Happy New Year!

Aussie style, Wow!

Pictures, December 30, 2014

Temperatures never rose above zero today. Over the mountains it was as if there was floating frost fog -- very different. I took the pictures below.

Saturday Pictures on Sunday

Saturday Pictures

December 27, 2014

(click to enlarge)

Hitched a ride with a neighbor up Hyalite Canyon yesterday in his jacked up Jeep Renegade.

Vista across the frozen reservoir.

Mountains making their own weather.

We pulled over to allow an oncoming vehicle to pass only to learn the pile of snow on the right filled in and had covered a ditch. Good thing for the winch, cable and towing strap extension, and for the lone tree (left center) for attaching to the same and to get us pulled out.

Front view.

Larry's right leg is planted where the right wheels of the Jeep had been extracted. Thanks for the ride!

A Cubs Fan Fantasy and Lament

One hundred years later there is still no difference.

Pembina (N. Dak.) Pioneer Express, November 6, 1914.

On the Road to Bathgate: Want Land? I. J. Foster, A Younger Visage

From the Pembina Pioneer Express, March 4, 1898.

Do You

.... Want Land?

Cheap as dirt. Every farm a bargain, even as an investment. Every farm if rightly treated will make itself a present to the buyer. A good home given to good men. Call in and talk with me, and I will prove it by my sales book of lands already sold. These lands are all near schools, churches, towns and railroads, most of them near timber and water. Don't go homestead 40 miles from any where when I can sell you good farms in Pembina county for less outlay and cost than you can take up Goverment land. Look over this list:

*****

One good crop will pay for almost any farm on the above list at these prices. Small cash payment or crop contract to good men buys them. No acre on this list will be for sale by anybody for less than $10, and most of it cannot be bought for $25, not counting improvements, within the next ten years.

I. J. FOSTER

        Bathgate, N. D.

Money to Loan on Farm Security.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

As per usual we have it in Montana with more of the dreamy white stuff coming tonight. We wish everyone, everywhere else a wonderful white Christmas as well, including our friends in Hawaii, who need only hike up the slope to commune with the same.

Skiing on Mauna Kea.

HONOLULU (AP) — A blizzard warning is in effect for the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The National Weather Service says up to 8 inches of snow could accumulate above 11,500 feet. The warning is in effect until 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The weather service warns of strong winds, bitter cold, blowing and drifting snow, and lightning. Temperatures in the upper 20s and lower 30s are expected, as are 45 to 65 mph winds with gusts over 90 mph, leading to whiteout conditions.

Merry Christmas and God bless everyone!

Happy Anniversary to Me -- Top Thirteen Since Inception

We are two years into it now. Today is the second anniversary of Along The Gradyent. 

What does a second anniversary call for? I looked it up. It's cotton. A travel website recommends gifting beach towels for a beach vacation. I have plenty of towels. Though the rugby striped blue towel I take with to Bozeman Swim Center every day is getting a bit ratty, I'll put off passing the hat until the fifth anniversary, when airline tickets and a cruise are the recommended gifts. I could actually use a mid-winter vacation.

This was going to be a top ten post. But then I thought (for absolutely no reason) let's promote the best bagels in town. We recommend Bagelworks on West Main, squeezed in among the honky tonk bars. The big morning seller for the drive by office crowd is a baker's dozen mixed bagels. If you can't make it to the works stop by locally owned, locally sourced Heebs grocery on East Main for a package of six.

So the top thirteen it is. Here is what I really think of the most viewed posts of our first two years. If you don't think about these posts the same way I do, that's Okay -- most of the time I don't either.

1.  Mix the Golf Channel, fine wine, Refrigerator Perry, underwear models and Katie Perry. Only in the world of oenology are Mike Weir and Retief Goosen getting better with age. 

2. I am a baby boomer.  I grew up in Morton Grove, Illinois, a suburb due north of Chicago and about five miles in from Lake Michigan. It is still there. I'm not.  

Brainerd it ain't, you betcha.

3. Bathgate North Dakota, population 43 according to the 2010 census, is located on the Tongue River, in the broad, fertile and frigid valley of the Red River of the North. Where else would the Kohn brothers shoot their movie? I wonder where they got the wood chipper.

