John Hughes (February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009)

John Hughes made a ton of films. Some were good, some were bad, and some achieved timeless greatness. In my opinion, the short cut to finding the best of his work is to look for those he was most involved with. To wit: John hughes Wrote, Directed and Produced:

Sixteen Candles
Breakfast Club
Weird Science
Ferris Beuller's Day Off
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
She’s Having a Baby
UncleBuck
Curly Sue

OK, OK.. I never actually saw Curly Sue. I hardly remember seeing She’s Having A Baby. And I only remember a few bits from Uncle Buck. But to think that one man wrote, directed and produced Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Planes Trains and Automobiles?!? Pardon my french, but that’s fucking incredible! Five of my favorite movies written directed and produced by one man. Nobody else even comes close!

Well, actually, Harold Ramis got close, writing all or part of Animal House, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Groundhog Day and directing National Lampoon’s Vacation (though John Hughes wrote it) ,Caddyshack and Groundhog Day and also producing Groundhog Day. But - Ok, so that’s better than close. I’ll call that a draw. But somehow I’m more emotionally connected with Hughes’ movies. The guy knew how to tug a heartstring. Film Literature? No. Probably not. But the man really knew what he was doing. And even though I haven’t seen any genius level work from him since, say 1987, I’m sad to know that there’s no chance of another genius John Hughes film being created.

(NOTE to whoever owns the rights to JH’s films. NO! Don’t do it. We don’t need to see sequels to any of his films. There’s no need for 46 Candles, Lunch Club, Ferris Bueller’s Weekend in the Hamptons, or Wheelchairs, Walkers and Canes. The movies are great, but that’s it. No more, OK?)

Those Bicycle Building Norwegians

So, there I am last week, surfing through google's book search, looking for stuff about the old Green Bay Trail. (I'm a bit obsessed about that old road, you may have noticed). Once I'd exhausted those hits, and being of a genealogical mindset, I started searching for info on my ancestors, among them the Huseby family. My Great Great Great Uncle Arne Huseby was a bicycle manufacturer in Milwauke in the late 1890s through early 19-teens. The company was called the Huseby Cycle Company. Innovative, no? They specialized in wooden frame bicycles, but also made some more unusual bikes like the bamboo-frame bike shown at right.

Searching google books, I got a hit on one of those old vanity publications they used to do all the time - the kind where you pay a fee, and they do a glowing writeup of your company and include it in their book along with a photo of your premises. Or, you don't pay a fee, and you get half a paragraph, and no photo... or you don't get mentioned at all. This book was an overview of Milwaukee manufacturing at the turn of the century. And there was the Huseby Cycle Company! The listing was very nice. It included a pic of the main building (shown at left), and gave a location. I've seen the location of the company described before, but it never helped me locate the building. Milwaukee changed a lot of street names, and most of the street numbers sometime in the 20s or 30s. An address was almost useless unless you have a map from before the names changed - which I don't. But this time, the building was listed as being on the corner of Lake and Ferry. And thanks to "the power of the internet", I was able to find a listing of street names before and after the switch. Lake and Ferry translated to "2nd and Pittsburgh".

A quick check of google maps showed what looked to be the building! Sadly, street view is not available for the streets in that area, so I'd have to visit in person to see what the building looked like now. Happily, I'd be a few blocks away over the weekend!



View Larger Map

And sure enough, it's the same building... or at least what's left of it. There's no trace of "Huseby" on the building. The name Laskin does appear in the stonework, indicating that, while the Husebys used the building, they weren't the original owners. Despite, the bricked up windows, awful paint job, and other atrocities inflicted upon the building, it was still pretty cool. I mean there I was, standing in the same spot that relatives of mine stood over 100 years ago!



So, photographic documentation of the exterior complete (see here for the full set of photos), I checked to see if I could get inside. It was a long shot, this being 9:15 on a Sunday morning and, sure enough, no luck. One entrance featured a sign for a theatrical supply company. Closed on weekends. The other entrance seemed to connect to a series of artists' studios/galleries. Glancing over the names I saw that I recognized one! James Hempel, a highly talented portrait painter has space inside the building where my long-gone relatives made bicycles out of inappropriate materials! Now, I've never met James, but I'm familiar with his work because a good friend of mine has known him for ages... went to school with him or some such. So, once I finish typing this up, I'll have to shoot an email to my friend. Perhaps there's some Huseby Cycle memorabilia floating around the building. I'd love to get a look at it if there is!

Finally, another wonders...

Wondermark had a great cartoon today. It's about cavemen and crying babies. I've reproduced it here (click to read):

Since my daughter (TheGirl) was born, I have wondered a similar thing. More particularly, I've wondered how it is that mankind has survived this long when newborns are so very fragile and so very irritating. (Oh give me a break. Kids are great, but babies? They're fucking pains in the ass...) As infants, each of my kids has pushed me to within a hair of insanity. Certainly, caveman babies behaved similarly. And presumably, cavemen were even less restrained than I am. So why weren't all the babies killed back then?

