THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL - Artist Statement

by Matt Ward

 

Frozen isn’t my favorite Disney picture, but it’s a guilty pleasure of mine. Guilty, because I watched it alone as a full-grown adult, and found myself falling madly in love with the flaxen-haired snow goddess, Elsa. But then, I’ve got a long history of loving on cartoon characters of a particular sort.

Probably due to my past infatuation with (New) Teen Titans’ Raven, I was evermore conditioned to fall for characters whose talents or superpowers made them weird, dangerous, uncontrollable, and in many ways, doomed—the burgeoning human need to interact and express themselves puts them in constant danger of destroying all that they aspire to protect. That song remains the same, from Wolfman to Witchblade to Wicked, that essential humanity will not be denied. Eventually it boils over. (Tragedy’s a hell of a drug. I love it.)

Also due to the fact that not only is Elsa sexier than a Pininfarina-styled wet dream—her upswept mane of dangerous, dragon-like curls folded into a slinky French braid, and her gossamer-thin gown cling-filmed to all her most salient peaks, valleys and mounds—but for two years, there was no place to hide from her voice, her anthem, or her predatory glare (and Anna’s comparatively earnest gaze), being advertised on television or in all sorts of public spaces, accessories and apparel, cereal boxes, even a birthday party in my next-door neighbor’s backyard. The record-smashing worldwide gross and prolonged Disney blitz made the cups of popular culture runneth over.

I was bored for a spell (and busy with other things), but with my mill immersed in a miasma of familiar-smelling grist, it was only a matter of time before I would move to consummate my feelings, pick up my Wacom tablet, and draw Elsa and Anna doing something un-Disney-like, with a requisite level of un-Disney-like modesty.

 

‘THE LAND THAT NEVER MELTS’

The setting is based on the Akshayuk Pass section of Auyuittuq National Park in Baffin Island, Nunavut. Mount Thor is visible on the left. I compressed the range in order to fit the tall and narrow canvas, and filled the bottom of the pass with a frozen lake. The clouds and lake ripples were produced with texture brushes I made from Googled photos of other frozen bodies of water (particularly Abraham Lake in Alberta), and different cloud species (mostly altocumulus, cirrus and cirrocumulus.)

I was originally inspired by the proliferation of methane bubbles in Abraham Lake, which freeze while en route to being expressed at the surface, making it look as if you’re walking on fathom-deep stacks of CD’s and coins. Later on, I felt that a huge methane bubble didn’t make a very powerful visual for the girls to be standing on, so I grafted in the huge snowflake, and used multiple duplicate layers of blurred overlays and screens to make it glow. The more it glowed, the happier I was with it.

 

THE MODELS

I had no intention of going fully photo-realistic, as I’m not a master of the craft and it would’ve taken me a million years to finish, but I wanted to use real faces as references. And I didn’t want faces you could see just anywhere. I looked to my two favorite pinup models from the 1950s and 60s, with Rosina Revelle as Elsa, and Michelle Angelo as Anna. I was introduced to their work via Dian Hanson’s The Big Book of Breasts (which had a memorable cameo on Matthew McConaughey’s desk in the movie Tropic Thunder) in which Revelle and Angelo were prominently featured models.

When I first bought the book a few years ago, it actually took me a while to get used to Rosina. Her facial features are gentle and fleshy, with full pouty lips, and a high-maintenance bearing. Her natural missile-shaped bosoms cantilever from her rib cage, and just seem to hang there even without support. It’s not a contemporary look, even though she is, on the whole, very easy on the eyes.

Michelle looks more contemporary, slimmer and slightly more petite, with a face that radiates a comparatively easier-going nature. Different looks for different times; Michelle Angelo was one of the most widely published American pinup models in 1960s gentleman’s literature, Playboy’s ‘Psychedelic Hippie’, and a fixture of the free-love generation. Rosina Revelle’s criminally short modeling career happened a decade earlier in the UK, where she was billed as Britain’s answer to Brigitte Bardot (though personally, I don’t think Ms. Bardot has anything on Rosie.)

Despite being photographed at a younger age than Michelle, Rosina’s eyes carry a sense of wisdom and experience beyond her years. And at times, a sense of implacable will, like she’d have no problem getting what she wants, most of the time, and not entirely due to cuteness.

Remember when Elsa told Olaf to lay off the cake? Stuff like that.

To paraphrase a line from Vito Corleone, Anna can afford to look a little careless, but Elsa cannot. This is what I feel allows Rosina and Michelle to really sell these characters, apart from bearing some vague resemblance to highly stylized cartoon designs—Anna is light and free and open, while Elsa carries baggage befitting her age and rank, both in the form of greater sensuality and the burden of responsibility.

 

THE WORK

I sketched the original line drawing in November 2015, and proceeded to paint in grayscale until I was comfortable with the direction of light sources, and the styling of the ribbons and bows.

In my previous outing with the Wacom tablet (which was my very first!) I only used varying sizes of hard and soft round brushes, bewildered by the vast selection of other brush tips and the sheer amount of control a power user can have over their behavior. Now this time, I was experimenting in earnest; I’d gobbled up all the free tutorials I could find, and was determined to learn this stuff and make it stick.

But I didn’t relinquish all of my powers—most of the piece is straight drawing, but where Photoshop could make my life easier (and make the painting look better), I just let it.

I tried painting freehand clouds, and thought at first that I managed a satisfactory result. Then I put away my pride and chucked it, made some custom texture brushes, and came out with something that looks a whole lot better. Likewise with the ripples on the lake. The rosemaling patterns and snowflakes were taken from a Google image search, and free-transformed into place.

The thing I looked most forward to trying out my new custom brush skills on was Anna’s freckles. I was giddy for it in a weird way. In the end, I got a little carried away and really Shawkatted her up. Then after I added blush and jacked that up, it looked like she had a condition! Jeez, where’s a freckle model when you need one? This is something I still need to work out.

 

THE MEANING

I should leave that up to the viewers. But if you want my view anyway:

I subscribe to a couple of Elsanna and ‘arencest’ tumblrs because I enjoy the fanart. But I don’t think the fate of the Universe hangs on the fulfillment of that prophesy, and, if many of one’s friends swim in that pool, one could be forgiven for thinking it was a religion. Ultimately I don’t care to ship it, because I don’t care. I painted this for my own selfish, prurient reasons.

I would be lying, however, if I denied it to be a compelling concept that Elsa’s ‘greatest gift of all’ was herself. And in a non-incestuous context, Frozen Fever is the bow that tops the wrappings of the previous film’s finale, with the wounds created in the first full-length feature all neatly bound and healed, pretty much hermetically.

Still, I didn’t let that stand in the way of me fixing my own little Elsanna sandwich. (Om nom nom)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

History

United States

Name: USS Franklin D. Roosevelt

Namesake: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Builder: New York Naval Shipyard

Laid down: 1 December 1943

Launched: 29 April 1945

Commissioned: 27 October 1945

Decommissioned: 30 September 1977

Struck: 1 October 1977

Nickname(s):

 

"Swanky Franky"

"Foo-De-Roo"

"Rosie"

"Rusty Rosie"

 

Fate: Scrapped

General characteristics (as built)

Class and type: Midway-class aircraft carrier

Displacement: 45,000 tons

Length: 968 ft (295 m)

Beam: 113 ft (34 m)

Draft: 35 ft (11 m)

Speed: 33 kn (61 km/h; 38 mph)

Complement: 4,104 officers and men

Armament:

 

18 × 1 – 5"/54 caliber Mark 16 guns

21 × 4 – 40 mm Bofors /60 caliber guns

 

Aircraft carried: 137

 

USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB/CVA/CV-42) was the second of three Midway-class aircraft carriers. To her crew, she was known as "Swanky Franky," "Foo-De-Roo," or "Rosie," with the last nickname probably the most popular. Roosevelt spent most of her active deployed career operating in the Mediterranean Sea as part of the United States Sixth Fleet. The ship was decommissioned in 1977 and was scrapped shortly afterward. She was the first aircraft carrier of the United States Navy to be named in honor of a President of the United States.

 

Early career

Roosevelt at commissioning ceremonies in 1945

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt was laid down at New York Naval Shipyard on 1 December 1943. Sponsor Mrs. John H. Towers, wife of the Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, christened the ship Coral Sea at the 29 April 1945 launching. On 8 May 1945, President Harry S. Truman approved the Secretary of the Navy's recommendation to rename the ship Franklin D. Roosevelt in honor of the late president, who had died four weeks earlier.

 

Roosevelt was commissioned on Navy Day, 27 October 1945, at the New York Naval Shipyard. Capt. Apollo Soucek was the ship's first commanding officer. During her shakedown cruise, Roosevelt called at Rio de Janeiro from 1 to 11 February 1946 to represent the United States at the inauguration of Brazilian president Eurico Gaspar Dutra, who came aboard for a short cruise. During April and May, Roosevelt participated in Eighth Fleet maneuvers off the East Coast, the Navy's first major postwar training exercise.

 

On 21 July 1946, Roosevelt became the first American carrier to operate an all-jet aircraft under controlled conditions. Lieutenant Commander James Davidson, flying the McDonnell XFD-1 Phantom, made a series of successful take-offs and landings as Roosevelt lay off Cape Henry, Virginia.[1] Jet trials continued in November, when Lt. Col. Marion E. Carl, USMC, made two catapult launches, four unassisted take-offs, and five arrested landings in a Lockheed P-80A.

 

Fleet maneuvers and other training operations in the Caribbean preceded Roosevelt's first deployment to the Mediterranean, which lasted from August to October 1946. Roosevelt, flying the flag of Rear Admiral John H. Cassady, Commander, Carrier Division 1, led the U.S. Navy force that arrived in Piraeus on 5 September 1946.[2] This visit showed U.S. support for the pro-Western government of Greece, which was locked in a civil war with Communist insurgents. The ship received thousands of visitors during her calls to many Mediterranean ports.

 

Roosevelt returned to American waters and operated off the East Coast until July 1947, when she entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard for an extensive overhaul. At that time, her quad 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns were replaced by 40 3-inch (76 mm) Mark 22 guns in Mark 33 twin mountings.

USS Roosevelt

Roosevelt at Pier 91 in Seattle, 1953 or 1954

 

From September 1948 to January 1949, Roosevelt undertook a second tour of duty with U.S. Naval Forces, Mediterranean. In 1950, Roosevelt became the first carrier to take nuclear weapons to sea. In September and October 1952, she participated in Operation Mainbrace, the first major NATO exercise in the North Atlantic. Roosevelt operated with other major fleet units, including the aircraft carriers USS Midway, USS Wasp, and HMS Eagle, as well as the battleships USS Wisconsin and HMS Vanguard.

 

Roosevelt was reclassified CVA-42 on 1 October 1952. On 7 January 1954, she sailed for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard to undergo extensive reconstruction. Too large to pass through the Panama Canal, Roosevelt rounded Cape Horn and arrived at the shipyard on 5 March. She was temporarily decommissioned there for her refit on 23 April 1954.

Refit

Roosevelt in 1956, after SCB-110 reconstruction

 

Roosevelt was the first of her class to undergo the SCB-110 reconstruction, at a cost of $48 million. She received an enclosed "hurricane bow," one C-11-2 and two C-11-1 steam catapults, strengthened arresting gear, an enlarged bridge, a mirror landing system, and a 482-foot (147 m) angled flight deck. SPS-8 height finding radar and SPS-12 air search radar were mounted on a new tubular mast. The aft elevator was relocated to the starboard deck edge, the forward elevator was enlarged, and all elevators were uprated to 75,000 lb (34,000 kg) capacity. Aviation fuel bunkerage was increased from 350,000 to 450,000 gallons (1,320,000 to 1,700,000 L). Standard displacement rose to 51,000 tons, while deep load displacement rose to 63,400 tons. As weight compensation, several of the 5-inch (127 mm) Mark 16 anti-aircraft guns were landed, leaving only 10, and the 3,200-ton armor belt was removed. Hull blisters were also added to cope with the increased weight. Roosevelt recommissioned on 6 April 1956.

 

After post-refit trials, Roosevelt sailed for her new homeport of Mayport, Florida. In February 1957, Roosevelt conducted cold weather tests of catapults, aircraft, and the Regulus guided missile, in the Gulf of Maine. In July, she sailed for the first of three consecutive Sixth Fleet deployments. Her assignments in the Mediterranean added NATO exercises to her normal schedule of major fleet operations, and found her entertaining a distinguished list of guests each year.

A-4 Skyhawk of VA-172 aboard Roosevelt during her only Vietnam deployment between August 1966 and February 1967

 

During a 1958 mid-year overhaul, the 22 remaining 3-inch (76 mm) guns were removed.

 

On 24 October 1958, Roosevelt supported USS Kleinsmith in the evacuation of 56 American citizens and three foreign nationals from Nicara, Cuba, as the Cuban Revolution came to a climax.

 

In late 1960, the Control Instrument Company installed the first production Fresnel Lens Optical Landing System (FLOLS) onboard Roosevelt. She recorded her 100,000th aircraft landing in March 1961. During a 1963 overhaul, six more 5-inch (127 mm) guns were removed.

 

While operating in the Eastern Mediterranean in the fall of 1964, Roosevelt lost a blade from one of her 20-ton propellers. She proceeded from Naples, Italy to New York with the number one shaft locked. After replacing the propeller at Bayonne, New Jersey, Roosevelt returned to the Mediterranean to complete her cruise.

 

From August 1966 to January 1967, Roosevelt made her only deployment to Southeast Asia, spending a total of 95 days "on the line." Her embarked airwing, Carrier Air Wing One, consisted mainly of F-4 Phantom IIs and A-4 Skyhawks. Roosevelt received one battle star for her service during the Vietnam War.

 

In January 1968, Italian actress Virna Lisi was invited by Roosevelt's crew to participate in the ship's 22nd birthday celebrations. Lisi helped prepare 5,000 T-bone steaks at a large cook-out staged on the flight deck.

Austere modernization

Roosevelt in 1970 after her austere 11-month refit of 1968-69.

 

Roosevelt was initially slated to undergo an extensive reconstruction (SCB 101.68) similar to that received by Midway from 1966 to 1970. This plan was derailed by massive cost overruns in Midway's reconstruction, which eventually totalled $202 million. Roosevelt was therefore limited to an austere $46 million refit, enabling her to operate the Grumman A-6 Intruder and LTV A-7 Corsair II.

 

In July 1968, Roosevelt entered Norfolk Naval Shipyard for her 11-month modernization program. The forward centerline elevator was relocated to the starboard deck edge forward of the island, the port waist catapult was removed, the crew spaces were refurbished, and two of the four remaining 5-inch (127 mm) anti-aircraft turrets were removed. Roosevelt also received a deck edge spray system using the new seawater compatible fire-fighting chemical, Light Water. She put to sea again on 26 May 1969.

 

From 1 August 1969, Roosevelt embarked Carrier Air Wing Six, which served as the ship's air wing for the next seven cruises.[3] In January 1970, Roosevelt returned to the Mediterranean for another Sixth Fleet deployment.

 

Roosevelt's twenty-first Sixth Fleet deployment was marked by indirect participation in the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, as she served as a transit "landing field" for aircraft being delivered to Israel. The Roosevelt battlegroup, Task Force 60.2, also stood by for possible evacuation contingencies.

 

From 1973 through 1975, VAW-121 operated aboard Roosevelt as one of the last Grumman E-1 Tracer squadrons in the fleet. Roosevelt received a multipurpose designation, CV-42, on 30 June 1975, but she did not operate any anti-submarine aircraft. In June 1976, Roosevelt embarked VMA-231 with 14 AV-8A Harrier attack aircraft.

 

The ship embarked Carrier Air Wing Nineteen for its final deployment, which lasted from October 1976 to April 1977.[4] VMA-231 was on board for this deployment, which demonstrated that VTOL aircraft could be successfully and seamlessly integrated into fixed wing air operations. On 12 January 1977, Roosevelt collided with the Liberian grain freighter Oceanus while transiting the Strait of Messina. Both ships were able to proceed to port under their own power.

Decommissioning and disposal

Roosevelt during her final Mediterranean cruise in 1976

 

By the late 1970s, Roosevelt was in poor material condition. Deprived of the upgrades that Midway and Coral Sea had received, Roosevelt was the least modern and least capable of the class. Furthermore, Roosevelt used General Electric turbines, which gave persistent problems and reduced speed compared to the Westinghouse units used on the other ships. The Navy therefore chose to decommission Roosevelt when the second Nimitz-class carrier, Dwight D. Eisenhower, entered service in 1977. Roosevelt completed her final cruise in April 1977. She was officially decommissioned on 30 September 1977. The decommissioning ceremony was held on 1 October 1977 and the ship was stricken from the Navy List on the same day. Efforts to preserve Roosevelt as a museum ship in New York City failed.

 

Roosevelt's generally poor condition weighed against retaining her in the reserve fleet. Moreover, her low hangar height of 17 feet 6 inches (5.33 m) limited the aircraft types that she could handle. It was reasoned that existing Essex-class aircraft carriers could handle the same types of aircraft at lower cost. Some admirals also feared that if Roosevelt were retained, the Carter Administration would use her reactivation as a reason to cancel future Nimitz-class carriers.[citation needed]

 

On 1 April 1978, the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service sold the ship to River Terminal Development Company for $2.1 million. After usable equipment was removed from Roosevelt at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard's Inactive Ships Facility, the carrier was towed to Kearny, New Jersey. She arrived on 3 May 1978 and was scrapped that year.

Diamond City Security: Is that a man in tights, FLYING? I really need to lay off the Jet..

Taken with a Canon 60D and a Tamron 70-300mm f4/5.6 Di USD VC

Queen Street West, Toronto

 

A favorite tune from the amazing eighties!! - Mike

  

*****

 

All I needed was the love you gave

All I needed for another day

And all I ever knew

Only you

  

"'Only You' is a ballad written by musician Vince Clarke. He wrote it while with Depeche Mode, and offered it to them when he was leaving. They declined, and Clarke recorded it after forming the duo Yazoo with Alison Moyet. It was an instant success, hitting number two in the UK, and charting in the U.S. (number sixty-seven, Billboard Hot 100), a feat only attained by one other Yazoo single (coincidentally, that single was 'Situation,' the original UK B-side of 'Only You'). 'Only You' also made the U.S. Adult Contemporary chart at number thirty-eight.

 

A remix of 'Only You' made the UK Top 40 again in 1999, while reaching number sixteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. The music video for the new version was created using the Houdini 3D animation software package.

 

Clarke had gone through a divorce around the time that he wrote the song, the song may reflect his mood at the time.

 

Clarke's melody in the song 'has a sweetly yearning quality, elegantly arranged by Clarke and producer E.C. Radcliffe in a fashion that links several different monophonic synths together to give the tune more depth and melodic substance' according to Allmusic. Moyet's vocals, they say, is a 'perfectly understated vocal performance, soulful yet dignified in the manner of '70s soul star Ann Peebles, of Clarke's gentle and romantic lyrics.'

 

Although not a Christmas song, it has become a popular song to play at that time of year. This is probably due to the association with the Flying Pickets version, which was a Christmas hit.

 

An a cappella version by The Flying Pickets was even more successful than the original on the UK Singles Chart by becoming the Christmas number one in 1983. It spent five weeks at the top. This made 'Only You' the first a cappella chart-topper in the UK. The Flying Pickets version went on to become a number one hit on the German Singles Chart in 1984 and charted in Canada as well, though it saw no chart action in the United States.

 

Spanish singer Enrique Iglesias covered the song on his second studio album Vivir. The track was released as the second single from that album and became very successful, debuting at number 1 in the United States Billboard Hot Latin Tracks chart (his second in a row, and the first artist to do so) in May 3, 1997 and spent ten non-consecutive weeks at the top." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_You_(Yazoo_song)

 

*****

 

"The Flying Pickets is a British a cappella vocal group, that had a Christmas number one hit in 1983 in the UK Singles Chart, with their cover of Yazoo's track - 'Only You'.

 

The name 'Flying Pickets' refers to mobile strikers who travel in order to join a picket. The band of six was founded by Brian Hibbard in 1982 from a group of actors who had been active with him in John McGrath's '7:84 Theatre Group', a fringe theatre organisation who had sung a cappella in their production of the 1981 play One Big Blow. The group chose the name The Flying Pickets as band members had played a part in the UK miners strikes of 1972 and 1974. The Flying Pickets came up with the then novel concept of transferring the art of a cappella to the pop music scene. Joining Hibbard in the Group were Rick Lloyd (who also wrote the music to One Big Blow), Gareth Williams, David Brett, Ken Gregson (Real name Kenneth Gregory) and Red Stripe (real name David Gittins). The members of the group were internationally renowned for their flamboyant appearance: Hibbard's huge sideburns, Stripe's thick eye-liner, and four others showing off gaudy suits and large hats. Two of the other original members, Ron Donachie and Christopher Ryan left the band before 'Only You'.

 

'Only You', their debut single, was the UK Christmas number one in 1983 spending a total of five weeks at the top, and also doing well around Europe and in Canada, where it hit #17 in the spring of 1984. Despite the radical Socialist politics of The Flying Pickets then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher proclaimed to much amusement that it was her favourite record. A second single, featuring Van McCoy's 'When You're Young and in Love' originally written for Ruby and the Romantics reached number 7 in the UK, but their third, a cover of the Eurythmics' 'Who's That Girl' barely charted.

 

The height of the group's fame coincided with the 1984 Miners Strike. In 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers called strike action following the National Coal Board's decision to close 20 pits and lay off 20,000 people. The Flying Pickets were very vocal regarding their support of the miners during the dispute and came to blows with the record label Virgin after they picketed Drax Power Station in Yorkshire. They also performed benefit gigs for the miners. Hibbard himself claimed that their political beliefs probably had a detrimental affect regarding the group's mainstream image but it was a sacrifice they were willing to make, one well known record store refused to sell the groups albums due to their support of strike action.

