Friday, 12/20

You know, I'm actually not ashamed to admit which Christmas song I've been listening to over & over this year. A little surprised, but not ashamed.

Every year around this time, it seems as if I mentally grab onto a song and listen to it over and over. As we both know, I listen to songs over & over quite a bit, but only once a year do I do that to holiday music. And while I have no idea how my brain happened to latch onto this particular song, I'm proud (?) to say that this year's winner of “The Song That Jim's Psyche Refused To Let Go Of, Holiday Edition” is...

Taylor Swift's “Christmas Tree Farm”?

Nope; I'm not quite sure why myself. I just know that about a week ago I woke up with the song running through my brain and since then it hasn't left. After listening to it dozens (if not hundreds) of times I' was trying to figure it out. I wondered if it was the optimistic lyrics or the sing-along chorus, but after those dozens of listens, I think I finally put my finger on it.

“Christmas Tree Farm” has been stuck in my brain because of the chimes.

I'm being serious. The chimes, which you might not even notice unless you listen to it dozens (if not hundreds) of times, are actually the backbone of the song. I realized that after I found myself air-chiming along, and each time I listen to it I seem to discover one or two hammer hits that I hadn't heard before.

So if I have to give credit to something for lodging the song in my brain, let's give credit to the chimes and whoever layered them into the backing track. After all, I'm usually air-drumming along to whatever song I listen to over and over again on repeat.

But air-chiming? I have to admit that's a first.

Here you go...get it stuck in your head, too--

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 12/19

Even though you think the difference is big, when you compare the pictures you realize it isn't.

Many of you may recall our non-winter winter last year, a winter where we had a whole 30-some inches of snow instead of our usual 120+ (almost half of that 30-some inches on one day). One year ago today we had no idea just HOW non-winter it would be, although we probably had an inkling when you look at some pictures I took on December 19^th, 2023, showing just HOW non-winter it was--

It was so non-winter, in fact, that on December 19^th I actually wore shorts to work-- 

THAT'S how non-winter it was.

So compared to last year, this winter is a return to normal, right? Well, it is, to an extent. We had a bunch of snow a few weeks ago, but as happens with an increasingly frequency as climate change wrecks havoc on us, it disappeared. Here's an example, starting with one of the pictures I took a year ago today--

And then a picture I shot yesterday of the exact same courtyard--

The sky this year is what we expect in December, but it you look closely the snowfall is not what you'd expect in December. Sure, it's more than it was a year ago, but then anything—literally just a flake of snow—would be more than we had last year. I don't know what that portends for the rest of this winter, but we'll see. I'm doubtful we'll have to have a debate about whether or not we'll have a white or green Christmas, but after last winter I don't think anything's off the table any more.

And the pictures I took a year ago today prove it!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 12/18

Yesterday I talked about what I find when I'm walking here or there. Today I wanna talk about things I see when I'm walking here or there. Specifically, I wanna talk about one thing I see all the time--

Acceleratorists.

Pardon the made-up word “acceleratorist”, but I couldn't think of anything else to describe the people I see several times a day except “acceleratorist”. These are the drivers I see speeding up to a stop sign or a stop light, hammering their brakes before coming to a complete stop, then flooring it when they start again, continuing the cycle at the next stop light or stop sign.

“Acceleratorists”. It's what you get when you have a fetish for accelerator pedal. And that's how I came up with the word.

Now, I know I'm not a normal person, especially when it comes to driving, but I don't get what acceleratorists are doing. Why would I want to speed up to a stop sign, come to a complete stop, then speed up as fast as possible from a dead stop, only to come to a complete stop again in a few blocks when coming to another stop? I'm kind of sure it's not good on your car, I KNOW for sure it causes you to burn through gas a lot quicker than a smooth, steady acceleration, and I'm guessing that you save very few, if any, seconds in your day by doing it.

I just don't get it.

