Wednesday, 8/19

I wonder which side of the story is actually true?

As you may recall, I'm giving an updated version of my "Happy Hour: The Legendary Bars of Marquette" tour coming up one week from today, August 26th. Last year's version was maybe the most successful I've ever done, with around 300 people following me though an evening of Canadian fire haze (Social District drinks in hand) to learn all about the wild episodes of debauchery that have occurred in Marquette bars & taverns over the past 177 years.

It was a blast.

One of the things I mentioned, though, caused a bit of confusion amongst not only me, but several people in the tour. Just as an aside, when we passed the law office on Spring Street that used to be the home of an old bar called Antler's, I repeated a story that several people have told me--namely, Antler's was Marquette's last brothel, even up and including the 70s. When I mentioned that fact--shared to me at various times by a lawyer, a cab driver, and the person who bought the building after the bar closed--someone in the crowd said I was wrong.

If only because his grandparents owned Antlers.

So one of the things I'm working on for this tour is to determine, once and for all, which version (if any) is actually true. And in the year since, you know what kind of concrete evidence I've found for any of the stories?

Zip. Zilch. Nada.

I mean, I've come across some great tales of prostitution during the 1880s and 1890s. Heck, I've even found out that area women would host (and get arrested for) paying gentlemen from the then-KI Sawyer Air Force Base into the 1960s. But do you think I could find anything that, one way or another, could establish what the story of Antlers (or the building it was located in) was?

Nope.

One of the issues I've run into is conflicting timelines; in other words, when people said certain things happened don't match up with the time the bar was in existence. I'm still checking, though, and who knows...maybe someday I'll actually uncover the truth about the bar and what may--or may not--have happened there.

Because no matter which side of the tale you believe may have happened, the truth is actually a big part of Marquette history.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 8/18

You know...I don't even remember the last time I was at the UP State Fair.

I mention that because it's State Fair week in Escanaba, when (seemingly) half the UP heads down to check everything out and eat their weight in fried food. Because it's such a big deal, I even did my TV spot about it last night, and while I was in the middle of doing it the thought crept into my head--

When was the last time I was there for the Fair?

As a kid, I was down there quite a bit. In the 90s I was there on an almost yearly basis, because we would sponsor some of the concerts (like Eddie Money and Robert Palmer, among others). But in the 20-plus since then?

Nope.

I suppose that one of these years I SHOULD go down there, if only to see how much it's changed since the 90s, and so I have a new frame of reference when talking about it. But going down to Escanaba and then going to the fair takes time, and what do I NOT have a lot of these days?

That, of course, would be time.

So I just have to add “fair” to the list of eleventy-thousand things for which I need to find the time. After all, it IS an iconic UP event, and I guess it's kind of hard to consider yourself a Yooper if you haven't checked it out at least once this century, right?

8-)

Here's the TV bit from last night--

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 8/17

I would like to introduce you to my summer friend--

Okay; right about now I'm sure you're wondering why I posted a picture of the 100 west block of Bluff Street in Marquette, a street populated mostly by parking lots and parking decks. Well, as you know, it's been a hectic summer, and as it's slowly coming to an end I wanted to give credit to one of the things that has kept me sane this season.

And that would be the 100 west block of Bluff Street in Marquette.

Let me explain. On those days when I had 8,000 things to do and just needed to escape them for a few minutes I would leave the station, walk around the corner, and come upon the 100 west block of Bluff Street. Because it's mostly a parking area I could walk up & down the street and not be bothered by much other than sunshine and the occasional glances of people who were returning to their cars. If it was a particularly sunny and/or hectic day I'd take a cup of tea (usually one from Germany) and sit for a few minutes at the picnic table someone had thoughtfully placed in the grassy area at the end of the parking deck.

It allowed me to enjoy a few extra minutes of summer weather the past few months. And that's something that everyone deserves.

It's also one of the few places in downtown Marquette where there hasn't bee a lot of construction this season. Between hotels going up and streets torn apart and parking lots left and right being redone, there's a LOT going on here this summer. But aside from work on a building on the corner of Bluff & Washington, it's been (relatively) quiet in my little “sanctuary”. And these days, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So just let me say “thanks” to the 100 west block of Bluff Street in downtown Marquette. I know our friendship was unusual, but I'm sorry it'll be coming to an end. You made this summer just a little bit better than it could have been.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 8/14

Wow. It really is almost over.

Sunday is the 16^th of August, and noon on Sunday marks the exact halfway point of the month. If you consider “summer” to be the months of June, July, and August (which I think most of us do) that means we are now about to enter the final half of the final month of summer.

Summer is 5/6ths (or 84%) of the way over, and it doesn't even seem like it's started yet.

I know I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but where the heck has the season gone? Just those few weeks ago (or so it seems) we were dealing with increasing hours of the day and (slightly) increasing temperatures to go along with it. Now it's dark at 9 pm and, in some places in the UP next week, the possibility exists that a few overnight lows could get down into the 30s.

The 30s. Summer, we hardly knew ye.

