Sorry for the late update today. Got back from Indiana late yesterday afternoon and just ran out of gas. I made a speedy, 30-hour visit to the Hoosier state and, well. You know how it is.
The old burg looks great (in places) and less-so (in other places). Downtown is shining like a gem. New buildings, new construction going up, and a new riverfront park (from the last time I was there, anyway). Meanwhile, the shopping centers that bustled when I was there all look tired and used up. Fort Wayne Newspapers looks like absolute shit; I expect the new owners are just biding their time until they can swing the wrecking ball. And having killed the paper I once worked for, they didn’t even have the decency to take the name off the building:
Probably because it might cost them a few bucks.
But it was a good visit. Stayed with Alex and Harry in northern Allen County Saturday night, then swung down into town for a quick lunch with others before hauling back out.
And now we’re into another week-long stretch of miserable heat, but that just means…it’s time to go ottering. Planning a quick pop up to the St. Clair River tomorrow, in fact. Supposed to be 90 outside, but 65 degrees water temperature. We’ll see how that goes.
I just watched the first two parts of the Victoria’s Secret docs-series on Hulu. It’s as bad — the situation, not the series — as you’d imagine, and Les Wexner is not coming off well at all. I don’t expect that bothers him; he’s past 80 now and no one lives forever. But if I were one of his four children, carrying his name and just starting out in life, it wouldn’t be a good feeling.
New thread, and I’ll gain some energy as the week goes on. At least, I hope so. I’m laying low in case I caught a case in the Hoosier state; Covid is running wild again, and virtually no one was wearing a mask. Never change, Indiana.
Jeff Gill said on July 18, 2022 at 11:09 pm
COVID is over, that’s what everyone here keeps telling me in Ohio. (Meanwhile, I just heard about a local high school softball team that sent 40 players to an event in Florida, came back with 8 testing positive and half doing fine, half feeling very ill indeed, and guess what determines which half they were in?)
313 chars
Dexter Friend said on July 19, 2022 at 2:35 am
Boston and NYC and parts of Metro D.C. are mask-mandating for crowded indoor settings; the populace were told do not worry about masking if outdoors. Creeping up on the outside is Monkey Pox. Now, c’mon, God! You had your fun, killing off and sickening so many hundreds of thousands, and now you resurrect Monkey Pox? Not fair.
I had a little bit of business in Auburn Monday morning, so I took US 6 westward, to be slowed down for about 15 minutes for a parade of extra-wide manufactured homes to get through in Edgerton; we had to pull off the road so these monstrosities could pass, accompanied by police and lead and trailing vehicles carrying signs. Then Auburn’s 7th Street is being worked on by a large contingent of vested workers, with traffic cones everywhere, some skewered badly enough to cause problems with drivers trying to navigate the maze. I decided to get biscuits & gravy at McD’s …nope, they quit that, oh well. I decided to drive west about 15 minutes to my boyhood stomping grounds, since I hadn’t done that for a quarter century. Our first little house where I was reared from 1949-1957 was in good shape, the second place long gone, replaced with a new home. My old school, a two-room elementary, was so overgrown, it was totally blocked from view, if it’s old shell is still standing, I’ll never know. The old Friend family farm , sold off years ago, is still there, but no cows, pigs, machinery, nothing, dormant. My uncle’s beautiful hilltop house, so pretty and kept up in the past, is in such horrible condition it too is totally invisible from the road now. New owners just let it go to hell. My aunt used to grow acres of sunflower plants there on the hillside. I still have memories. I really think I’ll never take that drive again, as it seems the area is a foreign place after all the years.
1844 chars
alex said on July 19, 2022 at 6:50 am
Jeff —
Was it the ones who flew? Seems like everyone I know who’s had COVID lately got it after traveling on a plane.
121 chars
Jeff Gill said on July 19, 2022 at 9:17 am
I asked that very question, Alex, and no, they were on a bus. They have a suspicion about a meal event being the location that got so many testing positive on return, but who knows? The problem with flying, my wife tells me by way of OSU’s Wexner Medical Center folk, is not the plane, it’s the terminal: waiting for TSA, boarding, etc. Her advisors recommend double masking from your car to the seat on the plane, but say if you are sitting with someone whose status you know, it’s not a huge risk to unmask to eat and drink. Though they all tend to stay masked aboard planes when not consuming stuff.