Ever since I've noticed people doing this, I've tried to see if there's a certain “type” that becomes an acceleratorist. But much to my surprise, I haven't been able to. It seems like every demographic subset is represented. I've seen men do it, I've seen women do it, I've seen people in small cars do it, and I've seen people in pickup trucks do it. I've seen people do it in the morning, during the day, and at night. There doesn't seem to be any defining characteristic to an acceleratorist.

They just seem to be everywhere.

Like I said before, I'm in no position to judge acceleratorists. I don't drive (much), and I have no idea why they're doing what they're doing. After all, they may have a good reason for it. All I know is that, on those rare occasions when I do drive, I don't drive like that. Of course, that's just me.

You know—the me who see things, and finds things, while I'm walking everywhere instead of driving.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 12/17

It's amazing what you see and what you find when you don't drive. Today, what I've found.

Walking pretty much everywhere, as I do, you notice things that you wouldn't notice if you're driving here and there. For instance, this past weekend, I found two crumpled up pieces of paper on the ground. One, when uncrumpled, turned out to be a five dollar bill, which bought Loraine and I extra chocolate from the Marquette Food Co-op.

Good thing I was looking down at the ground at that certain moment, right?

The other piece of paper I found was this--

In case you can't read what it says, it states in hand-written script:

“Hi :) my name is David. I've been coming in here the past couple weeks—thats when I first noticed you! I've been trying to think of ways to talk to you...however...I didn't want to bother you at work! Im sorry for this I just think you're sooo cute!”

Wow. I don't know why I found that note on the sidewalk. I don't know if it was a note someone wrote to give to his intended, or if it was written as a script for the guy who wrote it to say out loud. I don't know if the guy who wrote it dropped it, or if the girl (or guy) to whom he intended it tossed it. I don't know the whole story behind it, nor do I know how it ended up on a Front Street sidewalk in Marquette.

I'm just guessing there's an interesting story behind it. What prompted David to write it? Was this something he had tried before, or was it a shot in the dark? Since he was writing it to a person who was working, was it someone working at a business near where I found it, or does it have nothing to do with where the note ended up? And I'm kinda curious—did the note make its way to the person for whom it was intended? Did it work?

Inquiring minds want to know!

I realize the odds are incredibly slim that I'll ever find out the answers to those questions, and that's okay. Sometimes, the story's more interesting, at least in your mind, when you don't know all the answers. However, that note—and the five dollar bill I found—are proof positive that you can come across interesting things when you keep your car turned off and head somewhere on foot.

Tomorrow? An observation based on something I see all the time while out walking.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 12/16

I've said this before, and I'll probably say it again—my life is weird. But in a very, very cool way.

We've been shooting a lot of “High School Bowl”s recently, so much so that we're now on the second or third appearances this season for some teams. And as the year's worn on, I've noticed that some of the students are doing something. Some of them are dressing like me. Some of them are saying that if they could spend an hour with any person, living or dead, they would choose (for some bizarre and inexplicable reason) me. Some want to be in pictures with me. And some even want to draw pictures of me--

I'm not quite sure why, but as Dakota put it while taping Friday, “(t)hose kids really like you, don't they”? They do. I don't know why, but they do. And in a life of increasing weirdness, it's a cool thing. In fact, one of the coaches mentioned that his team was quite excited when we re-scheduled the cancelled taping Friday because, and once again I'm quoting here, “they get to hang out with you”.

And I get to hang out with them.

I have no explanation for what's going on, but maybe it's just one of those things that doesn't need an explanation. I get along with teenagers and they, for whatever reason, get along with me. Maybe it's because I'm just a teenager myself on the inside, or that I treat them as I treat everyone else. I don't know. I guess I just do what I do, and what comes out is the end result.

Yes, my life is weird, but you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 12/13 (!)

I have to go shoot a hastily rescheduled “High School Bowl” in a few minutes (hastily rescheduled because it was canceled during the snow-day-that-didn't-happen-Wednesday, but everyone's available to be in Marquette this morning), so I'm going to leave you with an oldie but a goodie.

But it's thematically similar to what I've been writing about most of this week—Christmas music. So in that respect, I guess, it fits.

Have a great weekend. Back with something new Monday which, I'm thinking, won't deal with Christmas music at all!