When I was young, my grandfather told me many things. I, being young, didn't think he knew what he was talking about, and promptly forgot most of them. But two things he did say stuck with me, for whatever reason. One was that sardines out of a can were delicious. The other was that as you get older, time goes by more and more rapidly. Being a kid, I didn't believe him, but as it turns out he was 100% correct. And that's why, even to this day, when I'm speaking with someone who's much younger than I (like a couple of days ago, with two young people who I know from “High School Bowl”) I always preface my “wisdom” by saying “you may think I don't know what I'm talking about, but in a few years you'll get it”.

Just like I now realize my grandfather was right, at least about how time flies as you get older. I'm still pretty sure he was way off base about the sardines.

Hopefully you were able to get something out of summer, and not have had it (like for some of us) slip by in the wink of an eye. And if you didn't? Well, there's still 16 percent of it left, and hopefully, some of it will still be summer-like.

So enjoy it with all the gusto you can.

Have a great weekend,

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 8/13

To me, the picture just seems like summer. But maybe that's just me.

I was going through pictures I've taken on my journeys the past few weeks, and one popped and just made me stare at it. I don't necessarily remember taking the exact picture, although I do remember walking along the South Beach bike path and snapping a shot here and there. But when I looked at it again last night, the first thought that popped into my head was that this image takes all that's good and right about summer and encapsulates it in one shot.

That picture?

Like I said, I don't remember shooting that particular image. But to see the flower, the bug upon the flower, the beach, the lake, the sun, and the sense of warmth that it all invokes; well, to me, at least, it's the perfect picture of a summer day.

And somehow, I was lucky enough to capture it.

That's the funny thing about photography; even if you have no skill at it, every so often you'll get lucky, be in the right place at the right time, and capture something unexpected. As I said, I don't remember taking the picture, and at the time didn't think much of it. I probably didn't notice the bug, or the shoreline, or anything other than the flower. Yet, some how, some way, it all came together in one shot.

Thankfully, it came together for me.

The both path along South Beach is one of my favorite places in Marquette, for several different reasons. However, until the past week or so, one of those reasons was NOT because you could take amazing pictures there.

However, after this shot, that reason is going on the list.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 8/12

I wonder how rich you have to be to afford a toy like this--

This is a mega-yacht that's berthed in Marquette's Lower Harbor this week, a leviathan that's been visiting various ports on the Great Lakes this summer.. I don't know who owns it (although there has been a LOT of conjecture on various social media sites), nor do I know why they're tooling around the lakes.

All I know is that it sure has people talking.

I know nothing about the construction of mega-yachts, aside from reading an article or two over the years in Vanity Fair, talking about rich people and their toys. Based on those articles, I would guess that the ship probably costs 8 figures. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if it hit 9 figures. Now, I could be wrong--like I said, I'm basing everything I know on magazine articles--but to have enough spare change to build something like that means you probably have a little too much spare change lying around.

If you know what I mean.

Let say, for the sake of argument, that it costs 80 million bucks. It's your money; you can do what you want with it. But is the world REALLY a better place by sticking a mega-yacht on the Great Lakes? Couldn't you feed, say, a million people for eighty days instead? Isn't THAT a better use of the money? Once again, it's that person's money. They can do what they want with it. All I know is that if I had 80 million bucks in spare change lying around, I sure wouldn't buy a yacht.

But then, that's just me.

I hope the yacht's owner enjoys their time in Marquette. Maybe they can look under the boat's cushions and find a couple of thousand extra dollars lying around to donate to Room at the Inn or some other organization that provides help for those who need it. Because I'm guessing that if you spend that much money on a yacht...

A donation like that is, to use the word I use to much, literally pocket change.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 8/11

Now, I get to see on which side of the issue everyone falls.

While my TV piece last night did, as always, contain a few jokes, it dealt with an issue that seems to bother a lot more people than I thought it would--the issue of dog owners letting their animals run unleashed.

A couple of weeks ago, on one of my half days, I took my bike and a soccer ball out to Kaufman to run around, and while I was there a car (a blue Subaru, if you're curious) pulled up right in front of a sign that says "no dogs allowed". The back door of the car opened, a dog ran out unleashed and unsupervised, bounded onto the pitch, squatted down, left a big fat calling card, and then ran back into the blue Subaru, after which the car drove away rather quickly.

I was stunned by what I saw; not just the violation of three city ordinances within 30 seconds, but also by the sheer braziness of the people in the car. I'm pretty sure they knew that what they were doing was wrong; after all, they hid in the car while all this was happening. So when I got home I put three hypothetical situations in which someone does something ignorant (like an unleashed dog) on social media, asked people which was the worst, and waited to see what would transpire.

Over 200 responses later, I had my answer.

And that's what led to yesterday's TV piece. Because I was doing that podcast last night I didn't get the chance to post it right away, so I'm gonna wait until later today and stick it up. I'll be curious to see if TV 19 fans are like the people I know on Facebook, or if they're of a different mindset. All I know is that the whole adventure has opened my eyes a little as to what people say is or is not acceptable, and it's nice to know that (for once) I happen to be in the mainstream of acceptability.

Here's the TV piece, so you can judge for yourself--

(jim@wmqt.com)