602 chars
Julie Robinson said on July 19, 2022 at 11:28 am
Three sets of friends have gone to Europe in the last month and all have gotten Covid. Two couples got it the day after getting home, but one couple got it the day after arriving in Germany. Talk about a ruined trip. Between this and all the airline/luggage/airport issues, our Europe postponement seems smarter and smarter.
Fort Wayne Newspapers had stopped putting any money into the building several years before D left, so over 15 years ago now. It was looking like a decrepit Soviet build. Doesn’t seem they’ve done any better since.
542 chars
Dave said on July 19, 2022 at 12:41 pm
Nothing to do with today’s topic but once again, I’m struck about how long our hostess has been posting and how long I and others have been reading and commenting. Eighteen years ago, there’s a discussion about yearbooks and there’s my comment about my school vs. what I thought of as a megaschool that our hostess attended. I’m also struck by the commenters that have disappeared along the way, some, we know they’re no longer with us but others, perhaps it was just a passing phase. Still, I do wonder what ever happened to Kirk and also the fellow in Florida who used to post about the drugged out ex-NFL player who gave him and their neighborhood fits.
Our daughter’s MIL will be returning on the 22nd from a trip to Ireland and Scotland, a trip that she started planning three years ago and, with COVID delays and whatnot, she finally got to go this month. We’re all hoping she doesn’t contract COVID from her long awaited trip.
Dexter, the home I grew up in has been extensively remodeled and only the basic framework makes it recognizable as the home I grew up in. I recently asked my brother if he’d been by lately and he told me no, he had no reason to go by there anymore.
1193 chars
Mark P said on July 19, 2022 at 1:04 pm
I don’t remember whether I mentioned my cousin and her husband, who flew from Atlanta to Denver and then spent a week sight-seeing on a bus. About half the group ended up with Covid. I suspect someone who took the trip was infected before they left.
Almost every significant structure from my childhood is gone. My childhood home is a nephrology center. My grandmother’s house was demolished for a doctor’s office which has since burned. The elementary school my father and I both attended is also now a suite of doctors’s offices. I was in the first group to attend the newly constructed middle school. It has now been demolished as well. And my father, mother, and brother have died. Not much to keep me here any more.
731 chars
Dorothy said on July 19, 2022 at 1:43 pm
That’s the trip we did three years ago, Dave – Ireland for a week and then Scotland for a week. It was to celebrate our 40th anniversary. We did it in September ‘19 and after Covid hit a few months later we congratulated ourselves on our luck in getting that trip in before the world screeched to a halt. I hope the folks you know get home unscathed and uninfected.
369 chars
JodiP said on July 19, 2022 at 2:10 pm
I really don’t understand why the mask requirement was lifted for airports and planes. On our trip last week, I wore a KN95 except when eating and drinking in the terminal and in the plane.
The NYC subway still has a mask requirement but compliance is about 15 to 20%.
This is all so concerning because as everyone here knows, the BA5 variant is more easily spread and seems to show resistance to the vaccines.
416 chars
Deborah said on July 19, 2022 at 2:51 pm
Mask wearing is almost non-existent in Santa Fe now. LB and I were among the few wearing masks at the Farmers Market this morning. It’s mostly outside so that makes sense. We wear ours even outside when there are lots of people, mainly to protect other people from us because of our recent bout with Covid. I still tire easily even though it has been almost 2 weeks since I came down with the damn virus. Of course it’s quite hot too so that doesn’t help my energy level. At least it’s still in the low 60s at night here. July is the hottest month and today’s high of 95° is about as hot as it ever gets around here, humidity is almost 50% right now which is rare to be that high but we have been getting more rain than usual. Stucco buildings retain a lot of heat after a few days of highs in the 90s and stucco buildings are everywhere in Santa Fe. At least a couple more days from now the highs will be in the low 80s again.
929 chars
Deborah said on July 19, 2022 at 4:33 pm
Karen was behind me at the grocery store today. After we went to the Farmers Market we walked a bit further to Whole Foods to pick up a few items that we wanted for dinner tonight that we couldn’t find at the market. There were long lines, which can be aggravating, I get it. I was leaving 6ft between myself and the woman in front of me because, Covid. That pissed off the woman behind me royally. When she got close enough to put her stuff on the conveyer belt she was slamming her items down hard and knocking things over. It was comical actually. It’s sometimes funny when people get mad in public like that.