4. The senior senator from Montana is a dirt farmer. He knows trucks. You don't. He knows what's good for you by god.

5. Walk the talk. We fill out the financial sector of our investment portfolio with small bank stocks. Out biggest position therein is in a bank that is a collection of separately operated community banks. 

6. It is a classically simple formula. Increase overhead expenses by hundreds of percent. Drive up input costs to make every special interest happy. And then saddle young adults with a trillion dollars in debt to pay for it all. Elizabeth Warren for President!

Uncle Lyn, a real American.

7. The mob is in Las Vegas. The mob is in New Jersey. The mob is in Chicago. But the mob was run the hell out of LA. Thank you Burton Fitts, Leo Raymond and uncle Lyn!

8. Everyone in Washington, DC is working hard to make your life better, especially the lobbyists, whether they are promoting Fannie Mae or Obamacare. They hide in plain sight. They are the fellas across the street.

9. Build culverts young man, build culverts. That's what we did Dear President -- you didn't have a damn thing to do with it. Hey people, how about one of these days electing someone who along the way has made a living by the sweat of his or her brow.

Big Sky area avalanche, January 1, 2014.

10. I've said more than once that the most dangerous weapon in Montana is a pick-up truck cornering too fast, too late at night. Check that. It's a snowmobile traversing an unbroken snowfield at the bottom of a steep, wind loaded slope. 

11. Johnny Bench, Joe Pepitone, Manny Mota, Fergie Jenkins and Bathgate? Of course!

12. Every fishing resort and hunting lodge in the upper Midwest claims to have hosted Al Capone and his gang in season at one time or another. During the rest of the year they hung out in my hometown of Morton Grove.

Former NSA golf ccourse.

13. How grand! Our self sacrificing president allowed a DC metro area military golf course to be plowed under to serve the greater good.

We look forward to year three.

Saturday Pictures -- Webcams 'R Us

The Pineapple Express systems which bring torrential rains that are re-hydrating California are bringing mostly cloudy skies into southwest Montana. We received a related pulse of energy that covered us with snow last week, and expect a new pulse overnight. By Christmas Eve we should have a thick blanket of sparkling fresh snow on top the present base courtesy of yet another front. Here in Bozeman, the winter snow pack has set in for the duration.  

Through the good offices of the National Park Service in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks we can look real time at the spectacular scenery most any daylight time that we choose. Here are several of today's images.

Two Medicine, Glacier National Park

Apgar Lookout, Glacier National Park

Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park

 Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park

You can play in Montana. Here are some of today's webcam images from our local ski areas.

Mountain Village, Big Sky

Madison Base area, Big Sky

Ridge north view, Bridger Bowl

Ridge south view, Bridger Bowl

In this last picture, see the brave souls, upper center, preparing to ski off the precipice. We live about a dozen miles due south of them. Have a nice day and good luck to all!

On the Road to Bathgate, Act 4i: Robert Dimon Hoskins -- Editor, Publisher, Lawyer, Public Servant and Merchant

R. D. (Robert Dimon) Hoskins was of an extraordinary generation -- a pioneering generation that explored and settled the land we know as the United States of America. They created institutions that made our country great. It is a generation we honor on this blog.

We led off family history blogging with posts on my grandfather (R. D.'s brother-in-law) Isaac J. Foster. We reported on Ike's public and civic life, including two terms as a popularly elected county sheriff. In due time we will plow into his farming and ranching business, dig into his career in real estate and expound on his prolific career as an auctioneer.

We then blogged on my great uncle (another of R. D.'s brother-in-laws) George S. Foster. Uncle George was a notorious Chicago lawyer and Democratic machine politician, who once was elected city alderman, founded several banks (acted as a bank officer and president), and became a landlord with significant holdings. Along the way he was married a time or two, and fathered children with women who were, and were not, his wife.