 

In 1986 Hibbard and Stripe left the band and were replaced by Gary Howard and Hereward Kaye. Hibbard and Gittins tried to stay in the music industry, forming their own act called 'Brian and Stripe', but their first and only single featuring a cover of Yazoo's 'Mr. Blue' failed to chart, and they returned to their separate acting careers.

 

There have been many different members of The Flying Pickets and the line-up kept changing constantly throughout the 1990s and 2000s; since the Pickets began, there have been at least 19 different band members. The last member of the original line-up, David Brett, left the band in 1990. However in 1994, the original line-up (minus Lloyd) reformed to record one more album.

 

Since the Original Flying Pickets split, new teams of ambitious men using the name The Flying Pickets have tried to follow in the Original's footsteps. There have not had songs in the music charts. In the late 2000s a line-up was touring Europe all year round performing in small venues." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Pickets

  

[ Please contact me if you would like to use this image. ]

I might just as well post pictures of clouds for the rest of my life. They can't take those away.

 

I had to run into Wal-Mart yesterday to pick something up for my Dad. I decided to make a spin through the film department because I need some more of that black and white film Kodak has that processes in the color C-41 chemicals - very handy stuff. I got back to where the film was, or rather, where it used to be and didn't see any Kodak film. I figured they had just moved it somewhere else like they always do every week. So, I asked a passing worker where it was, but it wasn't her department and there weren't any stationary workers to assist me - the store looked like a ghost town, so she radioed somewhere to have one come and assist me. After waiting 10 minutes for somebody to finally show up, I said, "Is business so bad that you had to lay off everybody?" This was in response to there not being any clerks to assist me like in the olden days.

 

Well, the girl didn't know where the Kodak film was, (she only draws a paycheck, doesn't know anything about the store where she works), so she had to call the manager. The manager informed her that the "home office" had decided that this particular store didn't need Kodak film anymore. This is getting ridiculous! I went to talk to the manager in person to find out what was going on and why I couldn't buy Kodak film any more. Like I have purchased for the last 34 years. (Kodak is an old American brand of film at least 100 years in existence. Sure, they still had the Japanese brand of film on the shelves, but no American film.)

 

The manager kindly informed me that, since this Wal-Mart was a tiny store, the smallest they have, they didn't carry everything like the bigger stores in Evansville or St. Louis do. (One an hour away from me and the other 2 hours away.)

 

What am I? A third class citizen? I use the same kind of things that people in big cities use! Everybody uses the same stuff, no matter where they live. That's just the way it is. But - people like me don't deserve to be able to buy everything like those "special" and "important" people in the big cities. I'm just a third class citizen and don't deserve the same choices as everybody else.

 

I, Kenny, am telling you, who is reading this right now, that you'd better wake up and get prepared for calamity. People aren't going to take being treated like third class citizens forever. And do you want to not be prepared for when some nutcase goes into a Wal-Mart and guns down 40 people because they don't carry his Nacho Pringles anymore and sets off nationwide outrage?

 

Not me, brother. I'm going to try and be ready to save myself and my family. You can do what you like. Those that aren't prepared will be the first to die. And that means that I'll have a better chance of surviving. Do you want to be a survivor or a casualty? It's your choice - one of the few they still allow you to have. (At least for the moment, anyway.)

mmmm, delicious smooth caramelly french press coffee. every morning, baby. can't wait for tomorrow. it's good to be back home! :)

   

Being of the unemployed type, and hearing of people within two degrees of me getting laid off daily, and the list of major American companies laying off thousands at a time, things don't look so good for me finding a nice stable job with benefits and vacation anytime in the next two years.

 

In response, I've embraced the self I was 20 years ago and am not setting the alarm clock. I wake up whenever my body feels it should be awake.

 

Unfortunately for the achiever in me, I am not one that really thrives in the morning. I don't wake up at 7AM ready to live the shit of of each day. I am the model of a early 20's community college stoner, without the handblown bong, happy to wake up before noon, and drink coffee until 2PM.

 

After months of this lifestyle, (I should note that it was intertwined with the actual act of me being laid off, my dad having a stroke, Christmas and three weeks of the flu) I am ready to live the shit of each day. I could be my period talking (I detailed my car and polished the silver tray and salt and pepper shakers in a three hour period this week) but I hope not.

 

In this spirit, I called up the Red Cross to join their team of volunteers. I also tried to give blood twice. As much as they wanted it, poking every finger possible that would give a good reading, they didn't take it. It was too anemic.

 

Boo.

 

But I did sign up to be a Community Organizer which will make me a person at a booth at events, like say, a boat show, or a food festival. Or, I hope, a beer festival.

 

Whatever it will be, it's the first time in, possibly years, I feel I'll be doing a job that actually benefits someone.

 

I can't wait.

    

while i was out running around this afternoon, i stopped by Target hoping to get a movie to watch tonight with my hunney. i couldn't find a movie that i was interested in (that i don't already own), but i did grab the caterpillar & iguana pictured here.

 

the set is now complete... i think i need to lay off of the LPS obsession for awhile!!

De oude stadshaven van Venlo bedekt met een dikke laag ijs.

 

The old cityharbour from Venlo coverd with a thick lay off ice.

German postcard by Filmbilder-Vertrieb Ernst Freihoff, Essen, no. AX 7080. Photo: Norbert Unfried / Ariola.

 

Dutch singer and actor Hein Simons (1955) was a famous child star in the 1960s under the name Heintje. He sang in Dutch, English, German, Japanese and Afrikaans, and he sold more than 40 million records worldwide. His greatest hit was Mama. Between 1968 and 1971 he also starred in six German light entertainment films, of which one became surprisingly popular in Red China.

 

Hendrik (Hein) Nicolaas Theodoor Simons was born in Kerkrade-Bleijerheide, in the south of the Netherlands, in 1955. Heintje was discovered after a talent contest in the Dutch town of Schaesberg by Addy Kleijngeld, a producer of the CNR record company. Kleijngeld went on to compose and record all his hit songs - mostly together with the German producer Wolfgang Roloff. Heintje’s first hit was Mama (1967), a Dutch version of the evergreen sung in the 1940’s by opera tenor Beniamino Gigli. It became a success in the Netherlands and a German version was produced for the German countries. In 1968 Mama reached the #2 position in the German hitparade. Heintje’s next German record, Du sollst nicht weinen (You should not cry) (1968), even became #1. Other huge hits soon followed as the # 1 hit in Germany ánd the Netherlands Ich bau' dir ein Schloss (I’ll build you a castle) (1968), Heidschi bumbeidschi (1968) – another # 1 in both Germany and the Netherlands, Ich sing ein Lied für dich (I sing you a song) (1969) – another # 1 in Germany, the Dutch song Ik hou van Holland (I love Holland) (1970), the English song I'm your little boy (1970) and another Dutch song Jij bent de allerbeste (You are the best) (1971). In 1971, Heintje started a USA tour with 10 shows. He received 45 Golden records all over the world (at the time the award for 250,000 sold records in Europe and for 1 million records in Great-Britain) and a dozen Platinum records. Worldwide he sold more than 40 million records.

 

Between 1968 and 1971, Heintje appeared in six German films. His first film was Zum Teufel mit der Penne/To Hell with School (Werner Jacobs, 1968) with Peter Alexander and Theo Lingen. This comedy was the second of the Lümmel film series (6 in total), stuffy but harmless farces in which young students and other youths dissociate themselves from the older generation. Heintje played a supporting role and sang his hit Mama. In the following years he starred in three sentimental Heintje-films opposite Heinz Reincke and Ralf Wolter: Heintje – ein Herz geht auf Reisen/Heintje: A Heart Goes on a Journey (Werner Jacobs, 1969), Heintje – einmal wird die Sonne wieder scheinen/Heintje: Once the Sun Will Be Shining Again (Hans Heinrich, 1970) with Paul Dahlke, and Heintje – mein bester Freund/Heintje: My Best Friend (Werner Jacobs, 1970) with Corny Collins. Heintje – ein Herz geht auf Reisen was awarded a Golden Screen in Germany for more than 3,000,000 attendances within 12 months. With subtitles the Heintje films were shown all over the world. Surprisingly, the film became also popular in communist China in the early 1980s. On IMDb, Zhengyu Sun comments: “In the West, this film may be easily neglected as time goes by. But amazingly, Heintje would definitely be crowned as one of the memorable western films on Chinese screen even from today's perspective. Although filmed in 1960s, the film wasn't available in Red China until earlier 1980s. When the film was introduced, it was given a Chinese title, Handsome Boy. Actually, Heintje conforms with Chinese traditional values to great extend, such as parental and grandparental love, the theme of the harmonious family, the main character's righteous and courageous virtue. All of which seem pretty familiar and quite acceptable to the Chinese point of view. What's more, the songs performed by little Heintje Simons also contributed a lot to the popularity of the film in China. Without any exaggerating, the film is a household name among those middle-aged and well-educated.” Heintje also appeared - now in starring roles –in two more Lümmel farces, Hurra, die Schule brennt/Hurrah, the School is Burning (Werner Jacobs, 1969) and Morgen fällt die Schule aus/No School Tomorrow (Werner Jacobs, 1971), his final film.

 

When Heintje was 16, the inevitable happened: his voice changed. His last hit in the Netherlands was Meine Liebe für dich (My love for you) (1972). He continued to be quite popular in Germany, but couldn’t lay off his image as a former child star. In 1975, he made two LP’s with songs in Afrikaans, which were quite successful in South-Africa. His performances in the state of apartheid lead to some criticism in his home country though. As a young adult, he tried to make a come-back in the Netherlands with the song Und das alles nur weil wir uns lieben (And that's just because we love each other) (1978), but it only became a modest success. He also tried several come-backs in the German speaking regions, and in 1995 he even recorded a techno version of his first hit Mama. Nowadays Hein Simons resides with his family on a horse ranch in Neu-Moresnet, a part of the city of Kelmis in the east of Belgium. In 1981, he married Doris Uhl, and they have three children, Pascal (1982), Gina (1989) and Hendrik (1992). Hein Simons still performs and records regularly.

 

Sources: International Hein Simons Website, Zhengyu Sun (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

I swear I'll lay off the flower shots for awhile! I just couldn't resist the pink and green. I'm such a girl. (-;

 

Explore #147 - May 22, 2008

On the 24th June 2020 I was was walking through Bury St Edmunds . On a Wednesday its market day and thankfully more and more stalls are returning following the Covid 19 Lockdown.

 

Early morning Romilly was setting up for a busy day on the Burger Van that she helps run in the Buttermarket in Bury St Edmunds. On a hot day it was sure to be a warm kitchen. Romilly was pleased to be back working after a long lay off due to the Covid 19 Pandemic. Its only in the last 2 weeks that the van has been able to be back in business.

 

Normally her family would head down to Cornwall for their summer holidays but this was cancelled .

The two got into an altercation over a fruit thrown to the monkey by a passenger from a train on the Kodur Railway platform in Andhra Pradesh,India. Eventually it was the dog who gave up and moved on to get something more which was thrown on the platform.

Conway, Arkansas

Faulkner County

 

Holga 120N/Kodak 400 UltraMax (redscaled)

 

Shortly after I took pictures at AmTran it was announced they were closing the place, laying off hundreds of employees, and consolidating with another factory out of state. It's a weird thing. It's one of those places that's so familiar to me in Conway. For eight years, I drove past it daily when I lived in Conway.

Robert "Bob" Carlos Clarke (24 June 1950 – 25 March 2006) was a prolific photographer, described as "Britain’s answer to Helmut Newton". In his short life he had a strong impact upon and influenced the development of photography from the late 20th Century through to the present day.

 

Clarke was born in Cork, Ireland and sent to an all-male boarding school in England at a young age and this experience influenced his photography and his choice of subject matter, both as a student and new photographer and then later in adult life.

 

After finishing secondary education he went to Dublin for a year, working in various low level positions at advertising agencies and newspapers as a trainee journalist. After a brief spell in Belfast in 1969, Clarke moved to England in the latter half of 1970 and enrolled in the Worthing College of Art]], where he met his first wife, Sue Frame. Knowing that she was a part-time model he "knew he had to become a photographer without delay" and persuaded her to pose for him on a chromed 650cc Triumph Bonneville.

 

In 1975, a couple of years after this photograph was taken, they married at Kensington Registry Office. By this time they had already made the move to London, more specifically Brixton, where Carlos Clarke enrolled in the London College of Printing. He later went on to complete an MA from the Royal College of Art in photography, graduating in 1975. He initially began photographing nudes as a means of making money; using his fellow students as models he shot for Paul Raymond Publications, Men Only and Club International. Having exhausted the college of beauty he turned to model agencies and discovered that it was possible to flick through a catalogue and essentially ‘order’ a girl from a picture.

 

It was at this time that his relationship with Sue was beginning to wane and he spent periods renting separately from her. He rented in Brixton before purchasing half a house in Balham for £9,500. Limitations on space meant that his photographic style had to adapt, as he was unable to take a whole picture in one take and as a result began to use photo-montage to create homemade fantasies. Carlos Clarke says of the time: "visitors to my grand apartment had to tiptoe around a labyrinth of cut-up scraps of photographs, pots of glue and scattered scalpels". This method saw him take photographs everywhere he went, "of skylines, doorways, highways, rocks, ruins, rivers – anything I might use later in a composition". The next stage of this process was the purchase of a deVillbiss airbrush and a compressor to spray inks and chemicals".

 

He wrote of the time: "working in such confined and ill-equipped spaces was most hellish. One of my darkrooms was a tiny bedroom adjacent to a railway where I had to time my exposure to avoid the vibration of passing trains". It was at this time and working in such conditions that Carlos Clarke discovered what he termed ‘chemical abuse’ – flinging chemicals across prints to distress the image. He was photographer who was not to be limited by the two-dimensionality of the photographic print.

 

As a photographer he became fairly obsessed with achieving the "perfect" image. He would make the same image again and again convinced that they could be improved. As a result, he has left behind a legacy of a great many prints of similar images with different effects of colouring. His marriage to Sue had disintegrated and he was now dating Lindsey Rudland, a model. They lived together in Earls Court and ran a professional darkroom and studio in the space. They wed in St. Vincent in 1997.

 

Clarke's first encounter with photographing models in rubber and latex was an experience with a gentleman called ‘The Commander’, a publisher of a magazine for devotees of rubber wear who had contacted Carlos Clarke to shoot for his publication. Allen Jones was a good friend of Clarke. His work drew heavily on fetishism and he advised the younger photographer to lay off the fetish scene. Clarke devoted the following decade to shooting women in high heels. What he liked about rubber and vinyl "was the way it contained a body, concealing imperfections and defining contours beneath a gleaming synthetic skin". Once they’d mastered the technique of getting it on, the models loved it; "it became a new and exciting ritual, a way of being simultaneously exposed and impenetrable".

 

Clarke worked with Daniel James of London for five years on creating rubber and synthetic outfits. They also collaborated to create a mail-order catalogue called Maid in London. Daniel James’s work became thematic to Clarke's second book, The Dark Summer (Quartet, 1985) and it was Daniel who created the mermaid's tail for Clarke's iconic image "Fantasy Females Are Impossible To Satisfy" (2004).

 

As a professional photographer the cameras that Bob liked to use included the Pentax 645, Olympus OM4ti and Pentax 6x7s and Fuji 6x9s. He detested digital photography, which gave everyone the impression they were the next Cartier-Bresson. However, he is quoted as saying that the reason for him being "vehemently anti-digital" is "a self defence mechanism, because I don’t understand it". Expanding upon this in the same interview he explained; "with digital the problem is that there is no end to the options. And that’s where people fall down. They lose sight of the fact that the image has to happen in the eye, the mind and the camera, at the right time".

 

Carlos Clarke did not only shoot women, some of his best known photographs are of men; notably Keith Richards, Vinnie Jones and Marco Pierre White. His relationship with Marco Pierre White saw the chef and photographer collaborate on White Heat (Octopus, 1990). The White Heat cookbook, published in 1990, featured recipes by Marco Pierre White alongside photographs of White by Carlos Clarke. The photographer hung out at Harvey's; Marco Pierre White’s restaurant, for a year or so taking photographs on his 35mm Polapan. The book is cited today as having influenced the careers of several Michelin starred and celebrity chefs and has been described by one critic as "possible the most influential recipe book of the last 20 years".

 

Carlos Clarke did not like using recognizable faces and known models. One of his most iconic mages "Masked Blonde" (1996) is a photograph of the model Caprice. He did not entitle the work with reference to her as he wanted the model to remain anonymous. Philippe Garner, Head of Photography at Christies, in discussion on Bob’s photography said: "Partly what intrigued me about the pictures is whether he is photographing what he desires or photographing what he fears, and I suspect the answer is both."

 

Clarke moved to his first "grown up studio" at The Village in Battersea in 1996 – a disused Victorian school in South London, which became the centre of his world with its enormous studio, darkroom, office and apartment – rented to many other photographers as well.

 

Carlos Clarke had two solo exhibitions of his work during his lifetime, including one at Hamiltons Gallery entitled Styx (1991). It was this exhibition that represented a pinnacle for Carlos Clarke and it resulted in him being "famous in a way that he had never been". Philippe Garner commented on the exhibition, "his name was carrying some resonance with the broader public and with keen amateur photographers" . His daughter Scarlett was born the day after the opening.

 

His ‘Love Dolls Never Die’ exhibition in 2004 at Eyestorm Gallery was his debut into digital photography. The pictures were all shot on film, but they were enhanced digitally. It was also a satirical commentary on the fad at the time for retouching fashion and glamour images to such an extent that the skin appears plastic as well as the proliferation of plastic surgery. Carlos Clarke described the exhibition as "the antithesis of everything I’ve ever preached. I’ve gone for brutal clarity and intense manipulation. It’s a complete fusion of old and new technology: traditional darkroom ‘wet’ processes and state of the art Photoshop retouching. The files are huge and are going to be printed about five foot high". The exhibition toured to Spain with exhibitions in both Madrid (2005) and Barcelona (2006). This exhibition was his most successful, outselling all his previous shows put together.

 

In explanation for the small number of exhibitions had during his lifetime Bob once said; "I stopped exhibiting because I've had so many problems with galleries. Most charge 50 per cent commission on sales and if that's not bad enough, many would often fail to pay what they owed. It came to a point that you were putting on an exhibition, selling pictures and then having to fight to get paid". He produced six books during his career: The Illustrated Delta of Venus (W H Allen, 1980), Obsession (Quartet, 1981), The Dark Summer (Quartet, 1985), White Heat (Octopus, 1990), and Shooting Sex (self-published, 2002), Love Dolls Never Die (self-published, 2004), and one DVD, Too Many Nights (Panoramica, 2006)

 

Clarke committed suicide on 25 March 2006. Terence Pepper, Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery described Clarke as "one of the great photographic image-makers of the last few decades".

  

Brompton Cemetery

Have recently got back into drumming after a 13 year lay off (Retired) Now back playing with My mate & singer for The Varukers in a band called The Vile. Great band & great people. Already been to France twice & off to Italy later this month. Recording a full length CD next month for general release :)

Various stages in the dismantling of the four light signal bridge over the BNSF San Bernardino Subdivision at Highgrove.

 

Tower piece on the right side has been separated from the base and will lay off to the side for a quick minute or thirty, as this part will be reused for the new LED lights bridge.

 

Youtube Link: youtu.be/S8I76O4gkro

5/2025 - Johnstown, PA

Status report on the new CP-SG at the west end of Johnstown, PA on the Pittsburgh Line. As of the photo date, track three has been raised up, wiring has been installed, and the two crossovers lay off to the side waiting to be installed.

Jan. 12, 2016

Mamiya RB67 - 90mm. lens

45mm. Ext. Tube

T-Max 100 - D-76 (stock)

I took a lay-off from work this Winter since I can't stand working in the cold .. it comes with age.

So you can see I have plenty of time to arrange a bunch of nuts in a box ... haha!

2009.07.26 - day 257

 

i've been thinking about doing a track photo for a while. we happened to be around one today, so i figured it was a good time. problem was i didn't have enough of my gear to pull it off correctly. it's not perfect, but i think it looks pretty good. i'll try again one day.

 

btw, i was beat after this quick shoot. i took about 10 shots of me running the steps after eating two slices of pizza hut and bread sticks. i'm so out of shape or maybe i should just lay off the pizza.

 

:: strobist info ::

580exii - 1/4 - camera left - low and in front of me

broke my promise - was gonna lay off the roos for a while

but when I saw this one i had to upload it… one strange walking stance!

"Picking up the yarn at the very dawn of the labour battle, [film director Nigel] Cole shows a group of women sewing car-seat upholstery. They chatter, they joke, they work extremely hard, but there's something missing in their daily lives, and it's the simple respect they deserve for doing their jobs well. A young mother decides it's time for a change. And just by articulating her desire for better working conditions and remuneration, she becomes an accidental activist" (Source: Monk 2010 p.D3).

 

"In 1967, Ford motor factory in Dagenham employed 55,000 workers - 187 of them women. It's these women ... who become the miniskirted trouble makers as, stirred up by their lovable old union rep ... they go on strike demanding equal pay (Source: Anon 2011a p.26).

 

"the dispute starts over grading but only becomes about equal pay when the women find out that the reason they are wrongly graded as ‘unskilled’ is because they are women" (Source: Prasad 2010 np).

 

"[Made in Dagenham] follows the women as they brought car production at the bedrock of UK car manufacture to a halt, prompted the lay-off of thousands of workers and was only solved with the intervention of then secretary of state, Barbara Castle" (Source: Heald & McClatchey 2010 np).

