JR Manning

A couple of weeks ago, Barack Obama told us that we are an embarrassment because people come to the United States and speak English, but when we go to their countries, all we can say is, “Merci beaucoup.”

He gave a speech today in Berlin. He delivered it in English.

Bitte?

So said River City, Iowa’s Mayor Shinn in Meredeth Wilson’s The Music Man. How right he was, because you never know when your phraseology will come back to bite you in your butt.

State Senator Alberta Darling has served in the Senate since 1992 and has been re-elected three times. (She won a seat in the Assembly in a special election in March, 1990, and won the seat the regular Election that Fall.) Her Senate seat comes up again this Fall, and her seat has been targeted by the Democrats, a risky proposition in a very conservative district. Senator Darling is a cancer survivor, she exercises regularly and promotes fitness.

Her opponent, Sheldon Wasserman, started a rather smarmy campaign a few weeks ago, a whispering campaign claiming that Senator Darling was ill and too sickly to serve the rigors of the state Senate.

Besides being despicable, the whispering campaign is just untrue.

Yesterday, at the US Bank Championship, several celebrity events were held prior to the start of the golf tournament today. Amongst other events was a golf ball driving contest.

Sheldon Wasserman drove the ball 135 yards.

Alberta Darling drove the ball 153 yards.

Oops.

Along the border of the United States and Canada, between Minnesota and Ontario, are adjacent national parks, the American Superior National Forest, the Canadian La Verendrye and Quetico Provincial Park. Known collectively as The Boundary Waters, the national parks offer some of the most pristine wilderness available to fishermen and naturalists. The land isn’t really land as much as it is solid rock. What isn’t rock is water. What isn’t water is trees, and what isn’t trees is rock.

Forty years ago, The Old Man, The Rocket Scientist, a favorite uncle and a favorite cousin, and Yours Truly, of course, went into the Quetico on a fishing expedition. Part of it was to fish for, well, fish but part of it was to go fishing for some of the memories of The Old Man.

Today, the only way you can go into the area is via canoe - I suppose you could swim but the water is awfully cold. When we went in forty years ago, you could go in by boat and you could use small outboard motors. The rule was that you had to pack out whatever you packed in, and that meant canned food and supplies. That is no longer true - well that pack in/pack out rule is still there and strictly enforced, but we could have canned foods. You can’t, as cans were banned a long time ago. So were boats, and so were outboard motors, but that ban was not in effect in 1968.

The five of us drove the hours and hours it took to get to Ely, Minnesota, one of the reportedly six places in the United States named “Ely.” (We’ve been to three of ‘em. And you have to want to go to Ely, Anyplace, because none of them are on the way to anywhere regular travelers go to.) With the help of the outfitter, a man named Bob Cary that seemed to have some sort of connection to The Old Man, we prepared to journey into the wilderness. We packed our stuff into two aluminum boats, fired up the old 5 horse Evinrudes and set out for adventure. Our target was called Basswood Lake. (As James Thurber used to say, “You could look it up.”) For some reason, Bob Cary was on his way to the ranger station that day and was sort-of traveling with us, but not really.

Earlier in the 20th Century, the waters of far northern Minnesota were already a haven for fishermen and becoming a battleground between the forces that would just as soon man be wiped from the face of the earth so wilderness could go back to wilderness and those who think every tree should be cut down and made into lumber. It’s taken the conservationists decades to do it but the wilderness area is wilderness and difficult to get into. A treaty was signed between Canada and the United States, setting aside the 1.1 million acres of preserve in Minnesota and 4,750 square kilometers on the Canadian side. (That’s about 1,834 square miles, or about 1.2 million acres.)

Several resorts popped up around the huge Basswood Lake and anglers came from all over to sample the cold, clear waters that were loaded with game fish of many different species. The roads in the area were all closed in order to discourage logging, so the only way in and out for the resorts was by boating and portaging or by float plane.

Smallmouth bass, fingerlings from Wisconsin, were stocked in Basswood lake about that time. My great-uncle, Dwight Newberry, was The Old Man’s mother’s brother. He owned one of those resorts on Basswood Lake. It was a place of legend, and both The Old Man and his Old Man used to travel to Dwight’s resort. Some members of the family have photos of them holding up stringers full of huge fish.