8-)

******

(as originally posted 12/23/15)

I wonder how popular The Carpenters would be these days?

That thought entered my mind when Loraine was listening to their “Christmas Portrait” album the other day. If you’ve not heard it, it’s a mix of instrumental and vocal holiday tunes, all segued together into kind of a Christmas symphony, and contains one of the most touching yet melancholy songs of the season ever, “Merry Christmas Darling”. It’s one of those albums that’s gained kind of an iconic status over the years, and that led us to wondering where The Carpenters would be these days, had Karen not died of anorexia in 1983.

Loraine and I, both being children of the 60s & 70s, have the gender-differing views of the duo you’d expect of children of the 60s & 70s. She grew up listening to and enjoying them, while for me The Carpenters were something my mom listened to and became something to which I should to pay little or no attention at all. Yet because Loraine still listens to a song of theirs on occasion, and because she listens to “Christmas Portrait” every holiday season, I find myself exposed to their music more than ever, and I have to admit something that no guy who grew up as a child of the 60s & 70s should ever admit--

They were actually pretty talented.

If you put aside all your pre-conceived notions of The Carpenters as schmaltzy or syrupy or any other sticky adjectives you’d care to conjure, you’d notice two things--that Richard Carpenter, who most of their producing and arranging, really had a flair for melody. And, of course, you’d notice that Karen Carpenter could actually sing, despite the sometimes schmaltzy and syrupy material with which she had to work. You can tell that they both learned a lot from the people who wrote their songs, people like Burt Bacharach, and when you consider that Bacharach is now treated like a musical legend by his younger contemporaries, how would The Carpenters be treated?

Would they still be vital recording artists, having albums produced by people like Jack White or having their songs covered by groups like Arcade Fire? Would they still be touring every year, perhaps performing albums in their entirety like other iconic groups of the 70s? Or would they be stuck playing Branson or Vegas eight months out of the year, and find themselves peddling their music on late night infomercials? After all, it’s a very thin line between kitschy and cool, and I’d be kind of curious to know on which side they’d fall--would they be like Burt Bacharach, or would they end up like, oh, I dunno, Tony Orlando, with or without Dawn?

Sadly, it’s one of those things we’ll never know, although that doesn’t stop some of us from speculating upon it. Just one of those things that runs through your head when you listen to a Christmas album in the week leading up to the holiday. Amazing how things like that work out, isn’t it?

Thursday, 12/12

Who would you rather have been--Chubby Checker or Bobby Helms?

No, I haven’t gone off my rocker, and no, this isn’t just some bizarrely random question. It may be bizarre, but it’s not random. It’s probably not a question you would think of any other time of the year, but it’s certainly not random. But yesterday's blog about my favorite Christmas songs made me think that it's the perfect time to ask the question. And, if it’s okay with you, I’ll explain why.

Both Chubby Checker and Bobby Helms were singers as the 1960s rolled into existence. Now, they were both popular before I was born, but I do have an understanding of what they did and the impact they had in the world of music. For about a year and a half, Chubby Checker was the biggest thing in pop music. He had three number one songs, including one that topped the charts twice (“The Twist”), and was mobbed everywhere he went. If I had to make an analogy, he was kind of like the Taylor Swift of his day, minus the NFL boyfriend. For that year and a half, he was a S-U-P-E-R-S-T-A-R under any definition of the word. Bobby Helms, on the other hand, was never really that famous. He had a few semi-popular country songs, made it onto the pop charts once, was never mobbed, and just kind of disappeared quietly. His stardom certainly wasn’t anywhere near the magnitude of Chubby Checker, but you know what?

If I had to choose between having been Chubby Checker or Bobby Helms, I would’ve chosen Bobby Helms.

While Chubby Checker was the biggest thing in music for a year and a half, we don’t think about him much any more. People don’t listen to his music on a regular basis, and people (like me) born after his reign on the top of the charts probably couldn’t tell any of his songs from any other recorded during that span of time. While Chubby Checker was the biggest star in pop music for a year and a half, nowadays he’s basically forgotten.