 

For Vera Sime, a former sewing machinist at Ford’s plant, in Dagenham, in east London, in the 1960s, one of the epochal days in modern industrial history started like any other. 'It was like a normal work day in that I got the children ready and gave them to my sister. Then we all met at the factory and got on the coach.' Along with scores of women colleagues - infuriated by a pay structure that blatantly favoured men - Ms. Sime travelled to the streets outside the British Parliament on 28 June 1968 where employees brandished a famous banner. It read: 'We want sex'. 'Oh, we had some jokes with some men with that [banner],' recalls Ms. Sime (now 83), at her home in Rainham, Essex. She is interrupted by her friend and former colleague Gwen Davis (80). 'Well, you hadn’t unfurled the banner properly had you?' she says. The full banner read: 'We want sex equality.'" (Source: Goodley 2013, np www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/women-sewi...).

 

"In the final credits of the film Made in Dagenham we are told that Ford is now one of the leading employers in supporting diversity and inclusion … But we should remember that the catalyst for change came from the Ford women workers, and from the UK government’s equal pay legislation, not from company bosses. It is an indication of how far we have come since 1968 that an organisation like Ford now wants to be seen as a leader in the field of diversity and equality" (Herman 2010 p295).

 

See the film trailer here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ509hHkHO8

 

See the film still here: wac.3e65.edgecastcdn.net/803E65/sydney/_snacks/wp-content...

 

See our page on the film here: www.followthethings.com/madeindagenham.shtml

 

Legoing by Ian Cook.

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The 31st edition of the 2023 FISU Winter World University Games is set for January 11-22, . The preliminary round will be played in Canton, NY, before moving to Herb Brooks Arena Lake Placid NY 2019 - home of the 1980 Winter Olympics 'Miracle on Ice' . for the medal rounds

 

Unfortunately both Canadian TV networks CBC and CTV will not be televising this event to Canadians ?

  

Results from games played at SUNY Canton Roos House

 

Thur Jan 12th - UKR 1 vs Canada 6

Fri Jan 13th - SWE 3 vs Canada 10

Sun Jan 15th - Japan 2 vs Canada 8

Tues Jan 17th - Latvia 0 vs Canada 9

Wed Jan 18th - Czech 0 vs Canada 4

 

Results from Olympic Center Lk Placid : final scores

 

Sat Jan 21,2023 Men's semis KAZ 1 vs Canada 4

 

Jan 21, 2023 Women's Gold medal game Japan 0 vs Canada 5

 

Sun,Jan 22, 2023 Men's bronze medal game KAZ 8 vs Japan 1

 

Sun Jan 22,2023 Men's Gold medal game USA 2 vs Canada 7

  

UNB selections: Winter World University Games

Brady Gilmour Forward UNB Grafton, ON #19

Austen Keating Forward UNB Guelph, ON #9

Adam McCormick Defence UNB Waterville, NB #8

  

AUS selections:

Justin MacPherson Defence SMU East Gwillimbury, ON

Matt Welsh Goaltender SMU Halifax, NS

Andrew Coxhead Forward SMU Bedford,NS

Liam Hawel Forward StFX Arnprior, ON

Matthew Struthers Forward StFX Milton, ON

Kyle Maksimovich Forward UPEI Hamilton, ON

TJ Shea Forward UPEI Tignish, PEI

Matthew Brassard Defence UPEI Barrie, ON

  

Justin Bergeron Defence UQTR Magog, QC

Kyle Bollers Forward Toronto Oshawa, ON

Brett Davis Forward Manitoba Oakbank, MB

Jared Dmytriw Forward Saskatchewan Craven, SK

Kai Edmonds Goaltender TMU Ottawa, ON

Noah King Defence Calgary Winnipeg, MB

Simon Lafrance Forward UQTR Saint-Eustache, QC

Zachary Lavigne Forward UQTR Drummondville, QC

Jacob Paquette Defence Queen’s Ottawa, ON

Roddy Ross Goaltender Saskatchewan Meadow Lake, SK

Scott Walford Defence McGill Coquitlam, BC

Jonathan Yantsis Forward Queen’s

  

.2025 TEAM CANADA FISU MEN'S HOCKEY ROSTER

 

F - Mathieu Bizier, Concordia Stingers

F - Connor Bowie, TMU Bold

F - Benjamin Corbeil, UNB Reds

F - Conor Frenette, UQTR Patriotes

F - Mathieu Gagnon, McGill Rebirds

F - Colson Gengenbach, Calgary Dinos

F - Mikael Huchette, Concordia Stingers

F - Samuel Huo, UBC Thunderbirds

F - Nolan Hutcheson, Queen's Gaels

F - Liam Keeler, Saskatchewan Huskies

F - Simon Lavigne, Concordia Stingers

F - Sasha Mutala, UBC Thunderbirds

F - Kaleb Pearson, UPEI Panthers

F - William Rouleau, McGill Redbirds

 

D - Charlie Callaghan, StFX X-Men

D - Jack Duff - Queen's Gaels

D - Kurtis Henry, UPEI Panthers

D - Jake Lee, UBC Thunderbirds

D - Kale McCallumn, UNB Reds

D - Loris Rafanomezantsoa, UQTR Patriote

 

G - Kai Edmonds, TMU Bold

G - Francesco Lapenna, Ottawa Gee-Gees

G - Samuel Richard, UNB Reds

  

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Some relevant news clippings,,

  

January 11-22, 2023 - CBC doesn't seem to promote Men's Hockey leagues like AHL, ECHL, or Men's USPORTS hockey ? And Canada has just won both Golds at the recent 2023 international University Hockey FISU tournament. But the Gold medal final games, in fact the whole tournament, was not shown on the CBC ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/52640201721/in/datepos...

 

Halifax, Canada Jan 2023 - This time around the IIHF Men's World Juniors hockey tournament is being held in Canada. No games were shown on CBC, and many Canadians were unable to watch Canada's finest male Junior hockey players incl Connor Badard play in their home Country and win the Gold for Canada ?

However, although CBC ignored and did not televise any of the IIHF Men's junior hockey games played, they were sure to make daily news reports and give a lot of air time focusing on an alleged past scandal that had involved a previous Men's IIHF Junior hockey team ? cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/official-broadcaster-...

 

New Women's Pro Hockey PWHL - CBC giving full support, full coverage, and backing the girls with massive air time, TV ads, coast to coast live broadcasts, player bios and a game each week complete with hosting and game analysis,, "CBC/Radio-Canada is the official broadcaster of the Professional Women's Hockey League"

However, CBC appears to have a different attitude when it comes to supporting and televising many pro sporting events played by the male athletes such as the Grey Cup, FIFA, Copa America international Men's soccer football and the Men's World Juniors, and so a huge Canadian fan base is not able to watch Canada's star male pro athletes like Acadia Axemen footballer Bailey Feltmate in the Grey Cup, or Nova Scotia's Jacob Shaffelburg in the Copa international Men's soccer tournament or Connor Badard in the IIHF World Men's Juniors hockey tournament ?

cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/official-broadcaster-... cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/media-centre/official-broadcaster-...

 

CBC doesn't seem to promote Men's soccer or Men's CFL pro football ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/52512969092/in/album-7...

 

Jun 11, 2024 - Women's new Pro soccer, the Halifax Tides, - CBC promoting and providing full media support and coverage for the brand new start-up Women's Pro soccer league. CBC will broadcast eight regular-season matches. A "Game of the Week" will co-stream simultaneously on CBC Gem and NSL.ca,

www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/cbc-radio-canada-broadcast-agree...

Thanks to CBC, fans will now be able to follow female Acadia University athletes like Mya Harnish, who has now turned Pro . www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54482565652/in/photost...

 

This year Canadian Taxpayers will pay out $1.5 billion dollars to subsidize the CBC ?

site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/documents/impact-and-accountabil...

 

Breathtaking salaries for CBC/Radio-Canada’s corporate management ? President and CEO Catherine Tait had a base salary range of $390,300 to $459,100 in 2019 ? That's more than the P.M. makes ? tnc.news/2022/01/26/cbc-salaries-include-125-senior-direc...

 

Huge bonuses for CBC brass in 2022,

nationalpost.com/news/canada/cbc-employees-paid-16-millio...

 

Aug 12, 2024 - CBC has paid out $18.4 million in bonuses after staff layoffs ? The bonuses went to nearly 1,200 employees ? $3.3 million went to 45 executives ?

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbc-bonuses-catherine-tait-1.729...

 

Apr 04, 2025 - Mark Carney pledges a $150M boost to 'underfunded' CBC ? And,, the new Liberal government will make CBC funding statutory ? Last year CBC received an all time record 1.5 billion in taxpayer funding and their CEO Catherine Tait, made more than the Prime Minister ?

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mark-carney-cbc-funding-1.7501902

 

June 28,2021, O Canada at the Stanley Cup Finals ? CBC plays an unsettling and unflattering version of the Canadian National Anthem on the World stage ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/51829474529/in/album-7...

 

July 1, 2021 - the Prime Minister of Canada will not be celebrating Canada Day this year claiming that for some Canada Day is not a day to celebrate." Wha-a-a-a-t -t-t ????? Did I hear that right ??? www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-day-political-reaction-1....

 

February 20th 2023 Jully " I Sung it My Way" Black makes headlines when she changes the lyrics and sings a politicized and personalized ' our home on native land' version of the Canadian National anthem at the NBA All-Star Game in Salt Lake City, Utah ?

www.iheartradio.ca/news/jully-black-sings-o-canada-with-s...

 

video replay of CBC's unflattering version of O Canada ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/51829474529

 

Jully " I Sung it My Way" Black sings her personalized and politicized 'our home on native land' version of the Canadian National anthem in a performance at Toronto university graduation.. Black was asked to perform her new way of singing the national anthem to reflect the core values of the law program at Toronto Metropolitan University www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/jully-black-tmu-law-school...

 

Calgary Stampede O Canada - The original version "in all thy Sons command" National anthem sung at the 2023 Calgary Stampede, www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53044391089

 

Dec 16th 2023 - O Canada sung in Punjabi at the NHL Jets hockey game in Winnipeg,,,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKifMtbbyJg

 

Nov 4th, 2021 - Pascale St-Onge is appointed to Trudeau's Cabinet. She is the first out lesbian to become a federal Minister and also the first as Minister of Sport,

www.ctvnews.ca/politics/pascale-st-onge-making-history-as...

 

July 2023 - Katherine Henderson is appointed to take over and thereby become the first female CEO and President of Hockey Canada ,

www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/katherine-henderson-hockey-canad...

 

No more hockey fights: This league plans to ban them dailyhive.com/vancouver/hockey-fights-ban-qmjhl

 

Skate Canada Dec 13, 2022 - Canada is about to revolutionize male/female gender rules in Sport ? Canadian gender trail blazers led by President Karen Butcher push to change Pairs Ice dancing competition rules from the standard longtime male female separate gender rule ?

theprovince.com/sports/other-sports/skate-canada-redefine...

 

Federal audit finds Hockey Canada did not use public funds for legal settlements .

discoverhumboldIcom/articles/federal-audit-finds-hockey-...

 

NHL moves away from the Pride jerseys - advocates are disappointed, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nhl-special-jersey-announcement-re...

 

Nov 20th, Grey Cup 2022 - Many Canadian households in Canada were unable to watch the Toronto Argos win the 2022 Grey Cup game by a score of 24 to 23 because CBC/Radio-Canada and Bell media owned CTV do not schedule nor televise this historic Canadian event for broadcast ? CBC's programming has instead scheduled an unknown variety show that is being held in the USA ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/52512969092/in/photost...

 

CBC quits Twitter when Twitter calls them, "a government-funded media" ?

www.cbc.ca/news/world/cbc-twitter-government-funded-media...

 

Apr 27th 2023 , Bill C-11 - A controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law. Bill C-11, which will force streaming platforms to contribute to funding Canadian content. Critics say the bill is too ambiguous, many issues unresolved.

www.cbc.ca/news/politics/c11-online-streaming-1.6824314

 

Nov 11th, 2023 - The Liberal Government has ordered the Canadian Military not to use or recite any Christian prayers like the Lord's Prayer at this years Remembrance Day ceremonies ?

www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/gunter-we-will-always-pray-f...

 

The Grey Cup Nov 19th 2023, Hamilton Canada - Why aren't CTV or CBC broadcasting the 2023 Grey Cup game for Canadians to enjoy on this Grey Cup Sunday ?

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53338415225

 

Dec 2023 - Merry Christmas, and a ho ho ho ? CBC plays Scrooge at Xmas time as it looks at executive bonus compensation while laying off 10 per cent of its workforce right at Xmas time ? www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbc-cuts-layoffs-exec-bonuses-1....

 

CBC President and CEO Catherine Tait faces angry MPs over refusal to rule out bonuses amid looming layoffs' www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuGG8quYBb4

 

Have a very Merry Christmas Canada ? The Canadian Human Rights Commission ( fully funded by the federal Liberal Government) declares that the celebration of Christmas is evidence of Canada’s colonialist religious intolerance. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWmuDidYTiY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWmuDidYTiY

 

Dec 31 2023 - Question.. Is CBC now viewing New Years Eve as a public holiday and tradition that has become inappropriate to celebrate in Canada ? Happy New Year Canadians from your taxpayer owned billion dollar funded CBC ? For the first time ever in memory, CBC will not broadcast the traditional New Years Eve Party, stage show or countdown ? CBC says they can't afford it ? www.msn.com/en-ca/entertainment/other/cbc-to-skip-new-yea...

 

Bill C-18: An Act respecting online communications platforms that make news content available to persons in Canada www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/pl/charter-charte/c18_1.html

 

Bell media, is a proud Canadian Company ? It's Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas Nevada USA. Prior to the big game CTV has been flooding North American airways with ads to promote their full coverage of the upcoming American Superbowl and they will then broadcast 10 straight hours of uninterrupted prime time live T.V. coverage of this prime American sporting event on Superbowl Sunday 2024 ? However, on the other hand, back home in their home country of Canada, they don't broadcast anything at all, nothing (zero) blanco, zilch, silencio, not even 1 minute of CTV coverage of their own 2024 Canadian Grey Cup game for their fellow Canadians to enjoy ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53523500175/in/datepos...

 

Feb 2024 - Halifax Nova Scotia,

Bell media and CTV have deafened and blindfolded many East Coast residents after eliminating many critical hours of local and community news programming in the Atlantic region ?

Recent Bell Canada Corporate decisions have now left many Maritimers in a vulnerable position ? East Coast Provinces appear to be the target of severe local live Newstime cancellations and these cut-backs have left many Maritimers without their daily Noon news hour updates that are broadcast everyday all week long ? ATV viewers will now be forced to tune into the other station (CBC) where CBC tends to run mostly world international news along with their select choice of the National News, along with lengthy live news conferences that are put on by the PM and other liberal party members ?

Aside from terminating the popular weekday ATV Noon hour news show, CTV has also downsized in half the very popular and iconic , 'ATV live at five' 5 P.M. local community news program, (prompting long time popular host Jason Baxter to seek early retirement) ? Adding to the devistating loss of this much needed news reporting that is traditionally broadcast every week, Bell will also now terminate all weekend Saturday and Sunday local news reporting currently running on ATV ? The cancellation and elimination of so much allotted local news airtime that is normally given to Atlantic Canadians surely threatens the safety and security of residents especially now that there will be a 24 hour local news blackout for 2 full days each and every weekend and even for as much as 3 consecutive days every holiday long weekend ? And so it seems that arch rival CBC has taken over prime time live local news reporting in the Maritimes and Bell Canada is blaming the Liberal Government's new Bill C-18 for them having to slash so many prime time hours of local and Provincial news coverage in the Maritimes ?

broadcastdialogue.com/most-noon-local-ctv-newscasts-cance...

broadcastdialogue.com/most-noon-local-ctv-newscasts-cance...

 

Halifax, Feb 1st 2024 - Bell Canada Media blames Liberal Government's new Bill C-18 for having to slash many hours of critical local and Provincial news coverage in the Maritimes ?

broadcastdialogue.com/most-noon-local-ctv-newscasts-cance...

 

the Junos 2024, Halifax, Mar 24th - CBC and the new Heritage Minister seem to be more interested in their own personal politics than music ? itsthe4thquarter.blogspot.com/2024/03/junos-2024-halifax-...

 

Angry Canadian - Canadian juno awards ? where ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNieEg-_d1k

 

Is this a CBC Stanley Cup cruel joke ? June 2nd, 2024 Edmonton ? Fans are upset after CBC had broadcast the first 5 games of the Men's NHL Dallas vs Oilers series, and then, without warning and for no logical reason, CBC blacked out the critical and most important climactic final game that saw Edmonton win and gain entry into the Stanley Cup finals ? It remains unclear why CBC would do this ? Was it arrogance, or was it to be mean spirited, or was it a gender bias issue due to this being Men's pro hockey, or was it maybe a lesson given out to remind Canadians just who is running this Countries main media and who controls the programming ? v=iW0yzPhwC4s" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW0yzPhwC4s

 

The Koncerned Kentvillian asks, "What kind of a Country would show sad and upsetting images of itself when playing their National Anthem on the World stage in front of an international audience ?" www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/44424045874/

 

July 5th, 2024 Jacob Shaffelburg (Pt Williams Nova Scotia) Men's soccer - Unfortunately, CBC doesn't seem to support or sponsor Men's soccer and will not be broadcasting the Men's Copa soccer tournament ? However, you can still enjoy soccer on CBC as they will be giving support and full coverage to the Women's National team and to the new start-up Women's pro soccer league ? www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/cbc-radio-canada-broadcast-agree... ? -

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53839077022/in/photost...;

 

June 29th, 2024 - Bailey Feltmate (Acadia U, Wolfville N.S.). - CBC doesn't seem to support Men's football anymore and so most Canadians won't be able to watch graduating male university athletes like Bailey perform in the pros ? However, fans are able to watch many graduating university female athletes perform as CBC will provide full cross Canada media support and live coverage of the new start-up Women's pro soccer league, the new Women's pro hockey league, and upcoming Women's pro basketball league ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/53855066488/in/datepos...

 

In a groundbreaking move and for the first time ever, CBC is introducing and now including gambling in its media coverage of the Olympic games ?

2024 Paris Olympics - It appears that CBC has partnered with one particular online Casino company and BetRivers is running sports betting ads during the televising of Olympic sporting events ? Is the inclusion of a Casino and Sports betting parlor that runs gambling ads during the Olympic events appropriate to the high principles and moral standards exemplified by our youth in the Olympic Games ?

 

The CBC sport darlings Canadian women's soccer team has been caught cheating at the Paris 2024 Olympics ? The CBC has seemed unusually silent on this story ? heavy.com/sports/olympics/canada-soccer-bev-priestman-dro...

 

2024 Paris Olympics - CBC's full game coverage of the Olympics seems to favor the female athletes while male athletes received only limited coverage and short clips from their events ?

www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/olympic-games-paris-2024

 

Jul 25, 2024 Paris Olympics - CBC airs entire Women's Olympic soccer games, Women's beach-ball games, Women's rugby games, Women's basketball games water polo and more ? Watch CBC for live full game coverage from St-Etienne, France heavy.com/sports/olympics/canada-soccer-bev-priestman-dro...

 

Grey Cup Nov 17th 2024 - Everyone else is here, but where's the CBC ?

Once again this year CBC will distance itself from a very identifiable and nation uniting Canadian sports extravaganza and will not cover or live broadcast the historic Grey Cup game to Canadians ? However they will be covering a relatively unknown Women's tennis sports event named after Battle of the Sexes winner and Women in sports advocate Billie Jean King being held at this time overseas in Spain ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54147303159/in/album-7...

 

October 27, 2024 - Demand for CBC President and CEO Catherine Tait to refund the Canadian taxpayers . Why should a civil servant who works for Trudeau make more than the Prime Minister she works for ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-z1ZNza5Fk

 

Aug 22 2024, Minister of hypocrisy, I mean, Minister of Health Mark Holland says, "All the stuff that's clearly designed to target youth — it's over," ?

the fans are confused ? After Connor McDavid and other NHL Superstar heroes played starring roles in glamorous new betMGM ads to promote gambling on their websites, numerous complaints were filed. And so they eased up on the image of a Sports hero who encourages and participates in gambling although the McDavid image itself was not to be disconnected from the gambling vice or from the lucrative gambling industry ? A new corrected version will now show Connor as an ambassador for safe and responsible gambling whenever you gamble ? But isn't it still gambling ? see news article, "Connor McDavid's latest gambling ad with Bet MGM sparks outrage among his fans,"

www.sportskeeda.com/us/nhl/news-disgusted-started-gamblin...

 

Bell Let's Talk ! Feb 4th 2025 - U Ottawa Scotty accuses Bell Canada of hypocrisy,, www.youtube.com/shorts/31f3sZndK6w

www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/51844732131/in/album-7...

 

* News Flash * Grey Cup 2024, BC Place Vancouver - Does Bell read the FLICKR comments ? Bell has made a stunning about face ? and it's good news.. After decades of Canadian pro football exclusion CTV will for the first time in a long time actually broadcast this years' playoffs and the Grey Cup game to Canadians. Many more games are now scheduled for the 2025 season, www.cfl.ca/2024/09/06/fall-is-in-the-air-the-cfl-on-ctv-i...

 

March 30th Vancouver B.C. Michael Bublé plugs his own outside personal business products while hosting CBC's 2925 Juno Awards ? Is it appropriate for the CBC to allow the salaried MC to freely advertise his outside personal business ? www.flickr.com/photos/74039487@N02/54607761592/in/album-7...

 

2025 Calgary Stampede, CBC distances itself from the Calgary Stampede this year, and will not broadcast any events including the Parade ? You'll have to subscribe to a specialty channel if you are interested in this famous Canadian event ? calstampede.com/calgary-stampede-2025-how-to-watch-date-t...