Then we reviewed the life of Lyndon King Armstrong, my grandmother's brother and yet another brother-in-law of R. D. Hoskins. Uncle Lyndon was a pharmacist, miner, engineer and publisher, and a professional society and trade association head. He was a prominent member of the Spokane community. Book by book, and journal by journal, he accumulated the finest mining library in the Pacific Northwest. Among his peers Lyn was renowned for the the special entertainment he planned for industry gatherings.

Now R. D. ((Rob, Robert, Bob, Hos', Hosk') Hoskins is the fourth member of this generation whom we profile. Each of the four is connected by blood or marriage -- and by having lived and worked in the tiny frontier town of Bathgate, North Dakota. Let's get to know Rob.

R. D. Hoskins Life Summary

This post chronicles the front end of R.D. Hoskins' life, covering the the time from his birth in 1860 -- six months prior to the beginning of the Civil War -- to the turn of the 20th century.

A 1907 history of the then young state of North Dakota yielded this glimpse of Rob's early life.

North Dakota Magazine, Vol. 3, pp. 157-58, 1907

R. D. Hoskins married Florence Mabel Armstrong on Thanksgiving Day, 1884 in Bathgate, North Dakota. Florence was sister to my grandmother, Laura Elizabeth Armstrong Foster, and namesake to her niece (my aunt) Florence Foster King. While my grandparents would remain Bathgate residents throughout their adult lives, R. D. and Florence moved on to Bismarck, North Dakota, and settled in the capital city in 1890. Florence and Robert Dimon Hoskins formed a family there that was enterprise as much as it was clan. 

Rob came of age in Pennsylvania. When he turned twenty-one the manifest destiny bug bit. The young man moved west. Rob Hoskins would work as lawyer, editor, publisher, public servant and merchant -- and he farmed a bit too. 

Breaking Open Cuba

It could be done.

The idea would not be to have ties with a government -- it's to have ties with the people.

Here is how you do it.

Raoul Castro and Vladmir Putin, July, 2014

On the diplomatic side, the President of the United States flies soonest on Air Force One to Havana. On the airport tarmac he intones, "Raoul Castro, tear down this regime."

On the economic side, build the Keystone XL pipeline and target a portion of the refined output to Cuba. 

When Cuba opens up its citizenry would be overtaken by what for them is an unimaginable tide of capitalism and freedom, and resulting prosperity. And we would have an ally as close as our neighbor to the north. 

But, of course, you would need a bold and wise president, with real vision and a strategic sense -- someone who understands the power is in a free and unfettered people and a strong economy -- not the technocrats. Don't hold your breath.  

Happy Hanukkah!

Today, the festival of lights begins.

THE HANUKKAH “MIRACLE”

According to the Talmud, one of Judaism’s most central texts, Judah Maccabee and the other Jews who took part in the rededication of the Second Temple witnessed .... a miracle. Even though there was only enough untainted olive oil to keep the menorah’s candles burning for a single day, the flames continued flickering for eight nights, leaving them time to find a fresh supply.

Happy Hanukkah to all our Jewish friends!

GOP Must Nominate Real Person to Win Presidency

So Jeb Bush all but announced he is running for president today. I think I'm going to puke. This is a good day to republish my December 2012 letter to the editor, hoping it allows me to keep my dinner down.


The replays of and commentaries on Chris Wallace's interviews with Mitt Romney popping up here and there reminded me of a letter to the editor I sent to the Bozeman Chronicle in November.

The Chronicle published my letter under their (not my) headline "GOP must nominate real person to win presidency" where I offered unsolicited political advice on how an opposition party has to define itself and nominate someone who can take on the destructive Democratic juggernaut. That was before my blogging, so I thought I'd republish the letter, in full, here:

Posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2012 12:15 am  

  There are plenty of Romney “campaign failure” post mortems. But I think Romney did about as well as he could. The problem was the person and his experience. 

  This election was about the economy. But Romney never labored, operated a business or was an entrepreneur; he was a financier with drive-by exposure to working, operating and entrepreneurial guys. Romney’s resume helped him grasp the value of capitalism but not so much the power of free markets and the value creating-proposition of economic process. 

