Wednesday, 6/10

To quote a great Scottish philosopher (although in a WILDLY different context)--

Tonight's the night.

With any luck, my new “Mystery Spot: Marquette” tour will get underway at 630 from the Marquette Regional History center (hint hint). Everyone who shows up knows they're going on a walking tour, although no one (not even the people who work at the History Center) knows where they're going. All they know is that we're walking somewhere you can see a lot of history, and that I'll be telling a bunch of wacky, interesting, and/or unknown stories.

As long as the weather holds out (and, as I type this, it's supposed to be cloudy and 80, but with a chance of rain) I hope that the faith people are placing in me, the fact that they're willing to walk without even knowing where they're going, is rewarded.

And I think it will be.

The Mystery Spot to which we're walking not only has a lot of historical things that can be seen from there, but it has a lot of history in and of itself. When I started work on the tour, I was mostly just thinking of all the historic places you could see from there. But as I started getting into it, I realized that the location itself has such a rich history that it deserves to be the focus of a program in and of itself. So hopefully I've been able to combine the two into and evening that will not only entertain people, but will let them learn a bunch of stuff they didn't know they didn't know.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Now, it's all up to the weather. And if it holds, I'll be joined by hundreds of my closest history friends as we head out on a walk whose destination is known by one person and one person only.

A destination that is, at least for the next few hours, a “Mystery Spot”.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 6/9

Have I ever mentioned I really love lilacs?

I mean, both you & I know of the obsessive feelings I have for the blooms, if only because I take waaaaay too many pictures and talk about them waaaaay too often during this time of the year. Well, last night on TV I decided to come out to all of Upper Michigan about my, uhm, “problem”.

I hope people don't think any less of me because of that.

It's funny; when I was putting together the graphics for last night's piece I wondered if I would have enough good lilac pictures to use. Well, as it turns out, I didn't need to worry at all. I put all of the ones that I thought were good into a folder, used about 20 of them in various video montages, and found myself with only, oh, 100 or so that I didn't get to use.

So I'm guessing that, in the end,. I DID indeed have enough good shots of lilacs.

8-)

Unfortunately, even though they just came out last week, the first signs of their short life have appeared. I've seen many bunches turning brown, even while a few lilac trees in Marquette, mostly by the lake, have yet to sprout. But like I said in the piece last night, that's one of the things about the blooms. They're here and then they're gone, meaning that if you're like me (and hopefully, you're not) you have to make good use of them while they're here.

Even if it means coming out as a “lilac-holic” on TV--

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 6/8

Who knew so many people liked the song?

Loraine and I were at lunch at a local establishment recently, enjoying our food and taking in the selection of late 60s/early 70s music being played. Most of it was forgettable and/or cheesy, and it was just treated as background noise by the people in the restaurant. However, when one song came on, people stopped talking and started listening. A few even started singing or humming along.

It was cool.

It was kind of amazing, too, because I didn't think many people remembered the song. I sure do; in fact, it's one of “Jim's Top Five Songs Ever Recorded (TM)”, a song that I have loved since I was a kid. In fact, it's one of those songs like, “September” or “Superstition”, that I can listen to over & over & over again. It's also perhaps the best example of one of my favorite kinds of music, Philly Soul. It was written and produced by a master, and even 50-plus years after it was recorded it can still cause an entire restaurant of people tapping their toes and humming along.

That song? “I'll Be Around” by The Spinners.

Like I said, I was flabbergasted when people sitting around us started humming the song, and one of the workers at the place even started singing along. I mean, it's not a song you hear a lot these days. It's not a song that's filled with power or deep meaning. But maybe that's the key to it. It's a simple song; three chords, strings and horns, and amazing vocals. When you have someone like the immortal Thom Bell sticking all of those those together, you end up with three minutes and thirty seconds of musical magic.

Musical magic that, apparently, still shines through over five decades after it was originally released.

I'm sure that everyone who was humming or singing along with the song didn't give it a second thought. Heck, they might not even have realized that they were even doing it. But that just goes to show the power of the song. I'm sure those people aren't like some dorks and consider it one of the five greatest tunes ever recorded. The people humming and singing along just know that they like it.

And that's all that matters.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 6/5

It'll be 82 years ago tomorrow when thousands of American, British, and Canadian troops hit four beaches on the northern coast of France to begin the liberation of Europe and the defeat of Nazi Germany. On one of those beaches--Omaha Beach, the setting for the opening 25 minutes of “Saving Private Ryan”--over 2,000 men died in just a few hours.

One of them was from Marquette County.

William Richards was born in Virginia, Minnesota, graduated from the Michigan College of Technology and Mining, and, in 1940, was working for Cleveland Cliffs at the same time he was a lieutenant in the 107^th National Guard Combat Engineering Battalion in Ishpeming. He had been married to a Negaunee girl--Mary Archibald--for two months, when the battalion was called up for a year of active duty. World War II then started, and that one year became “for the duration”.

The 107^th was shuttled around various camps in the U.S., and headed overseas in 1942, where Richards eventually attained the rank of Major. The invasion of Europe was on the horizon, and Richards’ battalion would be given one of the most dangerous of assignments--to clear the invasion beaches of mines, obstacles, and booby traps laid by the Nazis.