Not so Bobby Helms. While he was never a superstar in the musical world, and while he never had a number one song, the one song of his that DID make the pop charts was a little Christmas ditty called “Jingle Bell Rock”. The song actually charted three years in a row in the sixties, has been featured in everything from TV commercials to the movie “Lethal Weapon”, and is instantly recognizable to anyone born after it was released. Bobby Helms may not have been a huge star in his time, and people may not even know who he is today, but unlike any song by Chubby Checker, we sure do know one of his songs.

And THAT’S why, if I had to choose an answer to that bizarrely random question I asked at the beginning of this blog, I’d choose Bobby Helms. How about you?

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 12/11

Seeing as how it's supposed to be snowing out soon (we'll see about it this time around) and we've started to throw a few holiday tunes on the air I’ve started to think about what MY favorite Christmas songs of all time might be. I’ve narrowed it down to five. Actually, I DO know what my all-time fave is, but I also have a soft spot in my heart for the other four, as well.

First the four runners-up, in alphabetical order (and with the caveat that I don't consider Relient K's punk version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” a classic, at least not yet. But it IS getting there, and if I were to re-write this list in a few years it'll be on it.)

So, the five?

“All I Want For Christmas Is You”, Mariah Carey. Now, I’m not a big Mariah Carey fan, but there’s just something....irresistible about this song. It puts a smile on your face, it makes you sing along with it, and it gets stuck in your head. Can you ask for anything more in a tune, especially a holiday tune?

“Most Wonderful Time Of The Year”, Johnny Mathis. Why? Well, because it’s a great example of old-school Holiday music, with big orchestras, big vocals, and an urge to make you start dancing. Oh, and it mentions ghosts, too, therefore also technically qualifying it as a Halloween song, as well.

“Same Old Lang Syne”, Dan Fogelberg. When the (sadly) late Mr. Fogelberg wrote the song, I don’t think he intended it as a holiday song (it was just a single off of an album), but in the 44 years since (44 years?!?!?!?!?), it’s become a holiday classic. It’s a rare example of a downbeat tune (like “Merry Christmas Baby”) that actually works as a Christmas song; add to that an incredibly wistful string arrangement, and you’re set.

“White Christmas”, by (ahem) Vince Gill. For the first two and a half minutes of this song, it’s just incredibly sublime guitar playing. Then for the next two and a half minutes, the vocals kick in. We play this particular version on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; if you happen to hear it, you’ll know why it’s on this list.

And, finally, Jim’s favorite Christmas song of all time? There’s just no question about it…

“The Christmas Song”, by Nat King Cole. It’s ethereal...it just is. And it’s not OFFICIALLY the holidays until you listen to it.

That’s my top 5 list. What's on yours?

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 12/10

I hope I didn't overstep my bounds.

Whenever some exclaims “everyone says that” or “everyone I know think that...” my radar immediately goes up. There is not one subject on this planet on which we can all agree.

Don't believe me? Just check your social media feed.

Nonetheless, I went on TV last night and purported to speak for all 300,000 residents of Upper Michigan. I'd hope that most of those 300,000 would agree with me, but I'm pretty sure there must have been one or two of them standing up and shouting at their TV, perhaps even throwing something, as I spoke.

You can decide for yourself.

(jim@wmqt.com), hopefully not overstepping his bounds.

Monday, 12/9

I think dark chocolate stars have gone the way of dinosaurs, wagon trains, and Kim Kardashian’s first 2 or 3 marriages—

They’re extinct.

I once again realized that this weekend as I started to make my cookies for the holiday season. For many years I would try to get a bag of dark chocolate stars for those Cherry-Chocolate Explosion cookies I make. Every year when I made them I would get a bag of milk chocolate stars and a bag of dark chocolate stars, and alternate putting them on the cookies. One cookie would get milk chocolate, the next would get dark chocolate, and so on. But you know what?

I can't do that any more. But thank goodness for Dove Dark Chocolate. It's a lifesaver.

