A visit to the firehouse.

We had a staff development day, which turned into sort of a field trip. Among the stops was a Detroit firehouse, squad 3 to be exact. You walk in, and you get the immediate whiff of burning house. It’s coming from the equipment room:

firehouse1

It was a nice visit; firefighters are cool guys. Although this one refused to sell me his shirt, even when I offered him $50 for it, but seriously, wouldn’t you? This might be the best t-shirt ever:

firehouse2

They showed us the brand-new jaws of life, the pictures on the walls, the memorial for the last firefighter to die in the line of duty, killed when a roof fell on him in a burning abandoned house. If you want to know more about Detroit firefighters, I can highly recommend “Burn,” a documentary floating around the Netflix orbits these days.

I think I may go back and increase my bid for that shirt.

Posted at 9:44 pm in Detroit life |
 

68 responses to “A visit to the firehouse.”

  1. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 10, 2014 at 10:12 pm

    Fire fighters. Whatcha gonna do.

    Some of the most memorable chaplaincy runs I’ll ever make . . . they won’t tell you anything until they tell you everything, and then you’d better be ready to hear it all. But you go on runs with them, and . . . they give you t-shirts.

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  2. Kirk said on November 10, 2014 at 10:37 pm

    My first visit to a firehouse came when my kindergarten class went on a field trip. Needless to say, I was spellbound. One of the firefighters even slid down the pole for us.

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  3. Dexter said on November 11, 2014 at 12:11 am

    Times and prices change, for sure…back in 1980 I visited friends in Detroit and a little party broke out. A guy had a cool light-weight jacket on; it was a Washburn Guitars jacket, very nice, great artwork front and back, where a rendition of a Washburn guitar just projected “cool”. My step-daughters were Washburns and I had to have that jacket, so I offered the dude a double sawbuck, and off came the jacket. My daughters hated it. Somewhere along the line it was trashed, which was a shame. It was way too tight for me, of course.
    I don’t think I have ever been in a firehouse. Here in Bryan we have a new police and fire complex but I didn’t bother with the open house party. I guess the closest I have been is Chicago’s Engine 78 house, across Waveland Avenue from Wrigley Field’s left field bleachers. I used to peek inside that tiny firehouse when I was walking towards the bleacher entrance by center field.

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  4. Dexter said on November 11, 2014 at 2:49 am

    http://nypost.com/2014/11/03/crazy-critters-insane-animal-hybrids/#1

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  5. Linda said on November 11, 2014 at 5:47 am

    We are having a staff development day at work, but it’s not a field trip. Combines personal development stuff with work stuff, flu shots, health screenings, etc. In our library, work related stuff includes “How to Survive an Active Shooter,” Self Defense, Who Threw the First Punch, and stuff on working with different populations like people with autism or disabilities.

    Wonder if some enterprising person reads this post and starts knocking off those tshirts?

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  6. David C. said on November 11, 2014 at 6:41 am

    When my wife ran a day care, we took the kids to the fire barn. They all thought it was the coolest thing in the world, except one who was down right angry because they didn’t have a fire pole. I wonder if they even have them anymore.

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  7. Basset said on November 11, 2014 at 7:23 am

    Tell you what, Nancy, I have one of these I’ll send you for free if you promise to wear it, xxl with the sleeves already cut off:

    http://m.sears.com/buck-wear-inc-buck-wear-redneck-grunt-call/p-SPM5935159605

    Hunting humor, y’know… during the deer mating season some hunters use a call which replicates the grunting sound of a doe announcing her interest and availability. Kinda the animal equivalent of a sorority girl squealing “ohhh, I’m so DRUNK…”

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  8. Connie said on November 11, 2014 at 8:35 am

    Linda, I went to an all day how to survive an active shooter in the library program earlier this year. Tell me if you learn about ALICE. It was a state wide program being televised and somewhere in there a guy with a gun came in and attacked the speaker and we got to compare witness statements. Interesting program, but kind of creepy that we train with something like this.

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  9. Dorothy said on November 11, 2014 at 9:33 am

    Bassett a girl proclaiming she’s SO drunk is not a public service announcement that she’s ready to copulate. I’m sorry but that was kind of thoughtless.

    More later on the subject of firefighters. Right now I’m at the car wash. Drive thru.