In 1948, the federal government issued a ban on private property and prohibited private residents. They wanted everyone out by 1974. The act condemned all the private property, provided funds to purchase the lands and cleared out all the resort owners, squatters and residents. All the structures were burned to the ground and allowed to revert to nature. (There is a legend that someone, who lived on a houseboat, managed to evade the eviction order for many, many years.) Dwight sold his land to the Feds and bought a farm in Kosciusko County, Indiana, not that far from the family homestead in Blackford County.

For our trip, we headed for Basswood Lake, because even twenty-five years later, The Old Man was pretty sure he could find his favorite old fishing holes on the Canadian side of Basswood Lake.

In 1967, there had been a dam failure that lowered one of the approach lakes. It was a significant drop between the lakes, probably three feet but it was only about 10 yards, over rocks. The outfitters in Ely had pooled resources and built a mechanical portage between the two lakes. It was a center track from a boat trailer, with rollers, and a hand-cranked winch. You would approach the portage and pull your boat or canoe up on to the track. The idea was to hook on the winch, pull your rig up the 12″ or so to the top of the portage, then reverse the winch and lower your rig the four feet to the lower lake. Simple, and it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure it out, especially if your read the sign the outfitters had placed there.

In line, just ahead of us, were three guys who never earned their Tenderfoot badge in Scouts. At the peak of the portage, instead of using the winch to lower their canoe into the lower lake, they decided to climb in and ride the rollers down like a flume ride at Great America. It looked like as dumb an idea as you think it was.

The ride was a great deal of fun for them, at least, for the three of four seconds it took for the canoe to hit the water. It floated about five feet from the portage before it rolled over and capsized, sending a week’s worth of provisions, fishing gear, camping equipment and some very expensive camera equipment right to the bottom of the lake.

After we finished portaging our two rigs, at least a half an hour later, one of them was still diving in that ice cold water, trying to recover their gear. We continued north and I have no idea whatever happened to them.

Two lakes later, we portaged over the longest land mass that separated us from the approach to Basswood Lake. A motorized toll portage was operated there, I have no idea if it was operated by the US Park Service or if it was private. It was comprised of a circa WWII jeep and a boat trailer that was either floated up on a raft or driven up over the ice. For a few bucks, a guy would load your boat or canoe on the trailer and haul it across the portage, then put everything back into the water. During the portage, Bob Cary asked the man if the fishing was any good.

“Yup.”

“Where they getting ‘em?”

“Water.”

“What are they getting ‘em on?”

“Hooks.”

“What are they using for bait?”

“Worms.”

There was a US ranger station at the north end of the portage, where they made sure we had valid Minnesota fishing licenses, even though we had no intention of wetting a line on the US side of the lake. “The boundary isn’t a dotted line floating on the top of the lake like it shows on the map,” The Old Man pointed out. “How the hell would we know if we’re fishing in Minnesota or not?” He chuckled and asked, “How will you know if we’re fishing on the Minnesota side?”

The ranger grinned and said, “We’ll know. Besides, we’ll check the passports of the fish you catch.”

When we were back underway, we didn’t go far - right across the channel to the Ontario ranger station, where we declared our belongings and intentions. We purchased official camping permits and fishing licenses and with that, we were off for a place known as Cigar Island. It is a long, narrow island that resembles a, well, with apologies to Sigmund Freud, sometimes and island shaped like a cigar is just an island shaped like a cigar.

The Old Man had told us how beautiful it is at night, and during a storm. He was right, the first night was incredible, not a cloud in the sky and one of the few times in my life that I’ve been able to see The Milky Way. The call of the loon echoes forever because with all the rock and water, there is little to stop it. Contrary to urban myth, a duck quack also echoes.

A thunderstorm is something to behold up there, that’s what The Old Man also told us. As if on cue one night, a storm came through. The lightning is intensely bright, but better is the thunder. With nothing there but water and rock, the thunder just rolls, and rolls, and rolls. It rolls toward you, rolls over you, and it goes on forever until it just gets too far away to be heard anymore.