The store where I used to pick up my dark chocolate stars was (and don’t laugh) Menards. That’s right; I’ve never once gone to Menards to buy a hammer or screws or a roto-tiller; I have, however, gone to Menards to buy dark chocolate stars, if only because they usually had a pretty good selection of them. But not any more. Because of that I ended up checking out over a dozen other local stores, coming up empty. Most of them had a selection of milk chocolate stars, but nothing in the way of dark chocolate stars, which meant that a few years ago I had to make a choice—I could either make the Cherry-Chocolate Explosions with only milk chocolate stars, or I could find a substitute for the dark chocolate stars.

Oh, the horror.

Since I couldn’t make the cookies without SOME form of dark chocolate, I turned to the aforementioned fine people at Dove, and have started picking up a bag of their yummy dark chocolate Promises, a chocolate on which I munch quite a bit. So half the Cherry-Chocolate Explosions now have milk chocolate stars on them, while the other half have chunks of Dove dark chocolate on them. And if anyone notices and/or complains that they miss the dark chocolate starts from years past, I’ll refer them to the Menards customer service department.

Although I once again didn’t find dark chocolate stars anywhere this year while doing my annual cursory search, I almost picked up something else at one of the stores. Like many stores, this one has strange things planted near the checkout, in the hopes of piquing your curiosity enough that you’d pick one up and throw it in your basket. And I have to admit, I came close to buying something that I saw there; you see, next to glow-in-the-dark pig stickers and a Homer Simpson chia-head sat something I never thought I’d see, something that really has no reason to exist, except to separate a consumer from their money—

What did I see? A Justin Beiber musical electric toothbrush.

That’s right; you can buy an electric toothbrush with Justin Beiber’s picture on it. Not only that, but when you use the toothbrush with Justin Beiber’s picture (pre-tattoos) on it, you can listen to Justin Beiber singing while you’re brushing your teeth. You know, I don’t think I’ve come across something so useful and vital to humanity since, oh, 1979, when I believe I saw a Rex Smith three-in-1 hair brush/tire gauge/mini filing cabinet somewhere in a catalog. Of course, now that I think about it, the Rex Smith three-in-1 hair brush/tire gauge/mini filing cabinet might have been something I imagined after eating a bad taco. Unfortunately, the Justin Beiber musical electric toothbrush was real. After all, I haven’t had a bad taco in quite some time now.

See what the lack of dark chocolate stars has led to?

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 12/5

Well, sad to say, welcome to winter. Looks like there's nothing we can do about it this time around.

As I look out my window this morning, and knowing that Marquette is usually one of the lower snow-totaled communities in Upper Michigan, I’m guessing that many of you throughout the U.P. are staring at over a foot of the white stuff on top of the two or three feet you received last weekend. Cheer up, though; after all, it’ll only be around for, oh, the next 5 or six months.

8-)

Five months. And before you think I’m kidding, you know I’m not. After all, we've had many years where we've had beginning in the middle of May. And if you add five months to today, you know what you get?

Yup. The beginning of May, 2025.

So how am I gonna survive five months of stir-crazy cabin fever, especially after our non-winter winter last year? I have no idea; hopefully, I won’t end up standing out in the street naked yelling at the snow gods for making my life miserable (although that WOULD be a neat way for me to get into the Police Log, wouldn’t it?). I guess that over the next five months, I just hafta adjust my lifestyle. I won’t be able to spend as much time outdoors, I won’t be wandering around the area taking as many pictures, and I won’t be wearing shorts very much. Instead, I’ll sit inside and read a little more. Plus, I have History Center shows and videos to work on, and my weekly TV gig to write. And I’ll check off events like Christmas, New Year’s, the Noque, and Valentine’s Day, knowing that each event we go through means we’re one little step closer to the return of green (or at least brown) grass, sunshine, and sweat rolling down your back as you go running without 14 pieces of clothing covering up your body.

Yes, I know I’m a walking oxymoron. Yes, I know that for someone who was born in the U.P. I shouldn’t complain about winter, I should instead celebrate it. It’s just that, you know, it’s winter.

