The Waukesha Sewer Raccoon News
The much anticipated original and personalized card of uniquity?
Performing dog
In the way of Michelangelo
So David and family have a doubtlessly valuable painting. The way these pieces turned out, collectors of raccoonware will pay pretty pennies for only one of them, but TWO? We hesitate to estimate......
Hang on to what you've got. They're signed on the bottom!
...................................................
is the original I was perhaps intended to be.
.
, Dec. 23rd 2009 
Here, Mother Denise opens another finished project,
In the Christmas mail from the Pleasant Valley family came some pictures of those in attendance at John and Jean Means sr's 60th wedding anniversary, an event which became a finished product in October. This picture of daughter Erin and friend Patrick Davis struck us as a good likeness. They are striving finishing products in their own right as graduates of Lawrence University in Appleton WI and post-graduate degree seekers. Patrick flew to Maryland with Erin to meet the larger family and study how to manage the consumption of hard-shell crabs. He learned quickly, and 'finished' many.
Sitting ahead of the Christmas gifts beneath our small tree are the traditional bowls of oranges sent by Dee's mother in Maryland. She sees to it that all her grandchildren get what she got for Christmas as a child of the Depression. If funds permitted, each child might receive one small gift. Every year we put the Gramaw orange out for each of our offspring. Leland and Erin, two of her grandchildren.
This year
2009, not 1941
many work with low-voltage bulbs
in their miner's helmets;
but in 1941
the Sunday Schoolers at
the First Congregational Church
in Waukesha Wisconsin
got an orange, (a precious orange!)
and a small box of hard candy
from the Santa enactor,
tha late Don Barney
in the greenery-festooned
miniature-seated
childrens' hall,
now
made into something else.
Mona, 20 year old cat
in a tough year for the world in many ways, this painted gourd ornament we grew and made in better days is extracted from the attic storage box and rehung on our small Christmas tree this morning, as we trim the small tree with the help of our two visiting college student children.
In her hurried abandon, mother Denise selected a tree from the lot that was too tall for the living room. I say we go ahead and use it anyway. The money is spent. Maybe my favorite top ornament could be replaced, or, I say, it adds to the illusion of the surfeit year we've had.
This one happened at John Helt's church near Holy Hill, Hubertus WI, - St Paul's UCC.
Imbued with the beliefs of their forebears, many of whose bones repose in the little cemetery in back of the church, this year's crop of little manger scene enactors fulfill the story ( with some laughter-arousing inevitable flaws) according to the leading and coaxing of their stage-managing Sunday school teachers and parents.
John celebrates his first Christmas with the congregation in the snowy foothills of the Kettle Moraine. A good time was layered on by all.
Photos provided by Rev. Helt
You can be sure you'll see her wearing it! If you see her before Christmas Day, don't tell her about this.
Cathy feigns amazement at Dee's toothpick-decorated cookie
Yet, there was true and utter amazement when Denise demonstrated the delicate toothpick technique. (See below!) Dozens of colorful Christmas cookies were baked and decorated with all manner off frostings, sprinkles and colorful effects, only limited by the imagination of the decorators.
It was a marathon session that commenced after the downing of a potful of venison chili, bread and salad with pomegranate & toasted almonds, augmented by some Barnevelt WI reisling wine, or Mexican beer with lemon. A lovely table was set in the newly remodeled kitchen completed under the advisement of architect Win Redding, who oversaw a major revamp of the house.
The Craftsman-style woodwork all about and recommended by Redding inspired us, and especially the creativity exhibited by Ed, who normally busies himself with larger construction projects.
The brand new Degroot cat named Mouser prowled the premises for mice in the darkened basement when he wasn't scouting for dropped cookie particles. It was his first day at the Degroots. He seemed to like the mirth and merriment.
Another entry in the Moleskine tablet, a Christmas gift last year frm Erin. This may not be a timely consumer tip from the raccoon news, for the product may have been out for a year or more. I was introduced to these little capsules of water flavoring at a picnic last summer. The flavors were many. I've tried berry, orange, and lemon aide. I prefer the lemon, and I swill it down here at home with anything. Popcorn, you name it.
You're going to say, "Hey there's Aspertame (and other noxiosities) in that!" At my age I am immune to such concerns, if even founded. Keep it comin'! I've already eaten my bucket of dirt for the year, in addition.......and I may dead soon anyway.
This product comes in a box of 10 capsules at the grocery store, but YOU probably already knew that.
just type in the song name, you'll get it
Mrs. Meadows of Alabama used to bake these thin-layered cakes in a wood stove oven using shallow.hoe cake cast iron baking pans. She is still baking them for friends, relatives, and a little pin money. http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/12/15/dining/1247466123532/southern-layer-cakes.html?scp=1&sq=southern%20layer%20cakes&st=cse
At the Raccoon headquarters
will hang from mantle on Christmas Day
In a split decision, after the Raccoon News spent much time deliberating on its man of the year award for 2009, it came down to a toss-up between the late Jim Ridgeway, formerly of 12th Lane near Juneau St., Milwaukee and:
Bob Heeschen, of St.Paul, MN.
Jim Ridgeway was known, among other achievements throughout his giving life, to grow a mean community garden in the 1980s, ex-officio in charge of several contiguous plots across the street from and owned by Friedens United Church of Christ. The garden in total was devised from torn-down house lots that were originally and erroneously placed on a grave yard. This lemon-aide from lemons approach was considered the ultimate of organic gardening back then. Jim ran the show.
Jim was also known for his shy welcoming smile and the gardening help he gave when asked, to Hmongs, whites, blacks, mostly poor, who wanted to grow their food from the richest compost. Jim liked to fish and rode a bus everywhere. He never drove. Milwaukeeans often thought they recognized this unheralded man, now, at this late date, Man of the Year, passing through their neighborhoods.
Our other choice as man of the year is the former Special Agent Robert Heeschen of the 113th Counter Intelligence Corps, USA, 1958-1962. He spent most of his working years afterward at the Eagle Signal Company of Davenport IA. Now retired, he is shown in his current incarnation as a docent ( & ticket-taker) at the famed railroad museum in Minneapolis.
Always a respectful man, Bob used to safely stop the government unmarked car he drove in his rounds at his duty station, Chicago, (rounds which cannot be discussed in this medium), then he would pull over, get out and stand at attention with his hat removed and held over his heart whenever any funeral procession passed, anywhere in the city. This was the sort of man Bob was and is. A well-taught son of an Army officer who fought in WW II, as it happened.
We always were touched by these gestures of Bob's. Someday, we vowed, someday we would see to it that Bob Heeschen was appropriately recognized. The time is now.
William Blake's water colour of 1794 was drawn in collaboration with the author to illustrate John Milton's Paradise Lost.
A photo taken of the wake behind a high-powered dinghy in The Puget Sound shows the triangular pattern as the boat speeds away from the town of Sequim WA. The pattern is repeated by the mountains in the distance. The setting is - the round earth.
These Laplanders live in a round hut of sticks tied into a triangular bundle. Their hats are triangular forms.
That dirty rotten socialist
Chickadee lands on feeder bracket outside the window
As in olden days, Lee ropes his way