The fishing was unbelievable, the rocks were unbelievable, the water was unbelievable and the lessons of wildlife, taught by The Old Man, were unbelievable.

Our camp was watched closely by two seagulls that we named Harvey and Griselda. There was a mesh pen that someone had built near the beach, where we were able to keep fish alive in the lake. Harvey and Griselda kept trying to get into the pen, without success, but they did always get to clean up after our fish cleaning chores.

Our camp was also closely watched by a crow that sat in the top of a tall tree. He cawed softly, every 15 seconds. You could set your watch by him. The Old Man had studied crow society, and he informed us that the crow was the sentry. As we finished a meal and began to clean up, the caws speeded up to about 10 seconds and got louder as we came closer to leaving. As we climbed into our boats, before we even shoved off, the sentry was on his way to the mainland, flying as fast as he could. Before we started the engines, he was back with all his friends, swooping down on the camp to scarf up whatever we had left behind.

I’ll spare you the fish stories, but I will tell you that we packed out a lot of the provisions we packed in. Fresh walleye is good eatin’. The water is so clear that we saw a fishing rod and reel in about 20 feet of water. We were able to hook it and bring it up. While it wasn’t a great find (it was a cheap Zebco set) the fact that we could even see it at that depth was incredible.

And The Old Man was right - even after more than twenty-five years and with no landmarks to follow, we found Dwight’s old resort. Well, we found the foundation of it, anyway. Long ago burned to the ground, all that remained was stone, concrete, blocks and mortar. The site had pretty well returned to nature, and without The Old Man, we never would have found the site.

It was a great week in the Quetico, we caught lots of fish. We ate lots of fish. We saw lots of nature, got to know Harvey and Griselda, and learned more about crows in a few days than most people learn in a lifetime. We also learned a lot from The Old Man, and about The Old Man.

Going into it, we were all pretty sure it was a trip of a lifetime and for most people, it would be. The next year, The Old Man would undergo a new type of surgery, called open heart. The Rocket Scientist would soon be off to Korea in the employ of his Uncle Sam. Your’s Truly would enter college and The Quetico would become a fond memory of a place we went but darn, wouldn’t it be nice to go back someday?

So we did go back, but that’s a story for another day. For now, it’s fun to bask in the memory of a grand trip for five guys all those forty years ago. It was truly a trip of a lifetime and although it’s one that can never be repeated, it’s one that will never be forgotten.

Last Summer, while in Iowa doing something else, I had the good fortune to be able to do some bridge hunting in the city of Cedar Rapids. Last week, every one of the bridges that I shot for the Historic Bridges Website was completely inundated by the rising waters of the Cedar River, which crested at a record 32 feet. One of the downtown bridges, a massive, four-span, railroad truss was washed away two days ago. EDITED TO ADD: Dramatic video of the bridge prior to, and just after the collapse, are available here, on The Weather Channel.

I did shoot the CRANDIC railroad bridge last Summer, although it did not get added to the Bridge Hunter site until a few days ago. Rail bridges are also of interest but difficult to document.

Many of the photos were taken from a location that I probably shouldn’t have been with my camera…

…but now, it’s a moot point and at least the bridge is partially documented.

It was built in 1903 but washed away in 2008.

The bridge did still carry a lot of daily traffic and actually, much road and rail traffic in Iowa is at a standstill right now because of the floods.

You can see more of the Linn County Bridges at the Bridge Hunter Linn County, IA website. Here’s hoping they’re all okay when the water goes back down.

The First Avenue Bridge carries Business US 151 and
The Lincoln Highway across Mays Island and the Cedar
River. It was completely under water this week.

The Second Avenue Bridge also crosses May Island. This span
crosses to the island from downtown. That’s the Veterans’ Memorial,
at least, the way it looked before the flood.

This span of the Second Avenue Bridge crosses from Mays
Island to the Southwest Quadrant of Cedar Rapids.

The Third Avenue Bridge also crosses to Mays Island. This span
comes from Mays Island to Downtown, from the Linn County
Courthouse. There is a parking lot below the deck of this bridge.