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  10. brian stouder said on November 11, 2014 at 9:40 am

    Speaking of ‘Old School Detroit’ –

    It will be very interesting to see how Ford’s aluminum pickup roll-out does.

    http://wane.com/2014/11/11/ford-starts-production-of-new-aluminum-f-150/

    Connie – the conference where a faux-Active Shooter shows up sounds like one of those “What could possibly go wrong?” type things, that often go completely off the rails

    (what if one of the attendees was packing heat?)

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  11. Julie Robinson said on November 11, 2014 at 9:47 am

    Kirk, I also remember desperately wanting to slide down that pole during our kindergarten’s visit. I also remember that our class walked to the fire station, and it didn’t seem too far away. It was actually about a mile–can you imagine today’s kids being allowed to do that?

    A perhaps little known fact: here in the Fort, firefighters are required to have EMT credentials, and are often the first responders to medical crises. There are more fire stations than ambulance stations, so they’re often closer.

    I want to thank all in our little community who served in the armed forces. Regardless of my personal feelings about war, you have earned your veteran benefits and of course every free meal offered.

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  12. brian stouder said on November 11, 2014 at 9:53 am

    The free lunch thing seems to be avery American accolade.

    I seem to recall in The Right Stuff – I think in the book (if not the movie) – one of the original three astronauts noting with a touch of wonderment that he never had to buy lunch again, all across the country

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  13. Deborah said on November 11, 2014 at 10:02 am

    Julie, when I was in kindergarten I walked thirteen blocks to school rain or shine. We all did. There were a bunch of us walking together but still, no parents accompanying ever. Nobody thought a thing of it.

    I’m at the little Italian place on the lower level in the Hancock building (L’Appetito for those locals who know) for coffee and a pastry. No more Starbucks for me. There are a couple of guys here wearing pipefitters local shirts, yep I’m back in Chicago.

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  14. Dorothy said on November 11, 2014 at 10:03 am

    Okay I’m home from the car wash. Bassett I hate being disagreeable with friends here but I feel like what you said is perpetuating a stereotype that simply must go away. I am not naive – I know such things happen at fraternities and sororities, but I think the attitudes about it need to evolve. And we have to stop thinking that just because a girl is drunk means she’s ready and waiting to be screwed. It implies that she is giving her permission for that, when in reality she is too compromised to make a safe and informed decision. She might just be experimenting and wanting to have a really good time at a party. And that’s all. Okay I’m getting off that soapbox.

    My nephew, the one who plays sled hockey with disabled young men and women, is a new firefighter in his hometown of Indiana, PA. He is bursting his buttons, he’s so proud of himself. And we are all proud of him too. He might not be able to do everything other firefighters to, but he’s passed the tests and helps and is very involved and it’s such a marvelous thing for him. I’m sure there are duties he’s able to perform, and others that he cannot (mostly because he doesn’t have a strong left arm.) I haven’t met any of the other firefighters but I’m sure they’re excellent people. I will be able to talk to Cam about it at Thanksgiving when they come to my son’s house for dinner.

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  15. Deborah said on November 11, 2014 at 10:05 am

    When I was a kid my aunt renovated an old farmhouse and installed a real fireman’s pole that you could use instead of the spiral staircase off of the bar. We kids and later our own children had many hours of fun playing on that thing.

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  16. Deborah said on November 11, 2014 at 10:11 am

    And Little Bird’s good friend in St. Louis had a pole installed in her house, only it’s a strippers pole and she uses it to teach pole dancing. Different world.

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  17. Sue said on November 11, 2014 at 10:48 am

    Deborah, every Labor Day I proudly wear my Chicago pipefitter’s local T-shirt, obtained by demanding it from my brother, no charge. It’s the one with the crossed pipe wrenches, so cool. Many pipefitters in my family… point to a famous Chicago building built since 1950 and one of my relatives probably welded something on it.
    I assume it doesn’t make a positive impression in my anti-union corner of Wisconsin but since I don’t look like a Chicago union thug (and oh yes am now at the invisible age) I’ve never gotten harassed for wearing it.
    And… I once made a mention of our firefighters being ‘just volunteers’ and the Fire Chief very gently corrected me in his usual classy way. Kudos to all firefighters, even those who are inadvertently dissed by clueless people like me.

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  18. Basset said on November 11, 2014 at 12:39 pm

    Dorothy, I can see how you’d read it that way but I was indeed referring to the stereotype… my time at IU made me deeply resentful of the Greek system and I never miss a chance to express that.

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  19. brian stouder said on November 11, 2014 at 1:48 pm

    Vlad the enshawler?