July 13th 2025 - Men's Pro Rodeo and chuckwagon fans are ignored ? CBC Sports programming ignores and does not include this years fifty thousand dollar finals of the world famous Calgary Stampede, see Sunday's CBC Sports programming,, calstampede.com/shows/calgary-stampede-broadcast-schedule/

 

Jul 13, 2025 - Men's World Cup soccer is not broadcast on CBC ? FIFA Club World Cup Jun 15, 2025 – Jul 13, 2025 - Chelsea beats PSG 3-0 to win 2025 Club World Cup . Coldplay and Trump and 81,000 attend the final,, but is not televised ? CBC does broadcast an unknown Women's softball tournament ?

apnews.com/live/psg-chelsea-club-world-cup-updates

 

2025 Toronto Blue Jays - CBC doesn't broadcast Men's baseball ? www.consumersearch.com/fitness-sports/plan-viewing-blue-j...

 

Dec 3rd 2025, What Is Truth ? Is the University of Victoria B.C. brainwashing young minds ? Open and individual free thinking and freedom of speech is denied to students by the same people who teach them that Sir John A MacDonald was a villain ? you accuse your Country of the most heinous crimes ever committed, yet you have no evidence ? Asking questions that challenge the status quo or daring to offer forward your own opinion is not allowed in this B.C. University - It can get the Police called in to cart you off to jail ? www.youtube.com/watch?v=u53G5WBpVmc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSRn8BzpvLc

 

Jan 22,2026 - attacked by mob during visit to UofBC -

Poor Mischief - he keeps wondering WHY we needed the new baby. ROFL Trust me, he gets revenge.

I have to lay off the violence!!

View On Black

This might have to be my 52 weeks shot Im going to start getting insanely busy with work and my bike!!!

After it's Covid lay off, 60163 Tornado had a lengthy run on the Pennine Explorer which it took from Barrow Hill to Hellifield via Newcastle. On time and on song she passed running as the 1Z15 06.22 Leicester to Carlisle which also featured 47832/47813 on the diesel legs

DETROIT (AP) â "The state overseer of the Detroit Public Schools has proposed closing 23 schools and laying off 600 teachers to attack a projected $303 million deficit.

 

He says a final decision on the restructuring plan is expected May 8 and another round of potential school closings will be announced this summer.

The district has 192 schools and about 5,700 teachers.

 

Bobb became overseer of Michigan's largest public school district after Gov. Jennifer Granholm declared a financial emergency"

 

Times are tough......... no ones job is safe..... even the job of this fantastic 'School Super' we met and photographed in a public school in Detroit last year.

 

Cheers Jez XXXXXXXX

 

PS........So it's not just all doom and gloom....... Just a bit of good..... nice uplifting stuff........ look at this lovely email I just read....... Its from a person we were working with down in the big ATL on Thursday....... This message completely made my day...........

 

"Hello!

 

Just wanted to drop you a quick note. I met with J today, and showed him my top picks from the photoshoot.

 

J actually lifted his arms in the air and exclaimed "YES!" when I started showing him the pictures. He said that the images exceeded his expectations, and you all hit every aspect of the brief, saying it was better than he could have possibly imagined.

 

I don't think he could have been more pleased with your work. He complimented your fabulous attitudes, ability to work with people, and (of course) the results.

 

Thanks again for doing such a fabulous job. I'm looking forward to coming up with some designs...

 

:)B "

After the consecutive disasters of the Warthog and the Longhorn Icarian Heavy Industries tried to rally with improved versions of its diesel frame, but to no avail. Nothing they did could overcome their image as a manufacturer of cheap, oversized, inefficient junk.

  

IHI management was faced with a hard choice. The military frame division was bleeding red ink, and threatening to take down the entire company along with it. The domestic/labor frame division was doing just fine, but that market would never be as lucrative as military-use frames could be. Axing their military frame division would forever limiting the scope of what IHI could be as a company. It would mean hundreds of millions of wulongs spent on R&D would be wasted. It would mean decommissioning factories and laying off an estimated thirty percent of their workforce.

  

The debate among IHI’s board raged for weeks, but the military division was ultimately saved due to a joint proposal from one of the Longhorn design heads, working together with a junior PR exec, who’d joined the company only four months prior.

  

If IHI was synonymous with cheap, the only way to fight that perception, and re-define the company image, was to abandon economy frames for now and compete in the same space as the Valhallan Industries Tyrant and the A. Yates Industrials Ankole. They were going to make an elite, high-end frame. Something aimed at officers, generals, and elite troops. It had to look sleek, deadly, imposing, and above all, cool. The proposal was accepted, and for the next year the IHI military division halted all other production and threw itself into the production of what would become the ECF-S1 Shogun.

  

ECF-S1 in developmental stage, with no systems installed. Just two white dice here.

 

Highland Park High School / Junior College / Career Academy

In many ways, the histories of Detroit and Highland Park – a separate city located within the borders of Detroit –are very similar. Both cities experienced tremendous growth as a result of the automobile industry, and built up their city services to meet demand. Both cities lost population after the auto industry left. And today, both cities are struggling with how to provide the same city services to fewer people with less tax revenue. Budget cuts have led to the closure of most of Highland Park’s fire stations, libraries, and schools.

 

A three-block stretch of Highland Street running west from Woodward Avenue was one the civic center of the city. Along Highland and nearby streets were five schools, three churches, two hospitals, and the main library, mixed in with ornate high-rise apartment buildings. In this densely populated neighborhood one could be born, baptized, attend nursery school, elementary school, high school, and college, all without going more than three blocks in any direction. Right at the center of the neighborhood is the old Highland Park High School and Junior College, a block-long slab of quarry-faced limestone that played an important role in the development of Highland Park from an obscure village into an industrial boomtown.

 

Early days in Highland Park

 

In 1900, Highland Park was just a small village north of Detroit, population 427. Through the early 1900’s, the city grew as Detroit developed north along Woodward Avenue, spurring residential development. In 1907, Henry Ford began to move his automobile production from the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit to a new, much larger factory located in Highland Park. The factory opened in 1909; a year later the population of Highland Park had risen to 4,120 as workers quickly built up neighborhoods around the Ford plant.

 

Like other early school districts, Highland Park Schools taught from Kindergarten to the 8th grade level, at which point young adults were expected to join the workforce. Starting in 1911, high school courses were introduced, with 42 students enrolled in 9th and 10th grade levels at Stevens Elementary, then moved to the new Ferris School when it opened in November. The next year 11th and 12th grades were introduced. Demand for higher education was enough that by 1912, plans were underway to build a dedicated high school building.

 

Building a new high school

 

Initially the board of education wanted to build the new high school east of Woodward Avenue, at Farrand and John R Streets, but instead settled a large rectangular parcel of land along Glendale Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Though the high school would take up only a small part of the land, school officials wanted additional space to expand the school if needed. Excavation at the site began as the first high school class of 14 students graduated from Ferris School in 1913. In 1914, a contract for construction of the new building designed by Wells D. Butterfield was awarded for $460,000. It could comfortably seat 1,000 students, though it was believed that it would be quite a few years before the school reached capacity.

 

The first unit of Highland Park High School was of English type architecture, laid out with a central mass three stories tall, with two end wings linked by classrooms. The east wing had a 1,100-seat auditorium, and the west wing featured a three-story gymnasium and basement swimming pool. In the center were school offices, a library, and recitation rooms. The exterior was done up in quarry-faced gray limestone, with mouldings and detail work of dressed Bedford stone. Inside the school were long hallways of Caen stone and ornamental carved oak. Dedicated classrooms included sewing, carpentry, machine tooling, botany, chemistry, and drawing.

 

The cornerstone was laid down in October of 1914. Construction on the high school had progressed far enough that by June of 1915, the auditorium was used for graduation as work on the rest of the building continued. The new building was scheduled to formally open in September, but even before then school administrators were facing an unanticipated problem: overcrowding.

 

Expansion

 

Between 1910 and 1916, the population of Highland Park grew from 4,100 to 28,000. By 1920 there would be 46,500 residents, a staggering 1,000% increase in population over just 10 years. Workers from across the globe were drawn to Detroit and Highland Park in particular, by the Ford factory and its promise of a $5 a day wage. The assembly line had revolutionized the way that cars were made, and in doing so, made Highland Park the center of the automotive revolution. The school board found itself with hundreds of new students every year, requiring hasty additions to existing school buildings, and the construction of new schools in neighborhoods that were springing up around town.

 

By the time Highland Park High School opened in September of 1915, enrollment far exceeded expectations, with 850 students signing up. In 1916, just a year after it opened, that number grew to over 1,000 high school students, filling the school to capacity. Plans for a second unit of the high school for 1,500 additional students to be built next to the first were immediately drawn up, with construction beginning in 1917.

 

Though the second unit of the high school used identical building materials and same English styling as the first, it was laid out differently. Initially the second unit was intended to be a high school for girls and a junior college, and was built with its own separate gymnasium and swimming pool. Instead of a second auditorium, a larger library and additional classrooms were set aside for a junior college program that would share the building with the girl’s high school. The new high school for girls opened in September of 1918, with a total enrollment of 1,525 students. Highland Park Junior College opened in 1918 as well, with 35 students. Course offerings included French, rhetoric, history, chemistry, zoology, and analytic geometry.

 

Within a few years the two high school programs merged and became co-ed. In 1927, a vocational education building including an automobile repair lab was built to south of the school, connected by an overhead walkway. A further addition to the vocational wing was added in 1938, and the auditorium was renovated in 1939. The high school thrived, with as many as 3,000 students and a host of extracurricular activities, including athletics, homemaking, and a school radio station.

 

Great Depression, Second World War

 

Enrollment at Highland Park Junior College steadily increased to around 300 students by the 1920’s, but slowed in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Lack of adequate space and a drop in the number of students to 159 in 1929 nearly led to the closure of college, but the residents of Highland Park voted to keep it open. This paid off in the long run, as after the Second World War ended enrollment skyrocketed from 117 in 1943 to 1,800 in 1947 as veterans returning to Highland Park used the GI bill to pay for college education.

 

By the 1940’s, population in Highland Park had peaked. Ford had moved auto production out of Highland Park to a new factory in the suburbs in 1927, and moved its headquarters to Dearborn in 1930. The construction of freeways made it easier for people to live outside the city, hastening an outward flight or residents to the suburbs. The racial composition of Highland Park changed as well. By 1968, over half of the 4,488 students were black, while teachers and administrators were mostly white. Sit-ins protesting the lack of diversity in the school administration were frequent in 1969.

 

The high school moves out

 

As part of a district-wide modernization program, several older schools in Highland Park were demolished and replaced with newer buildings in the 1950’s and 60’s. A nursery school was built on the south side of the campus in 1950, and an elementary school was built a block south in 1961. Plans for a new, modern high school to be built north on Woodward Avenue were drawn up in the early 1970’s, which would replace the existing school. The junior college (now a community college) would take over the entire building and expand its vocational offerings.

 

Construction on the new building was already underway when on the evening of March 18th 1975, a large fire broke out in the gymnasium of the old high school. Stacks of rolled-up wrestling mats were set alight as a practical joke, but the blaze quickly spread out of control, causing the roof and floor to cave into the basement swimming pool. The fire burned for over five hours as firefighters from Highland Park, Detroit, and Hamtramck struggled to contain it to just the gymnasium. While smoke and water damage throughout the high school were repaired fairly quickly, repairing the gymnasium was estimated to cost over $600,000. Since the high school was moving out in the near future, athletics were moved over to the community college building, which had its own pool and gymnasium. In 1977, the new Highland Park Community High School on Woodward Avenue opened, and the community college took over the Glendale campus. A temporary roof was built over the shell of the burned-out gymnasium, as administrators struggled with what to do next.

 

Not wishing to demolish the handsome limestone façade of the gym, the wing sat empty until 1983, when the community college approached Bloomfield Hills landscape architect James Scott about reusing the space. Scott envisioned turning the empty hall into a “multi-purpose concourse” and performing arts space, linking the two units together. Within a few days his ideas went from sketches to planning, and work began a short time later. The swimming pool, into which burning debris from above had been dumped, was covered by a new floor and sealed off. The open area above was a mix of the old and new, retaining the limestone wall of the adjacent gym, but incorporating modern styling throughout. Hexagons were the dominant theme, with planters turning the concourse into a green space. Work on the renovation concluded in 1985. In the years after the space was used for concerts, special events, and art galleries.

 

Community college struggles

 

Though enrollment at Highland Park Community College was 2,000 to 3,000 through most of the 1980’s, the college operated at a deficit that had grown to $1.4 million dollars by 1989. In an effort to save money, school administrators cut the LPN and respiratory therapy programs, sparking a four-day sit in strike by students. Though the administration reverses its decision, the financial situation continued to deteriorate, with accusations of rampant misuse of funds. After missing two consecutive annual audits, Michigan Governer John Engler began to withhold state funding for the college, as investigators report that Highland Park Community College “had the worst facilities of any community college in the state.”

 

In February of 1995, Governor Engler announced that all funding for the college would be stripped from the budget due to chronic financial and academic problems, stating, “Though the college has a long and distinguished tradition, it has become apparent that it is no longer an economically viable institution." Local representatives fought hard to keep the school open, arguing that it was making progress in fixing its financial situation and that the loss of the school would be devastating to Highland Park’s troubled economy. By December of 1995 the college had run out of money, and closed down.

 

Highland Park Career Academy, Final Years

 

The immediate impact of the closing of Highland Park Community College was that students were stranded in mid-study, some just a semester away from graduation. Though other nearby colleges tried to accommodate students, many never finished their studies, and walked away from secondary education. While elected officials fought to get funding restored, the school reopened as the Highland Park Career Academy, offering an alternative high school program and vocational training for students and young adults in the fields of nursing, dental hygiene, and auto repair. In 2001, the Ford Motor Company opened an automotive training center in the vocational education building, complete with demonstration cars.

 

Highland Park City Schools steadily lost students through the 2000’s, with K-12 enrollment falling to 2,700 by 2008 as students were lured away to other nearby school districts. As schools were funded by the state on a per pupil basis, this led to a major revenue shortfall for Highland Park. On January 23rd, 2009 the school board shut down the career academy with no official notification to parents, laying off 36 teachers to close the budget gap. Students were again left in the lurch with the cancellation of their programs, with few options for continuing their studies elsewhere. and leaving students stranded in mid-study. Only seniors were allowed to stay at the school until the end of the school year, with the remaining students to attend night school at Highland Park Community High School. However, the first scheduled night of classes was canceled without explanation. Most students dropped out, and the building closed for good in the summer of 2009.

 

For over 90 years, the old high school and college had been the center of Highland Park’s education system. By the time the school closed, the neighborhood and city around it had changed considerably. Ferris School and the hospitals closed in the 1990’s, along with the main library in 2002. The nursery school closed permanently in 2005. Most of the apartment buildings along Glendale and Highland had been vacated years ago, leaving large gaps in the fabric of the neighborhood. In the end, the closing of the career academy wound up costing the school district a large amount of funding, as students dropped out or left for other school districts. With just 969 students enrolled in 2012, the state of Michigan declared a financial emergency, and the Highland Park City Schools were taken over by a state emergency financial manager, who converted the district into a privately operated charter school system.

 

The new charter school operator found that the three remaining school buildings – Highland Park Community High, Ford, and Barber – were in terrible disrepair, and required proximately expensive work to be brought up to standards. In early 2012, school officials started looking at consolidating all of the schools into one K-12 as a way to save money. One alternative discussed was the reopening of the old high school and college building, which was large enough to support all of the students left in the district. The emergency manager visited the closed building in February to see if it would viable to reopen.

 

Since its closing in 2009, the old high school and college had been frozen in time, with little more than security and routine maintenance being carried out in its empty halls and classrooms. Though fairly secure for a few years, when the state took over the Highland Park City Schools, patrols at the closed building had been discontinued, leaving the school briefly open to scrappers and metal thieves. In the short time between the state takeover and the resumption of security at the school, scrappers had done enough damage to make reopening the school cost prohibitive. The plan was abandoned in favor of letting the three remaining schools stay open.

 

In the years since, scrappers and vandals have dismantled the old Highland Park High School. When the local Police department set up two non-working squad cars in the back of the building to deter people from entering, the cars were vandalized and removed less than a month later. In October of 2012 the windows of the school were boarded up, but by that time the damage had been done. The property was put up for sale with an asking price of $3 million dollars.

I've been eating too much lately.... actually it's been going on for a year now.... I need to lay off those midnight trips to the fridge.... oh wait we have cake there today though... maybe I'll start tomorrow.... XD

 

Taken at New York City's American Museum of Natural History

Tlingit Armor

In the late 1700s, the best Tlingit warriors out for battle with impressive weapons & armor composed of wood, sinew, & leather, in layers similar to modern body armor.

 

The American Military against Alaska Natives

When the United States assumed control of Alaska in 1867, Alaska Natives did not give up claim to their land & waters.

 

But the new government denied Natives U.S. Citizenship & allowed settlers & businessmen to take their land & resources at will. The military ruled Alaska until 1884, without manpower, equipment or funding to do the job. The military strategy was to "show the flag" to intimidate Alaska Natives so they wouldn't interfere with commerce & development. The government contracted with religious missionaries to run Native schools & replace Native culture with American ways.

 

"Here we are out of the world a gunning for 'Big Injuns.' We have been laying off a village one mile long. 'Sitka Jack,' chief--says he has one thousand fighting men & don't care for us--will have to shell them out & knock their village about their ears to bring them down to their senses."

--Frederick Rockwood,

Revenue Cutter Corwin, Sitka 1877

 

The Navy Shells a Village

In 1882, the heavy hand of the U.S. military turned an accident & misunderstanding into a catastrophe for the Xutsnoowu Tlingit of Angoon. The Northwest Trading Company ran a trading post there, employing many residents, including Tith Klane, a shaman, who was accidently killed by an exploding harpoons gun. Following their tradition, the Tlingit demanded a restitution payment of two hundred blankets (which were used as currency), as well as several days off work to prepare a funeral & mourn their loss. Expecting resistance, they seized company property. The company's manager called for help from the Navy, claiming that non-Natives had been taken hostage. Without further investigation, Commander E.C. Merriman ordered the crew of the U.S.S. Adams, aided by the Revenue Cutter Thoams Corwin & an armed civilian vessel, the Favorite to shell & burn the village, canoes, & nearby storehouses that contained winter food supplies. Billy Jones, an eyewitness to the event, said six children were destroyed or stolen at gunpoint.

 

"They left us homeless on the beach. The people of Angoon nearly starved to death, all of them. How much we suffered."

--Billy Jones, eyewitness

 

***Top artifact

Explosive projectile

Dahlgren type artillery shell found in 1938 at Angoon, likely from the 1882 bombardment.

Gift of Harold E. Smith

   

SRI RAMANUJACHARYA'S LIFE HISTORY

 

(BY SRI UBHAYA VEDANTHA ANBIL RAMASWAMY)

 

Sri Ramanuja (1017 - 1137 CE), the most important philosopher-saint of Sri Vaishnavam and one of the most dynamic characters of Hinduism. He was a philosophical as well as a social reformer, displaying a catholicity that was nearly unparalleled in Hindu religious history before him. He revitalised Indian philosophy and popular religion so much that nearly every aspect of Hinduism has been influenced by his work. His life and works show a truly unique personality, combining contemplativ e insight, logical acumen, catholicity, charismatic energy, and selfless dedication to God.

 

The less known fact even among Srivaishnavas about this well known Acharya by whose name Srivaishnava philosophy is called 'Ramanuja Darsanam' and who is hailed as "Sri Vaishnava Siddhanta Nirdhaarana Saarva bouma" is that he was a 'Vadama' by birth.(Authority :" Periya Thrumudi Adaivu, Pazhanadai Vilakkam and Visishtaadvaita Catechism" - quoted in GLE)

 

HIS AVATARA AND EARLY DAYS

 

Ilaya Perumal was born to Kesava Perumal Somayaji Dikhsitar and Kanthimathi Ammal at Sriperumpudur. Just as Sage Vasishta on seeing the brilliance in the face of the child named him as Lakshmana saying "Lakshmano Lakshmi Sampannaha", Periya Thiru malai Nambi struck by the Tejas of the child, named him after Lakshmana as Ilaya Perumal. (PPM) aka Ilayalwar.

 

There is a sloka in Yadhavaachala Mahatmyam which says:

 

Ananthah Prathamam Roopam Lakshmanascha Tathah Parah |

Balabadram Thritheeyasthu Kalou Kaschit Bhavishyathi ||

 

(meaning) It is the same who was Adhisesha first, Lakshmana after and Balarama in the third who is born as Sri Ramanuja in the Kali yuga. This Kaschit is taken by our Poorva Acharyas as referring to Ramanuja (PPM)

 

HIS BIRTH: (CHITRAI- TIRUVADHIRAI)

 

His date of birth is placed differently by different authorities.As per PPM, he was born in Kaliyuga year 4119 which corresponds to1017 AD. PPM fixes even the exact date as 13th April 1017 AD, interms of English Calendar.

 

PRA, though notes the year as 4118 Kali , maintains the year as 1017 AD only and gives additional information that the Rasi was Karkataka and the time of birth was exactly at noon.

 

VAC, MKS and MSR also agree on the year 1017. PTA gives a few more details like the Yogam being Ayushman, Karanam being Bhadra, Gotra being Harita, Saakha being Yajus, Sutra being Apasthambha and Sect being Vadama ( Vide p.45 of GLE).

 

PPM and ATA mention the year as Pingala, month Chitrai and the constellation Tiruvadirai. PPM adds that it was a Sukla Paksha Panchami, a Friday.

 

It will be for the Research minded scholars to piece together all these details to arrive at the correct date, time etc.