This span carries Third Avenue from the Southwest Quadarnt
of Cedar Rapids to the Courthouse on Mays Island.

The Twelfth Avenue Bridge and…

…Sixteenth Avenue Bridge are completely inundated by the
Cedar River this week.

This photo of Cedar Rapids looks northeast from the Southwest
Quadrant of the city. That’s I-380, curving to cross the river, parallel
to the First Avenue Bridge. In the top center of the photo is the shadow
of the Veteran’s Memorial. You can just see the tops of the
First Avenue and Second Avenue Bridge railings. Photo by Steve Pope.

2nd Avenue in downtown Cedar Rapids, looking northeast from the end
of the bridge that is shown above. Over 400 blocks were inundated. One water
pumping station is currently supplying water to the entire city, and it is
also in danger of being closed due to flooding. The river crested Friday at
32 feet, smashing the record of 20 feet, set in 1929. Photo by Jeff Roberson.

The entire state of Wisconsin has been under attack by weather the last several days. It seems like just about the time one storm center passes over, another one arrives. The ground is saturated and there is nowhere for rainwater to go anymore.

The Kickapoo River is completely over its banks. I-94 was closed for some time because the Crayfish River was within inches of the roadway. A berm gave way near Wisconsin Dells and Lake Delton is completely drained - seriously impacting the tourist industry there. A dam is threatened in Mukwanago, forcing the closing of a state highway. Incredible flood damage is being cleaned up all over Milwaukee County.

Photos by Mark Parmalee

And where was the leader of the emergency government yesterday, the Governor of Wisconsin, Diamond Jim Doyle?

Playing golf at his campaign fundraiser.

Link: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, although, the story was broken by Mark Belling on his WISN Radio program this afternoon.

Milwaukee recently unveiled a $15.8 million overhaul of the poorly designed and ugly “union station” that was built back in the 1960’s. It was built to be a “union station,” that is, one station to replace the beautiful old Chicago & Northwestern station that morons tore down, and to replace the Milwaukee Road station so everyone could board all trains from one inconvenient spot. It was clean, shiny and new when it was built but despite all that, it was ugly, too. It didn’t get any better with age. Most of it was unused when multi-road passenger service degenerated, in more ways than one, into Amtrak.

The new station has been dubbed an “Intermodal Station” which means that they also crammed the bus terminal in with the trains. “Intermodal Station” is one of those new, feel-good terms, like “vertical transport engineer” or “sanitation technician” which are still just elevator operators and garbage collectors.

The designers and operators of the Internodal Station have 3,487 square feet of space reserved for “retail space.”

Who actually uses the Intermodal Station? It’s people who can’t wait to get to it so they can get out of it. Someone is either dropped off in front to get on a train or a bus or, if they arrive on a train or a bus, they can’t wait to get out front and catch their ride or a cab - their goal is to get in and get out as quickly as possible.

What does someone between the hours of 6:00 and 10:00 AM want in an Intermodal Station, besides to catch the Hiawatha to Chicago? A cup of coffee. A donut or two. Maybe an Egg McHockeypuck. Just hurry it up, give me my coffee and a donut, so I can get on the train already.

What does someone between 10:00 AM and 7:00 PM want in an Intermodal Station, besides to catch the Hiawatha to Chicago or maybe catch a bus? A sandwich. A can of soda. A bag of chips. Let me grab something and get on the train, and I’ll have a nice, leisurely lunch on the 90 minute ride to Union Station in Chicago.

Speaking of Union Station in Chicago, what does one pass on the way to the Hiawatha? A newsstand that is combined with a convenience store and a McDonalds. If one walks a little out of their way, they can find a coffee place, a donut place, an ice cream place, a shoe shine rack and, surprise surprise, a couple more newsstands combined with convenience stores.

All just exactly what a traveler wants.

But not Mayor Tom Barrett and Alderman Bob Bauman. Nope. They want a fancy, sit down restaurant to make the beautiful new Intermodal Station a destination. A train station or a bus station has never been a destination and never will be a destination. Are these two guys nuts?

“You don’t spend $15.8 million to build an iconic structure and have a Dunkin’ Donuts as your primary food service,” Bauman said. “This should be a destination restaurant location.”