612 chars
Sherri said on July 19, 2022 at 8:18 pm
Mask wearing is still pretty common here, though not universal. We went to see the touring production of Hadestown on Sunday night, and probably 2/3 of the audience was wearing masks. We were wearing our KN95s.
210 chars
Jeff Gill said on July 19, 2022 at 10:12 pm
Some excellent context on “Dark Winds” in general, and Dine/Navajo pronunciation in particular:
“Allison noted that her mother grew up in Arizona, while her father was raised in New Mexico. She recalled them playfully arguing with each other about the correct pronunciation of the Navajo word for coffee and said differences like that illustrate the futility of trying to determine a “correct” way to say something.
She also pointed out that many younger Navajo people speak in a way that differs sharply from that of their elders − something that is common across many cultures.”
https://www.daily-times.com/story/news/local/farmington/2022/07/10/amcs-dark-winds-cast-includes-farmington-high-school-graduate-deanna-allison/65369975007/
748 chars
Peter said on July 19, 2022 at 10:37 pm
Mark, I feel for you and the demolished buildings of your youth.
My childhood home is still standing and other than a new front door, is exactly the same. It’s on Pleasure Court in Aurora, Illinois.
The hospital I was born in was renovated many years ago into a psychiatric care facility. My sister said it was really nice of them to change so they could still be of service to me.
Boy COVID has really altered my sense of time. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 3 years since our last big trip – we visited my wife’s relatives in Ireland. They were planning on a big family reunion in 2020 – it’s now on for July, 2023, and, thankfully, they’ve moved it to a bigger town so I’ll have something to do when they start reminiscing…
746 chars
alex said on July 19, 2022 at 10:39 pm
Virtually no masking around here and donning one in public seems to antagonize the Trumpers as if you’d dragged them into an alley for a throwdown. A co-worker has an immunocompromised family member and is very conscientious about mask wearing and she gets terrorized by assholes all the time.
I just learned that my dad is inconsolable over the fact that one of his last surviving friends and colleagues, an attorney, totally buys into the Big Lie.
Me, I’m not surprised. I work for attorneys and I’d bet close to half of them are just as benighted.
561 chars
Deborah said on July 19, 2022 at 10:49 pm
If there are more seasons of Dark Winds, I wonder if the Character Emma, Leaphorn’s wife will eventually die, as she did in the novels. I hope not because I like her character and they’re not really following the books after all. Bernadette Manuelito is a good strong woman character too.
288 chars
LAMary said on July 20, 2022 at 12:33 am
I don’t ask my relatives if they believe the big lie. I know one of my nieces doesn’t but I suspect she and I are the outliers. During the last campaign I sent her a video of trump doing his stupid Macho Man dance and someone had dubbed in a guy with a British accent singing, “I’m a little cunt, just a little cunt.” She loved it.
331 chars
Dexter Friend said on July 20, 2022 at 1:41 am
While watching Le Tour de France riders getting their brains boiled in that heat (today it was 121F on the media nmotorcyclist’s digital thermometer), we were shown many structures in France that Phil Liggett said were built “before history”. I got a kick out of that, and in all seriousness realized that all those structures in Europe would have been razed for glass-walled buildings if Americans were in control. Here’s my first-hand example: I was trained to be an army medic at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, 53 years ago. We were billeted in WWII wooden barracks, those 2-story barn-like structures. Shortly after the Vietnam misadventure concluded, they were knocked down and new brick buildings housed the trainees. A few years ago my step-grandson trained there and sent a few photos, and all the buildings that replaced “my” wooden barracks had also been knocked down, and modern dorm-like buildings had replaced them. Not only that, but sometime in the interim the entire post had been updated, I didn’t recognize anything, all new buildings. Your tax dollars at work. The VA has limited budget considerations though, and many US VA buildings and campus facilities are in bad, decrepit shape.
1211 chars
Deborah said on July 20, 2022 at 3:23 am
LAMary, do you have a link for that video.