 

Vriddha Padma Purana presages his incarnation thus:-

 

" Long, long afterwards, the Lord himself will come down on earth as a Tridanda Sannyasin, to restore the good law. At that time heretics and men of perverted intellects will confuse the minds of the people. Aasuric Saastraas, based upon fallacious arguments and various schools of thought, very attractive and almost indistinguishable from the Vedanta, will turn away mens' hearts from Vishnu and cause them to forget His glory. That glorious incarnation will, through the good fortune of the Lord's devotees, come down upon earth, to explain and amplify the teachings of the great Sage Baadaraayana and the divine singer of the Gita. The holy one would compose a Bhaashya on the Vyaasa Sutras, to save men from the confusion and despair caused by spurious doctrines and lead them to the True faith" ( Vide p.44 of GLE)

 

While still a boy , he lost his father and was living with his mother at Kanchipuram under the protection of one 'Tiruk kachi Nambi' This Nambi was believed to converse and was on 'speaking terms' with Lord Varadaraja in the Archa form.

 

EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF SRI RAMANUJA

 

(1) Within 16 years of age, he had mastered all the Vedas and Sastras. At age 17, he married Rakshakaambaal ( Tanjammal, in Tamil) (PPM)

 

(2) Ilaya Perumal was placed under the Advaitic Sannyasi called YADAVA PRAKASA at Tirupput kuzhi for training in Advaita Purva Paksha Sastra of Vedanta. Once during this period, Alavandar who desired nominating Ilaya Perumal to succeed himself visited Tirupput kuzhi, met with him but had no opportunity to speak to him and had to return to Srirangam.

 

Very many occasions arose when the Saivite Guru clashed with Ilaya Perumal when the Guru misinterpreted Vedantic statements. Ilaya Perumal fearlessly pointed out the errors in the Guru's interpretations and corrected him. This enraged the Guru. Fearing that one day, Ilaya Perumal would demolish Advaita philosophy, he plotted to kill Ilaya Perumal by drowning him in Ganga while on a pilgrimage tour of the country with his disciples.

 

Learning of the design through one Govinda, another disciple who was also related to him, Ilaya Perumal slipped out into the forest at dead of night. Miraculously, an aged hunter couple appeared and guided him. As Ilaya Perumal who was in a trance, opened his eyes, he found himself at the outskirts of Kanchipuram and the couple had disappeared. He realized that it was Lord Varadaraja and Perundevi Thayar who had come in the guise of the hunter couple. He stayed at Kanchi for a while to assist Tiruk Kachi Nambi in his daily chores of service to Lord Varadaraja.

 

(3) News came that Alavandar was very sick and he desired to meet with Ilaya Perumal. Just as Tirukkachi Nambi and Alavandar arrived, they saw the funeral procession of Alavandar. During the last rites, they noticed that three fingers of Alavandar remained folded signifying three of his last unfulfilled wishes. As Ilaya Perumal swore

 

( i ) that he would write a commentary on Veda Vyasa's Brahma Sutra ( ii ) that he would perpetuate the memory of Vyasa and Parasara and ( iii ) that he would strive to propagate Visishtadvaita on the lines of the 4000 holy collects of Alwars, the fingers unfolded one by one automatically and stretched out to normal position signifying that these were his last wishes. Since he could not meet with Alavandar, he returned to Kanchi without even going into the temple at Srirangam (PPM)

 

(4) Tirukkachi Nambi obtained from Lord Varadaraja the famous ' Six Words ' and passed them on to Ilayalwar. The six words provided the guidelines for Ilayalwar to follow. They were:-

 

( i ) that Lord Narayana is the Paramatma. (ii ) that the individual souls were different from Paramatma. (iii) that Prapatti is the means to attain salvation. (iv) that the last remembrance of the Lord on the part of the departing soul was not necessary. (v) that Moksha can be obtained only on laying off the mortal coils (Videha Mukti) & (vi) that Ilaya Perumal should take refuge at the feet of Periya Nambi.

 

Accordingly, he met with Periya Nambi at Madurantakam , where under the shade of Vakula tree Periya Nambi performed Pancha Samskara to him. As he was initiated into the esoteric of Dvaya Mantra at Madurantakam, the place came to be known as "Dvayam Vilaindha Tiruppathi" (PPM) Both returned to Srirangam and did Kalakshepams on Brahma Sutra etc. for sometime. It was at this time that Lord Ranganatha called him "Nammudaiyavar" (He is ours).(PPM)

 

(5) Ilaya Perumals was not a happy married life. His wife never understood either his greatness nor appreciated his catholicity and always acted on her own wavelength and there was no compatibility as between them. Several instances are cited wherein the lady ensconced in her own in her own pet ideas of being holy or otherwise showed scant respect to Bhagavatas and this greatly annoyed Ilayalwar. When he was about 30 years of age, Ilayalwar took Sannyas with the name of 'Ramanuja Muni'. He was the king among Sannyasis. Hence, he is called ' Yati Rajar'- a honorific invested by Lord Devaathi Rajan.

 

(6) The seat of Acharya at Srirangam was lying vacant without a successor to take over. He was prevailed upon to assume charge. But, before doing so, he wanted to equip himself with the secrets of the three great Mantras. For this purpose, he approached one " Tiruk Koshtiyur Nambi" who made him come several times before actually instructing him. He cautioned Ramanuja that he should not give out the secrets to all and sundry and if he did so, he would go to hell.

 

Immediately on receiving the instructions, Ramanuja climbed up to the top of the steeple of the temple and proclaimed to the large gathering of his disciples assembled there the purport of the instruction.

 

The popular belief that he gave out the Mantras is not correct; What he actually gave out was that he had found out the way to attain Moksha through the three great Mantras and invited those who sincerely wished to follow him and get initiated. Also, he did not advise all and sundry as assumed by some. By the time of this episode, he had already gathered a huge following of disciples who congregated at the main entrance to the temple and he was thus addressing his own disciples (as explained in a separate posting in this series). This is another less known fact about the well known Acharya Tirukkoshtiyur Nambi was so enraged and demanded an explanation. Ramanuja replied that he did not give out the secrets and even if he had transgressed the specific warning of the Guru, only he himself would go to hell but the multitude of humanity that listened to his clarion ' wake - up' call would be saved spiritually. The Guru was overwhelmed by this reply . Embracing Ramanuja appreciating his broad mindedness, he called him 'Emperumanar'- " O! My lord" and declared that Srivaishnavism would thenceforward be known as " Ramanuja Darsanam"- ' the light of Ramanuja'

 

(7) Yadava prakasa, his old Guru had by then returned to Kanchi, became Ramanuja's disciple assuming the name of 'Govinda Yogi'

 

(8) Ramanuja used to go round the streets for his Biksha. An evil minded fellow had mixed poison in the biksha. His wife while serving the biksha fell at Ramanujas feet with tears in her eyes. Ramanuja understood that there was something wrong. When the Sishyas sorted out the biksha for cooking, they found out that poison was mixed with it. Ramanuja went on a fast with a view to cleanse the mind of the evil-doer. On hearing this, Tirukkoshtiyur Nambi rushed all the way to Srirangam. When Ramanuja heard of the coming of his Guru, he rushed to the banks of River Kaveri to receive him. It was the height of summer. Ramanuja ran towards him in the hot Sun to receive him and fell at his feet on the burning sands on the banks of river Kaveri. Nambi did not ask him to get up. Such was his Acharya Bhakti. At that time , Kidambi Aachaan, who was nearby told Nambi " Your action (in not asking Ramanuja to get up) is worse than the poison mixed in the bikshai". Such was the Acharya bhakti of Ramanujas Sishya !(Like master, like pupil !). Tirukkoshtiyur Nambi exclaimed, " After all, now I can cast off my physical body since I have found one who would take the greatest care of Ramanuja"

 

(9) Ramanuja traveled throughout the country spreading the message of Visishtadvaita. Once a votary of the ' illusion theory' Yagna Murthi by name confronted him for 16 days in endless arguments and counter arguments. Finally, he accepted defeat and became a disciple of Ramanuja assuming the name of 'Arulala Perumal Emperumanar' and wrote 'Gnana Saram and Prameya Saram'.

 

(10) One of the most important disciples who was totally devoted to Ramanuja was Kuresan also known as ' Kurattalwan'. Once, Kuresan participated in the shradda ceremony performed for his mother by the famous Tiruvarangathu Amudanar. This Amudanar was in charge of the Srirangam temple. When Amudanar inquired what Kuresan desired as reward for his participation, Kuresan replied that the administration of the temple should be handed over to Ramanuja. Amudanar, who had already known the greatness of Ramanuja was only too glad to hand over the key to Ramanuja. It is this Tiruvarangattu Amudanar who subsequently wrote the Ramanuja Noorrantadhi of 108 verses which was included in the holy collects to make up the total of 4,000.

 

(11) After Mastering the Bodhaayana Vritti of Sage Vyaasa, he wrote several works like Vedanta Sangraham explaining the various viewpoints of Sankara, Yadhava, Bhaskara and others, Vedanta Deepam, Geetha Bashyam etc.

 

(12) During Panguni Uttram, he did Prapatti before the Divya Dhampathi in Serthi and submitted his famous Gadhyatrayam (comprising Saranagathi Gadhyam, Sriranga Gadhyam and Sri Vaikunta Gadhyam ),

 

(13) Later, he wrote a Grantha called Nityam detailing the Tiruvaradhana Kramam

 

(14) While he was on his Sancharam, it is believed that the Lord himself appeared before him at Tiruk Kurum Kudi as a Srivaishnava got Samasrayanam from Udaiyavar (PPM)

 

(15) When he visited Saraswati Peetam, Goddess Saraswati was so impressed with his commentary on Brahma Sutram that she named it "Sri Bhashyam" and conferred on him the title of "Bhashyakaarar". It must be noted that while the other commentaries are known by the names of their authors like 'Sankara Bashyam' written by Aadhi Sankara, the commentary of Ramanuja is always referred to with the venerable honorific 'Sri' denoting its unsurpassed quality and clarity and known as ' Sri Bashyam' (PPM)

 

(16) When he visited Tirumala, a miracle happened. Some argued that the Lord of Tirumalai was Saiva param. It is surprising that such a claim should have arisen about the Lord who had been worshipped as Lord Vishnu by all the Alwars and Acharyas besides Elango Adigal and other Tamil Pulavars for several centuries. This was because the Lord had earlier entrusted His insignia to a King called Tondamaan. (SAA p.57-58). The Lord desired to take back from Tondamaan, these insignia viz., Sankhu, Tiruvaazhi, Soolam, Damarukam etc. They were placed in the Sannidhi the previous night. And, when the doors were opened the next morning, the Lord gave Darshan adorning all his insignia (PPM). Ramanuja was hailed as " Appanukku Sangaazhi Alittha Perumaal" Poet Arunagiri himself sang clearing all doubts in this regard saying "Ulageenra Pachai umaiyanan, Vada Venkadathil Uraibhavan, Uyar Sanga Chakra kara Thalan"

 

(17) Ramanuja "was the greatest synoptic thinker which the world ever produced to systematize Visishtadvaitic philosophy, faithfully interpreting the ancient knowledge in tune with the letter and spirit of the text in the light of revelation and experience tested by stern logic"- [- Hon'ble Justice K.S.Krishnaswami Iyengar of the High Court of Judicture, Madras in his foreword to Desika Prabahandam( P.31) published by Lifco Associates, Madras- 3rd Edition, 1982. ]

 

(18) His magnum opus is his wonderful commentary on Vedavyasa's Brahma Sutram and a simpler commentary thereon called Vedanta Saram. Kuresan was very helpful in publishing his works. Thus, he fulfilled his FIRST PROMISE to Alavandar. It is this Kuresan (aka) Sri Vatsanka Misra who wrote the famous Pancha Sthava consisting of Athi Maanusha Sthava, Sri Sthava, Varadaraja Sthava, Vaikunta Sthava and Sundarabaahu Sthava.

 

(19) He asked Kuresan to name his two sons after Veda Vyasa and Parasara and thus fulfilled his SECOND PROMISE to Alavandar. It was this Parasara Bhattar who subsequently wrote the famous commentary on Vishnu Sahasra Nama as ordained by Ramanuja.

 

(20) Another disciple of Ramanuja was Pillaan. Once, when Ramanuja was alone mentally reciting a particular hymn of Tiruvoimozhi, Pillaan entered his room and inquired if he was meditating on a particular hymn. And, it was indeed the one Ramanuja was actually meditating on!. Ramanuja decided that Pillaan was the person best suited to write a commentary on Tiruvoimozhi. As ordered, he wrote the famous 'AARAAYIRAPPADI' (the commentary known as the 6000 Padi also known as Bhagavad Vishayam) and called Pillaan as 'Tirukkurugai Piraan" after the name of Nammalwar. He was also known as Kurugesar and Braathru Thozhappar. Thus, he fulfilled his THIRD PROMISE to Alavandar. He was one of the Sri Bhashya ubhaya Simhasana Adhipathis.(PPM)

 

(21) Kulothunga Chola was a staunch devotee of Siva. He commanded Ramanuja to come to his court with a view to enlisting his support to establish the superiority of Siva over all other deities. (including Vishnu ). If the support was not forthcoming, the king was planning to kill Ramanuja. Sensing the danger, Kuresa went to the court disguised as Ramanuja along with another disciple called Periya Nambi. The king ordered him to sign a document to the effect that 'Siva is the greatest'. Kuresa added that ' Sivam was no doubt great but Dronam was greater than Sivam'- both expressions referring to units of measurement. The enraged king ordered both of them to be blinded when he came to know that he was Kuresa who was impersonating Ramanuja. Periya Nambi was tortured to death while Kuresa survived. Kuresa, though he himself was blinded, was happy that he had saved Ramanuja. It is this Kulothunga who is reported to have thrown away the idol of Govindaraja in the sea. Ramanuja recovered it and had it installed at Tirupati.

 

(22) While on an itinerary, Ramanuja noticed an officer of state, by name Danur daasa, a hunter by birth was over -concerned and over- protective about the beauty of his wife who was walking along on the hot sands on the banks of the river Kaveri. Ramanuja offered to show him something more beautiful than his wife and took him to the proximity of the image of Lord Ranganatha. Danur daasa was enraptured by the charm of the Lord and became a disciple of Ramanuja assuming the name of ' Uranga Villi Daasar'. Ramanuja never entertained any caste distinctions and was conferring his benedictions even on the lowliest of the lowly whom he called 'Tiruk Kulattar'.

 

(23) Ramanuja went to Tiru narayana puram in search of white clay paste used for applying caste marks by Vaishnavites. The idol of the temple there had been taken away by the muslim invaders and was being used at play as a doll by the muslim princess in Delhi. Ramanuja went to Delhi and when he endearingly called ' Come on! My dear child 'Selva Pillaiye Vaarum', the idol miraculously came onto his lap. Ramanuja reinstalled it in the temple.

 

(24) Once some kids were playing on the road pretending to construct a temple, installing an idol of the Lord, offering fruits and flowers etc all the time using the dust on the road for the purpose. They offered some mud as prasadam to Ramanuja who was passing along , he received it with due respect. He remembered in this connection the words of Poigai Alwar who said that the Lord took whatever name and form his sincere devotees wished and in the instant case though the kids were only playing, they sincerely believed in what they were doing.

 

(25) Another disciple of Ramanuja was Vaduga Nambi who put the sandals of his Guru along with those of the Lord. When questioned, he replied that the Acharya's sandals were for him as holy as those of the Lord. When Lord Ranganatha was coming on his rounds on the streets of Srirangam, Vaduga Nambi remarked that the eyes that had seen the charm in the eyes of Ramanuja would not be able to appreciate the beauty of the eyes of even the Lord.-'En Amudinai Kanda Kangal Marronrinai Kaanaave.' Such was his devotion to his Acharya.

 

(26) Ramanuja arranged to make a lifelike idol of himself and embracing it invested it with his powers and had it installed in Tirumalai at Tirupati. The only temple consecrated in Tirumalai , other than that of Lord Venkateswara, is that of Ramanuja.(SAA p.58) The Archa moorthi of Ramanuja known as "Thaan Ugantha Tirumeni" was installed in Tirunarayanapuram.

 

(27) Once, when he visited Tondanoor in Hoysala State, he happened to meet a Jain king called Devarayan. His daughter was possessed by a demon and none could get rid of her predicament. When Ramanuja's SriPaada Theertham ( water consecrated by association with his feet) was sprinkled on her,she was cured of the devil. The King pleaded to be accepted as Ramanujas Sishya. Ramanuja accepted and named him "Vishnu Vardhana".

 

(28) Ramanuja nominated 74 Acharyas to succeed him. It is he who instituted the 13 day "iyal Goshti in Srirangam. (PPM)

 

HIS ASCENT TO PARAMAPADAM

 

With his head on the lap of Embar and his feet on the lap of Vaduga Nambi, Ramanuja breathed his last in 1137 AD listening to the recitation of the Divya Prabandam.

 

Born in PINGALA year, he left for his heavenly abode also in PINGALA year that followed 120 years from the year of his Avatara. Thus, he lived TWO full cycles of Tamil years after his birth

 

PLV places the date in Saaka era 1009, Pingala, in the month of Magha, the 10 th day of Sukla Paksha under the constellation of Tiruvadirai and at noon ( as in the time of his birth).

 

TKG notes that Lord Ranganatha and Periya Piraatti bathed and purified themselves as relatives do.

 

PRA avers that he died on a Saturday

 

VAC places the date as 4238 Kali yuga which corresponds to 1137 AD.

 

PTA, however, states that he lived for 128 years and died in the year Durmati in the month of Vaisaka.

 

Again, Research scholars may fin ways to piece together all these information to arrive at the correct date.

 

His physical body is preserved even today in a sitting posture in the Sannidhi (Sanctum Sanctorum) dedicated to him on the southwest corner on the fifth round within the Srirangam temple as ordered by Lord Ranganatha himself.

 

The whole world is aghast at the feat of preservation of the mummies of Egypt and the body of St. .Xavier in Goa in India and make so much fuss about them.

 

Even some Srivaishnavas are not aware that here in Srirangam. their holiest place hailed as ' Bhuloka Vaikuntam' ( Heaven on Earth) lies preserved the body of Sri Ramanuja in all its pristine state unostentatiously, without any fanfare or publicity and without using any of the chemical preservatives employed by the Egyptian and Goan models.

Swami Desika in Sloka 10 of his Yathiraja Saptadhi pays obeisance to Bhagavad Ramanuja thus before proceeding with his eulogy.

 

Pranaamam Lakshmana Munih Prathi Grihnaathu Maamakam |

Prasaadhayathi yat Sookthih Svadheena Pathikaam Sruthim ||

 

(meaning) I beseech Sri Ramanuja whose Srisookthis claimed the acclaim of the Lord and adorned the Upanishads to kindly accept my Pranams. There is another famous Sloka which says :-

 

Thasmai Ramaanujaaryaaya Namah Parama Yoginae |

Yah Sruthi Smrithi Sutraanaam Antharjvaramaso Samathaa ||

 

(meaning) I bow to that Sri Ramanuja, the great Yogi who became the very soul of Vedas, Upanishads and other Sutras.

City of Newburgh Firefighters holding the line to stop lay-offs, Newburgh, New York

Type - Offshore support vessel

I.M.O. - 9649568

Call sign - LHKX

Gross tons - 3315t

Deadweight - 3750t

Length/beam - 84.45m x 17m

D.O.B. - 2014

Yard - Vard Brevik.Brevik Norway

Owner/manager - Island Offshore Group,Ulsteinvik Norway.

Buildings in the Savanna Army Depot in stark contrast with the sky and snow. The Savanna Army Depot was a 13,000-acre facility that tested and stored weapons and ammunition.

The depot was opened in 1917 and was one of the largest U.S. Army munitions depots.

The depot was contaminated with hazardous chemicals during its operation.

The depot was listed as a Superfund site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1989.

The depot's closure was gradual, with the Army slowly laying off employees.

The depot's land is being redeveloped for commercial and business use, and for wildlife and fish refuge. AI generated info.

Gross parts still try, on their own

to survive.

I once heard of a dogs head, all alone, was skewered to a

wood block- it howled, cried, and even bit a boy while

hours passed.

after the master approached, the

dog tried to wag its tail, it looked hard

its eyes wild and lost.

and then it just stopped.

 

I might look once too

and see instead, my mindless body is all that remains.

Its my head that lay off, alone, like a part to some doll. Nothing,

only the eyes, two glass orbs and

the hum

flies make.

 

-Me

Highland Park High School / Junior College / Career Academy

In many ways, the histories of Detroit and Highland Park – a separate city located within the borders of Detroit –are very similar. Both cities experienced tremendous growth as a result of the automobile industry, and built up their city services to meet demand. Both cities lost population after the auto industry left. And today, both cities are struggling with how to provide the same city services to fewer people with less tax revenue. Budget cuts have led to the closure of most of Highland Park’s fire stations, libraries, and schools.

 

A three-block stretch of Highland Street running west from Woodward Avenue was one the civic center of the city. Along Highland and nearby streets were five schools, three churches, two hospitals, and the main library, mixed in with ornate high-rise apartment buildings. In this densely populated neighborhood one could be born, baptized, attend nursery school, elementary school, high school, and college, all without going more than three blocks in any direction. Right at the center of the neighborhood is the old Highland Park High School and Junior College, a block-long slab of quarry-faced limestone that played an important role in the development of Highland Park from an obscure village into an industrial boomtown.

 

Early days in Highland Park

 

In 1900, Highland Park was just a small village north of Detroit, population 427. Through the early 1900’s, the city grew as Detroit developed north along Woodward Avenue, spurring residential development. In 1907, Henry Ford began to move his automobile production from the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit to a new, much larger factory located in Highland Park. The factory opened in 1909; a year later the population of Highland Park had risen to 4,120 as workers quickly built up neighborhoods around the Ford plant.

 

Like other early school districts, Highland Park Schools taught from Kindergarten to the 8th grade level, at which point young adults were expected to join the workforce. Starting in 1911, high school courses were introduced, with 42 students enrolled in 9th and 10th grade levels at Stevens Elementary, then moved to the new Ferris School when it opened in November. The next year 11th and 12th grades were introduced. Demand for higher education was enough that by 1912, plans were underway to build a dedicated high school building.

