Thursday, 1/8

I did not grow up in South Marquette. But I was spawned by someone who did.

In doing publicity for “Legends & Lore III: Marquette Unknown” (two weeks from tonight at Kaufman Auditorium; tickets still available, hint hint) someone had mentioned a factual error that has popped up over the past five or six years, and I'd like to set the record straight--

I am not from South Marquette.

I don't know how the story got its start, although it may have something to do with the South Marquette shows & tours I've given over the years, quite often mentioning a specific person who IS from that neighborhood. But I'm here to state categorically that I am NOT from South Marquette. I spent the first few years of my life out on the highway where Walmart now is, and then split the rest of my childhood between Norway Avenue, and Fairway Drive. The closest I came to being a resident of South Marquette might be the years I spent at Bothwell Middle School.

But I didn't grow up there.

I actually try to point that fact out when I'm talking about South Marquette. Maybe I just don't do a good enough job. Either that, or when people hear me talking about the fact that my dad is from South Marquette they automatically think I am as well, or they're not just paying attention to the words “my dad”. Any one of those would be a good explanation; I'm guessing it's a combination of all of them.

It's kind of funny, too, because when I was young and my dad took me to visit some of his relatives who still lived in South Marquette I always thought it was an exotic place. There were new, interesting families and lots of hills and a softball field stuck smack dab right in the middle of it all. I was fascinated by the place, which is probably why I enjoy telling stories about it so much.

Another thing that may have led to my interest in the area is that the old Hogan family homestead –where my dad grew up--was torn down before I was born. That means whatever tenuous link I may have had with the neighborhood was never around for me to exploit. I don't even know what the house in which my dad grew up looked like. But I do know where it was (the top of Jackson Street hill), and I kind of use that as an anchor when talking about the people and the places of the surrounding streets.

But still, like I said, I'm not from South Marquette. I do, however, think it's interesting and, if I'm being honest, kind of cool that people assume I'm from there.

It must just (literally) be in my DNA.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 1/7

I kinda had an idea that this one would be popular. I just didn't have an idea as to HOW popular it would get.

As you know, we're in the middle of rolling out a new series of “Pieces of the Past”, the videos I do for the Marquette Regional History Center. There are all sorts of topics being covered this time around, and they run the gamut from the founding years of Marquette to a little more modern history. Knowing that one of the videos would be coming out on New Year's Eve, I borrowed from one of my recent walking tours for the tale of how some people may have celebrated the holiday in the recent past.

17,000+ views (and counting) later, I'm glad I did it.

When we put out these videos, we consider it a success when we get a couple of thousand views on various Facebook and You Tube pages. But knowing how people love bar stories, and how people really loved the old Alibi in Marquette, the number of views we got really doesn't surprise me. I mean, it really makes me glad (and some of the comments on the video made me laugh), but I had a notion that it might be one of the most popular of this current series.

It's nice to know I can still get a few things right on occasion.

The funny thing is that there's not much to look at in the video. The only pictures that seem to exist of the Alibi are two separate and very poor shots of the building that appeared in newspapers. So I had to figure out a way to keep reusing those two shots, along with a bunch of newspaper ads, to make the video visually interesting. Thankfully, the story of the bar is so compelling, and the humor I was able to get out of it rather funny, that (for once) the visuals in the “Piece” really didn't matter.

Whatever pictures I might have used really don't matter. It's the tale of the bar and the people--many of them under aged—who used to frequent it that make it such a cool video.

So cool, in fact, that it's up to 17,000 views (and counting) on Facebook.

Wanna see it yourself?

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 1/6

It's nice to know it was finally done right.

I have now done 168 editions of “Life in the 906”, and 167 of them have come off without a hitch. Oh, sure, there have been a few where visuals didn't pop up or popped up in the wrong order, and there have certainly been more than a few where the person presenting it stumbled upon a word or didn't do it justice (that person, of course, being an occasional idiot), but there was only one that so totally flamed out that it has been banished from my brain forever.

But now it's welcome back.

The bit to which I'm referring occurred a year ago this week. Kevin was sick, and a fill-in anchor didn't know how to operate the teleprompter. During the first three segments of the show that anchor missed a few stories made up some of the copy, because the 'prompter had shot ahead (and that anchor didn't know how to rewind it). When my segment came up the first sentence was fine, and then all heck broke loose. I tried to stumble my way through it, the director has no idea where to put the graphics, and I ended up reading the last half of it from a hard copy that I always keep in my jacket pocket.

