Kewaunee is an inexpensive place to live.  The great thing is the previous owner seems to have been an electric geek as the entire house has brand new wiring, and the garage and studio is ripe with electric outlets (a crazy number).

The garbage situation is interesting. All recycling is free, but garbage costs $2 a bag. This seems to have an effect of a lot of recycling material and people throw out less real garbage.

Kewaunee has just had a large change in their city government.  For many years their government was run by a group that did not want new business and did not like the idea of tourism.  They were ousted by a more forward looking EIGHT aldermen (for a city of less then 3000??) and brand new Mayor who are focused on tourism and received a huge grant from the State just for tourism.

Another town that impressed me was Algoma who have many buildings built in the 1850s, have painted them up beautifully which has attracted business.  The murals in town are fabulous and add a lot of color.

 

Which always reminds me of my idea. Why not celebrate our history with old fashion murals. Think outside the box a little.

BUT - Ralls (brother) said to me he has never been happier and just being able to breath air in the summer is amazing.  June through September windows are closed 100% of the time in Springfield and Kewaunee seems to have it's own eco system with air temps two blocks from the lake much cooler then the rest of Wisconsin.

Ralls and Stacy at Cave Point County Park. 

Yesterday we took a short drive to Cave Point County Park home of this photo

And it was PACKED.  I have never seen so many people there but I'm always up in October . . .never summer . . .it was CRAZY!  And of course there were those crazy young people doing things they NEVER should do . . .and living.

  So anyway - We're back and trying to catch up on things before the next art fair in Paoli this Saturday.

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Trump - from a post by my long time friend and great writer - Liz Howard

I was telling the kids about the Second Amendment this morning, in our ongoing conversation about candidate Trump. After I explained the amendment and its history, I read to them what Trump said yesterday. Tati said: "oh no! It sounds like he wants to shoot her!" This was clear even to the 8 year old. The same eight year said further:

"But mom, he can change right? He doesn't have to always be bad does he?" )-:

Sound Bar FUBR and Gladys - by EV Melotte

HOT HOT  87 for a high today but that is a nice temperature - it's the 72 degree dew point that will suck your breath away.  Relief is coming  TOMORROW!

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From the just published US Election Project

"Between 2000 and 2014, there have been 834,065,926 votes cast in general elections in the United States.

Of those ballots, there were only 35 credible cases of voter fraud.

That means that over that 14 year period the 50 states did not combine to average a single case of voting fraud per state.

HOWEVER - Wisconsin was one of those State as Robert Monroe is accused of voting 11 times for Scott Walker.

Of course Trump is already saying if he loses it will be because of massive voter fraud.  And really? according to an unnamed source - he has asked three times in security meetings "if we have nukes, why can't we use them"?    It seems he watches the news over 10 hours a day.  Dude step away from TV . . .maybe try reading the Constitution.

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It's amazing the things we are learning from my moms writing.

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Gladys - from the writings of EV Melotte

Gladys was such an important part of my life that she must have her story, although much of her story is too long and complicated---and uncertain ----to give it in full. My memories of her are fragmentary and hazy. All I know for certain is that she came shortly after I was born and took full charge of me for three years. Her stay with us ended, everyone now agrees, when she left the house for a few minutes and in her absence my mother threw all her belongings out into the yard and locked the doors against her.

Gladys was the daughter of my father's first wife, by her first husband. She, (Gladys) had kept in touch with Pa after the divorce. Her mother had died, and at the time I was born she was being passed around among reluctant relatives who really didn't want another mouth to feed. Shortly after my birth Pa had written to ask her if she would come to us to help take care of the new baby. She came at once. She was then fourteen years old.

She took full charge of me. She fed me and changed me and bathed me and rocked me and loved me. I know those first four things because the family has told me. I know the last of them because all of those fragmentary memories are golden. In everything except the biological sense she was my mother. My whole known world was Me-and-Gladys.

Gladys spoke English well enough to get along, but she was more at home in Spanish. She spoke Spanish to me. I'm told that when I started talking my first language was Spanish.

One day she wasn't there, and she didn't come bac and nobody admitted to knowing where she was, or why she had gone. I knew she wouldn't have gone away forever or she would have taken me along. Ma was angry when I kept crying and asking when she was coming back. She slapped me and told me never to mention that name again.

Three-year-olds can grieve, and the grief can be mixed with bewilderment and fear. I grieved for a long time.

I was forty-eight years old, sitting and drinking coffee at the kitchen table with my husband, when he glanced out the screen door and said, "We're getting company---". I leaned forward to look through the door.. There was an elderly woman, short,, overweight, with a wrinkled face and short, frizzy gray hair, walking slowly up the driveway. My coffee cup went flying into the next room, I hit the screen door running and tore down the drive, arms out, screaming, "Gladys!"!" Her arms opened and took me injust as they had forty-five years earlier, and we cried together.

She stayed for the rest of the day. She told me Pa had found her another job and advised her never to visit or contact me. "Evelyn's so young," he had said "If she doesn't see you and no one mentions you she'll forget all about you in a few days."