All I can think of is that the real torture of screaming infants is staying there and dealing with them. Society insists that we not abandon our kids, even for a little while (say, long enough to get a good night's sleep). Maybe the cavemen just took off when they got crazy... headed out to the nearest proto-tavern, and ate fermented berries until the sun came up.

NO? OK, an alternte theroy... maybe babies were being dropped over cliffs, and that's the reason for the extreme population bottleneck that DNA analyses see signs of about 70,000 years ago. In this theory, we'd have to have been about to exterminate our species via infanticide when whatever is is that kept me from chucking the kids out into the wintry night developed for the first time in cavemen... and mankind blossomed.

[Ed. note - by "cavemen" I am referring to early humans, either anatomically modern, or nearly so. Yes, I know that the term technicaly refers to Neanderthals, and I know that there's no evidence surviving humans are related to Neanderthals. So give me a break, 'K?]

Prohibition Genealogy

I'll be the first to admit that it sometimes takes me longer to put 2 and 2 together than it takes the average person. But how did I miss making the connection that my grandparents were kids during prohibition? I knew they were kids throughout the depression (1929-1939), but somehow failed to realize that this meant they were kids during prohibition (1920-1933). I just looked it up in the family genealogy... Grandpa L was born in 1922, Grandma L in 1925, and Grandma F was born in 1916.

I asked Grandpa and Grandma L about it yesterday, and they both had memories of prohibition. Specifically, the had memories of how their families flouted the law. Let me refresh our collective memories. The 18th ammendment prohibited "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors", which was basically anything with ethanol in it, with a few exceptions which I haven't bothered looking up.

And how did my proud American ancestors react to this restriction of their ability to purchase beer, wine, brandy and schnaaps? Well, my Grandpa's family brewed their own beer in the basement. Grandpa didn't remember, but I'm guessing this involved malt syrup, water and bread yeast. Probably not the tastiest thing ever, but apparently palatable enough. Grandma's family took a different approach, possibly because they had a source a few doors down where they could buy the distilled stuff. I'd guess the difference was a cultural one, though. Grandpa's lineage is german, so beer was the object, with brandy and schnaaps viewed more as window dressing. Grandma comes from Polish stock, more oriented to vodka. Whatever bathtub hooch the guy down the street had must have fit the bill nicely.

I'll have to see if I can find out what Grandma F's family did during prohibition. They're Norwegian-descended, so their alcoholic heritage would have combined farmhouse brewing and flavored spirits. On the other hand, her granddad moonlighted as a lay preacher, so maybe illicit liquor wasn't an option. I'll let you know if I find out.

Happy 75th Anniversary of Repeal!

On this day 75 years ago, alcohol prohibition was repealed. Most of us agree this was a good thing, and that our country is safer for it, and that life is better for it. So let's sit down with a glass of beer, or whiskey, or what the hell, a glass of each, and celebrate! And while we're at it let's think about the parallels between the violence brought by alcohol prohibition back then, and the violence spawned by drug prohibition now. Here's hoping for another repeal soon!

PS: Thanks to BA for the reminder of today's importance!

Thought I'd pop up a video in celebration of this auspicious day. Yes, today is the 86th anniversary of the day Howard Carter discovered the entrance to the tomb of Tutankaman.
OK, OK, I know what you're saying - yes, today does have another significance, as well, something more, shall we say 'Presidential'? Don't worry, I haven't forgotten. So let's all get together and wish the Lincolns (Abe and Mary) a happy 166th wedding anniversary. Good going, guys!

Green Bay Road

I’ve been curious about the Green Bay Road since I realized I was living near it a few years ago. The original version of the road was commissioned in 1832 to connect Fort Howard in Green Bay to Fort Dearborn in Chicago. Much of the road followed old Indian trails that had been used for ages. It was essentially a road through the wilderness, allowing the military to communicate prior to the advent of radio and telegraph. The military couriers would walk the road on foot, hunting and gathering to sustain themselves on the months'long journey.

Modern day Wisconsin State Highway 31 approximates the trail in my neck of the woods. This road was the major North-South road in Wisconsin for many years. As more settlements popped up along the road, it began to be used for more routine mail delivery, and later functioning as a handy route for immigrants and daily business.

I spent some time searching through the 1838 survey maps of my area, but I’ve never quite managed to pin down the exact location of the road. Unfortunately, the surveyor in Racine county never bothered to mark which road was which on his hand-drawn maps, and mapped so many disconnected road fragments that it’s impossible to glean where the road actually lay. The Kenosha surveyor was much more accomodating, clearly labelling the "US Road" on his maps… which doesn’t really help me any.

