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Sturgeon Bay Sturgeons

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First stop in Door County on July 5: the town of Sturgeon Bay, county seat and tourist magnet during the summer.  Wisconsin 57 connects the city of Green Bay with the town, which straddles the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal.

The canal, which started as a bit of Victorian engineering – it was completed in 1881 – means that ships out of the city of Green Bay don’t have to go all the way around the Door Peninsula to get to Milwaukee or Chicago. It also cuts Door County in two, making part of it a large island, though no one seems to think of it that way.

Sturgeon Bay was a fairly busy place on the day after the Fourth of July, but not so crowded that we couldn’t find a convenient parking space and, at about noon, a place to eat without waiting for a table. At the corner of Third and Louisiana streets is the Inn at Cedar Crossing, which I thought was a fanciful name for the restaurant where we had lunch, but it turns out there’s a bed and breakfast upstairs, and Third used to be called Cedar. Whatever the story, the place serves a satisfying lunch.

Third is one of the town’s main streets, featuring a mix of tourist businesses and everyday-need retailers. Also along the street are sturgeon statues. They’re part of “Sturgeon Around the Bay,” one of the many descendants of CowParade, which the city of Chicago helped popularize in 1999.

This particular one is called “Bon Appetit,” created by Chonda Hoschbach and Cori Rosen.  I looked at it for a minute before I realized it was made mostly of stainless-steel spoons, with some forks thrown in. According to the plaque that comes with the fish, the works will be auctioned on September 21, just as the tourist season is winding down. The beneficiary will be the Sturgeon Bay Visitor Center.

Looking for Tail-Gunner Joe

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A funny thing happened to me yesterday, late in the afternoon, as I scoured through St. Mary’s Cemetery in Appleton, Wisconsin, looking for a particular tombstone. I wasn’t having any luck finding it. But I did enjoy the graveyard’s handsome grounds, which are near the Fox River.

On Independence Day, we’d set out for northeastern Wisconsin – to see Appleton and the other Fox River cities, plus take a jaunt up to Door County.  I enjoyed parts of Appleton last year without my family, and I thought they’d like some of the places I’d been. As for Door County, we paid a visit in 2001, but it was too short and we’d long wanted to go again. This visit was also too short – I figure we’d need a week to do Door right.

Yesterday was our last day, and I headed out for St. Mary’s Cemetery by myself, since no one else cares to visit cemeteries. Specifically, I wanted to see the place’s most famous – infamous – resident, Sen. Joseph McCarthy. I couldn’t find him for a while. Find-a-Grave wasn’t exact enough. There were other McCarthys – even other Joseph McCarthys, since the cemetery is well populated with Irish names – but the Senator was elusive.

Then I spotted a man and his small daughter riding through the cemetery on something like one of those drivable carts you see at grocery stores. Eventually, they came fairly close to me, and I had to ask, since we were the only (living) people in the cemetery, and no guide signs or other clues pointed the way.

“Excuse me, do you know where Joseph McCarthy is buried? You know, the Senator.” Even in Appleton – he was from nearby Grand Chute – I can’t assume anything.

The man, about 10 years younger than me and with close-cropped reddish hair, looked at me for a moment. “We’re not supposed to tell people that,” he said. “He was my great-uncle.”

“Oh.”

“But I will tell you he’s at one of the corners, near the river.” And then they started on their way again. I guess he decided I didn’t want to harm the memorial, which of course was true. I just wanted a picture. Soon I found the stone and took one.

What are the odds of running into a grand-nephew of Joe McCarthy? (Assuming he wasn’t kidding about that.) I checked, and McCarthy was from a family of seven children, so in Appleton, the odds wouldn’t be that bad.

Independence Eve ’13

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What’s up with the weather this summer? High summer isn’t very high this year. Rain this morning and about 60 F., and not a lot warmer during the day. A complete contrast with the hot-for-Illinois, thirsty-dry summer of 2012.

It was a bit warmer at 10 pm tonight when I went out and the smell of gunpowder, ever so faint, wafted by my nose. Occasional pops of minor fireworks were part of the night’s background noise. It’ll be a lot smellier and louder tomorrow night.

No posting till July 8 or so. Maybe I’ll be back with an image or two to publish, and a handful of brief descriptions.

The Mighty F-1 Laid Low

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I hadn’t heard until today about the expedition that found some Saturn V first stage engines – the mighty F-1 — on the bottom of the Atlantic. The Bezos Expedition site is careful to note that “many of the original serial numbers are missing or partially missing, which is going to make mission identification difficult. We might see more during restoration,” so they could be from any of the missions that used the engines, though I believe they were looking for Apollo 11 relics.

There might be less headline glory in finding something from (say) Apollo 16, but I think it would be just as cool. The expedition site goes on to say that whatever their origin, “the objects themselves are gorgeous.” Bet they are. They’ve gone to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center for stabilization, so maybe they’ll stay there for display. That place would be worth going to that corner of Kansas to see, F-1s or not.

Seems that Amazon boss Jeff Bezos paid for the expedition, or at least much of it. Good for him. It’s the kind of thing that billionaires should spend some of their money on. That and the 10,000-Year Clock.