Mayor Tom Barrett agreed, saying, “C’mon, we can do better than this. . . . This is our building of first impressions for people who get off the train. We don’t want our first impression to be, ‘Is this all there is?’ ”

An “iconic structure?” It’s a train station, for crying out loud. This is not one of the Union Stations in Kansas City or Cincinnati, where the beautiful old buildings have been restored to better than former glory and house lots of destination places like museums and special events. Milwaukee blew that opportunity 40 years ago when the Northwestern station came down.

As beautiful, shiny and new as this building is today, let’s face it. Buses are dirty. Trains are dirty. Exhaust is dirty. Winter salt and dirt coming off the 6th street bridge is dirty. This shiny, white building will become just another downtown building in 10 years.

Forget the sit-down restaurant, anyone dumb enough to try to operate one in the Intermodal Station will go broke with no customers. Why? If I’m going to a nice restaurant for dinner, I’m not going to the airport or the train station or the bus station. I go to the Intermodal Station for one reason - to get on or off the Hiawatha. Just let me get my donut, my coffee or an egg-filled hockey puck and let me get on the train.

A sit down restaurant in a train station? That’s about the dumbest idea to come out of Milwaukee since Kilbourn and Juneau lined their streets up on different grids.

Forget the destination restaurant, Tom & Bob. A place for coffee, donuts and maybe a bagel are all we need.

When many of today’s movers and shakers were little kids, they were enthralled with a PBS Television show that was supposed to teach them how to be wonderful citizens. The show was called Mister Roger’s Neighborhood. One of the regular features of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood was the Neighborhood Trolley, the device that made the show transition from one scene to another - from Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, through the wall to the Neighborhood of Make Believe, where benevolent King Friday ruled.

The little trolley, which resembles a San Francisco cable car, well, sort of anyway, was kind of a generic model of a public transportation vehicle that used to be popular in the United States. Even though Mr. Rogers’ little trolley seemed to have a mind of its own, it was tied to its tracks and traveled only between the two destinations - a fact that seems to have been forgotten. After all, a trolley can only go where its tracks go, a severe limitation at best.

While trolleys were a major component of public transportation at one time, trolleys are virtually extinct in the United States today. They fell out of favor with the rise of automobiles and buses, because trolley tracks run down the middle of traffic lanes in major thoroughfares. Trolley tracks still exist in many cities, long since paved over.The last operating trolley in the United States is in New Orleans. If you’ve ever driven in New Orleans and been stuck in the traffic that piles up behind the trolley, you instantly know why the rest of them are all gone.

Another type of trolley, often known as an interurban railroad, has also pretty much disappeared from American life. In Milwaukee, interurban lines once ran north to Sheboygan, west to Waukesha and Oconomowoc, southwest to East Troy and the North Shore ran to Chicago. Most of them failed in the 1940’s because no one was riding them. The North Shore, the interurban line that ran to Chicago, lasted into 1963 but it, too, succumbed to low ridership. When the Edens expressway opened in 1951, the first nail was in the coffin, and when the Northwest Expressway, now known as the Kennedy opened, the line hemorrhaged riders until there was just no one left to ride the rails.

Even though the interurbans and trolleys all failed, for some reason, the movers and shakers who grew up with Mister Rogers seem to think the Neighborhood Trolley is a good idea. They cannot believe a trolley is just a cute anachronism. Sadly for trolley fans, their day is past. Trolleys are useless, fixed to an inflexible route and unable to change once built. Regardless of the romance of building a trolley, the ignored fact is that far more people will not ride it than will ride it. Despite the millions of dollars that such a boondoggle would cost to build, the millions of dollars that it will require to subsidize the operating expenses, and the much more attractive alternatives offered by rubber tires, the fans of the trolley insist on installing one in every major city.

Well, why not? The real trolley will be just like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood trolley. Both will have the very same destination. The only difference is that the real trolley will carry millions upon millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars to the very same place as Mister Roger’s trolley:

The Neighborhood of Make Believe.

As you already know, my friend, Paige Birgfeld, from Grand Junction, Colorado, left her home on June 28, 2007 and hasn’t been seen since. All of us who knew her were shocked to learn that she had been leading a secret life, which may or may not have had something to do with her disappearance.

