The week was good; the week went fast. I don’t if it was good because it was fast, or fast because it was good. I suspect the latter, and that’s just not right. When you’re depressed time should accelerate, but no: hey, I’m enjoying this brief mortal allotment! Let’s set the knobs to 2X so there’s less of it!

It’s getting cold, though. The DPV, or Dreaded Polar Vortex, is about to descend, and that means temps in the single digits, or eighty degrees colder than I experienced last month on the ship. It was about 14 today when I walked the dog, and as usual I thought “I should have brought gloves and a hat,” but I can’t find the former and I don’t have a hat. It was . . . crisp. Birch loves it, until he doesn’t. He picks up sticks and dances around then realizes “oh, pain” and drops them.

Took out the trash after dinner, feeling that occasional satisfaction I feel when I do that Thursday chore. The column is done, there’s just a small piece to write tomorrow, then it’s pizza, whiskey, ice cream: the Friday Trio of rewards. The saddest thing, and it wasn’t really sad at all, was taking out a busted end table I have been carrying around from house to house since about 1980. It was from my Grandparent’s farm house, and it’s the last item of furniture I have. An old 40s bedroom set was fobbed off on a friend long ago, and I do regret that - even though it was old, and the veneer was strictly mail-order, it had style. A big round mirror on the dressing table, inlays on the headboard. It was old and scratched and creaky.

Hadn’t thought of it for 20 years, until now.

The item that went out was a simple end table from the spare room, scratched, stained, unstable, but hell: it had to be 80 years old, if not more. Probably from my Grandmother’s bedroom at the farm. Part of the trim broke off a few months ago, and that sealed its fate. Wife found a replacement at a store. That was that. It’s sitting out on the desolate boulevard right now, waiting for a gleaner, or a trashman to heave it into the truck. I hope someone takes it. They’ll never know a lady had it by her bed in a farm in Harwood in 1941. A kind, smiling, classic, grey-bun-hair aproned Grandma. Have you met her? She was a pip.

 

For no reason, except that I no longer feature my own snaps at the top of the page, a few views of Minneapolis taken from my sporadic peregrinations. There’s a skyway that cuts through an old office building, and I think it might be new; the building was gutted - I mean that in the British sense, horrified and saddened - and turned into a hotel. The skyway connects with an adjacent renovation, the 15 building, and you have a view now of the spaces between the structures, the inner courts and backsides. There is a statue of an owl, and he does not care to watch you pass.

The old Plymouth building is a hotel now. The back staircase tells you long this building has been around.

Also, most people go up and down single-file.

 

Now that the two-week vacation at the beach is over, her group is off on a 28-day tour of Northeast Brazil.

Rough life.

That’s - that’s a Minnesota flag!

REPRESENT, as the kids say. Or said.

 

Washington Avenue downtown is full of new apartment buildings. I've no idea who will live there. This is one. Went from one story to five in a couple of weeks.

The people who live here may, or may not, think that the thing's actually made of wood. Ground floor aside.

In 2019 we're doing the proper Lance, not Mumps Lance. Most of these haven't been used here, but if there are a few repeats, I think you'll forgive me. If not, I'll have Tiny work you over in the kidneys with a phone book.

You'd be surprised to learn how many old radio shows relied on this particular clue. Solution is here.

 

 

We continue the 2019 account of the music of Casey, and the tunes of the Blue Note Cafe.

 

Quite the batch this week. Eight cues, count 'em? What was I thinking?

Well, the opening is different; no big piano glissando. The Anchor Hocking fanfare is different. Could be one of the first; I may have mixed these up a bit. Feels like it.

 

 

 

 

   

A great city. We're not telling you which one.

The suspense stinger is different.

   
   

That's the loud word Snyder had this night, you say?

   
   

Shaking it up a tad. Music for exposition!

   
   

Captain Logan is always mad at Casey! So use a bassoon.

   
   

It's the piano that makes the scene, and perhaps the show, distinctive.

   
   

Recognizable tunes, too.

   
   

They went out with upbeat & semi-hard-boiled music. This would be swapped out in later shows; maybe the producer hated it.

   

 

Yeeah, I'm pretty sure these were from the first half-dozen shows. The characters are all there, and never change, but the sound of the show is still taking shape.

 

2019 returns to the bins, and the records dumped back into the world when someone dies and the kids give the contents of Mom and Dad's entertainment system to the Goodwill.

 

Songs, it says. Implying that there will be singing. But I assume everyone knew what to expect. How could they not?

   
He could get away with anything.
   

 

   

 

 
Another 1969 South African ad. Oh, run down to the store and get me 20 (fill in blank if Python fan)
   

 

 

Did not get the necessary files from Daughter, so the hunt-and-click thing will have to wait until Monday.

That'll do - see you tomorrow.

 

 

 

 
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