And it’s here for the foreseeable future.

A few pictures from my walk to work this morning--

******

Because I get a birthday day off, I'm taking it tomorrow instead of yesterday. If you're listening on air, you'll hear a “best of”. If you come back here, you'll see this very same entry. Back with something brand-new both on the radio and here (and on TV, as well) Monday!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 12/4

It's my birthday buddy's birthday today. He was a guy who died decades before I was even born, yet I've always felt an affinity towards him just because we happen to share the same birth date.

And because of the fact that even though his life was tragically cut short, he seemed like he was an incredible dude.

Since I have to go shoot a Wednesday “High School Bowl” in a few minutes, I'm going to leave you with the text of a speech I gave about my birthday buddy on the 70^th anniversary of his death a decade or so ago. I've put it up here a few times in the past, but it's perhaps the one way I can honor Alvar Liimitainen.

Happy birthday, Oliver. Your birthday buddy,

(jim@wmqt.com)

******

“As far as I can tell, there haven’t been a lot of noteworthy people who’ve been born on December 4^th. There’s Jay-Z; there’s Dennis Wilson, the late drummer of the Beach Boys; and there’s some British guy who did something with economics back in the 1700s. They may be famous; whether or not they’re noteworthy is another matter altogether.

So let me introduce you to someone born on December 4^th who, while he’s in no way famous, certainly is most noteworthy. Alvar Liimatainen was born in December 4^th, 1919, to Albin and Lempi Liimatainen. He was one of four children growing up in what was then referred to as Marquette’s “Piqua Location”; in fact, you can still see the family house if you’re riding or walking down the bike path near Sherman and Cleveland streets. Oliver, as absolutely everyone knew him, was a typical kid in the 1920s and 30s; he had a paper route, he tried his hand at ski jumping, he sang, and he ran track. He was most atypical when he received an award at his graduation in 1937 honoring him as never having missed a day of school his entire academic career. Not one.

This wouldn’t be the only time in his life Oliver was out of the ordinary.

After graduation he worked as a bellhop at the Hotel Northland before joining the Army Air Corp for what was supposed to be a three-year hitch in 1940. He had hoped to become a pilot; however, he was given training as a radio operator and assigned to a bomber crew that found themselves being sent to places like Brazil and Egypt before ending up on the island of Java the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Japanese also attacked other U.S. installations that day, including the base where Oliver was stationed. He found himself in the middle of the airfield when the raid began, and took cover in a foxhole made out of sandbags. He received a mild concussion and was put in the base hospital for a few weeks. He didn’t mind, though; in a letter to his brother, he said in the hospital he was finally getting food that was edible and, quote, “that helps a lot”.

The next couple of months were busy for Oliver and his crew. They flew 22 bombing missions in the South Pacific. They were attacked by enemy fighters 15 times; Oliver himself was credited with shooting down three of those fighters and damaging three others. On August 6^th, 1942, Oliver’s crew—commanded by captain Harl Pease, and co-piloted by an Australian, Fredrick Earp—left their base in Australia for a bombing mission over Lae, New Guinea. On the way there, they had one of the engines on their B-17 fail, and had to return to base. This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence; what happened next was.

When Oliver’s crew returned to base, they knew that they had another mission the next day. They didn’t know what it was; they just had been told it was important. So the entire crew found another B-17 that was barely flight worthy and worked all day and all night to make sure it could get off the ground. On just three hours sleep, Oliver and his crew took off the next morning on a mission they knew was important but didn’t know why. As it turns out, their mission that day was bombing a Japanese fighter base at Rabaul Island. They were to bomb the base so that the fighters could not attack U.S. Marines that would be, at the same time, landing on Guadalcanal. They had no idea why they were flying the mission; they just knew they had to fly it.

Oliver’s crew as one of thirteen bombers that made it successfully to Rabaul and dropped their bombs on the Japanese base. On the way back home to Australia, their jerry-rigged plane started having mechanical problems, and fell behind the rest of the squadron. Thirty enemy fighters had by then appeared in the sky, and since Oliver’s plane had fallen behind the rest of the group, they bore the brunt of the attack. The B-17 was last seen losing altitude over the jungle, with no parachutes observed leaving the aircraft.