You can read more about her and her story by following the links on the right side of this column. Even more stories about Paige can be found in her special forum on a website called Help Find The Missing. The links are below.

Next Tuesday, June 10, her story will be featured on CBS News 48 Hours. The program has been under development since February, and CBS has been following her story since the beginning. (She has also been featured on NBC’s Dateline and ABC’s 20/20.)

The program will air on June 10 at 9:00 EDT / 8:00 CDT. Check your local listings.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

Help Find The Missing: Main Site Entrance

Help Find The Missing: Paige’s Forum

Help Find The Missing Blog: The Amazing Double Life of Paige Birgfeld

Help Find The Missing Blog: The Untold Story of Paige Birgfeld

In my little neighborhood, development is finally slowing down, mostly because there’s not much open farm land left to develop. The subdivision next to me was the start of the ludicrous when they advertised the development with the catch phrase, “Leave the city behind, come to the country.” Of course, all the streets have gutters and sidewalks - so very rural.

The one that still drives me crazy was the development on either side of Division Road. There is a rise on Division Road, whether you are driving north or south on Division, you come to a hill that is high enough that you cannot see the top of it until you are almost to the top. You travel on a short plateau that is there, and then you go back down the hill.

The new developments enter from the top of the hill, on the short plateau, effectively creating a crossroads at the top. It’s a really dumb place for an intersection, but so it goes.

Division Road, long a divider between cornfields, had a speed limit of 40 MPH when the subdivisions were opened. Not long after the subdivisions opened, residents went to the village and complained that the speed limit on Division Road was too high. When attempting to pull out into traffic, the cars cresting the hill could not be seen until they were right on top of the poor driver trying to pull out.

In agreement, the village lowered the speed limit to 35 MPH, and although it took time to get used to it, I travel 35 MPH on Division Road. It’s better than having one the of subdivision residents for a hood ornament. Now, granted, I’m probably one of the more aggressive drivers you’ll encounter on freeways, but on local roads where there may be children around, I’m a speed limit kind of driver. It’s safer and in the long run, a lot cheaper in avoided fines and raised insurance rates.

As you might guess, I am often tailgated on Division Road by impatient drivers who wish to drive much, much faster. Invariably, they turn into, or out of, the very subdivision for whom the speed limit was reduced. Last week, I was traveling my usual 35 MPH on Division Road, the speed limit I would like to remind you, being tailgated by a moron in a green Toyota. The moron in the Toyota was being tailgated by a bigger moron in a Pontiac. At the far southern end of Division Road, it curves and widens with an extra southbound lane.

Where the road widens, the two morons almost hit one another trying to get around me. The moron in the Pontiac cut me off, slammed on the brakes like he wanted me to hit him, then he waved at me. He didn’t use all the fingers on his hand. I believe his horn also has a malfunction, because it seemed to be sounding for an unusually long time.

Of course, I also carry a pen and paper. I have his license number. So does the local police department. The police assure me that they’ve already had a conversation with him about his driving habits and are watching for him, as am I.

Of course, you know which subdivision the moron lives in, right?

Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a political operative and former power broker from Illinois, has just been convicted on 16 of 24 federal corruption charges. Link: Daily Herald.

Why is this of interest? Rezko is a friend and close associate of Presidential Candidate, Barrack Obama. The conviction follows closely on the heels of Obama claiming the Democrat nomination yesterday.

Rezko allegedly has numerous connections to both Obama and to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat who ran on a reform platform after former governor, George Ryan, was convicted of corruption charges. Blagojevich claims no involvement with Rezko and claims he has done nothing illegal, however, he is under federal investigation himself.

It will be very interesting to watch, over the next few days, how this story will play out. Pay attention to how the Obama campaign will shift spinmeisters into overtime to distance the candidate from Rezko. Let’s see how the McCain campaign handles this conviction or what they may, or may not, do with it.

Even more interesting to see is what Hillary Clinton does with this story.

Nothing even close to this has ever happened before. This story is big, it is going to get bigger, and we’re all in a position to watch history being created.