She had kept in touch with Pa, and knowing he didn't pay much attention to me she also kept in touch with our nearest neighbors to be sure I was all right. The day I started school she had hidden in the woods to watch me walk by. She was relieved to see I looked healthy, but sorry to see me walking alone. She said, "Gilbert or Wayne should have walked with you." She was silent for a moment and then spoke the only words she ever said against Ma or Pa. "Your parents didn't take very good care of their children."

Before she left she gave me her address and phone number in Rhode Island. I wrote to her three times, but the letters always came back stamped "No forwarding address." Her phone number was "No longer in use." I never heard from her again.

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Hit a 47 last night which included an 8 on a par 5 and a 7 on a par 4.  grrrrrr,  I'd have to back to 2012 when I had a streak of 4 rounds in a row to find a better set of rounds.   Of course so long ago I seemed to be a better golfer as I had more <50 .="" .or="" about="" captured="" either="" flame="" have="" i="" just="" luck.="" m="" my="" nbsp="" o="" or="" out="" p="" rounds.="" to="" youth="">
Actually it's been my ability to get off the tee . . . and chipping and putting.  Maybe I just love playing soaking wet with sweat (I actually do love golfing when it's HOT).

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We purchased a sound bar for our little TV.  This is the 3rd sound bar I have "installed" so I knew there were going to be some hoops to jump through as there always is but this time.  WOW    

I unpack this weird shaped box and finally get to the instructions in the middle of the box.  The first thing the instructions have is how to unpack the box (which is now in 8 pieces).

I start reading the USER MANUAL and am following along when instruction #6 says BEFORE you do the first six things make sure the battery is in the remote.  Seriously?  Now they say that?

It's all hooked up, I have linked the blue tooth to everything and am ready.  I hit the ON button and
NOTHING.  I move cords around - NOTHING.  I look at TROUBLE SHOOTING.

The unit will not turn on.
Is the power cord connected into the outlet
> Connect the power plug to the outlet

Thank you Professor Obvious - it was one of the first things I did.

I actually do not know how that got fixed but I did get power.  The next problem was they only gave me an optical cable to go from the TV to the sound bar.  hmmmmmm. No optical on the TV.   Both the TV and sound bar have HDMI plugs so I got a HDMI cable laying around and go to plug it in   but the sound bar has HDMI-IN and HDMI OUT (ARC).  hmmmmm

I struggle and get nothing switching the cable back and forth - then I see "For more complete instructions go to the website".  I go to the site and see it's HDMI(ARC) on the TV to HDMI-OUT(ARC) (which makes no sense) on the sound bar.   NOTHING.

I call up Samsung and they walk me though it and they say "no it's HDMI-IN".  We work on things for 20 minutes and they finally advise me to call the TV manufacture which I do.

I talk to them and they actually have a plan.  We go through 5 different menus on the little TV and  . . NOTHING . . . .until I put the plug into HDMI-OUT(ARC) on the sound bar (which still makes no sense to me)  BINGO!!!!  it works.

Sounds great  . . . for what it is.

and that is my sound bar story.  People that write instructions infuriate me when they really don't know the subject.


 

Sugarfoot #6

Sugarfoot #6

She wrapped the small furred body in a blanket
as if to keep it warm, though it was cold
already. Clenching jaw against grief,
she laid it in the earth where he had dug
a grave (so small) beside the greening poppies.
Together then, in silence, they returned
the disturbed earth, each gripping back the tears
(as best they could) to keep from further wounding
the other.  Over it he placed a rock.
"In case the dogs should dig....," he turned away.

"I'd better go to work," her face was stiff,
"The day's half over. They'll be needing me."
"Me too." They went each to their separate ways.
She spent the day. . .the week . . .the month . . .not crying.

          --EV Melotte

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Well, my favorite politician I love to loath picked a fight with another handicapped individual saying me would like to punch the little guy in the face. Then making fun of a couple who lost their child overseas in war but saying they he also has sacrificed a lot by creating many jobs  . . what??  That is the same as losing a child?

OH - then he accidentally gave out a State secret when he mentioned why we are being charged by Saudi Arabia for having a military base.  umm . . . . .that was something you learned in your first intelligence meetings and were not suppose to mention.   GOOD LORD!!!

Trump is the most disgusting vile human being I have ever seen.

As of this morning Clinton has a 62% chance of winning the election according to the polls-plus model on Nate Silvers 538 site.  This is up about 14 points from last week. What I found interesting was the comments from conservatives

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld:

if repubs had championed their principles with specifics rather than embrace autocracy - they wouldn't have yielded this turf to dems.

Rich Galen, press secretary for Dick Cheney:

How can it be that I am standing at my kitchen counter sobbing because of the messages being driven at the DNC? Where has the GOP gone?

Conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace:

So most of conservative media and the GOP spent the week rooting for Russia, and now the Democrats get to rally around the flag.

Dreadful.

National Review editor Jonah Goldberg:

Why this convention is better: It's about loving America. GOP convention was about loving Trump. If you didn't love Trump, it offered nada.

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Going to get hot by Thursday but beautiful weekend coming.

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Meanwhile in Illinois - a state who's government is more messed up then Wisconsin's

Friday Governor Bruce Rauner has signed SB 2228, making Illinois the 21st state to decriminalize marijuana.  Possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana everywhere in Illinois is now not somethign that will go on your record and you might only get a small ticket.

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Have a great day!!