Why a Duck?

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Unusually cool for this time of year, with rain a lot of the time, but not so many thunderstorms lately. During such moments, at least when work doesn’t intrude, there’s always the option of parking yourself somewhere with a book. Such as Hail, Hail, Euphoria! by Roy Blount Jr. (2010), which is about the making of Duck Soup, “the greatest war movie ever made,” according to the cover.

From page 15: “… when the director of Horse Feathers couldn’t get the crowd he had assembled for a big football scene to show any enthusiasm for the third or fourth take, Harpo said he’d take care of it. He did a lap around the field naked and honking his horn, and the fans went wild.”

Gettysburg

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Got a postcard from my nephew Dees last week, the nephew who’s the drummer for Sons of Fathers. It describes the 12th Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival earlier this month, in which the band participated. The photo on the right depicts the only known first-name Deeses of the world, together about this time last year, when Sons of Fathers played at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn, Ill., and I went out to see them. He’s the hale fellow with facial hair.

A little further in the past – 1991 – I found myself driving from Boston to Chicago during this time of year, and I stopped at Gettysburg National Military Park. I missed the 128th anniversary of the battle by a few days, and presumably whatever commemoration events they had. I thought of that when I was reminded by the newspaper today that the 150th anniversary of the battle is upon us, beginning tomorrow, of course.

There were some other visitors when I was there, but not too many.  It was a hot day, fittingly, since it was a high-summer battle, which must have added to the misery. This image captures the summer conditions of the site pretty well, besides the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument, which has its own intricate history, and which was knocked over by high winds only last week.

Here’s another view of the Angle – the stone wall that Pickett’s men managed to reach (Lewis Addison Armistead’s men, but let’s not be too pedantic).

I haven’t seen one of these quarters yet, though I’ve been noticing a number of national park quarters in change lately.

Summer Ephemerals

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Late in the afternoon today, after a mostly sunny day, storm clouds rolled through, and for 15 minutes or so we had a heavy downpour. About 30 minutes later, the skies were clear.

Early this evening, I saw the flick of fireflies. Brief but luminous. Luminous but brief.

Another thing with a brief life: stands set up to capitalize on the Blackhawks’ victory. This one stood in Schiller Park, Ill., on Tuesday.

I have no intention of being among the madhouse crowds downtown tomorrow.  It’s enough that I got to see the Art Institute lions in headgear last time around.

Funerary Art

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The All Saints Cathedral Polish National Catholic Church Cemetery near O’Hare doesn’t have the most elaborate examples of funerary art that I’ve ever seen, but there are some nice ones there.

Most a bit worn by the elements, and darkened by air pollution.

But they’re still standing in the places that family members, themselves probably long gone now, put them.

Most of the names on the stones are Polish, as you’d expect, but a sprinkling of non-Poles reside at the cemetery, too. Because it’s a cemetery, there are clearly sad stories beneath the stones. Such as that of Doris Jean Putynkowski, whose stone is simply marked 1925-1925. A family named Deal has a column indicating long lives for Robert (1920-2009) and Jean (1921-2008), but not so much for Jeffrey, whom I presume is their son: 1951-1999.

In contrast to the large funerary art, there were a handful of veterans’ stones, including this one.

It’s easy to look up in our time. The 383rd Infantry was part of the Okinawa campaign, so we can be sure that’s where PFC Schneider gave his last full measure of devotion.

All Saints Cathedral Polish National Catholic Church Cemetery

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The Cathedral of All Saints of the Polish National Catholic Church happens to be on Higgins Road in extreme northwestern Chicago these days, though it was once deeper in the city. I happened to drive past the current site today, and decided to visit its cemetery, a patch of land behind the church, verdant and quiet in the late morning.

Or at least as quiet as a place can be tucked near the junction of the Tri-State Tollway (I-294) and I-90, and within two miles of the runways at O’Hare. In fact, activity is all around the area, at hotels, restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, a casino, a convention center, and more – the town of Rosemont, which is right next door, has all that.

The cemetery has trees and bushes and grass and flowers and stones. Except for a groundsman, I was the only living person there.

 

Up, Up, and Not Quite Far Enough Away

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A short, vigorous thunderstorm rolled over my house late this afternoon. A lot of rain for a short time, but it didn’t seem like a lot of wind. I was wrong. A microburst of some kind must have slammed the back yard, because when I looked outside, I thought, something’s missing. What’s missing? The deck umbrella.

The damn thing was mostly broken anyway. One of the supports was busted somehow  during the winter, so even at best it was only half of an umbrella, and yesterday it wasn’t even open. Yet somehow the wind had taken it somewhere. Where? I didn’t see it on the deck or in the yard.

It was on the roof, pole and all. Must have been a freakishly strong wind to open the thing up, lift it and the few pounds of pole away from the cast-iron patio table, and deposit it on the roof. Chairs were moved but not knocked over, and one plant had been tipped over, but otherwise there was no hint of strong wind. Odd.

Once the storm was completely over, I got my ladder – the hard part was getting the ladder out from behind the debris in the garage, not getting to the roof – and persuaded the umbrella wreckage to come back to the ground.