With that, Alvar “Oliver” Liimatainen became the city of Marquette’s first service casualty of World War II.

Several months after the incident, each member of the crew was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for their work the day before and their actions that fateful day. Captain Pease was also awarded the Medal of Honor, and to this day, there is a Pease Air Force Base near his hometown in New Hampshire. But it wasn’t until 1946 that searchers discovered the wreckage of the plane, as well as two bodies. They moved those remains to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, where they spent several years trying to identify the remains. It took until 1950 for them to be able to distinguish that one of the bodies belonged to the Australian co-pilot I had mentioned earlier. In fact, that was thanks to the discovery of a shoulder patch of a member of the Australian Air force. After studying dental and physical records, the other body was identified as Oliver’s. His parents asked that his body be returned to his hometown, and it was on this spot on August 7^th, 1951—nine years to the day after his death—that Oliver was laid to final rest.

A total of 72 men and women from the city of Marquette died in World War II. Some are buried not far from here; some are buried in the countries in which they died, and some were never found. They all have stories like Oliver’s, and that’s one reason why we wanted to hold this ceremony tonight. Whether they were born on April 20^th or July 7^th or December 4^th, they were all among the most extraordinary people ever born on that particular day. They were the men and women who did things that most of us could never imagine doing ourselves, and they were the men and women we honor tonight.

Alvar “Oliver” Liimatainen. Born December 4^th, 1919. Died August 7^th, 1942. Laid to rest here August 7^th, 1951. Thank you for your service. And thank you for being extraordinary.”

Tuesday, 12/3

 Well, it COULD be the official Christmas song of the UP, right?

Like many ideas I have for "Life in the 906", the one I did last night came to me in a flash.  I was thinking of doing a piece on Yooper-appropriate holiday music, and had a few ideas, but nothing that really spoke to me.  The out of the blue Friday morning I had a thought.  That thought quickly expanded into a notion.  Then before I knew it (literally; it took less than a minute) all these ideas started flowing out of me, and as quickly as I could write them down I did.

And in the end, I had my suggestion for the official Christmas song of the UP.  Here it is (and, as a side note, don't you just love the expression on my face in the thumbnail?)--

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 12/2

 I think we lucked out with this one.

First of all, hope everyone had a great holiday weekend.  I did, although I'm guessing that our friends in the eastern and western UP probably did not.  They were blasted by that ongoing winter deluge that has affected the Great Lakes.  I know Ironwood had a couple of feet, Houghton almost two, and both Munising and the Soo had over two feet of snow in less than 24 hours.

Meanwhile, what was is like here in Marquette?

Seriously...that's a picture I took yesterday (Sunday) afternoon as Loraine and I walked down Third Street in Marquette.  While the rest of the UP (and, indeed most of the Upper Midwest) was getting hammered by snow, we had, uhm, blue skies.  Oh, it was cold, thanks to the wind, but we had nothing--and I mean nothing--in the way of snow.

I guess we're just lucky that way.

Now, that's supposed to change today, if only because the wind is slightly shifting direction, and we may get a couple of inches of lake effect snow (only a dusting, though, as I write this).  Even if we do, it'll be nothing like the two feet Munising received (or, indeed, the almost four feet they got in Erie, Pennsylvania).  All of this snow is lake effect, and because of the direction of the wind--northwest--the Keweenaw Peninsula protects us, acting like a breakwall out in a rough lake.  Now, if the wind shifts directly to the north today, as predicted, then we lose that protection, and get a little snow.

But, like I said, it'll be nothing like what the rest of the Great Lakes region has been getting.

I keep wondering if we'll get a "normal" winter this year, knowing full well that nothing is "normal" any more as far as our weather goes.  And this past weekend proved it.  While there was snow to the left of us and snow to the right of us?

Well, we got to work a little on our December tans.  Go figure.

(jim@wmqt.com)