The 107^th was going in with the first wave of troops.

Now, if you’ve seen “Saving Private Ryan”, you get a pretty good idea of what the first wave had to face. That did not seem to daunt Richards and his engineers, especially when you read what was written about his actions in a Distinguished Service Cross citation he posthumously received--

“Major Richards landed with the initial assault waves under heavy enemy artillery, machine gun and rifle fire. He immediately effected the removal of barbed wire by directing the operations of a tank dozer, preceding it on foot under heavy small arms fire. After removing this obstacle, he personally reconnoitered inland to find the exact position of an enemy gun which was harassing troops and equipment at the entrance of one of the beach exits. After locating this gun, he made his way back to the beach and reported its location. He then proceeded to organize the units of his battalion for aggressive action against the enemy on the cliffs. Though wounded, Major Richards again proceeded to a beach exit to direct the efforts of the mine clearing and obstacle removing parties. While organizing these parties, he was killed by enemy fire. The courage and devotion to duty exhibited by Major Richards reflects great credit upon himself and is in keeping with the highest traditions of the armed forces.”

This is Major Richards’ final resting place, at the Normandy American Cemetery, on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, in St. Laurent sur Mer, France--

Aside from his wife in Ishpeming, Richards left a 2-year old daughter.

(As always, many thanks to Loraine for uncovering this amazing story and supplying the biographical data).

(jim@wmqt.com)

Thursday, 6/4

For those of you wondering—yes, I HAVE been sniffing lilacs to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Did you expect anything different?

Not only have I been sniffing the greatest flowers (or, more technically, the greatest tree buds) on the face of the Earth, I've also been snapping a few pictures of them. After all, they're only around for a week, week and a half at most; it's really a shame (at least in my weird opinion) if you don't take advantage of them while they're here. It is, after all, one of those classic “use it or lose it” situations, and I know on which side of that equation I would much rather err.

So here we go, starting with what some people might consider to be paradise--

Or another view of paradise--

Or, uhm, this view of paradise--

While I was just spinning around shooting every lilac I could find, I took this shot. Now, I don't know if it'll show up for those of you looking at this on a phone, but look at the upper half of the picture.

See the bee?

Oh...and how about one more shot of paradise, just for no particular reason--

Okay. I'll stop now. It's hard, but I'll stop now. Instead, let's pivot over to history, and the tour I'm giving next Wednesday, the one I wrote about yesterday. Here's the teaser video my pal Emily and I shot, giving absolutely nothing away. After all, we don't wanna spoil the gag, right?

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 6/3

In one week we'll see if the history gag works out.

I wrote yesterday about my TV gag (gags, actually) from this week. Well, one week from tonight I'm trying another kind of gag for my latest History Center walking tour.

And I'm hoping this one works out as well as the TV seemed to.

The tour itself will be fairly straightforward, as all of my tours all. The gag comes from both the title and the way we're rolling out the tour. It's called “Mystery Spot: Marquette”, and the gag about is that no one knows where we're going. We'll meet at the History Center next Wednesday, and we'll start walking. We'll end up in a place only I know, a place from which you can see a whole bunch of history, but everyone who goes on the walk has no idea where that'll be.

They'll just have to trust me.

The idea for the tour popped into my head last summer as I was walking around the city, and I figured it might provide a hook for a tour. I've found a bunch of interesting and/or fun and/or weird stories, so it should be a good tour. And as far as the hook? Well, I've had a lot of people share their guesses, but no one seems to have gotten it quite right yet. The people at the History Center don't even know (nor have guessed it right yet), and they're joking that they should raise money by selling guesses as to where we're going.

I'd be all for that.

One week from tonight we'll see if the gag pays off. We'll see what the crowd is like. And, if nothing else, we'll see if anyone ever correctly guesses the final destination of “Mystery Spot: Marquette”.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 6/2

Well, what do you know. The gag actually worked out.

My TV piece last night was an out and out 2 minutes of jokes and stupid one liners, something I've been working on for a while now. As you may recall, thoughts just pop into my head, and I'll write them down on a scrap of paper to, perhaps, do something with one day. Well, a scrap of paper that's been lying around for a while now had the words "tourist bingo" written on it. And seeing as how the start of June is usually the start of the tourist season around here, I decided to put a "tourist bingo" card together, just in case people wanted to play along during the summer.

Putting the card together was one of the most fun things I've done recently.

I took every single tourist stereotype I could think of and placed them upon the card. I took a couple of other ideas that were just absurd and added them in. And then I had to take the running gag Kevin and I have and placed it in the one final spot I had left.

Needless to say, anyone who's playing along at home may have a little trouble completing that particular row.

I have no idea if anyone would actually download the card and fill it out during the tourist season, but just in case, we did make a downloadable version available at WZMQ19.com. If anyone does want to play along, that would be the icing on the cake. It was just a blast stretching whatever muscles of wackiness I seem to possess, and having an end product that turned out like this--

If you do happen to play along, good luck filling up your "Tourist Bingo Card"!

(jim@wmqt.com)