But none of this is the reason for my post. While searching online for clues about the road, I learned that there had been a project to mark the historic route back in the late 1920s. The Wisconsin Society of Chicago (hard to imagine the existence of such a club today) installed concrete pillars adorned with brass tablets every couple of miles along the road.

I’ve often watched the roadside as I travelled along Hwy 31 in Wisconsin and Hwy131 in Illiniois, wondering whether this or that blank concrete post might not be the decrepit remains of one of these markers, and horribly endangering my fellow travellers of the highway in the process. ( I really ought to pay more attention to the road when I'm driving).

Last week, I finally found one of the markers. And, as so often happens, once I had the visual template, I quickly located another. I haven’t found any listing of surviving markers online, so I’ll start one here. If you’ve seen a marker, let me know, and I’ll add it to my list. I can’t imaging there’d be many left, since the road is now a 4-lane highway for its entire length. Widening the road would have wiped them out, except where the road’s bed was shifted to one side or the other. But I’ll keep this list updated as I locate them. Heck, maybe I’ll set up a geocache for them!

I find it amusing that these markers once set out to reveal an item of historical interest have now become items of historical interest themselves. And each time I see a marker, I know I’ll think of those crazy mail couriers travelling between the forts along the path, braving hostile natives, wild cats, and physical hardship in order to get the mail through.

List of Remaining WSC Markers:

County ........Location .........................................Coordinates ............Notes:
Kenosha...........Hwy 31 & 108th/72nd..............................42 31.090, -087 53.444.......Photo
Kenosha...........Old Green Bay Rd. & 104th St................42 31.373, -087 53.300.......Photo
Kenosha.......... Hwy 31 & Hwy E. .....................................42 38.364, -087 52.567 .......Photo
Kenosha ..........Hwy 31 & Old Gr. Bay Rd........................42 39.621, -087 52.430........Photo

Racine..............Hwy 31 (Mt. Pleasant Town Hall)...........42 41.889, -087 51.261........Photo
Racine..............Hwy 31 & Spring St...................................42 44.256, -087 53.300.......Photo
Racine..............Hwy 31 & Kinzie........................................42 43.415, -087 50.630........Photo
Racine .............Hwy 31 & 6 Mile Rd..................................***.......Photo

Milwaukee.......Packard Ave................................................................................................


Other Green Bay Road Markers:
Kenosha..........Hwy 31 frontage road................................42 31.976, -087 53.487..........Photo
Wisconsin........periodically throughout Green Bay Road Ethnic Trail............................Photo

Easter Approacheth...

and with it, comes the perennial discussion about the determination of the date on which Easter will fall each year. Now, I'm a pragmatist from way back. So when, as a youngster, I got to wondering about the determination of Easter, I pulled out that year's calendar, and one from the previous year, and attempted to figure it out. I'd heard that it had something to do with the full moon, and with the start of spring, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't make the dates on those calendars obey a fixed rule.

Fast forward a dozen or so years, and I'm dealing with the comparison between the Western and Eastern (or Orthodox) church calendars. For most holidays (Christmas and New Year's, for example), you simply add 13 days to the Western date to get the Eastern date. This, I knew, was due to the different versions of the calendar the assorted churches used. Western churches used the Gregorian calendar, Eastern churches, the Julian calendar. No biggie. After all, if you use the appropriate calendar, Christmas falls on December 25th. The argument is over when December 25th is.

But Easter isn't so simple. At first it seems like it should be. After all, if Easter is determined based on Full Moons and the start of spring, it shouldn't matter which calendar you use. Spring is spring and a moon is full whether the calendar you use if Gregorian, Julian, Hebrew, Coptic, Mayan or Fischer Universalist, right?

Well, this is where we hit trouble. For it seems that the Western church stopped paying attention to the sky when figuring spring and full moons about 1500 years ago. Instead, of using the actual full moon and actual equinox, they used the ecclesiastical full moon and ecclesiastical equinox(March 21st) when calculating the date of Easter. The Eastern Orthodox churches, however, base the date of Easter on the actual Full Moon and actual equinox.

The long and the short of it is that the dates vary. So, in 2007, both systems produced the same date for easter, April 8th. This year, on the contrary, the dates differ wildly, giving March 23rd in the Western Church, and April 27th in the Eastern church. There's a useful table of dates here, if you're interested in planning your easters-yet-to-come.

Thanks to infoplease for filling me in on the details of this puzzling situation.

Mama don't take my Polaroid

The cameras that produced those slightly smelly, slightly squishy, shake- 'em-til-the-picture-shows-up photos will soon be a thing of the past. Yes, Polaroid has announced that they will not be manufacturing or supporting supplies for their instant-print camera after the end of this year. Many artists who use the strange film will, no doubt, be heartbroken at the news. Check out some amazing polaroid transfers here.

