We were supposed to get more strong weather a few nights ago. Bad winds. Just had the trees checked a while ago, so I don’t worry - much - about one of them coming through the window or the ceiling, but I knew there might be a few rough hours. Birch wpuld be unhappy, panting with that rictus grin of anxiety. I would sleep soundly unless a transformer explodes. At least I knew the gazebo won’t go sailing off. Been a long time since I’ve found the gazebo in the bushes.
The next day: big tree down around the corner, laid gently alongside the house. Made me think I should write a piece about it. Maybe for the paper, to keep my name alive? I made a note, and when I saw it later I laughed. STRIB, When the big tree falls.
Can’t possibly think of anything consequential that happened today. You may say “ah, the comfortable blur of retirement,” but A) I’m not retired, and b) there was nothing consequential that happened when I was working, either. Now that I am free of the place I find myself waking up from a strange delusion: that I belonged to an important place. That we were doing important work. Don’t get me wrong - always have been and always will be a newspaper man, in the sense that it was my chosen medium and my long-standing self-identification. But now that I’m out of it, a lot of the self-importance seems to have drained away. The product is unrecognizable and also replaceable. I stopped reading out of pure spite when I quit, and I get the news feed for the Strib in my Apple News, so not one sou do they get. But I find myself clicking only on a piece written by a friend, or about a particular subject.
I should be the easiest to convince that I need it, and I am here to tell you that I am amazed at how much I do not.
And yet I am thinking about the next piece I might submit.
This could be over-all disengagement, but it’s not. It could be broad-based irritation with news in general. Most headlines just make me surly. He spent his life studying Peruvian moss - then this happened. Chatty, buzzfeedy headlines like this absolutely infest my feeds. Current Strib isn’t as bad as some, but I know how the sausage was made and how we labored over the SEO headlines and search results and the rest.
Glad that’s behind me. Really. I did not expect that my dominant emotion after hanging up my newspaper career would be relief.
Anyway, I did more forms for the pension and SS, walked in the woods with the dog while listening to a podcast about Mary, Queen of Scots, went to the gym and found another machine I hadn’t used that strengthens the pinky finger. Upped the bicep reps by two for that extra end-of-workout boost that makes me really, really glad I’m done. Did the following for the 2026 site: A Main Street, a Clippings, 12 matches, and eight examples of a strange John Held Jr. cartoon that gives me new insight about why the Cowardly Lion spoke as he did.
What?
It’s this. The four-panel version of John Held Jr.'s one-panel O Margy comic.
The character repeats things. He repeats things. Just as the Cowardly Lion did. I came across a 1940s movie in which Bert Lahr is giving a young burly-q actress some pointers on a comic sketch, and he points out the laff value of saying something twice, because it’s his bit. From that I deduced that the Cowardly Lion character was imported wholesale from performances the movie audience already knew.
Seems a safe bet. When you’re a kid, and the faces of the characters first hit the screen, you don’t register them as anything but the characters. To the movie audiences, they registered first as Familiar Stars Amusingly Made Up.
But that "repeats the line" schtick - where did it come from? Where did it come from?
Eleven-and-a-half souls. Odd name. Wikipedia says: "The origin of the name Bucyrus is not certain. It was given by James Kilbourne, who laid out the town in 1821. One theory is that the name Bucyrus is derived from 'beautiful' coupled with the name of Cyrus the Great, founder of the First Persian Empire."
Yeeeahhh, that's a bit much.
An alternate theory is that the city was named after Busiris, a city of ancient Egypt.
More likely, but why? Well, let's start.
City Hall.
If there’s any other way to communicate the aloofness of government from the people it’s supposed to serve, I’m hard-pressed to describe it.
Built in 1970. Replaced an old mansion built by an industrialist; it would become a restaurant later. I cannot bear to see what the old city hall was like.
The Linn Block, 1908.
A few years ago: I’m inclined to prefer this, but the all-grey isn’t bad.
Ordinary, boring front, but . . .
Here’s the side in 2015.
Recent removal? Can’t say. But something big was there, I think.
Now:
Nice job!
One of the reviews says “So much better than the abandoned old theater!”
Well . . . abandoned, no, not good, but what was there?
That was a handsome shed.
That’s a uniquely bad idea. The gun slits really complete the mood.
They do love their troupe l’oiel.
That mass of churchiness behind it looks unreal.
No way this was a Dollar General when it opened.
Ah - that makes sense. Glass-blocks = 80s glamour, hence Family Video.
Well-preserved, but on the other hand, why? Were people passing out from heat stroke or drowning in the rain?
“That went well! Let’s build another.”
A solid grouping, with WILSON in the middle.
I had to re-un-distort this one, so it’s a bit fuzzy, but you get the idea.
Old thin-window special, with a heavy top that looks a couple of days of work away from complete restoration. Although they’d probably say it needed a month, and bill accordingly. And they’d probably be right. What do I know.
I’ll bet you anything it was an OUMB. The giveaway? The spot where the night deposit box was.
Ah. See?
But the box has been gone for some time.
Pride of the town!
If you’re going to a mural, this is the way to go.
Architectural fancies work better than mash-mash assemblages of trains and parks and gazebos.
See what I mean?
The courthouse . . .
. . . and the Public Library.
You couldn’t ask for a more American place to grow up, I think.
But . .
It’s lost a bit of its old charm.
That will do for today. Now hit the road.