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/11/world/asia/putin-liyuan-shawl-apec/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

    Hong Kong (CNN) — It was a fleeting moment, but one that Chinese censors were quick to snuff out.

    At an APEC event to watch the fireworks in Beijing on Monday night, Russian President Vladimir Putin created a few of his own by slipping a shawl over the shoulders of Peng Liyuan, wife of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

    A smiling Peng Liyuan kindly accepted the offer, but seconds later deftly slipped the shawl off into the hands of a waiting aide.

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  20. Dexter said on November 11, 2014 at 2:05 pm

    brian, I like the new look Ford aluminum line. I’ll be following this story as well.

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  21. Deborah said on November 11, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    The temp in Chicago dropped 20 degrees since this morning. I’m so obsessed with the weather here, because it sucks compared to New Mexico. I only ventured out this afternoon between rains to do a couple of errands, not much walking today. Plus it gets dark so much earlier than NM, by 5 here it’s pitch dark, in Santa Fe it was more around 5:30. Chicago is on the east end of the time central time zone and Santa Fe is more like the middle-ish (west to east) of the mountain time zone.

    Dorothy, you had some good points about the drunk sorority girl comment, although I forgive Basset for it. Basset don’t let your disdain for the greek life get too in your way. Although I’m with you on the disdain, I always thought sororities and fraternities were dumb. Thank goodness I went to a college where they were not allowed.

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  22. David C. said on November 11, 2014 at 6:16 pm

    I have a feeling the Ford aluminum F-150s are going to cost a mint to insure because of the failure mode of aluminum. Steel tends to stretch, and aluminum tends to snap. I have my doubts that they will be able to fix them using anything close to the methods body shops currently use. The early adopters are going to be guinea pigs.

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  23. Dexter said on November 11, 2014 at 9:18 pm

    My fave all-time tee shirt, which I still have but never wear anymore, is now 43 years old. I bought it in `1971 in Fort Wayne at a big store, maybe it was Miracle Mart or Mr. Wiggs …or whatever. This is the pattern…it’s Robert Crumb, of course. https://img1.etsystatic.com/037/0/6415132/il_570xN.551732313_hyj3.jpg

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  24. beb said on November 11, 2014 at 10:18 pm

    Gee, the joke when I was growing up was the land-mine question “does this make my butt look fat?” Now we’ve got:
    http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/11/11/bigger-butts-become-big-business-companies-cash-in-on-booty-tre/

    Speaking of fireman poles. In the “Tot Lot” at the St. Clair Shores Metropark there used to be pirate ship with a crowsnest about five feet off the ground. There was a cargo net to climb up and a pole to slide down. Then one can the pole was gone, the crowsnet was about a foot off the ground and it was like ‘why bother.’ I guess we have have to protect the kiddies from possible harm, but really how dangerous can sliding down a 5 foot pole be?

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  25. basset said on November 11, 2014 at 11:08 pm

    Deborah@21, it’s hard for me not to have problems with the Greek life – that’s one of the main reasons I’m not involved in our local IU alumni group. Being non-Greek, older than twentysomething, and not caring the least little bit about meeting in bars to watch ball games, it has nothing to offer me. I do have an IU tag on my car, not because I give a rusty expletive-deleted about sports, but because I am damned proud of being the first in my family to even attempt anything past high school, let alone graduate… working my way through and taking seven years for a four-year degree, and the freshman adviser who told me I belonged in trade school can kiss both cheeks of my ample bottom.

    Greekness was completely foreign to me. I set foot in a Greek house exactly twice during my time at IU… once to interview someone for the student paper and once to pick up a friend who worked at the Acacia house. Spring break for me was not a choice between Florida beaches and the Caribbean, it was a chance to get more hours at work so I’d have some hope of buying books for summer term…

    Don’t get me started. Just don’t.

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  26. linda said on November 12, 2014 at 6:18 am

    Connie–no ALICE training. Would have been interesting.

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  27. linda said on November 12, 2014 at 6:21 am

    Beb, re: big butts. I saw an ad for what can only be described as a butt falsie, with sizes.going up to 6x. Talk about carrying coals to Newcastle.

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  28. alex said on November 12, 2014 at 6:26 am

    Who knew? The real reason for Sophia Loren’s sidelong stare: Jayne Mansfield’s big areolae staring back — published unretouched for the first time ever.

    So, Basset, you can get IU tags in TN?