  In contrast, Ronald Reagan learned economic lessons from working independently as an actor, years of touring the country to speak with legions of ordinary people, and pull-himself-up-by-the-bootstraps life experience. He learned what doesn't work as a union activist and president of the actors’ guild. Reagan knew that individuals, not big government and big labor, are the driving force behind the U.S. economy. The great communicator spoke of economic issues in personal terms that connected with people. 

  Listening to Romney on economics was like eavesdropping on a conversation among options traders about puts or calls – strange and off putting. Romney wasn’t prepared to communicate with ordinary people. 

  Republicans, get smart. Nominate someone who is neither MBA nor lawyer (or is not defined by that education). Choose someone who led a real life – a nominee who can speak sincerely and confidently on how nanny-state government gets in the way while free market economic processes work. Messages delivered from a candidate’s heart on the debilitating impacts of dependency and debt, and in favor of the real economy over the hollowness of the monetary establishment (ala Ron Paul), are messages that resonate. This candidate believes in the people. Then you might have a chance, and if you won, would actually make a difference. 

  Grady Foster

  Bozeman

What a Difference Three Days Makes

Post by Bridger Creek Golf Course and Academy.

Let Them Eat Natural Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings Over Gemelli Alfredo

We got up in the middle of the night so we could effect a 4:45 am delivery of our two high school students to the speech/debate bus destined for a Saturday meet at Billings Central High School. To no great surprise the girls had a tough time getting a move on and left the house without breakfast. As we pulled out of the driveway we saw our friendly neighborhood skunk foraging in the drainage ditch. By the time we were in town traveling down Main Street, I had ascertained the kids had not eaten. I asked "Do the high schools have vending machines?" One of our students answered, "Yes, but nobody uses them -- you know Michelle Obama. The food tastes like dirt." 

Of course, that's only public schools. Here is the lunch menu for Obama's kids at Sidwell Friends, bastion of the elites.

Most American kids attend public schools. On the other hand, the first daughters, Malia and Sasha, attend Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. Tuition per student at the private school is $36,264 per year (but that includes a hot lunch).

For Tuesday, Dec. 9, the scrumptious, bountiful lunch menu for both the middle school and the upper school at Sidwell Friends is:

Potato Sausage Soup; Firecracker Slaw; California Chef’s Salad; All Natural Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings; Sweet Potato Black Bean Bake; Sautéed Local Greens; Gemelli Alfredo; Sliced Pineapple

This menu of completely free lunch items certainly sounds delicious and nutritious. Also, to be clear, it’s for a single day, not the entire week.

We count ourselves pleased that the regime is teaching our youth just how sucko socialism actually is. It is the lesson of a lifetime.


Note: So later that morning I took the family over to Billings to do some Christmas shopping in the big city. We met up with the big kids. Turns  out, there were crosses all over the place. Billings Central is a Catholic school. And it had edible and nutritious treats in the vending machine. Let's hear it for freedom of religion! 

More Elk

Post by Livingston Area Chamber.

How Many Points Does It Take?

Cliimate change ....  habitat destruction ... blah, blah, blah ...... global warming destroying the environment .... blah, blah, blah .... man caused .... blah, blah ..... wilderness protection needed ..... blah, blah, blah .... the earth is at a tipping point ..... blah, blah, blah ..... inconvenient truth ..... blah, blah ...... threatened with extinction .... blah, blah, blah .... urgent and personal for everyone on the planet ...... blah, blah ...  habitat destruction ..... blah, blah.... blah .... fundamental threat to places, species and communities .... blah, blah, blah.

Ma! Look at what I found down the road!

Bozeman Daily Chronicle, December 11, 2014

On the Road to Bathgate Act 4e: Isaac J. Foster, Introducing the Auctioneer

My grandfather, Isaac J. Foster, made an important business decision in 1908. He decided to take up as an auctioneer. 

Finding the life too difficult or insufficiently remunerative, in the day, farmers and ranchers would frequently pick up stakes and move on. They would sell their 160 acre farms -- sometimes listing with or selling to Ike's real estate business. When farmers sold their land they usually were desirous as well of disposing of their farm equipment and implements, furnishings and livestock. The sales method most often used for chattels was an auction sale. 