 

Building a new high school

 

Initially the board of education wanted to build the new high school east of Woodward Avenue, at Farrand and John R Streets, but instead settled a large rectangular parcel of land along Glendale Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Though the high school would take up only a small part of the land, school officials wanted additional space to expand the school if needed. Excavation at the site began as the first high school class of 14 students graduated from Ferris School in 1913. In 1914, a contract for construction of the new building designed by Wells D. Butterfield was awarded for $460,000. It could comfortably seat 1,000 students, though it was believed that it would be quite a few years before the school reached capacity.

 

The first unit of Highland Park High School was of English type architecture, laid out with a central mass three stories tall, with two end wings linked by classrooms. The east wing had a 1,100-seat auditorium, and the west wing featured a three-story gymnasium and basement swimming pool. In the center were school offices, a library, and recitation rooms. The exterior was done up in quarry-faced gray limestone, with mouldings and detail work of dressed Bedford stone. Inside the school were long hallways of Caen stone and ornamental carved oak. Dedicated classrooms included sewing, carpentry, machine tooling, botany, chemistry, and drawing.

 

The cornerstone was laid down in October of 1914. Construction on the high school had progressed far enough that by June of 1915, the auditorium was used for graduation as work on the rest of the building continued. The new building was scheduled to formally open in September, but even before then school administrators were facing an unanticipated problem: overcrowding.

 

Expansion

 

Between 1910 and 1916, the population of Highland Park grew from 4,100 to 28,000. By 1920 there would be 46,500 residents, a staggering 1,000% increase in population over just 10 years. Workers from across the globe were drawn to Detroit and Highland Park in particular, by the Ford factory and its promise of a $5 a day wage. The assembly line had revolutionized the way that cars were made, and in doing so, made Highland Park the center of the automotive revolution. The school board found itself with hundreds of new students every year, requiring hasty additions to existing school buildings, and the construction of new schools in neighborhoods that were springing up around town.

 

By the time Highland Park High School opened in September of 1915, enrollment far exceeded expectations, with 850 students signing up. In 1916, just a year after it opened, that number grew to over 1,000 high school students, filling the school to capacity. Plans for a second unit of the high school for 1,500 additional students to be built next to the first were immediately drawn up, with construction beginning in 1917.

 

Though the second unit of the high school used identical building materials and same English styling as the first, it was laid out differently. Initially the second unit was intended to be a high school for girls and a junior college, and was built with its own separate gymnasium and swimming pool. Instead of a second auditorium, a larger library and additional classrooms were set aside for a junior college program that would share the building with the girl’s high school. The new high school for girls opened in September of 1918, with a total enrollment of 1,525 students. Highland Park Junior College opened in 1918 as well, with 35 students. Course offerings included French, rhetoric, history, chemistry, zoology, and analytic geometry.

 

Within a few years the two high school programs merged and became co-ed. In 1927, a vocational education building including an automobile repair lab was built to south of the school, connected by an overhead walkway. A further addition to the vocational wing was added in 1938, and the auditorium was renovated in 1939. The high school thrived, with as many as 3,000 students and a host of extracurricular activities, including athletics, homemaking, and a school radio station.

 

Great Depression, Second World War

 

Enrollment at Highland Park Junior College steadily increased to around 300 students by the 1920’s, but slowed in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Lack of adequate space and a drop in the number of students to 159 in 1929 nearly led to the closure of college, but the residents of Highland Park voted to keep it open. This paid off in the long run, as after the Second World War ended enrollment skyrocketed from 117 in 1943 to 1,800 in 1947 as veterans returning to Highland Park used the GI bill to pay for college education.

 

By the 1940’s, population in Highland Park had peaked. Ford had moved auto production out of Highland Park to a new factory in the suburbs in 1927, and moved its headquarters to Dearborn in 1930. The construction of freeways made it easier for people to live outside the city, hastening an outward flight or residents to the suburbs. The racial composition of Highland Park changed as well. By 1968, over half of the 4,488 students were black, while teachers and administrators were mostly white. Sit-ins protesting the lack of diversity in the school administration were frequent in 1969.

 

The high school moves out

 

As part of a district-wide modernization program, several older schools in Highland Park were demolished and replaced with newer buildings in the 1950’s and 60’s. A nursery school was built on the south side of the campus in 1950, and an elementary school was built a block south in 1961. Plans for a new, modern high school to be built north on Woodward Avenue were drawn up in the early 1970’s, which would replace the existing school. The junior college (now a community college) would take over the entire building and expand its vocational offerings.

 

Construction on the new building was already underway when on the evening of March 18th 1975, a large fire broke out in the gymnasium of the old high school. Stacks of rolled-up wrestling mats were set alight as a practical joke, but the blaze quickly spread out of control, causing the roof and floor to cave into the basement swimming pool. The fire burned for over five hours as firefighters from Highland Park, Detroit, and Hamtramck struggled to contain it to just the gymnasium. While smoke and water damage throughout the high school were repaired fairly quickly, repairing the gymnasium was estimated to cost over $600,000. Since the high school was moving out in the near future, athletics were moved over to the community college building, which had its own pool and gymnasium. In 1977, the new Highland Park Community High School on Woodward Avenue opened, and the community college took over the Glendale campus. A temporary roof was built over the shell of the burned-out gymnasium, as administrators struggled with what to do next.

 

Not wishing to demolish the handsome limestone façade of the gym, the wing sat empty until 1983, when the community college approached Bloomfield Hills landscape architect James Scott about reusing the space. Scott envisioned turning the empty hall into a “multi-purpose concourse” and performing arts space, linking the two units together. Within a few days his ideas went from sketches to planning, and work began a short time later. The swimming pool, into which burning debris from above had been dumped, was covered by a new floor and sealed off. The open area above was a mix of the old and new, retaining the limestone wall of the adjacent gym, but incorporating modern styling throughout. Hexagons were the dominant theme, with planters turning the concourse into a green space. Work on the renovation concluded in 1985. In the years after the space was used for concerts, special events, and art galleries.

 

Community college struggles

 

Though enrollment at Highland Park Community College was 2,000 to 3,000 through most of the 1980’s, the college operated at a deficit that had grown to $1.4 million dollars by 1989. In an effort to save money, school administrators cut the LPN and respiratory therapy programs, sparking a four-day sit in strike by students. Though the administration reverses its decision, the financial situation continued to deteriorate, with accusations of rampant misuse of funds. After missing two consecutive annual audits, Michigan Governer John Engler began to withhold state funding for the college, as investigators report that Highland Park Community College “had the worst facilities of any community college in the state.”

 

In February of 1995, Governor Engler announced that all funding for the college would be stripped from the budget due to chronic financial and academic problems, stating, “Though the college has a long and distinguished tradition, it has become apparent that it is no longer an economically viable institution." Local representatives fought hard to keep the school open, arguing that it was making progress in fixing its financial situation and that the loss of the school would be devastating to Highland Park’s troubled economy. By December of 1995 the college had run out of money, and closed down.

 

Highland Park Career Academy, Final Years

 

The immediate impact of the closing of Highland Park Community College was that students were stranded in mid-study, some just a semester away from graduation. Though other nearby colleges tried to accommodate students, many never finished their studies, and walked away from secondary education. While elected officials fought to get funding restored, the school reopened as the Highland Park Career Academy, offering an alternative high school program and vocational training for students and young adults in the fields of nursing, dental hygiene, and auto repair. In 2001, the Ford Motor Company opened an automotive training center in the vocational education building, complete with demonstration cars.

 

Highland Park City Schools steadily lost students through the 2000’s, with K-12 enrollment falling to 2,700 by 2008 as students were lured away to other nearby school districts. As schools were funded by the state on a per pupil basis, this led to a major revenue shortfall for Highland Park. On January 23rd, 2009 the school board shut down the career academy with no official notification to parents, laying off 36 teachers to close the budget gap. Students were again left in the lurch with the cancellation of their programs, with few options for continuing their studies elsewhere. and leaving students stranded in mid-study. Only seniors were allowed to stay at the school until the end of the school year, with the remaining students to attend night school at Highland Park Community High School. However, the first scheduled night of classes was canceled without explanation. Most students dropped out, and the building closed for good in the summer of 2009.

 

For over 90 years, the old high school and college had been the center of Highland Park’s education system. By the time the school closed, the neighborhood and city around it had changed considerably. Ferris School and the hospitals closed in the 1990’s, along with the main library in 2002. The nursery school closed permanently in 2005. Most of the apartment buildings along Glendale and Highland had been vacated years ago, leaving large gaps in the fabric of the neighborhood. In the end, the closing of the career academy wound up costing the school district a large amount of funding, as students dropped out or left for other school districts. With just 969 students enrolled in 2012, the state of Michigan declared a financial emergency, and the Highland Park City Schools were taken over by a state emergency financial manager, who converted the district into a privately operated charter school system.

 

The new charter school operator found that the three remaining school buildings – Highland Park Community High, Ford, and Barber – were in terrible disrepair, and required proximately expensive work to be brought up to standards. In early 2012, school officials started looking at consolidating all of the schools into one K-12 as a way to save money. One alternative discussed was the reopening of the old high school and college building, which was large enough to support all of the students left in the district. The emergency manager visited the closed building in February to see if it would viable to reopen.

 

Since its closing in 2009, the old high school and college had been frozen in time, with little more than security and routine maintenance being carried out in its empty halls and classrooms. Though fairly secure for a few years, when the state took over the Highland Park City Schools, patrols at the closed building had been discontinued, leaving the school briefly open to scrappers and metal thieves. In the short time between the state takeover and the resumption of security at the school, scrappers had done enough damage to make reopening the school cost prohibitive. The plan was abandoned in favor of letting the three remaining schools stay open.

 

In the years since, scrappers and vandals have dismantled the old Highland Park High School. When the local Police department set up two non-working squad cars in the back of the building to deter people from entering, the cars were vandalized and removed less than a month later. In October of 2012 the windows of the school were boarded up, but by that time the damage had been done. The property was put up for sale with an asking price of $3 million dollars.

some guys really need to lay off the beers!!...

Do not use this image without my permission. © All rights reserved. Brian McStotts

Highland Park High School / Junior College / Career Academy

In many ways, the histories of Detroit and Highland Park – a separate city located within the borders of Detroit –are very similar. Both cities experienced tremendous growth as a result of the automobile industry, and built up their city services to meet demand. Both cities lost population after the auto industry left. And today, both cities are struggling with how to provide the same city services to fewer people with less tax revenue. Budget cuts have led to the closure of most of Highland Park’s fire stations, libraries, and schools.

 

A three-block stretch of Highland Street running west from Woodward Avenue was one the civic center of the city. Along Highland and nearby streets were five schools, three churches, two hospitals, and the main library, mixed in with ornate high-rise apartment buildings. In this densely populated neighborhood one could be born, baptized, attend nursery school, elementary school, high school, and college, all without going more than three blocks in any direction. Right at the center of the neighborhood is the old Highland Park High School and Junior College, a block-long slab of quarry-faced limestone that played an important role in the development of Highland Park from an obscure village into an industrial boomtown.

 

Early days in Highland Park

 

In 1900, Highland Park was just a small village north of Detroit, population 427. Through the early 1900’s, the city grew as Detroit developed north along Woodward Avenue, spurring residential development. In 1907, Henry Ford began to move his automobile production from the Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit to a new, much larger factory located in Highland Park. The factory opened in 1909; a year later the population of Highland Park had risen to 4,120 as workers quickly built up neighborhoods around the Ford plant.

 

Like other early school districts, Highland Park Schools taught from Kindergarten to the 8th grade level, at which point young adults were expected to join the workforce. Starting in 1911, high school courses were introduced, with 42 students enrolled in 9th and 10th grade levels at Stevens Elementary, then moved to the new Ferris School when it opened in November. The next year 11th and 12th grades were introduced. Demand for higher education was enough that by 1912, plans were underway to build a dedicated high school building.

 

Building a new high school

 

Initially the board of education wanted to build the new high school east of Woodward Avenue, at Farrand and John R Streets, but instead settled a large rectangular parcel of land along Glendale Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Though the high school would take up only a small part of the land, school officials wanted additional space to expand the school if needed. Excavation at the site began as the first high school class of 14 students graduated from Ferris School in 1913. In 1914, a contract for construction of the new building designed by Wells D. Butterfield was awarded for $460,000. It could comfortably seat 1,000 students, though it was believed that it would be quite a few years before the school reached capacity.

 

The first unit of Highland Park High School was of English type architecture, laid out with a central mass three stories tall, with two end wings linked by classrooms. The east wing had a 1,100-seat auditorium, and the west wing featured a three-story gymnasium and basement swimming pool. In the center were school offices, a library, and recitation rooms. The exterior was done up in quarry-faced gray limestone, with mouldings and detail work of dressed Bedford stone. Inside the school were long hallways of Caen stone and ornamental carved oak. Dedicated classrooms included sewing, carpentry, machine tooling, botany, chemistry, and drawing.

 

The cornerstone was laid down in October of 1914. Construction on the high school had progressed far enough that by June of 1915, the auditorium was used for graduation as work on the rest of the building continued. The new building was scheduled to formally open in September, but even before then school administrators were facing an unanticipated problem: overcrowding.

 

Expansion

 

Between 1910 and 1916, the population of Highland Park grew from 4,100 to 28,000. By 1920 there would be 46,500 residents, a staggering 1,000% increase in population over just 10 years. Workers from across the globe were drawn to Detroit and Highland Park in particular, by the Ford factory and its promise of a $5 a day wage. The assembly line had revolutionized the way that cars were made, and in doing so, made Highland Park the center of the automotive revolution. The school board found itself with hundreds of new students every year, requiring hasty additions to existing school buildings, and the construction of new schools in neighborhoods that were springing up around town.

 

By the time Highland Park High School opened in September of 1915, enrollment far exceeded expectations, with 850 students signing up. In 1916, just a year after it opened, that number grew to over 1,000 high school students, filling the school to capacity. Plans for a second unit of the high school for 1,500 additional students to be built next to the first were immediately drawn up, with construction beginning in 1917.

 

Though the second unit of the high school used identical building materials and same English styling as the first, it was laid out differently. Initially the second unit was intended to be a high school for girls and a junior college, and was built with its own separate gymnasium and swimming pool. Instead of a second auditorium, a larger library and additional classrooms were set aside for a junior college program that would share the building with the girl’s high school. The new high school for girls opened in September of 1918, with a total enrollment of 1,525 students. Highland Park Junior College opened in 1918 as well, with 35 students. Course offerings included French, rhetoric, history, chemistry, zoology, and analytic geometry.

 

Within a few years the two high school programs merged and became co-ed. In 1927, a vocational education building including an automobile repair lab was built to south of the school, connected by an overhead walkway. A further addition to the vocational wing was added in 1938, and the auditorium was renovated in 1939. The high school thrived, with as many as 3,000 students and a host of extracurricular activities, including athletics, homemaking, and a school radio station.

 

Great Depression, Second World War

 

Enrollment at Highland Park Junior College steadily increased to around 300 students by the 1920’s, but slowed in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Lack of adequate space and a drop in the number of students to 159 in 1929 nearly led to the closure of college, but the residents of Highland Park voted to keep it open. This paid off in the long run, as after the Second World War ended enrollment skyrocketed from 117 in 1943 to 1,800 in 1947 as veterans returning to Highland Park used the GI bill to pay for college education.

 

By the 1940’s, population in Highland Park had peaked. Ford had moved auto production out of Highland Park to a new factory in the suburbs in 1927, and moved its headquarters to Dearborn in 1930. The construction of freeways made it easier for people to live outside the city, hastening an outward flight or residents to the suburbs. The racial composition of Highland Park changed as well. By 1968, over half of the 4,488 students were black, while teachers and administrators were mostly white. Sit-ins protesting the lack of diversity in the school administration were frequent in 1969.

 

The high school moves out

 

As part of a district-wide modernization program, several older schools in Highland Park were demolished and replaced with newer buildings in the 1950’s and 60’s. A nursery school was built on the south side of the campus in 1950, and an elementary school was built a block south in 1961. Plans for a new, modern high school to be built north on Woodward Avenue were drawn up in the early 1970’s, which would replace the existing school. The junior college (now a community college) would take over the entire building and expand its vocational offerings.

 

Construction on the new building was already underway when on the evening of March 18th 1975, a large fire broke out in the gymnasium of the old high school. Stacks of rolled-up wrestling mats were set alight as a practical joke, but the blaze quickly spread out of control, causing the roof and floor to cave into the basement swimming pool. The fire burned for over five hours as firefighters from Highland Park, Detroit, and Hamtramck struggled to contain it to just the gymnasium. While smoke and water damage throughout the high school were repaired fairly quickly, repairing the gymnasium was estimated to cost over $600,000. Since the high school was moving out in the near future, athletics were moved over to the community college building, which had its own pool and gymnasium. In 1977, the new Highland Park Community High School on Woodward Avenue opened, and the community college took over the Glendale campus. A temporary roof was built over the shell of the burned-out gymnasium, as administrators struggled with what to do next.

 

Not wishing to demolish the handsome limestone façade of the gym, the wing sat empty until 1983, when the community college approached Bloomfield Hills landscape architect James Scott about reusing the space. Scott envisioned turning the empty hall into a “multi-purpose concourse” and performing arts space, linking the two units together. Within a few days his ideas went from sketches to planning, and work began a short time later. The swimming pool, into which burning debris from above had been dumped, was covered by a new floor and sealed off. The open area above was a mix of the old and new, retaining the limestone wall of the adjacent gym, but incorporating modern styling throughout. Hexagons were the dominant theme, with planters turning the concourse into a green space. Work on the renovation concluded in 1985. In the years after the space was used for concerts, special events, and art galleries.

 

Community college struggles

 

Though enrollment at Highland Park Community College was 2,000 to 3,000 through most of the 1980’s, the college operated at a deficit that had grown to $1.4 million dollars by 1989. In an effort to save money, school administrators cut the LPN and respiratory therapy programs, sparking a four-day sit in strike by students. Though the administration reverses its decision, the financial situation continued to deteriorate, with accusations of rampant misuse of funds. After missing two consecutive annual audits, Michigan Governer John Engler began to withhold state funding for the college, as investigators report that Highland Park Community College “had the worst facilities of any community college in the state.”

 

In February of 1995, Governor Engler announced that all funding for the college would be stripped from the budget due to chronic financial and academic problems, stating, “Though the college has a long and distinguished tradition, it has become apparent that it is no longer an economically viable institution." Local representatives fought hard to keep the school open, arguing that it was making progress in fixing its financial situation and that the loss of the school would be devastating to Highland Park’s troubled economy. By December of 1995 the college had run out of money, and closed down.

 

Highland Park Career Academy, Final Years

 

The immediate impact of the closing of Highland Park Community College was that students were stranded in mid-study, some just a semester away from graduation. Though other nearby colleges tried to accommodate students, many never finished their studies, and walked away from secondary education. While elected officials fought to get funding restored, the school reopened as the Highland Park Career Academy, offering an alternative high school program and vocational training for students and young adults in the fields of nursing, dental hygiene, and auto repair. In 2001, the Ford Motor Company opened an automotive training center in the vocational education building, complete with demonstration cars.

 

Highland Park City Schools steadily lost students through the 2000’s, with K-12 enrollment falling to 2,700 by 2008 as students were lured away to other nearby school districts. As schools were funded by the state on a per pupil basis, this led to a major revenue shortfall for Highland Park. On January 23rd, 2009 the school board shut down the career academy with no official notification to parents, laying off 36 teachers to close the budget gap. Students were again left in the lurch with the cancellation of their programs, with few options for continuing their studies elsewhere. and leaving students stranded in mid-study. Only seniors were allowed to stay at the school until the end of the school year, with the remaining students to attend night school at Highland Park Community High School. However, the first scheduled night of classes was canceled without explanation. Most students dropped out, and the building closed for good in the summer of 2009.

 

For over 90 years, the old high school and college had been the center of Highland Park’s education system. By the time the school closed, the neighborhood and city around it had changed considerably. Ferris School and the hospitals closed in the 1990’s, along with the main library in 2002. The nursery school closed permanently in 2005. Most of the apartment buildings along Glendale and Highland had been vacated years ago, leaving large gaps in the fabric of the neighborhood. In the end, the closing of the career academy wound up costing the school district a large amount of funding, as students dropped out or left for other school districts. With just 969 students enrolled in 2012, the state of Michigan declared a financial emergency, and the Highland Park City Schools were taken over by a state emergency financial manager, who converted the district into a privately operated charter school system.

 

The new charter school operator found that the three remaining school buildings – Highland Park Community High, Ford, and Barber – were in terrible disrepair, and required proximately expensive work to be brought up to standards. In early 2012, school officials started looking at consolidating all of the schools into one K-12 as a way to save money. One alternative discussed was the reopening of the old high school and college building, which was large enough to support all of the students left in the district. The emergency manager visited the closed building in February to see if it would viable to reopen.

 

Since its closing in 2009, the old high school and college had been frozen in time, with little more than security and routine maintenance being carried out in its empty halls and classrooms. Though fairly secure for a few years, when the state took over the Highland Park City Schools, patrols at the closed building had been discontinued, leaving the school briefly open to scrappers and metal thieves. In the short time between the state takeover and the resumption of security at the school, scrappers had done enough damage to make reopening the school cost prohibitive. The plan was abandoned in favor of letting the three remaining schools stay open.

 

In the years since, scrappers and vandals have dismantled the old Highland Park High School. When the local Police department set up two non-working squad cars in the back of the building to deter people from entering, the cars were vandalized and removed less than a month later. In October of 2012 the windows of the school were boarded up, but by that time the damage had been done. The property was put up for sale with an asking price of $3 million dollars.

Friday, August 15th - Had cabin fever so I got out of the house and went grocery shopping. It about killed my lungs, so I am not there yet...throat still red, but the chest is not as heavy, so hoping I caught this in time that it won't turn into anything else.