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  29. Basset said on November 12, 2014 at 6:29 am

    Indeed you can, I was in the first 100.

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  30. brian stouder said on November 12, 2014 at 8:47 am

    And to be fair, that Loren/Mansfield photo seems to really capture the sensibilities of a different era.

    There’s sort of a “sensible shoes” (to use Nance’s phrase) vibe going on there, not to mention ‘blonde bombshell’, good girl/bad girl thing.

    But on the other hand, if we apply a 2014 sensibility to it, Ms Mansfield is an empowered woman, unafraid to smash through the glass ceiling, and assert herself – just the same way as John Wayne (for example) would

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  31. Dave said on November 12, 2014 at 8:53 am

    My son lived in Nashville for about 1 1/2 years. I’m always looking at license plates, where they’re from, what county, for the states that do that but I was greatly surprised when I realized that Tennessee actually did have license plates for schools in other states. Do any other states do this?

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  32. alex said on November 12, 2014 at 8:57 am

    To my 2014 sensibilities, she looks like an opportunist hogging the limelight, same as always.

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  33. beb said on November 12, 2014 at 9:04 am

    Not everyone is as Pollyannish about the Supreme Courts decision to look into another issue regarding the Affordable Care Act. Steve M. at nomoremisterniceblog.com offer some reasons to be apprehensive.
    http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2014/11/republicans-dont-care-if-their.html

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  34. brian stouder said on November 12, 2014 at 9:24 am

    she looks like an opportunist hogging the limelight

    – absolutely! And indeed, my guess is that when an admirable man upstages another admirable man (especially 50+ years ago), people are/were more likely to say “Booyah!” and cheer him on…it’s more likely to be seen as a clever joke than a coldly calculated knife-in-the-back, I think

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  35. brian stouder said on November 12, 2014 at 10:07 am

    Another blast from the past, regarding powerful women from that era –

    http://wane.com/2014/11/12/marilyn-monroes-lost-love-letters-to-be-auctioned/

    and I learned the word “tchotchkes”, too!

    The fact that the centerpiece of this collection is not just celebrity tchotchkes but deeply personal artifacts is also expected to fuel interest.

    Monroe, who died of a drug overdose at age 36 in 1962, willed “The Lost Archives” to her mentor, the legendary acting coach Lee Strasberg. He gave it to a friend he trusted would take proper care. That friend’s family, which Julien said wants to remain anonymous, obviously met Strasberg’s expectations. Many of the letters look as pristine as the day their authors wrote them.

    “Please, if I’ve ever made you cry or made you even more sadder, ever for a second, please forgive me, my perfect girl. I love you,” Miller wrote in a pencil-scribbled P.S. at the bottom of a typewritten letter.

    In a reply to one of his missives, Monroe takes issue with what the author of “Death of a Salesman” had called her nobility in handling a difficult childhood followed by public adulation that nearly crushed her. “In other words, there was no choice to make, the same road was always before me,” she wrote. “So for you to speak of my nobility, it really wasn’t so noble.”

    So the ‘trusted friend’ cashes in?

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  36. Jolene said on November 12, 2014 at 10:36 am

    Dave, Virginia offers more than 200 kinds of license plates, including many out-of-state colleges, but also various causes (e.g., breast cancer awareness, Chesapeake Bay preservation) and military organizations. Check ’em out.

    http://www.dmv.virginia.gov/vehicles/

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  37. Joe K said on November 12, 2014 at 11:23 am

    I thought Jane Mansfield smashed thru a car window not a glass ceiling?
    Or is that in bad taste?
    Pilot Joe

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  38. alex said on November 12, 2014 at 11:26 am

    I’ve seen that car at quite a few festivals over the years. Always thought it was in bad taste.

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  39. dull_old_man said on November 12, 2014 at 11:35 am

    beb @24: Playground equipment has changed to keep kids from being hurt by being landed on. It’s not to prevent the injury to the kid sliding down the pole, it’s the possible broken neck of a kid playing below. The monkey bars are close enough to the ground, for example, that the tallest kids have their feet on the ground.

    I edited some risk management material 25 years ago. The insurance companies reduced their losses from playground injuries by requiring softer landing surfaces–you see all the bark chips and rubber mats under the equipment–and eliminating the equipment with the most crushing injuries. That was the end of the teeter-totters as we knew them; now they go up and down because of springs, not fulcrums. Also gone are the merry-go-rounds that we’d go around and around on, then get dizzy and throw up: kids would get a hand or foot in the works and get it mangled.

