Point Made

Open your books to page 1. We find the requiem to the Green Bay Packer 2017 season. I want you to sing loudly for the high notes, and we will ask the orchestra to be silent as we sing acapella for the sad parts of this piece. In the first part of this song, we will be indicating the hope we had for the team. Then the dark Period of this saga, when the leader was injured and carted off the field. With our leader on that cart, it carried with his broken body the hope for a season of success.He would not return for weeks and when he did many observers thought it was too early. We are still writing the final verses, but my feeling is that no matter how well they play or even if they were to win all of their remaining games, the end is already here Now we turn to the family page. This is an illustrated page with the lyric's contained in the stories told by those images. If you can't see the words just hum along with the rest of us. Brogan & Tate (phot...

We welcomed some old friends over for our annual "tree cut "party. Some background here. When I met Maria, she had a tradition of joining with friends to travel to a tree farm to harvest fresh cut Christmas trees. After the selections were made, tied to the top of cars or loaded into trailers, and transported to Maria's house, everyone, plus other honored guests, supped on chili and bread and partook of the beverage of their choice. Over the intervening years, the event was reduced down to the family cutting trees and everyone else just coming to the party. This year we cut the tree the weekend before. The table has morphed into chicken tenders cooked and peeled shrimp, cheeses, veggie trays, store-bought deserts and other good stuff. Some people remark that they miss Maria's Vegetarian Chili. Every year there are new guests. On the other hand, some of the guests have been coming for many years. Helen Nagler has developed a following for her "Chex...

Parking Lots, Too Big, Too Expensive, Too Bad.  Like most retired people I've carved out a bit of a job that I do on a voluntary basis. I am a social media editor of Facebook pages. I am responsible for most if not all material posted on Metro Go and TSAC . Both of these sites are dedicated to informing people about transportation issues and the status of the development of our various transit grids. Transit Grids are the joining of various elements in the Transit System for a region that allows people to get from here to there in that region. Elements being as complicated as Airports and Train depots to as simple as walking right of ways and bike paths. The important thing is recognizing that all of the elements are important, but all of them must interface to be effective. The most glaring example of non-connection in Milwaukee is getting from the Mitchell to the downtown. Why people don't take the two buses that can get them from the airport ...

Murder in the US of A It came up during a conversation with one of my friends. We were talking about this week's mass shooting incident. This is a touchy subject for us. He is a concealed carry gun owner. I am not. I believe in common sense gun control. He does not. I mentioned that the Texas Shooter could have killed more people if someone had not begun shooting at him. My point was that because the shooter had an automatic weapon he was able to kill 26 people and not even going inside the church. His answer was what about Chicago? I don't know what Chicago's homicide rate has to do with a mass shooting in Texas, but I said what about it. He answered more people were killed in Chicago that weekend than the Texas shooter killed in his attack on the church. I checked. The toll of people killed in the City of Chicago this year is 606. The death count, for the month November 2017, is twenty-one. I do not know where my pal got his number. Homicides for this quarter...

This change of season. This dryness of the air. The leaves falling all around me. Is this it again? Is this a revolution on the carousel of life. Fleeting glances of what appears  then is taken away. No matter how many times it spins A different person on the pony, the seat for two, the kangaroo. The same course. but a different way. It is what it is as it appears today. I got a story for you today. It's about a pickup truck, the parking lot outside the Kof C on the south side of Milwaukee and a guy named Doc. Put aside the country western song you think I'm writing for background music. My pal, Lee Nimmer and I went to Milwaukee for a gathering of top-notch Blues Harmonica Players. We were promised four hours of one of our favorite music genres. They certainly delivered, but that's another story. When we got to the parking lot on South 92nd Street, Lee spotted an open parking space and decided to back into it. When we got settled and before I got ...

Commentator : He enters the conversation with a whining voice that reminds you of the late Andy Rooney. Do you have that problem where you are going through your list of internet news sources, and you end up watching a U-tube video of a guy playing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" on his harmonica? (Full disclosure, I play Harmonica, and this guy was terrific .) Yeah, and it gets worse. I can't count the number of times, I've watched Simon be amazed, surprised, or moved to tears over some waif from Northern England, who appears to be the kind of woman / young girl, you wouldn't think could draw interest in front of a group in a small pub and yet she sings like an angel. Think Susan Boyle. And then there are the pop-up crowd videos. These feature the unexpecting shoppers at the mall who are serenaded by opera singers and symphony orchestras that appear and disappear like dust storms in the desert. And then suddenly, it's time for lunch, and t...

All Saints Day. Halloween. It makes no difference, we are talking about dead people. The saints, not the football team from New Orleans, Lousiana, but the hallowed people of the Catholic Church., who were lucky enough to be acting in a holy and often heroic manner when the right people were watching. Oh did I mention, being a member of the Catholic Church is mandatory? I don't believe anyone in the waiting room making out an application for membership, who was whipped, raped or burned at the stake for their faith while waiting for their membership card, ever became a saint. Halloween, it is said, might have been invented by a candy company, but I think that is just nasty gossip started by Hallmark, who was angry because no one got into the habit of sending their friends Halloween cards. It was actually created and popularized by Goodwill Industries. They were seeking new markets for the boatloads of donated old clothing, they can't get ri...