 

And yes, this photo does highlight how truly jacked up my teeth are. Bucky beavers on top and bottom and my whole mouth is shifting to the left. Need to talk about Invisialign again.

The KOM Flash Report

For week of

September 18—24, 2016

 

Well, it is time to share another Flash Report. If I keep trying someday I might just happen to get the attention of two readers in the same issue. If anyone has an interest in it click here: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/29547851222/

____________________________________________________________________________

Hi John: Just a quick note to let you know Harry fell and broke his hip on Sept. 1. Got a partial hip replacement and is now in a rehab facility. He made a trip to the ER from rehab Saturday because he was dehydrated. Sent him back to rehab on Sunday. Sunday night he fell getting up without help because he thinks he can do it himself and back to the ER he went. At 3am they got him back to rehab. He was 85 Sept 3. He really is a set in his ways. I like to look at those pictures you post. Noel looks great. What a great lady. Take care John, Pat Crandall—Denver, Colo

 

Ed note:

 

Harry Crandall was an outfielder for the KOM champion Ponca City Dodgers in 1950 and was one of the most faithful attendees at KOM league events.

_____________________________________________________________________________

The Mantle book top bid

 

John, I’ll kick the bid up to $50.00 for you. Hope that helps get you closer to getting one eye done, I hear they can be pretty expensive. Let me know if that works for you.

Thanks--Emil Hagopian -- Nephew of Emil Federow, Joplin Minoes, Class of ’50

 

Ed note:

 

Emil’s bid was not topped and thus the book has found a new home in the Detroit area.

____________________________________________________________________________

Where did Keokuk train?

 

In the last issue Willis Carruth got a lot of keystrokes because one reader brought up his name. It precipitated a “ton” of Internet traffic between Keokuk, Iowa and Columbia, Missouri. Steve Smith opened “the game” this week with a question about the spring training site of the 1948 Keokuk Pirates.

 

To Steve Smith

 

A SABR site says Keokuk trained at Duncan, Okla. in 1948. The April 28, 1948 edition of the Iola, Kansas Register says they trained in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Who's right?

 

Smith’s reply

 

I should get to the library tomorrow and check my source document - the Daily Gate City.

 

I have a spreadsheet that lists all the Keokuk spring training sites by year but that doesn't mean I didn't make a keyboard error. It has probably been 10 years since I made that spreadsheet. My source for the spread sheet should have been the DGC.

 

A bit later:

 

After checking my primary source, the Keokuk Daily Gate City, I have come to the conclusion that the 1947-1948-1949 Keokuk Pirates spring training was conducted in Bartlesville.

 

Please check out the picture of the Pirate spring training "brain trust." file:///C:/Users/KC/Downloads/DGC%204-15-1948-Spring%20Trng%20Pic.pdf

 

I have no idea why I had Duncan OK on my spreadsheet. Like I say I probably did that 10+ years ago.

Attached is a PDF file of the May 4, 1948 DGC showing the picture of Willis Carruth's pinch hit home run. It’s the best quality I can get . (Not shown)

 

Ed reply:

 

For newspaper photos of that era it was a great picture. I noticed Ray Birch pinch hit in that game. He wound up be the All-Star game catcher for the KOM league that same season. Of course I saw Ed Suvada and Ed McLish mentioned in that edition as well. Someone could have constructed a poem with the names of Elmer Kish and Ed McLish.

 

Smith’s reply:

 

Attached is the Daily Gate City's account of that April 28, 1948 exhibition between Keokuk & Iola. David "Gus" Bell did indeed play for Keokuk that night. Gus played 128 games for Keokuk that year hitting .319 with 27 doubles and 20 triples, but only 6 homers. You are a fountain of knowledge.

 

Ed reply:

 

They used to call me "Old Faceful."

 

Comment:

 

With all the PDF’s Smith shared I looked on my mailing list to see if anyone in the Iola-Keokuk game of 1948 might have any interest in those stories. The only name I could think of was Buck Walz who played three seasons for Iola. Here was my message to him. “Buck, I f you download this file you will see the box score of the game you played against Keokuk and Gus Bell was in right field for them.” Shortly, I had a note coming all the way from Mesa, Arizona, from Walz that he didn’t remember much about that era since it has been 70 years.

______________________________________________________________________________

Another Iola player was in touch

 

Good report John! I got to go to Chicago early this month and saw the Cubs beat the LA Angels. Great seats and great game with my son and grandson. Hank Chott—Glendora, Calif. who was from Chicago and played in 1950 for Iola, Kans.

______________________________________________________________________________

Love the report:

 

Great names: I got a kick out of some of the names in this issue, especially Fido Murphy, Sleepy Willoughby, and Zeb Snider (short for Zebulon I'm guessing). Really good picture of the Bartlesville Oilers. Nice and clear. .—Jerry Hogan—Fayetteville, Ark.

 

Ed reply:

 

I have no idea where the nickname came from but Snider’s middle name wasn’t Zebulon. Maybe it came from Czechoslovakia. His family gave up coal mining there around 1918 to do it in West Virginia.

 

Comment:

 

Over the course of time spent researching the KOM league I’ve been very fortunate in coming up with massive numbers of photos from that era. There was some great black and white camera work done with Brownie Box cameras.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Sometimes you get lucky

 

In the July 10—16, 2016 edition of this publication, mention was made that KOM President E. L. Dale had fired an umpire named Crockett. It didn’t provide a first name and I challenged the readership to come up with one as long as it wasn’t David. I knew if someone told me that, it would be a joke. Well, I got a response from Jack Morris, baseball necrologist and sure enough, his first name was David.

 

Crockett was fired for changing his calls in two games at Miami, Oklahoma during the early part of the 1950 season. That doesn’t seem important now, but keep that fact in mind.

 

Nothing in the Sporting News Card indexes gave me any hint of how old David Crockett was or where he was from. On a recent beautiful Saturday afternoon I had some choices. I could watch college football on television or go down the road to a place called Faurot Field where the Missouri Tigers have their lair. That didn’t sound very appealing. So, I looked out the back door and saw a very wet yard after 6.2 inches of rain in over a span of a couple of days. I decided against mowing a rice paddy. A quick glance at the tomato patch indicated I’d be wading mud up to my knees if I wanted to pick those now too water logged vegetables. So, I decided to become a junior G-Man and see if I could find David Crockett or determine his fate.

 

Without a year or place of birth the guessing game began. From historical records I was aware that when any umpire left the KOM league, who was from a faraway place, he would be replaced by someone from a town in league territory. To make my case Jack McGlothin, Horace James “Bucky” Walters, Max Rose and Moses Yellowhorse all became umpires when arbiters from distant places went back home for one reason or another. McGlothin and Walters worked for the railroad in Pittsburg, Kansas, Yellowhorse, from Pawnee, Okla. was the Ponca City groundskeeper and Rose was a former member of the Alba Aces and Alba was/is midway between Carthage, MO and Pittsburg, Kansas. Richard Bell of Waukee, Iowa (more on this man later in this report even with his last name changed) was hired to start the 1950 but after one bi left effective May 17, That is when David Crockett came on the scene.

 

To start with I decided to narrow the search to Oklahoma and Missouri. There was a James Drenen Crockett born February 2, 1866 in St. Clair, Missouri who moved to Afton, Oklahoma prior to his death in 1916. At the age of 44 he became the father of a young son named David Drenen Crockett born January 16, 1910. When the lad was six years old his father died leaving behind David, his sister Sybil a wife and two mules. Sorry, but I never learned the name of the mules. I found a photo of Sybil and David sitting on them with their father, James, holding the reigns and David appears to be 4-5 years old. Note: If you have Ancestry.com you can view that photo here: mv.ancestry.com/viewer/6b8c1cb2-6e90-4b23-9c03-0875ba99ce...

 

Tracking David Drenan Crockett I found he was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma by the time he was 16. He lived in three places there and worked as a plasterer and city bus driver into the early 1940’s. He married a lady by the name of Nadine in 1934 and since I didn’t find her maiden name I will call her Mrs. Nadine Crockett.

 

Update: As the afternoon wore on, and my computer skills improved, I found that David Crockett married Nadine Geneth Scritchfield. She was born in Fairland, Okla. on 6/13/1910. Her parents had lived in Newton County Missouri, south of Joplin and north of Neosho before moving to nearby Fairland in Ottawa County, Okla. From there the Crockett and Scritchfield families moved to Tulsa, Okla. where most of them lived out their lives. Nadine worked as a telephone operator for Southwestern Bell and died 2/29/1994.

 

In 1942 David Crockett entered the United States Navy where he served until 1945. That is where the trail grew cold and I went to his father’s burial site which was Mt. Hope Cemetery in Afton, OK. I either got a clue or had divine inspiration from that effort and discovered David with the SSN of 443-036-978 (it is legal to share SSN’s of the deceased) had passed away on November 24, 1990 in Tulsa. However, his earthly remains were transported east to the SW Missouri town of Neosho where he now rests in Oakwood Cemetery along with Nadine and many of her relatives. Here is his grave site: www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=359649...

 

Crockett lived in Tulsa for many years and it is very likely he knew Ward Elmer Mohs who was the postal worker in that town and was also the chief of umpires for the KOM league from 1946-1949. I surmise Mohs may have had some influence on the young man entering the umpiring profession.

 

At the start of this article I mentioned Crockett was born in Afton, Oklahoma. That town is in Ottawa County as is Miami. So, the man who got his start in life in Ottawa County saw his umpiring career end there as well. He got his start in the Longhorn league that lasted from May 25 to June 22, 1949. His KOM league career started around May 17 and lasted until June 28 of 1950. A couple of photos of Crockett are at this site: One appears to have been taken in a street side photo booth and another was taken in a yard. In both instances he was wearing a white straw hat. mv.ancestry.com/viewer/38cea8e8-1ecc-43e3-862f-1629080796...

 

Not much was found regarding David Crockett after he left the KOM league. A dispute over a down payment on a car, in 1957, is attached if you care to pull up the citation and then good luck from there unless you understand “lawyer speak.”

 

law.justia.com/cases/oklahoma/supreme-court/1957/30732.html

¶2 The facts are Nadine Crockett and David Crockett purchased an automobile from Hansel J. Nobles and made a down payment of $200 and later returned the car to Nobles and brought this action in the Justice of the Peace Court for the return of the $200 down payment. An appeal was taken to the Court of Common Pleas, and there tried de novo to a jury.

 

This site will take you in many directions regarding the Crockett family if you are interested in genealogy or learning more about former minor league umpires, which I seriously doubt.

Search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl=allgs&gss=sfs28_ms_r_f-2_s&new=1&rank=1&gsfn=David%20Drenen&gsfn_x=0&gsln=Crockett&gsln_x=0&msypn__ftp=Afton%2C%20Ottawa%2C%20Oklahoma%2C%20USA&msypn=75738&msypn_PInfo=8-%7C0%7C1652393%7C0%7C2%7C0%7C39%7C0%7C2267%7C75738%7C0%7C0%7C&MSAV=1&cp=0&catbucket=rstp&uidh=tk3

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The saga of Richard Allen Boll

 

Prior to the start of the 1950 baseball season the league released the names of the umpires to the press. One of those listed was Richard A. Bell of Waukee, Iowa. That turned out to be a misspelling of his last name which was Boll. It didn’t matter much for he left the league for unspecified reasons on May 17, 1950. When the umpires for 1951 were announced he wasn’t one of them but by June he was umpiring at Iola, Kansas when one of the most sensational confrontations, in league history, between an umpire and manager erupted. It resulted in Forrest “Lefty” Crawford, the Iola manager, being banned for a month (actually 21 days) and after he served his suspension he was released. It was one of the biggest all-around messes in league history. It is somewhat synthesized in quotations from newspaper articles so you can draw your own conclusions.

 

Richard Boll was initially signed 2/18/1950 and released 5/17/1950. Then the real story begins.

 

June 30, 1951--Boll Out of KOM. The umpires, reported that Dick Boll has been replaced as an umpire in the KOM league. He is the official with whom Lefty Crawford became embroiled. Bucky Walters of Pittsburg will substitute temporarily, working only in games near his home town. He is a regular league reliever. The void caused by an umpire’s replacement was basically filled by Frank K. Rainier.

 

Who was Frank K. Rainier? He was an umpire who wasn’t assigned to the league at the commencement of the season. Other than him being assigned to the Evangeline league for 1952, after his time in the KOM, nothing is known, for sure. He may have been born May 22, 1926 in Bordentown, NJ. and passed away February 19, 1977 in Florence, NJ. If so, he served in the U. S. Army from 11/22/1944 until 11/1/1946. www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=553464...

 

KOM League president, E. L. played no favorites when I came to suspending managers. Some of the following articles prove it.

 

June 11, 1951--The Indians dropped three baseball decisions during the weekend and today are in the midst of the first league embroilment of the 1951 season. A 10-2 victory for Bartlesville there last night followed a double loss to Carthage Saturday, 3-1 and 10-3. The second joust Saturday left manager| Lefty Crawford's status rather unsettled, clouded by many rumors after a mix with plate umpire Boll in the fifth inning. After Boll called a bunt by Joe Vilk of Iola foul, usually genial Crawford rushed him and started a fight which players of both sides soon quieted although with considerable effort:

 

Among those taking police action were manager Don Anderson of Carthage, who grabbed Crawford and succeeded in moving him from the immediate scene a few paces. Boll, motioned Crawford off the field about as soon as the manager reached the umpire, but it was several minutes until order was restored oh the field. Pitcher Pete New of the Indians also was ejected for his protest of what had happened. No police officers took part, but fortunately the fans all remained in their grandstand seats. They proceeded to boo the umpire loudly for some: time thereafter. Yesterday and today, league president E. L. Dale of Carthage has made several telephone calls regarding the incident and has directed Joe Becker, supervisor of umpires, to hold an inquiry into the matter at Iola Tuesday afternoon. There were rumors of suspensions this morning but actually none has officially been announced. The first game Saturday was well played, and Carthage won it largely by out-hustling the Indians. They stole four bases in the first inning, in which two runs, were scored. "Manager Anderson stole home. Iola led 3-0 after four innings of the second game and Pete New had pitched one-hit ball, facing only 13 batters in four innings. New walked Tom Kordas to start the fifth, then fanned George Beck. When Gary Hicks's fairly easy fly ball to center was misjudged by Joe Zavaterra and went for two bases. New appeared to become unnerved.

 

June 12, 1951--Lefty Improving Lefty Crawford came back from Bartlesville in I better humor than expected. The Indian chief was pretty blue over the Saturday umpire incident and things in general when he left —and two losses followed. Lefty popped in The Register office early this morning to express his regrets over the Saturday night explosion. He vows it will never happen again, and he hopes to be permitted to prove ft. Lefty is afflicted with too much desire to succeed, just as this corner tried to say when he got discouraged early, even though the team looked pretty good from the grandstand. A losing team can entertain, something that Lefty finds hard to see. Also from the grandstand, it has looked as though the Indians have been a little too umpire-conscious all the way. Enough hustle "on the ball" will beat the enemy, the umpires, and everything.

 

June 14, 1951--Manager Crawford Not on Trip. Iola goes to Miami today with Crawford left behind. Forrest "Lefty" Crawford remained at home today as the Iola baseball club bussed to Miami for a two-game KOM league series. In charge of the players, primarily in a business way, was Lloyd Ayers veteran Iola semi-pro player and manager. Mace Pool, second baseman, will be in charge of the team on the field, as he has been since Sunday, the day a temporary suspension was placed on Crawford to await investigation of an umpire imbroglio here last Saturday night.

 

Crawford yesterday was suspended 30 days by league president E. L. Dale as a result of Crawford's excited physical clash with umpire Dick Boll. A threatened "sit-down." by the players as reaction to a report that Crawford had been relieved permanently by the baseball directors was the latest baseball excitement overnight. After last night's game the players called on president Ollie Sutherland, 100 per cent strong. Sutherland said, and declared they would 'not go to Miami today if their manager is relieved. Yesterday the directors met and voted to seek the services of Al Reitz during Crawford's suspension. This morning they had not yet located him, however. Reitz managed here in 1946. 1947 and 1948. has been employed in Florida, his home when he first came here, but had written here, recently that he probably would move to Indiana soon, his shipyards job having been eliminated by commercial changes there.

 

Since Sunday, Crawford has been in charge of the team except on the hold, a common procedure in baseball when a manager is under suspension. Suspended managers are permitted to work the team out until game time, and of course handle player assignments and other business matters off the field. This morning, Crawford had not definitely decided to remain here and ride out the suspension, which will end July 8, but he indicated preference for that step. He said his family, including three of his four small sons, will leave his home at Davenport, Iowa tomorrow to come for the remainder of the summer. Crawford said he had been deeply impressed by friendship shown him by Iola fans since his arrival in April and he would seriously regret leaving now. He hopes to stay, he said, and finish the season successfully. Today he was job-hunting for the apparent 22-day period he will be off the field. Meeting with the directors this morning following a session of the board, the Iola players pleaded for appeal action on the suspension and $100 fine. They expressed the utmost loyalty; to Crawford, both as a leader; and an instructor. Dave Newkirk. pitcher, acted as chief spokesman.

 

Baseball regulations, as Dale's notice of the suspension reminded, give individuals or clubs the right to appeal disputes to other clubs of the same league or the national

 

Iola Register--June 19, 1951--Lefty Crawford, suspended manager of the Indians, said this morning he planned to take his family back to Davenport today, hoping to return here himself by Wednesday night. Mrs. Crawford and their three sons came here Saturday. They had intended to stay here most of the summer but are returning because of not find ng a suitable place to live. Al Reitz, engaged to relieve Crawford until a suspension ends July 8, had not yet arrived in town this morning.

 

Ponca City, June 23. (AP).— Mgr. George Scherger of Ponca City's KOM league team returned to the roster tonight following a suspension. Scherger was suspended for five days Thursday following an argument with an umpire in Pittsburg. The suspension, though, was lifted after three days.

 

Iola Register--June 25, 1951-- Iola Register--Lefty Crawford Hurt on City Job-- Hard luck followed on the heels of Manager Lefty Crawford's 30-day suspension in the KOM league when he was injured Saturday while at work for the city on a street Improvement project. A block of concrete fell from a city truck and struck Crawford in the back as he was stooped over nearby. The physician who ministered to him and made X-ray investigation later said it is believed the injury was limited to severe bruising. Crawford was advised to remain in bed throughout the week end. The Indian manager sought and obtained the city employment while scheduled to be idle two weeks longer on the enforced baseball lay-off. The misfortune occurred on his second day out with city workers who are on a curb replacement project on the north side of the square. Interruption of his regular baseball salary accompanies the suspension. Another member of the baseball squad injured during the week end is Stan Klemme, rightfielder, who suffered an ankle sprain in the Saturday night game at Pittsburg.

 

Iola Register--June 30, 1951--In baseball law anybody who didn't realize organized baseball is regulated with real force should know it now. It must be run that way to survive, because It is so dynamite-laden from the emotional angle. Lefty Crawford was not penalized for what, physical damage he did to umpire Dick Boll. In fact there was none. In a civil court, Lefty probably would have been fined about $15 for what he did if the argument had been on a street corner. In many cases there would have been no penalty. If the person abused had been hurt, it would of course be much more serious, both on the ball field and in court. Instances could be found where an umpire was treated worse and the offender received less in the way of penalties. That would be this corner's- chief; point against the Crawford decision. It would be acceptable if the touching of an umpire meant automatic suspension for 90 days. Penalties are arbitrary, however, so they vary widely. There, probably is no tougher league president in the country than E. L. Dale, and this department is for him. Strange as it may seem, baseball law absolutely must be stronger than civil law. The umpire must be a czar of the game. They don't like it better than anyone else. It just must be. Without control there would be; no baseball, and the representatives of baseball control are the umpires.

 

More about Richard Allen Boll

 

He was a paternal descendant of German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania and later moved to Iowa. On the maternal side of the grandparent coin he was “pure” Missourian. His parents were married July 11, 1910 in Kansas City, Missouri and then embarked upon raising a family in Waukee, Iowa, as farmers.

 

Richard Allen Boll arrived on October 26, 1921 and stayed on the farm until he entered the US. Army on October 14, 1942. He served until January 6, 1946. From April 12, 1943 until December 12, 1945 and was fighting against the same country from which he had descended. He spent 32 months in Europe for which he was compensated an additional $500 by the State of Iowa following the war.

 

On the 15th day of January, 1975 he was married to Faye Blizzard. Sometime between their marriage date and April 25, 2008 they moved to Arab, Alabama. On that April day in 2008 Richard Allen Boll passed away at the age of 86.

 

Comment:

 

Over the years I spoke with a number of Iola players who participated in that game. Bringing up the subject to some of the guys evoked that “deer in the headlight gaze” with the response being, “I don’t remember that.”

 

Two fellows who remembered it were Pete New and Sam Dixon. Dixon had joined the Iola team on a two week basis until their catcher, Kenny Boehme, was assigned there by the New York Yankees, came of the disabled list.. Dixon recalled Iola was at bat and he went behind the third base dugout to take a smoke. He had a long-time teammate, from their Chanute days, and fellow railroader, Pete New, was coaching third base. Dixon said he heard a commotion and New had gone up to home plate where Boll was umpiring. Dixon said that due to the activity going on around home plate, and not wanting to give up his cigarette, he stayed out of the fracas.

 

In speaking with Pete New he told me that when he got to the plate Boll and Crawford were going at it pretty good. He said that he got behind Boll, pinned his arms and encouraged Crawford to hit the umpire. New told me that is what his manager did. In that melee no one in authority saw what New had done and when he told me the story nearly a half-century after it happened he felt that he should have received some discipline as well. But, that was long before television games and instant replay.

 

While Crawford was suspended the team was managed by one of their players, Mace Pool. That was too much pressure on a young man. So, Iola owner, Earl Sifers went after Al Reitz who managed there from 1946 through 1948. He was to guide the team until July 8, 1951 when Crawford’s suspension expired. July 8th came and Reitz left and Sifers decided it was cheaper not to have a “real” manager and turned the job back over to Pool.