    The changes were based on data about injuries, not what imaginative parents or officials worried about.

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  40. nancy said on November 12, 2014 at 11:50 am

    I’ve aged out of the playground years, but I find the continuing discussion of them fascinating, because it seems to reveal so much about the commentators. A few years ago, some libertarian douchebag wrote an op-ed calling for a return to the hard-surface playgrounds of yesteryear, because they taught character, or something. This was echoed by a surprising number of his fellow d-bags, many of whom were/are childless. My response, then and now, is, “OK, your kids first.” When your child has had the learning experience of a broken clavicle, leg or skull fracture/blood-gushing head wound (all commonplace, when I was a kid), then let’s talk character.

    Playgrounds had already been thoroughly safety-fied by the time Kate was playing on them, and I was always struck by one thing: How much BETTER they were. When I was a kid, we had swings, slides, jungle gyms, merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters. The parks in FW had some version of all those things, plus climbing walls, tubes, ladders, pirate rigging, twisty slides — all of it over bark chips or rubber mats. I ask then and now: What’s the fucking problem with that? We don’t allow bare-metal dashboards in cars anymore; we mandate seat belts and air bags (certainly condemned by many of the same d-bags). Does anyone want to go back to higher highway death rates? Really?

    There are many, many places for kids to learn risk-taking, character and the consequences of their actions without requiring that they fall onto asphalt surfaces.

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  41. Deborah said on November 12, 2014 at 12:04 pm

    I beaned my head pretty badly on an asphalt playground as a kid, no concussion but I had a big lump and scrape from it, I remember seeing stars when it happened. Little Bird had her lip busted open as a kid on an asphalt playground surface, she didn’t break any teeth, she was lucky. Playgrounds were pretty brutal for a long time. You’re right things are much better now. They have some really cool playground equipment in Santa Fe at the Railyard park that kids spin on that use centrifugal force, I imagine it still makes them throw up but they look really fun.

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  42. Connie said on November 12, 2014 at 12:12 pm

    In first grade I broke off my two (baby) front teeth on a classic teeter totter.

    My grade school playground had this frightening ride that was sort of like an open work bell balanced over a pole. We rode on wood seats with our legs hanging between the bell and the pole on which it clanged and rebounded. Looking back it was truly a potentially killer ride.

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  43. brian stouder said on November 12, 2014 at 12:13 pm

    Playground things I don’t like include large dogs (and especially without leashes), foul-mouthed folks, and people handing out tracts.

    Chloe and I still go to the ‘castle park’ (Indian Trails near Homestead), Buckner (near the highway – which also has a 1/2 mile dog-walking track, so everyone is happy), and sometimes the ‘wooden park’ (Lawton, near Science Central) or Foster Park, for a change of pace.

    We love them all, really. Shelby, our 16 year old, STILL remembers the time she fell from a swing (might have been at Lawton..) and got the wind knocked out of her – and I laughed!

    For that moment, I was absolutely the worst dad in the world, and when the subject comes up (if she comes with Chloe and I, it is somewhat likely it will) I can only hang my head in shame (while working diligently not to smile!)

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  44. Charlotte said on November 12, 2014 at 2:19 pm

    Sue and Deborah — my younger cousin is a pipefitter (don’t know if he’s in the Chicago union, since he lives out in Leland — currently working on the BP site in Naperville). Went from Francis Parker school into the union with his dad — which was a shock to many of his classmates.

    Temps have come up to a balmy 0 here today — went down to -15 last night. Himself is at the cabin and I stayed in town because it was too cold to even want to get in the car. Good news is that the woodstove heats my wee house up just fine — although I’m glad I ordered another cord of wood.

    And Bassett — I left the University of Illinois after one year largely because the Greek system was so horrible and overwhelming. Beloit college had/has one sorority, and two or three frats, each of which carried the same social weight as the Arts Co-op and the Spanish house …

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  45. Basset said on November 12, 2014 at 2:30 pm

    Worst childhood accident I had was on my bike, hunched over the handlebars and pedaling hard when the front wheel fell off.

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  46. Deborah said on November 12, 2014 at 2:41 pm

    Charlotte, My husband was in a fraternity at the University of Illinois and hated it. He said he got a lot of pressure from his parents to do so since they were both graduates and fully into the Greek scene there. He also said there was a lot of pressure on campus to join up. He was in a nerdy frat for engineer types, he was a theoretical math major then. He only speaks of the experience with pure disdain. His younger sister who also went to the U of I desperately wanted to get into a sorority and her mother was certainly pushing for it, but his sis couldn’t get accepted into any of them and was devastated. That is such a shame that a system is in place that humiliates and gives people complexes about thier worth.