Isaac who bought, sold, leased and brokered farm land, saw auctioneering as a profitable auxiliary business opportunity. He could line up clients as a twofer. In time auctions became the primary business. In the beginning, Isaac announced the new line of business in a display ad in the local newspaper.

Bathgate Pink Paper, March 18, 1908

AUCTION SALES 

I have decided to take up the business of Auctioneer and will be pleased to have the patronage of those who intend to hold auction sales of any kind of goods, wares or merchandise. I will make a specialty of Farm Auctions. I am not new in this business and can give you value received every time and sell the goods if anyone can.

This does not mean that I am out of the Real Estate business, for I am in that to stay.

CALL ON ME AT BATHGATE OR WRITE ME

ISSAC J. FOSTER

Several years later, Isaac found a more graphic way to communicate his farm sales specialty.

Bathgate Pink Paper, June 19, 1912

Since we last blogged on Isaac, we have come to understand auctioneering was his dominant vocation for more than twenty years, into the 1910s and 1920s. Auctions were big business and big social events. In Ike's later years, his individual sale ads typically stated that hot lunch and beverages would be served. Town folk and farm folk alike from miles around would gather to eat, greet, meet, bid and gossip.

We will be continuing our I. J. Foster series with extensive posts on his auctioneering, real estate and farming and ranching operations. But for the present we are finishing up an extended post on his brother in law, R. D. Hoskins, which we hope to publish in the next week or two. Like I. J., R. D. found a wife and cut his commercial teeth up in Bathgate. While Issac Jarvis Foster stayed put to become a notable denizen of Pembina county, Robert Dimon Hoskins moved on to become a prominent citizen of the capital of Bismarck and the entire state.

Home Is Where The Art Is

It has been a while. We were able to weasel a few scraps of the kids' art this week. First are a couple of drawings from our Anime artist.

Our Anime artist is playing flute in school, guitar outside of it, studying Japanese on her own, and is focused on traveling to Japan the summer after next, where she will visit Asa, our 4H exchange student from last summer.

Then we got a water color and pencil piece from from our eldest. She is in high school now -- takes piano and guitar lessons, is in the BHS engineering program and participates on the JV speech/debate team. She just had her best performance this weekend (5th out of 25) in a tournament up at Whitehall. She was all smiles when we picked her up after her 14 hour day. After visiting Germany, France, Spain and Portugal on an 8th grade class trip this last spring, she is planning a trip to Sweden next summer.

And we were on the road from Montana to Texas when Father's Day sneaked up on us last summer. It was not convenient to buy a card but there was plenty of time to pen the best Father's Day greeting of all.

 Take care and have a great day! 

Her She Comes ....

This time published by the New York Times in the hope their spin on her damning record will fend off much more serious attacks to come. It's inoculation strategy. In the days, weeks and months ahead it will be, "Oh people, don't pay attention, the Times already reported that. That's old news"

During the Clinton administration, pretty much everyone in Washington not on her staff despised Hillary Clinton, including on the Hill, in the Cabinet, White House aides, and even her husband, much of the time. But worry not says the Times,

Hillary Clinton angling for government takeover of healthcare in
1994. They said she was "really smart" then too. She believes it.

Now carefully controlled at 67, then she was fiery and unpredictable, lobbing sarcastic jabs in private meetings and congressional hearings. Now criticized as a centrist and challenged from the left, Mrs. Clinton then was considered the liberal whispering in her husband’s ear to resist the North American Free Trade Agreement and a welfare overhaul.

“She’s much more politically astute now than she was in early 1993,” said Alan Blinder, who was a White House economist. “I think she learned. She’s really smart. She learns, and she knows she made mistakes.”

In other words, what you see now in public appearances is a calculated phony. When the pressure is on, people revert to form.

Happy to help you get to know your next President of the United States. 

Good luck and have a nice day!

The New York Crime Mecca

Eric Garner's crime in New York was he was selling shit, and selling shit is a crime in New York. Watch for Barack Obama to figure out a way to give New York hundreds of millions of dollars of your money so New York police can continue to stop people from selling shit. That's progressivism for you -- sell shit and die. Conform people!