42 chars
Suzanne said on July 20, 2022 at 9:02 am
Alex, I hear you about mask wearing. My husband was confronted a month or so ago in the local grocery while wearing a mask. “Still afraid of COVID?” The guy did apologize when hubby told him that I am undergoing cancer treatments and must be protected, but still. What kind of asshole do you have to be to bother someone in a grocery store for wearing a mask? I never in my life knew there was such hatred out there.
420 chars
Mark P said on July 20, 2022 at 9:05 am
Peter, I forgot about the hospital where my wife and I were born. It went through several iterations, including an orphanage and a homeless shelter. It has now been torn down. Apartments have now been built there.
213 chars
Jeff Borden said on July 20, 2022 at 11:03 am
Dr. Fauci, who plans to retire soon, recently was asked why he wouldn’t stay on until the coronavirus is defeated. He jokingly replied that he’d be 105-years-old, which was his way of saying coronavirus isn’t going anywhere. It’s so damned sad. All the tools were there to defeat this thing, but too many people had to politicize it and so here we are. . .Thank dog these dolts weren’t around in the polio days, though perhaps that, too, will return as the ranks of the anti-vaxxers swell and more parents refuse to vaccinate their school age kids.
This fucking country. . .
577 chars
Julie Robinson said on July 20, 2022 at 11:06 am
Afraid of Covid? Damn skippy I am, as would any other logical person.
We took my mom on a trip to see her homes in Iowa before we made the big move to Orlando. A couple had been torn down, a couple were rundown, and a couple had been improved; probably par for the course. The little hospital in Boone, Iowa, where I was born, is still there and looking shiny.
I’d never been to a couple of the towns and it had been many years for the others. I took lots of pictures and videos, and while we were driving around I recorded audio of her memories.
The house I lived in during most of my childhood was bought by someone who doesn’t like people stopping to take pictures. Twice over the years I’ve tried to grab a couple and he came out the front door with an angry face on. The quiet country lane has turned into paved road with people traveling 80 mph, so I can’t park a block away and walk.
901 chars
LAMary said on July 20, 2022 at 11:10 am
Deborah, I’ll look through my 2020 facebook posts later. Searching online is probably a bad idea.
97 chars
Jenine said on July 20, 2022 at 11:57 am
@Jeff, that’s a good article. Thanks for posting the link. I’d like to watch Dark Winds, need to see if my patchwork of online subscriptions includes it.
153 chars
Jeff Gill said on July 20, 2022 at 1:11 pm
Deborah, you forgot the #spoileralert! But yeah, I’m wondering about that, although like the books that can play out over multiple seasons yet. Emma was sick for multiple volumes, and then [content redacted] so they could play it out for many more seasons.
Jenine, if you have a cable with OnDemand you can still watch AMC shows for 30 days even without the AMC+ or whatever their subscription service is.
My son has gotten me into “Better Call Saul” and I will admit Monday was quite a compelling hour & change. The best subtle twists you needed some backstory to get the most from, but it was excellent even for a complete newbie. Four more eps left to the finale, hopefully not too many shootings, but I have to be realistic.
738 chars
Deborah said on July 20, 2022 at 2:53 pm
Better Call Saul is fantastic. I haven’t yet started watching the last half of the last season. My husband still hasn’t seen the last 2 episodes of Dark Winds so I’ll rewatch those with him and after he leaves for Chicago for business I’ll watch the end of Better Call Saul.
I can’t believe we actually have a date for our window replacements at the condo in Santa Fe. It has been over a year since we signed the contract and paid half of the costs. It’s been an adventure with the Santa Fe historical district, getting the building permit and dealing with supply chains and labor shortages. It’s supposed to happen mid-August. We’ll see.
658 chars
tajalli said on July 20, 2022 at 3:19 pm
Masks are required of volunteers for distributions with the food bank but the driver has been maskless for several months. Last event he tried to push me to forfeit social distancing, rather than leaving the portion at the far end of the table for the client to pick up and place in their own bag.
I complied a couple times, and then reverted to the safe, sensible original protocol since we always get through the line (250+ people) anyhow within the hour. He doesn’t have to pay my price if I get sick or transmit it unknowingly to others. I just follow a protocol and set aside fear.