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  47. brian stouder said on November 12, 2014 at 2:42 pm

    Worst thing that happened to me was when I was 13. It had rained, and I put one shoe on and hopped around the house to feed Dusty, the dog, in the back yard. Then I hopped back, and when I hopped up onto the front step, I lost my balance and crashed through the plate-glass window. This earned me 26 stitches

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  48. Little Bird said on November 12, 2014 at 2:42 pm

    I’ve been to a playground with that soft ground cover stuff. They should make walking and running paths out of it! The stuff is great, but to use it as a safety measure seems silly. I think everyone has an injury story involving one aspect of a playground. Some of us more than one. It was just part of growing up. We learned from it.

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  49. Kirk said on November 12, 2014 at 3:06 pm

    Re frats: I always figured I could make more real friends on my own than I could buy phony ones. I used to dream about burning down one of their idiotic homecoming displays, not that I ever would really have tried it.

    My dad was in a frat at Miami U. but he always claimed that it was full of WW II vets who “didn’t put up with a lot of that shit.” In any event, he didn’t give a rat’s ass whether I joined one or not.

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  50. Connie said on November 12, 2014 at 3:21 pm

    When I saw the picture of Kim Kardashian in a thong bathing suit sitting on a tree I thought “my, that’s an unattractive butt.” Now her butt is on a magazine cover and today all over the internet. And I still think it is unattractive. It is also unattractive in clothes, her clothes make her look fat.

    Am I the only person in the world that thinks this?

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  51. Basset said on November 12, 2014 at 3:21 pm

    I went to the IU lab school in the early Sixties, back when the Greeks were still wearing little beanies and writing on their khakis – whatever the hell that was about.

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  52. Sue said on November 12, 2014 at 3:38 pm

    Connie – ten pounds of something in a five pound bag, I believe the phrase is, insert your descriptor.

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  53. MichaelG said on November 12, 2014 at 3:55 pm

    I had to look up the sitting on a tree picture to which Connie referred. Ms. K certainly does have quite the booty. The eye tends to linger.

    I attended the U of Ill from fall of ’62 through Dec of ’65. The Greek stuff certainly was a major presence but I didn’t feel that it was overbearing or that it impinged on my life at all. It was just part of the landscape.

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  54. MichaelG said on November 12, 2014 at 3:57 pm

    I don’t know, Sue. Your descriptor seems a tad literal for me.

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  55. alex said on November 12, 2014 at 4:14 pm

    When I went to IU in ’79 frats just seemed like the most uncool thing and it wouldn’t have occurred to me to join. Besides, my mom had been in a sorority at Hanover in the ’50s and quit after the first year because she found the whole experience to be in conflict with her values and she wasn’t going to throw her real friends under the bus just to earn the approval of a bunch of catty social climbers.

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  56. brian stouder said on November 12, 2014 at 4:16 pm

    I’d say Michael snuck in the backside for thread-win, but that’d just be gross!

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  57. Sue said on November 12, 2014 at 4:24 pm

    I am shocked, boys. Show some respect to that poor girl. Here’s another phrase – ‘my eyes are up here’, so I suggest you look at Kim’s lovely ey..
    OMG! SPIDERS ARE ATTACKING HER EYES!

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  58. Dave said on November 12, 2014 at 5:06 pm

    Thanks, Jolene, for the link to the VA BMV website. Ohio State but no Ohio U? Marshall, for crying out loud, but no Ohio U? Ohio State but no IU? Sort of surprised they’d have something like Marshall but no UK but I guess I’m surprised at how many Marshall alum must be in Virginia, displaying their pride.

    Our other son lives in Virginia, not too terribly far from you, I don’t think, (Ashburn) and he has a personalized license plate, DAVEART, because he loves to paint and draw.

    I fell trying to slide down a pole from the top of a old time sliding board, the tall ones that used to be on every playground. I’m talking about the support pole that ran from the top of the slide down the side, by the ladder. Not describing it very well but it was not the preferred method of going back down, especially when you’re six and a first grader. I landed flat on my back and the wind was knocked out of me. No one saw me fall, no one ran over, I laid there for a little while and got back up and went back to my first grade classroom. Today I wonder at that, was I the only one left on the playground? I truly don’t remember.