Eric Garner, a hard core seller and enemy of the liberal establishment, minutes before his death.

Avalanche Advisories Issued

It's that time of year again. Beware the avalanche.

There has already been a fatality. A snowmobiler from North Dakota perished near Cooke City.

A 31-year-old snowmobiler from North Dakota died Wednesday after being buried in an avalanche in the Henderson Peak area near Cooke City.

The Park County Sheriff’s Office received a report at about 1:30 p.m. of an individual partially buried and not breathing.

Search and Rescue members were dispatched from Cooke City, according to a release from Undersheriff Scott Hamilton.

According to another release, the man had been riding with a friend about 100 yards off the trail when the avalanche occurred.

The 31-year-old man was reportedly buried in about 7 feet of snow. He and his riding partner both had avalanche beacons.

The friend located and unburied the man, which took about minutes 20, and performed CPR.

Here is the Gallitan National Forest Avalanche Center's warning for Cooke City.

Cooke City

The mountains around Cooke City received .6” of SWE last night with strong winds. Over the last nine days this zone was hit hard with storms and avalanches. Steady snow will help the stability in the long-term, but not the short-term. The immediate problem is a weak layer of facets on the ground that started avalanching after the storms dropped almost 3” of SWE (a couple feet of high density snow) since the weekend before Thanksgiving. The weak layer was very active then and will be less reactive now, but by no means is it stable. Red-flag warnings like cracking and collapsing of the snow are becoming rarer, but triggering a slide on skis or a snowmobile is still likely if you venture into avalanche terrain.

Last Wednesday’s avalanche fatality (video, report) and a seven foot burial on Friday (yes, he lived) are irrefutable evidence that the avalanche danger is real. Given the poor snow structure and recent snow and wind the avalanche danger is rated CONSIDERABLE today.

Here is the video.

The avalanche center has issued warnings for other nearby ranges.

Bridger Range   Gallatin Range   Madison Range  

Lionhead area near West Yellowstone  

A poor snow structure plagues all the mountain ranges in our forecast area (snowpits). Weak, faceted snow at the ground is still misbehaving. On Sunday, Eric got widespread cracking and collapsing in Beehive Basin in the northern Madison Range (video) while I had similar experiences in the Bridger Range at Fairy Lake (video). Yesterday, the Big Sky Ski Patrol triggered avalanches with explosives which are relevant because these slopes have a backcountry snowpack and this is the first time they’ve been tested. 

Strong winds have been loading slopes near the ridgelines as well as cross-loading in gullies. Weak snow at the ground is still unstable, especially on steep slopes. For today, the avalanche danger is ratedCONSIDERABLE on all slopes steeper than 35 degrees and MODERATE on all others.

Here is the Fairy Lake video.

Be careful out there. For advice on how to prepare for avalanches in the event you are unexpectedly overtaken, go to our post January post. We don't want to write this winter on any more of our children's classmate's parents buried in and perishing in the snow.

Top November Posts

Thank you awesome readers! Your patronage was over the top this last month. Here are November's top ten. It is a balanced mix -- half November posts and half golden oldies. Your favorite stories are our favorite stories too -- karma at its best.  So let's get to them -- our November top 10.

1.)  I am retired. Up to now I have said little of my "professional" career on this blog. That carries over into life off the web as well. A Montana friend who played golf with me dozens of times this summer asked late August when I worked for the Postal Service was I was "a carrier or a clerk?" In Lining up Postal Data -- A Tale of a Career and Two Calendars we lay out what I actually did while employed for decades by the largest (by employment) and the most ubiquitous of all federal government agencies. If you know who Jonathan Gruber is, you will probably enjoy the post. If you don't know who Jonathan Gruber is, you could very well learn something. All thanks to the Washington, DC inside the Beltway establishment for their readership, promotion and sharing -- pushing this post to the top of the heap.