 

Don Anderson, Carthage manager, had his Carthage team in Iola the night of the fracas and he told me that he felt sorry for Boll and was doing his best to intercede on the umpire’s behalf. Had I been allowed to travel to Iola, as the batboy, as I did to Miami and Pittsburg I would have had a birds eye view of the altercation from my normal position near the bat rack. I wonder how much I would have remembered of the incident? I would be able to write better stories today had I been older and had a digital camera in 1951.

 

On July 8, Reitz was out of a job. The Carthage Cubs returned home, on July 9, from a week’s road trip to Bartlesville and Ponca City. When I arrived at the clubhouse, in mid-morning, I was told manager Don Anderson had resigned and that a new manager would arrive shortly. Very soon thereafter a fairly large contingent of men in business suits were walking around the Municipal Park stadium. I didn’t know any of them except Lee Newman who was the president of the club. One of those men came up to me and introduced himself as Al Reitz. I later learned that one of the men in the group was Jack Sheehan who was head of minor league operations for the Chicago Cubs. He didn’t bother speaking to me for he knew I’d never advance past the Class D KOM league.

 

The crazy year for the Iola Indians continued. Beset by managerial problems and near player revolt the Iola club was ready to welcome back their suspended manager, on July 9, when the officials of the club decided the suspended manager wasn’t welcome. So, they stuck with Mace Pool as player/ manager. About that same time the rains of 1951 began. Across Kansas the water rose and when it reached Iola thee were record levels of water. The ballpark was overtaken by the Neosho River and for most of the remainder of the season the Iola home games were played in Independence, Coffeyville, Parsons and even the small village of Bronson, Kansas. That gave rise to the old saying “When it rains….”

 

Earlier in the article it was cited that Pete New held umpire Richard Boll as “Lefty” Crawford slugged him. Later in the season New got his payback. At one KOM reunion he told me of his continual harassing of Miami manager, Tommy Warren, during a game at Miami, over his legal problems that would eventually wind up with him serving time, the next year, at the Oklahoma State Reformatory. New told me that what Warren did to him was deserved and he regretted popping off to him.

 

The following is how the New/Warren incident appeared in print.

 

July 31, 1951--The Coffeyville Journal reports that manager Tommy Warren of Miami socked Pete New, Iola pitcher, as a clubhouse climax to verbal punching that went on during that game. The wound apparently was not too critical, for Pete pitched a shutout Sunday. Pete's chaw may have cushioned the blow.

 

The Coffeyville Journal had an interest in Pete New for four years earlier he had pitched the local Ban Johnson team to the National Championship of that organization.

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Umpire update:

 

Over the history of documenting the life and times of the KOM league I’ve treated the importance of umpires in the same manner I have the players. There were numerous times the two-man crews didn’t show up for games and “unbiased” umpires would be taken from the grandstand or one player from each team would be selected to umpire.

 

However, I’ve done my best to document the names of every full-time umpire. This week’s report indicated Richard Allen Boll was in the KOM league in both 1950 and 1951 and The Sporting News index cards don’t show him in the league in 1951. The same goes for Millard Fretz. The Sporting News cards indicate that he was in the KOM league in 1952, which he was but he first showed up for a KOM league gamed in late 1951.

 

There was an umpire, in late 1951, by the name of Johnson. I had heard a claim through the following article that his first name was Zeke and that he had umpired in the KOM league. It was in regard to the “big” game played in Joplin, Mo. on October 15, 1953. There was a Johnson who worked a May, 1950 series between Iola and Independence and I’m assuming it was Zeke.

 

Joplin Globe—October 15, 1953

Tickets are now on sale for Sunday's benefit exhibition baseball game between the Tri-State Miners, managed by Mickey Mantle of the New York Yankees, and the District All-Stars, headed by Ferrell (Andy) Anderson, newly appointed manager of the Omaha club of the class "A" Western League.

 

Joe Becker, one of many officials offering his services and time for the game, said the $5 general admission tickets can be purchased now at Haynes drug store, Owen's Sports store, Bob Miller's cafe. Lane's Sports store, Morrison-Miller cafe, Elks Club and the Royal drug store. Box seats for the game will be on sale all day Saturday and Sunday morning at the ball park. Box seat tickets can be obtained for 25 cents extra.

 

Proceeds of the game will be given to the widow and children of the late Joe Crowdcr, former Joplin pitcher, who drowned Saturday, October 3, in Grand Lake. Mantle, centerfielder of the world champion Yankees, will head a team of professionals and former pros against Anderson's charges. Besides, Mantle and Anderson, other major leaguers expected to play in the game are Cliff Mapes, who formerly played with the Yankees and Detroit Tigers of the American League, and Gene Stephens of the Boston Red Sox. Mantle played shortstop with Joplin in 1950, when Crowder came in to save several games for the Miners, when the starting pitchers lost their stuff. The pair also played with Independence of the KOM League in 1949. Two former Miners who played with Crowder in 1950 also are expected to play in Sunday's game. They are Al Billingsly and Tommy Gott. Billingsly played second base and Gott roamed in center-field for the 1950 Western Association champion Miners.

 

The game will get under way Sunday at 2:30 o'clock, and will be preceded by a game between the Webb City Cub Scouts and the Forest Park Baptist church Cub Scout team of Joplin. Zeke Johnson, colorful and veteran umpire of the KOM League and W estern Association told Becker in a telephone conversation earlier this week that "If it’s the last bit of umpiring I do, I want to work the Joe Crowder benefit ame. I worked behind Joe in both the KOM and Western Association, and he never once griped about one of my calls."

 

Johnson formerly lived in Joplin He now lives at Fayetteville, Ark., and is a powder explosions expert at a plant near Fayettevlle. The other umpires will be Kenny Magness and Don Gross of Joplin.

 

Ed note: Zeke Johnson was actually James Carl Johnson who was born in Missouri and moved to Commerce, OK and worked as a hoisterman in the lead and zince mines in that area. He umpired in the Western Assn. in 1923. The only other record of him umpiring was in May of 1950 in the KOM league.

 

Note: I could take exceptions to some of the claims in that article but my comments are long and time is short with regard to this report.

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Once again, the Flash Report is over and the pain ends.

 

Some of the readers, or at least recipients of these reports, might wonder why I persist in sharing them. The following is a note from a reader that is indicative of what causes me to keep trying. “Hi John--So refreshing to receive your Flash Reports!! It's like a spring tonic! All the awful media news plus my own medical miseries make me enjoy the baseball and sweet innocence of your writing all the more. Thank you!” Bill O--Durham, NC

 

Ed note:

 

“Bill O” played for the New York Giants and Washington Senators minor league organizations in the early 1950’s. He was a good pitcher who won more than he lost and along the way played with some fellows who went on to the big show with the Giants and Senators. He has a lot of memories of that era and although he never played in the KOM league the stories he sees in these reports remind him of his youth and excitement about playing baseball and all the “other” things that went with it. Thanks to Bill for the encouragement to keep on pecking at the keyboard to dredge up incidents regarding times past but not forgotten. Gee, someone with eloquence could come up with a good sentence using that basic premise.

  

GB Railfreight Class 92, 92020 races south through Hartford just before 05:00 with the Caledonian Sleeper Up Highlander (1M16).

 

After three months out with a technical issue, including a trip to Brush for remedial work, 92020 has wasted no time getting back into the thick of the action having been an ever-present on main trunk runs since her release from Brush.

 

The Brush Traction locomotive - which spent almost 18 years in store between April 2001 and December 2018 - has received rave reviews since its return from its recent lay-off. An "absolute truncheon" and a "stonking loco" are two of the recent plaudits from 92020 from some of GBRf's most experienced drivers.

Trawler ... Laying off the Tyne awaiting a crew change . Registered at Hull but Dutch owned and lands catch in Holland

.Harlon L. Dalton, Professor of Law at Yale University, not only objects to the Horatio Alger myth, but also maintains that it is socially destructive. Dalton explains that the Horatio Alger myth conveys three basic messages, "each of us is judged solely on her or his own merits; we each have a fair opportunity to develop those merits; and ultimately, merit will out. Each of them is, to be charitable, problematic." The first message is a variant on the rugged individualism ethos…In this form, the Horatio Alger myth suggests that success in life has nothing to do with pedigree, race, class background, gender, national origin, sexual orientation—in short, with anything beyond our individual control. Those variables may exist, but they play no appreciable role in how our actions are appraised".Dalton also believes that the deep appeal of the Horatio Alger myth is that it allows and even pulls people in the direction they want to go. Psychologically, the Horatio Alger myth opens many doors. When the odds are stacked unfavorably, one often has to convince oneself that "there is a reason to get up in the morning".Dalton also asserts that the myth serves to maintain the racial pecking order. It does so by mentally bypassing the role of race in American society, by fostering beliefs that themselves serve to trivialize, if not erase, the social meaning of race. The Alger myth encourages people to blink at the many barriers to racial equality (historical, structural, and institutional) that litter the social landscape and believe that all it takes to be successful in America is initiative, persistence, hard work, and pluck.According to Dalton, there is a fundamental tension between the realization of the American Dream based on the Alger myth and the harsh realities of a racial caste system. Obviously, the main point of such a system is to promote and maintain inequality. Conversely, the main point of the Alger myth "is to proclaim that everyone can rise above her station in life. Despite this tension, it is possible for the myth to coexist with social reality. Not surprisingly, then, there are lots of Black folk who subscribe to the Alger myth and at the same time understand it to be deeply false. They live with the dissonance between myth and reality because both are helpful and healthful in dealing with ‘the adverse events of life. Many Whites, however, have a strong interest in resolving the dissonance in favor of the myth. Far from needing to be on guard against racial "threat[s] or challenge[s]", they would just as soon put the ugliness of racism out of mind. For them, the Horatio Alger myth provides them the opportunity to do just that".The myth suggests we are judged solely on our individual merits, in turn implying that caste has little practical meaning, apart from race-based advantages or disadvantages. Generally Whites are more successful than African Americans, as they are facilitated by their preferred social position, while African Americans believe that they can "simply lift themselves up by their own bootstraps". It is in America's national interest, Dalton believes, to give the Horatio Alger myth a rest, because it is a myth that assures us we can have it all, when in reality, "we live today in an era of diminished possibilities"Associating Alger's stories with the "rags to riches" trope is somewhat misleading, as his heroes often only rise from poverty to the middle class. Though some of his novels, for example Jed, the Poorhouse Boy, do detail the story of a protagonist ascending from poverty to nobility.Some of Alger's novels assert how material wealth is insignificant unless it is paired with middle-class respectability. For Alger's characters, wealth was the product of a meritocracy, and the direct consequence of "honesty, thrift, self-reliance, industry, a cheerful whistle and an open manly face". However, in some of Alger's works there is also an implied belief in hereditary determinism, explicitly contrasting achievement based on merit. This contrasting achievement would often be another character such as a stepparent or the child of a rich family.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger_myth

Algiers (Arabic: الجزائر‎‎, al-Jazā’er; Algerian Arabic pronunciation: دزاير Dzayer, Berber: Dzayer tamaneɣt, French: Alger) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. In 2011, the city's population was estimated to be around 3,500,000. An estimate puts the population of the larger metropolitan city to be around 5,000,000. Algiers is located on the Mediterranean Sea and in the north-central portion of Algeria.Sometimes nicknamed El-Behdja (البهجة) or alternatively Alger la Blanche ("Algiers the White") for the glistening white of its buildings as seen rising up from the sea, Algiers is situated on the west side of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea. The modern part of the city is built on the level ground by the seashore; the old part, the ancient city of the deys, climbs the steep hill behind the modern town and is crowned by the casbah or citadel, 122 metres (400 ft) above the sea. The casbah and the two quays form a triangle.The city name is derived (via French Alger and Catalan Alger from the Arabic name الجزائر al-Jazā’ir, which translates as "The Islands", referring to the four islands which lay off the city's coast until becoming part of the mainland in 1525. Al-Jazā’ir is itself a truncated form of the city's older name جزائر بني مزغانة Jaza'ir Bani Mazghana, "The Islands of the Sons of Mazghana", used by early medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi.

fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alger

Hotel five stars El Aurassi was inaugurated and opened to customers May 2, 1975, part of the national heritage companies.

German postcard by Franz Josef Rüdel, Filmpostkartenverlag, Hamburg, no. 5123. Photo: Constantin. Heintje, Gerlinde Locker and Heinz Reincke in Heintje - Ein Herz geht auf Reisen/Heintje: A Heart Goes on a Journey (Werner Jacobs, 1969).

 

Dutch singer and actor Hein Simons (1955) was a famous child star in the 1960s under the name Heintje. He sang in Dutch, English, German, Japanese and Afrikaans, and he sold more than 40 million records worldwide. His greatest hit was Mama. Between 1968 and 1971 he also starred in six German light entertainment films, of which one became surprisingly popular in Red China.

 

Hendrik (Hein) Nicolaas Theodoor Simons was born in Kerkrade-Bleijerheide, in the south of the Netherlands, in 1955. Heintje was discovered after a talent contest in the Dutch town of Schaesberg by Addy Kleijngeld, a producer of the CNR record company. Kleijngeld went on to compose and record all his hit songs - mostly together with the German producer Wolfgang Roloff. Heintje’s first hit was Mama (1967), a Dutch version of the evergreen sung in the 1940’s by opera tenor Beniamino Gigli. It became a success in the Netherlands and a German version was produced for the German countries. In 1968 Mama reached the #2 position in the German hitparade. Heintje’s next German record, Du sollst nicht weinen (You should not cry) (1968), even became #1. Other huge hits soon followed as the # 1 hit in Germany ánd the Netherlands Ich bau' dir ein Schloss (I’ll build you a castle) (1968), Heidschi bumbeidschi (1968) – another # 1 in both Germany and the Netherlands, Ich sing ein Lied für dich (I sing you a song) (1969) – another # 1 in Germany, the Dutch song Ik hou van Holland (I love Holland) (1970), the English song I'm your little boy (1970) and another Dutch song Jij bent de allerbeste (You are the best) (1971). In 1971, Heintje started a USA tour with 10 shows. He received 45 Golden records all over the world (at the time the award for 250,000 sold records in Europe and for 1 million records in Great-Britain) and a dozen Platinum records. Worldwide he sold more than 40 million records.

 

Between 1968 and 1971, Heintje appeared in six German films. His first film was Zum Teufel mit der Penne/To Hell with School (Werner Jacobs, 1968) with Peter Alexander and Theo Lingen. This comedy was the second of the Lümmel film series (6 in total), stuffy but harmless farces in which young students and other youths dissociate themselves from the older generation. Heintje played a supporting role and sang his hit Mama. In the following years he starred in three sentimental Heintje-films opposite Heinz Reincke and Ralf Wolter: Heintje – ein Herz geht auf Reisen/Heintje: A Heart Goes on a Journey (Werner Jacobs, 1969), Heintje – einmal wird die Sonne wieder scheinen/Heintje: Once the Sun Will Be Shining Again (Hans Heinrich, 1970) with Paul Dahlke, and Heintje – mein bester Freund/Heintje: My Best Friend (Werner Jacobs, 1970) with Corny Collins. Heintje – ein Herz geht auf Reisen was awarded a Golden Screen in Germany for more than 3,000,000 attendances within 12 months. With subtitles the Heintje films were shown all over the world. Surprisingly, the film became also popular in communist China in the early 1980s. On IMDb, Zhengyu Sun comments: “In the West, this film may be easily neglected as time goes by. But amazingly, Heintje would definitely be crowned as one of the memorable western films on Chinese screen even from today's perspective. Although filmed in 1960s, the film wasn't available in Red China until earlier 1980s. When the film was introduced, it was given a Chinese title, Handsome Boy. Actually, Heintje conforms with Chinese traditional values to great extend, such as parental and grandparental love, the theme of the harmonious family, the main character's righteous and courageous virtue. All of which seem pretty familiar and quite acceptable to the Chinese point of view. What's more, the songs performed by little Heintje Simons also contributed a lot to the popularity of the film in China. Without any exaggerating, the film is a household name among those middle-aged and well-educated.” Heintje also appeared - now in starring roles –in two more Lümmel farces, Hurra, die Schule brennt/Hurrah, the School is Burning (Werner Jacobs, 1969) and Morgen fällt die Schule aus/No School Tomorrow (Werner Jacobs, 1971), his final film.

 

When Heintje was 16, the inevitable happened: his voice changed. His last hit in the Netherlands was Meine Liebe für dich (My love for you) (1972). He continued to be quite popular in Germany, but couldn’t lay off his image as a former child star. In 1975, he made two LP’s with songs in Afrikaans, which were quite successful in South-Africa. His performances in the state of apartheid lead to some criticism in his home country though. As a young adult, he tried to make a come-back in the Netherlands with the song Und das alles nur weil wir uns lieben (And that's just because we love each other) (1978), but it only became a modest success. He also tried several come-backs in the German speaking regions, and in 1995 he even recorded a techno version of his first hit Mama. Nowadays Hein Simons resides with his family on a horse ranch in Neu-Moresnet, a part of the city of Kelmis in the east of Belgium. In 1981, he married Doris Uhl, and they have three children, Pascal (1982), Gina (1989) and Hendrik (1992). Hein Simons still performs and records regularly.

 

Sources: International Hein Simons Website, Zhengyu Sun (IMDb), Wikipedia and IMDb.

 

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Jocelyn was smart enough to realize the value of Derrick’s stupidity and anger. And he dressed very well. If you are going to play with jerks, at least make it a well-dressed jerk. Derrick was the kind of guy who went along with it, whether it made sense or not. This made him the perfect ploy/accomplice. He felt he was getting something out of it, while that something was inconsequential to Jocelyn. She was very focused in these matters. The phone number exchange had to not only be timed right, but at the proper angle with the correct lighting. The scene created had to get its point across in a flash. It would be an image that would remain active in an unsuspecting mind. It would be reviewed and analyzed again and again. The viewer would question:” Did I really see that”? The images would stick and become the scene that would never end. The eternal late night re-run. It was at times like this that Jocelyn identified with the great German silent film directors.

Derrick is always ready; his hands reflexing into a fist almost as often as his blinks. The thought of anything going wrong never enters Derrick’s mind. He has no time for that. Derrick feels that “Losers worry about things going wrong. So what if something goes wrong. Just walk away. Keeping walking and it is way behind you. History. There are people like Ed who like to worry about things going wrong. “Let ‘em. Those are the ones who like to keep going over things in their head. What a waste of time. It distracts so much that they can’t think of important things like eating. Or going to Crescent Bay to play the slots. Or driving fast. Or what a fine ass Jocelyn has. And how I am gonna help her out and maybe get something in return. Actually not maybe, definitely. I am just being polite.”

Rich deserts have a special place not only in Ted’s stomach, but his heart. Ted studies deserts the way an architect studies his designs. He thinks the average desert lover only cares about the flavor. The statement “it tasted better than it looked” offends him. Deserts have a fundamental aesthetic that must be adhered to. It needs to look good. It must have balance and a firm foundation. It needs to have delectable colors. It needs to make a statement. It needs to have a mysterious energy that sets it apart from other treats. And it needs to have a berry or cherry. Preferably on top of delectable cream. However, others do not appreciate Ted’s passion. He is snickered at. And in his quest to be quickly exposed to many deserts, he usually stains his clothes. He has found that to truly savior deserts, he must do it in private. Like out by the pool the night of Mickey’s birthday party. But the joy of digesting his potpourri of sweets was interrupted. It was the image. “Could I be wrong? Maybe I am wrong but it sure looked that way” “What if I am not wrong?” “What if I think I am so right that if I tell someone they would say, that can’t be, “You are wrong.”

Ted can have his desserts, thinks his brother Ed. For him exotic cocktails accessorized with little umbrellas are worth the calories. It is like sending your mouth and mind on a tropical adventure. The enticing blending of flavors…the intense colors….the crisp sensations extinguishing a warm weather thirst. And the names of the beverages! A Rumble Rum Eruption, a Poco Loco, a Wayward Schooner and his favorite: a Bali Veri Hai. Jocelyn never shared, as Ted called it, “the lure of the tropical drink“. But she could mix a great one. It was funny that she never tried one. She said that the umbrellas, custom swizzle sticks and fruit riding the glass rim made it difficult for her to smoke and drink at the same time. Many a night she would light up, pour herself some red wine and would then create a cocktail for Ed. And then another one. And then ….another. Soon the soft hum of the air conditioner became the sound of a gentle lapping ocean and the couch became a hammock .And then before he knew it, it was morning and waking up in the living room. Friends could not understand the connection between Ed and Jocelyn. But he knew she was all right. Whenever he woke up after too many of Jocelyn’s cocktails the apartment would be empty. But a few hours later she would arrive with bagels.

For Mickey’s party Jocelyn insisted on making pitcher after pitcher of fantastic concoctions. It was a great party. Boy, Mickey knows lots of people Ed thought as he sat caressing a frosty Casa Coco Rico adorned with a teal umbrella and fluorescent green mixing stick topped with an octopus. He was feeling marvelous even though he could not stand. He smugly chuckled to himself. Jocelyn looked as gorgeous as ever tonight. While he was not the best looking guy on the block, and never lost the weight he had gained after Junior High, he was smart and knew how to make money. By adding TVs and snack bars to his chain of laundries, business had gone up by 39%. He turned to give Jocelyn a kiss but she was gone. She had just been right next to him. “I must have nodded out for a few minutes. Ahh the lure of the tropical drink he giggled. Hey Ted! Hey Ted! Come over here. Sit down next to your big brother. Hey…what’s with the look? You feeling sick? You got to lay off those deserts. Come on, come on, sit down, have a drink and tell me what‘s new.”

  

22” x 28” Acrylic Gouache, ink on canvas