I remind myself that bullying (sometimes called peer pressure, ha ha) is based on fear and have noticed that the guy seems stressed. He may have reached the natural end of his time as a driver on this route, we’ve certainly had a long list of them over the years. He’s exposed to 750+ people a day so it’s really rather crazy to not mask. Next time I’ll just reassure him that we’ll get through the line, no worries, that the event will go fine, and let his response roll out.
1068 chars
Jeff Borden said on July 20, 2022 at 3:59 pm
If you’re of a certain age, you may recall the name of Secret Service agent Rufus Youngblood. When Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Youngblood was in a limo further back in the parade with Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson. He pushed LBJ onto the floor of the car and covered the veep with his own body, demonstrating the kind of courage and professionalism expected of the Secret Service.
And now? Like everything else in our battered, beleaguered and bloody country, the Secret Service appears to be just as compromised as all our other institutions. I’d blame the orange tumor –it’s long been an article of faith that anything tRump touches dies– but I recall a scandal involving hookers when Obama was president. I find this all terribly sad.
775 chars
Sherri said on July 20, 2022 at 7:55 pm
Even here, we have our QAnon crazies.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/king-county-elections-will-ask-sheriff-to-investigate-gop-activists-ballot-box-surveillance-as-potential-voter-intimidation/
Amber Krabach, one of the people behind these signs, was a nutcase long before Trump and QAnon. She’s been a persistent candidate for state legislature in my district. I first became aware of her when she tried to disrupt a Town Hall meeting of a different legislative district, and complained her free speech rights were being violated when she was escorted out.
585 chars
Deborah said on July 21, 2022 at 10:43 am
Here’s an inspiring video about Rep. Patsy Mink of Hawaii who was a big proponent of Title IX, especially for women in sports. A Pinto also has a role in the story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faL6ERtj5oM&t=1184s Not a new video but new to me, someone on Twitter linked to it.
283 chars
LAMary said on July 21, 2022 at 11:42 am
I agree that everything Trump touches dies. I think that any entity, rule, person or whatever that displays, encourages or requires integrity becomes a target for him. Anything that requires he do the right thing no matter how petty or how existential needs to be eliminated. Cheat at golf. Undermine the election process.
322 chars
Dorothy said on July 21, 2022 at 12:46 pm
Jeff Borden you need to read Carol Leonnig’s book Zero Fail about the Secret Service. I just finished it yesterday. The paperback was $20 – I got the last copy at a Columbus Barnes & Noble two or three weeks ago. It’s very well written, although at times I felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of names she mentioned over the 487 pages in the book. I learned a few things that I didn’t already know. I was dying to talk to my husband about it as I read it, but he wants to read it next so we can have conversations after he’s read it.
I read the NYTimes article about Ivana’s funeral yesterday. Am I the only one who took great pleasure in knowing she was quite the parent enforcer in that family? Don Jr. described some punishment she handed out when Ivanka actually broke an expensive chandelier while playing with a beach ball in the house. Nice to know that POS had a few beatings in his lifetime by his mama.
Also about masks – I read a tweet the other day by someone who said they were verbally scolded and asked why they had a mask on. The person replied “because I love you and I don’t want you to get sick.” The recipient of the remark was a total stranger and the tweeter said the look on that person’s face and the way they backed away from the confrontation was really great.
1311 chars
Julie Robinson said on July 21, 2022 at 2:58 pm
As despicable as the Trump children are, I’m not of the opinion that hitting children is ever a good idea. And really, wouldn’t it just figure they’d choose a gold-plated coffin for Mom? Tacky is as tacky does.
Reading between the lines, Ivana’s fancy friends deserted her. The church was only half-full and the biggest “name” was Jeanne Pirro.
347 chars
LAMary said on July 21, 2022 at 3:08 pm
I wonder if “judge” Pirro was sober? Or maybe it wasn’t really her but the SNL version showed up? Ivana in a gold coffin is perfect. It’s like that tacky gold rocking horse in the photo of trump, Melanoma and their sad looking kid in the tacky apartment in Trump Tower.
269 chars
Dorothy said on July 21, 2022 at 3:52 pm
I guess I’m not the good person that you are, Julie. Deep down inside I feel like some kind of punishment needs to be handed out for all of the damage done by that poisonous family. If it happened before the fact, so be it. He is vile – maybe not as vile as his father but they all have so much to answer to.
310 chars