2.)  The Golf Channel: Spouse's Guide to Sanity (Special Guest Post) is the all time fave among Along the Gradyent readers. The PGA Tour is done for the year; same for the LPGA and the Champions Tour. But the Australian and Sunshine tours are in full summer swing and the silly season is upon us. If you will watch Tiger at his Hero World Challenge  this week, or Greg at his Franklin Templeton Shootout the next, or you are stuck in front of a television that's stuck on the Golf Channel, this primer is for you.

3.) It has come and gone but in mid-November it was coming. Here It Comes is the story of naming winter storms, a task accomplished this year by the Latin class at Bozeman High School. When the Weather Channel invited the class on for a segment honoring their achievement, the weather people surprised the students by changing the B name to Bozeman. Winter storm Bozeman lived up to its name dumping six inches of snow here in the Gallitan Valley, bringing full circle the Weather Channel's recognition for the young linguists, logicians, classical scholars and would be meteorologists at our high school. Go Hawks! 

4.) Hey bid a bid a, hey bid a bid a, hey bid a bid a, do we have $225 K, do I hear $225 K? 225 from UNLV! Now do we have $250K. Hey bid a bid a. Over there! $250K for president Bill. Do I hear $330 K now? Yes, thank you UCLA. Hillary Clinton's University Tours go to the highest bidder. Your next president of the United States bemoans the high cost of college education, while picking university foundation pockets and purses to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars each, to speak for a few minutes on the same. Jonathan Gruber is so right.

5.) Before it got torched it was open for business nightly in season right down the street from my childhood home. The Dells' prosperous run was concurrent, not the least bit coincidentally, with the Volstead Act and prohibition. Additional attractions included beer, liquor and gambling and gangland wars over the profits of the same. The Dells was said to be owned or controlled by Al Capone and his gang. It is commonly referred to as the most notorious of the Morton Grove roadhouses. Read about that and more in Morton Grove Before the Baby Boom The Complete Story of the Dells.

The Dells gets torched, October 7, 1934.

6.) Lyndon R. Foster was perhaps my favorite uncle -- yet I never met him. I learned essentially everything I know about uncle Lyn when I researched and wrote On the Road to Bathgate Act 4f: Lyndon R. Foster -- Veteran, Publisher and Politician. Lyndon literally put his life on the line in defense of freedom, accountability and good government. He got the Germans out of France and the mafia out of LA. 

7.) People are finally figuring out the federal government sucks and the president and his minions are lying to them virtually every day. As for looking forward,

Despite having cherry picked her appearances, just about everywhere Hillary Clinton had gone to support candidates the Democrats lost last night. I guess that should be no surprise, since last spring and summer she was about the first presidential aspirant in history to have lost a book tour. We look forward to learning what the next president of the United States has in store for us in 2015.

We commented thus and on other issues the day after in Random Observations on an Election.

Arlene Harvey, check room
girl at Club Rendezvous

8.)  Another of the roadhouse stories from prohibition era Morton Grove concerned an establishment across Dempster Street and a block up from The Dells. We blogged Morton Grove Before the Baby Boom: Club Rendezvous Goes Up in Smoke. 

Drapes and streamers stretched from the walls and ceiling of the dance hall and the dining room. The bar was packed. A mass of persons moved to the music of a three person orchestra on the dance floor. Every table in the dining room was filled. Many were Northwestern university students who had just come from a school musical comedy production. 

"Fire." 

The girl who had sent the cry ringing through the building, snatched her wrap and made for the only exit -- except the kitchen door -- a narrow doorway on the east side of the dance hall. This doorway led into an anteroom which led to the street.

The Daily Herald, March 29, 1935

A frenzy of fear seized the merrymakers. Screaming, trampling, striking, they surged to the east exit -- only to discover, firemen said, it opened inward. The foremost were flattened against the door and wall by the desperate press of the panic-stricken. 

It did not end well.

9.) Boom, Thwack, Kapowee! Five Guys Has Opened. 

10.) Caring About Culverts is the story of one of our 1970's real economy jobs, the kind of job that doesn't exist anymore in our overly corporatized, centralized and regulated economy. We rolled them, we punch holed them, we fitted them, and we riveted and bolted them. We did whatever it took to build anodized corrugated steel culverts in Madison, Wisconsin back in the day.