    Later on, when in the fourth grade on the same playground, I was standing on a teeter-totter, on the upside, when the kid standing on the downside, stepped off. Down I came, my upper front tooth was chipped, of course, I’ve had it capped but I still have it today, having had to touch up the repair work three times during my life. Playgrounds are dangerous places.

    You don’t need playground equipment on the school playground to get injured, just little boys with poor judgment, like me in the second grade when I got my collarbone cracked because another boy and I were sliding on the ice on the playground, playing chicken, and crashing into one another. I can’t say that I lost because I didn’t duck but I got the worst of it.

    Why we have to be exposed to any part of the Kardashians is a disgusting question for the ages.

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  59. Deborah said on November 12, 2014 at 5:35 pm

    I googled Kim kardashian’s butt to have a look. It seems fake to me, like fake boobs. Too high and too round. I looked at previous pictures of her and her rump looks more normal. What must it feel like to sit on a siliconed posterior? Either really comfy or really painful?

    I know I said this before here but Little Bird was not only lucky not to bust out any teeth when she had her playground fall (push really) but she has a voluptuously full lower lip still to this day from it.

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  60. brian stouder said on November 12, 2014 at 5:46 pm

    Sue, I never saw her eyes, but I will say that that photo is very clearly photo-shopped. Nature wouldn’t have such a caboose south of such a waist

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  61. Jolene said on November 12, 2014 at 5:47 pm

    No playground injuries that I recall. I saved the broken bone experience for adulthood, when healing takes longer and injuries are more of an inconvenience. Not smart.

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  62. Connie said on November 12, 2014 at 6:12 pm

    Greek was not cool in my MSU days either.

    Linda: ALICE. Alert, lockdown, information, something, evacuate.

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  63. Connie said on November 12, 2014 at 6:14 pm

    Counter. http://www.npr.org/2012/10/11/162712905/to-survive-a-shooting-students-learn-to-fight-back

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  64. susan said on November 12, 2014 at 6:27 pm

    Public high schools in Cincinnati had fraternities and sororities, at least until around 1980, I believe. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible organizations to have for brain dead stupid adolescents. I remained on the fringe by refusing to “rush” to join any sorority, since I had always found them so repugnant. One could only join one that was made up of your kind: Catholic, other xtian, Black (that was not the term used in them days, of course), Jewish… I did not care to hobnob with those who were deemed my kind, since I had a diverse group of friends. Most of whom also did not partake of that bit of nastiness. Ugh. Is it any wonder I have little fondness from those days?

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  65. Deborah said on November 12, 2014 at 7:04 pm

    This is so frustrating. Totally off topic… but we have fucking DSL in Chicago and every day I have to go through all kinds of gyrations to get online here. We also have an ancient mac airport, but my husband won’t replace it because it works for him most of the time. He doesn’t care about speed as long as it eventually gets him where he wants to go. It drives me crazy. In Santa Fe we have high speed cable and a newish modem and router and everything goes swimmingly. I just spent an hour trying to get my laptop connected, my iPhone worked sure but not through wifi. Grrrrrr. I’m back on now but I have no idea what did the trick, I tried everything over and over again. It makes me want to throw things across the room.

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  66. alex said on November 12, 2014 at 8:49 pm

    Deborah, while visiting last week I was at a friend’s house and her DSL had quit working and she had no phone or computer and was in a panic because she’s self-employed and had a very busy next day of work scheduled. She received a call back from AT&T customer service. At one point, the rep asked her “Is your DSL with AT&T?”

    “No, I just call AT&T for kicks,” she replied. “I just love wasting half of my day and theirs too.”

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  67. Deborah said on November 12, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    We have two AT&T landlines in Chicago, one for DSL and one for the doormen to call us. We are required to have the one for the doormen and DSL can’t be connected to that one. At the time we moved here in 2003, DSL was the only way you could get internet in the building. In the last year or two high speed cable may have been hooked up but I’ve been preoccupied with NM, so I didn’t pay any attention. I need to check that out and switch us over if that is the case.

    My right wing sister has been emailing me that there couldn’t possibly be such a thing as global warming because it’s so cold and snowy right now in Minnesota where she lives. How does one respond to that without cursing?

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  68. Jolene said on November 12, 2014 at 10:28 pm

    Weather vs. climate. Rinse, repeat.

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