It's not all bad news, tho. In an obviously not unrelated story, Polaroid looks about to release its new Zink printer - a pocket-sized inkless printer that produces playing card-sized color photos from your digital camera. Looks like initial US pricing will be around $150 for the printer, plus around 35 cents per sheet of paper. The instant camera is dead, long live the instant camera!

For those in the mood to reminisce about Polaroids, check out this Flickr Group. (thanks to slightlynorth for use of the picture)

Great Great Uncle Einer and Family

The Alaska's Digital Archives have recently put up some pics from a photo album which documented the depression era farming experiment in Matanuska, Alaska. People with failed or failing farms in the upper midwest were relocated as settlers in the Alaskan territory. One such family was that of Einer Huseby, my Maternal Grandmother's Uncle. I've included some shots of the pics below. You can see Einer, his wife (Inez), his son (either Donald or Kenneth, I'm not sure), the family dog, the cabin in progress, the tent they lived in while working on the cabin, and some of the crops they grew. I tell you, these people worked their asses off with insufficient help from the government that had dragged them out there. They cleared the land of trees, tore out the stumps, built their own homes and cared for their families without electricity, or pretty much any contact with the outside world. Read more about the Matanuska colony in Palmer, AK here. (Click on the photos to see larger versions, or go to the link in the title and search for Einer Huseby).

Grafton, Wisconsin, Home of the Blues

I just stumbled across some amazing South-eastern Wisconsin history the other day. Apparently, a key blues and jazz record label of the 1920's and 1930's was based out of, of all places, Grafton, Wisconsin! The company was originally based out of Port Washington as the Wisconsin Chair Company. After they branched out into making cases for Edison phonographs, they eventually decided to start pressing their own records, too. They disingenuously referred to the record studios as the New York Recording Laboratories, but they were really located first in Port Washington, then in Grafton. Their labels included Paramount and Broadway.

There's a load of stuff on the web about the company, including this history on Grafton's official website, this story about Grafton's blues fest, and a great collection of labels here, and the wiki article.

Milwaukee City Hall Restoration

From the ground, it looks the same as it has over the past year or so. Scaffolding and nets shroud the buidling. Only hints and peeks of the building are visible. But look into the crates surrounding the base of Milwaukee's City Hall, and you can see concrete evidence that the restoration is progressing... or rather, terra cotta evidence.

The many architectural details on the building were cast or sculpted from terra cotta. over a century of weather has blunted, or even destroyed the features of many of these pieces. Earlier in the restoration, new molds were built based on the remains of these blocks. Now, the old details are being torn out, and crisp replacements are taking their places. The top two photos are of the old, battered terra cotta pieces which have been torn out. A crate of new pieces for a different location is shown in the third pic.

One thing I noticed strolling around the building was crates of slate shingles. I have to admit, they made me a bit nervous. I envisioned winter ice cracking the slates, sending them over the edge of the roof. Even if they didn't 'thwock' axe-like into the top of someone's head, the shrapnel generated when they hit the pavement could do some severe damage. But it looks like Iwas needlessly worried. Looking more closely at some pictures of the building, it seems that low walls ring the slate roof. Look tiles would be caught here, protecting the unwary pedestrians, below.

Happy 50th Space Age!

Wisconsin History

I've been searching through an online database of scanned documents at the Wisconsin Historical Society, and I'm finding all manner of interesting information.


For instance, did you know that there was a tribe of indians in Wisconsin known as the Mascouten? At least there was until sometime around 1800. Most sources guess that they were absorbed at that time by the Kickapoo, but nobody knows where they went for sure. How are we not taught this in grade school? A mysterious disappearing indian tribe! That oughta get the kids interested in state history. Moreso than interminable talk about lead mining, anyway

And another f'rinstance: Miller brewing was founded around 1855. But by 1880, they were still a small concern, as witnessed by this scan (click for readable version):

They're only brewing about 8.5% of what the top guy (Phillip Best) is brewing, and rank fifth in production among Milwaukee brewers with almost 31,000 barrels a year. That's still around 5 times what Lakefront brewed in 2006, but a drop in the bucket compared to Miller's current production. And among the breweries listed in the scan, only Miller remains. Maybe being number one isn't all it's cracked up to be.

There's some pretty cool stuff in this database, check it out!

UPDATE!

Just found this image in the database. Kind of confusing. Perhaps Budweiser was being used to mean Pilsener?

Amelia Earhart

I never really noticed before... but Amelia Earhart was kinda hot!

(PS: She disappeared 70 years ago this July 2nd. That ought to be worth some sort of party, hmm? )