The only time, I should add, that I've ever needed to use that printed out copy. Doing live TV is always a bit like walking a tightrope, and that night was the only time I've ever been pushed off.

When I was walking home after the show that night I vowed to myself that when the next chance to use it presented itself I'd do it again, only this time (hopefully) the way in which it was intended. And since it was written for this particular time of the year, last night I hauled out the script and the graphics from last year, updated it just a bit, and this time it came out the way it was supposed to--

I can now say that every single segment I've written for “Life in the 906”, all 167 of them, have been presented the way I envisioned. We'll just ignore the fact that one of those scripts took two attempts (and someone who knows how to work a teleprompter) to get right.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)

Monday, 1/5

Wow. It's a week later and we're still feeling its effects.

One week ago we had our “Bomb Cyclone”, the storm that dumped anywhere from four to 35 inches of snow across the Central UP and caused a vast majority of the city of Marquette to be without power for anywhere from nine hours (like Loraine and me) to four days (parts of North Marquette and Chocolay Township). Effects from the storm and the power outage are still around in the strangest ways, like this--

Loraine and I have woken up without heat two of the past five days.

Once our nine hour power outage (try saying THAT three times fast) was over the furnace in our building came back on and warmed us up. But both past Tuesday and past Friday something happened during the overnight hours, as we were awoken by 60 degree temperatures thanks to a furnace that hadn't kicked in. Someone came to look at it Tuesday and was surprised that it had actually worked after the power outage, and when he came back Friday he was a bit curious as to why it hadn't worked again after he fixed it.

But it was fixed, and that's the important thing. There were people around here without heat for four or five days; our few hours was nothing compared to that.

But hopefully—hopefully--our furnace will stay on and continue to keep us warm. Keep your fingers crossed.

*****

Another lingering effect of the storm? There was such a dumping of snow that the city is just getting around to clearing off sidewalks, and I took advantage of that to grab a yardstick and take a picture--

That's right. The snowbank outside of the station is 34 inches tall. Now, we didn't get 34 inches of snow; that's what happens when snow plows go through multiple times and toss crap onto the sidewalk.

But still. A 34 inch snowbank is nothing to sneeze at, especially a week after the storm, one that was so big that we're still dealing with the aftermath.  And today?  Well, it snowed another two inches here in Marquette, but apparently more outside the city as schools are closed all across the UP.

After several years of not even bothering to appear, it seems as if winter is making up for it--and more--this year.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Friday, 1/2:

I am never going to eat again.

First of all, hope you had a great New Year's Day. I spent part of it doing what I seem to have been doing quite a bit the past few weeks, and that's cook, and then eat the cooking. I stepped on the scale this morning and noticed I've gained a pound & change the past month, so I really should stop that habit (cooking, that is, not stepping on the scale). However, if this is indeed the end for a bit, I'd like to think I went out in style.

Let me present to you New Year's Day Kaiserschmarnn, topped with home made cranberry sauce and Nutella--

I've written in here about making the Bavarian delicacy before; it's just basically a super-charged pancake that's torn up & covered in some kind of fruit topping. Usually, that fruit topping is applesauce, but since I had leftover fresh cranberries from Thanksgiving (which I had frozen) and leftover Nutella from one of the few kinds of Christmas cookies I made this year, I decided to throw them all together in one last final shot of food gluttony.

Kind of like the finale of a Fourth of July fireworks show, except without the big “booms”.

I have to admit the dish turned out quite well, especially in the way the tartness of the cranberries played off the gooey sweetness of the Nutella. But I now think I may have reached my limit (at least for now) of dishes that take hours to prepare and contain more calories in them than any human should ever consume in a single day. In fact, I find myself craving not Greek food, not Indian food, not some insanely huge desert, but instead a simple turkey sandwich and a carrot.

No cranberries,, no Nutella, no bechamel sauce, no nothing.

I'm sure that, too, shall pass, and in a few weeks or months I'll start to get adventurous again. But for now, for (at least) the beginning of the year, it's back to normal. It's back to simple. It's back to healthy.

At least until my body says it's“okay”, and until I lose that extra pound and change.

(jim@wmqt.com)