Fashion Dogs

Ah, Fashion Dogs.  AKA Purse Puppies.  They seem to have gone out of style these days.  In the modern era they do seem a bit gauche.  But from an etymological perspective they are pretty interesting.

The list of things I call my dog Hank is long.  I favor alliterative versions, such as "Whining Whelp".  Whelp is a marvelous word from way back, it comes from Old Saxon and goes back who knows how long.  When looking this one up I read that the more common term "puppy" supplanted it starting in the late 15th Century.  It's origins are about as clear as the family tree of Ol' Hank, but it is felt to have come from the French word poupee, meaning doll or toy.  Whether the Mademoiselles had actual little dogs they held as accessories is unclear, but in any event they treated them like small toys.  

The same word also gives us puppet, and for similar reasons.  In fact early on the two words were used interchangeably.

Having grandkids rather into bugs I wondered if pupa, an immature form of moth or butterfly, was related.  Hmm, well sort of.  It's a modern-ish creation, invented by Linneaus who in the late 1700's basically invented scientific classification of animals.  He leaned into the Latin pretty hard, and there the word  pupa, means girl, doll or puppet.  So obviously this was also the source of the later French word.

The concept of a young person also turns up in pupil, as in a student.  Oddly, pupil as in a part of your eye supposedly originated in the observation that you could see a small reflection of a person on the eye surface of the beholder!  I'd call that a bit of a reach but evidently there is a similar concept in Greek and in early English.  Reese Witherspoon sort of spoiled the effect by wearing big sunglasses most of the time.

The dog in these movies was named Bruiser.  He passed away a few years back at the venerable age of 18.  His obit is HERE.  

A Forgotten Brewery Cave - Remembered.....and Now Sealed.

Leinenkugel's brewery.  No, not the one in Chippewa Falls.  The family had lots of branches.  This establishment was run by Henry Leinenkugel and was on the banks of Half Moon Lake in Eau Claire.

A brief history of the brewery.

Like the Jacob Leinenkugel brewery up in Chippewa Falls, this one started in 1867.  It was actually run by Henry Sr. and his son, Henry Jr.  It got off to a good start, and for a time was the top producing brewery in Eau Claire.  But in 1876 Henry Jr. died, and as his father had by that point retired, the enterprise was taken over by Caroline, wife of the Departed.  Things got difficult.  Their production dropped in half, and their credit ratings were not positive.

A partnership of Frase and Lissack bought the brewery and did their best for a couple of years, but also failed.  The next owners were Carstens and Hartwig, who with additional partners ran the place until it burned down in July of 1885.  It was never rebuilt.

The newpaper article that described the fire mentions that the beer in the underground vaults was preserved.  So lets visit these "vaults".  Or actually, revisit them, as this is one of the brewery caves I have previously shown but not given a location.

While not generally known, the location did attract the usual unwelcome visitors.....

That picture was from a later visit.  The first time I crawled in it looked like a bit more of a cozy hangout for neighbors.

Yes, crawled in.  The entrance had been sealed at least twice in the past.  

Here's what the entrance looked like until recently.

Summer of 2025.

I can actually trace the history of the cave since 1885 in some detail.  I've seen a photo circa 1900 that shows the remnants of what would have been the original entrance.  It was of course a straight run out, so that beer could be hauled out and ice hauled in.  This was about the time period in which the local paper describes it as being a hideout for local delinquents who were stealing things from cabins around the lake.  

In the 20th century it was used for a time by Silver Springs, a company now known for various mustard and horseradish products, but back then they had a larger line of veggies, some of which required cold storage.  The nice cement floors and the remnants of an electrical system must date to this era.

Times more recent have been troubled.  Eau Claire has a significant problem with homelessness.  And brewery caves naturally attract people with nowhere else to be.  Both this cave and "The Cave of the Mad Poetess" have had semi permanent residents in recent years.  There have been issues.  Danger of people being hurt.  I've heard there was a sexual assault.  It's worth noting that this cave is adjacent to a public park/beach.

So the "other" Leinenkugel cave has been sealed off.  Its the right call.  Everything is still down there and now preserved, perhaps for some happy day when history is appreciated more and the troubles of the world are fewer.

After I took the last photo, Hank and I walked past the beach.  It was about 9am and a homeless guy was sleeping on the ground next to the beach house.

Well This Seems Like a Bad Idea

A sign along a rural road.

 Oh, surely you remember the Morlocks from H.G. Well's Time Machine????

These guys:

Cannibalistic troglodytes of the, or at least of a, distant future.  Living in dank caves I don't expect their home decor skills would be much.  And if you brought them a deer carcass the best case scenario is that they'd eat it.  Worst case, they'd eat you too!

Kidding aside I'm sure this family of Morlocks are swell folks.  The name btw is German and translates loosely to "black haired one".  Kinda the opposite of the Wellsian version.

One of the Heroes of this Country...

I think of myself as essentially optimistic.  Life is good, and I have accomplished a lot.  But sometimes you also have to be realistic.  Reality sneaks up in your peripheral vision.  Maybe its because both my wife and I have one remaining parent, who in each case is fading/failing.  Maybe its just going to the doctor.  Hey, even retired MDs do this once in a while.  On paper I'm in great shape.  But.....70 is not far off, and they seemed most insistent on giving me the paperwork for Directives of Care.  This is a nice way of saying they want to know what to do when, and by implication not if, I turn up in a bad way.  I get it, but it is sobering nonetheless.  

It got me to thinking.  How are we "remembered"?

It won't be in flowery obituaries.  Print Media is in approximately the same state of health as my 102 year old father in law.

I doubt it will be via the things we write and do in the nebulous world of the internet.   Everything on line is ephemeral, and on the day when I have the same physical substance as my alter ego Badger Trowelsworthy I'll be approximately as relevant.

I suppose how our spouses and children remember us counts for something, but they of course know all.  The good, the bad, the moments of both victory and disappointment.  No, I think the only satisfactory way to be remembered is by your grand children.

I've been fortunate.  All the grandkids are geographically close.  And regards the older two, the one positive of Covid lockdown was we spent lots of time with them.  Their world contained a handful of people and I was one of them.

Sometimes a song from your youth takes on new meaning at the other end of your years.  Back in the mid 1970's I had more hair, drank more beer, and had lots of years ahead of me.  I was a fan of Jerry Jeff Walker, a genuine talent.  

"Desperados waiting for a Train" is a song actually written by someone else, but Jerry Jeff did it best.  He said it was just how he'd gotten on with his grandpa.....

"Soon as I could walk he'd take me with him"

"To a place called the Green Frog Cafe."

"There was old men with beer guts n' dominoes"

"Lyin' 'bout their lives while they played."

"Yeh I was just a kid, they all called me side kick..."

The story of course goes on, finishing on "The Day before he died...."

Worth a listen, link below.

Jerry Jeff caught that train in 2020, dying of throat cancer.  Probably his hard living days did him in.  He was 78 years old.  That's how old I'll - presumably - be in ten years, when the oldest grandson will be the age at which "Viva Terlingua" was the soundtrack of my college days. 

"One day I looked up, he's pushin' 80"

"Got brown tobacco stains all down his chin"

"To me he's one of the heroes of this country,"

"So why's he all dressed up like them old men?"

Hello and Goodbye from the Dark Ages

Well, Dark Ages is not considered an appropriate label any longer.  Sub-Roman or Post-Roman are the preferred terms.

I've been puzzling over this feature for years.  Since 2010 as I recall.  That's the year I excavated the big paved road on the right side of the fence and wondered, why was there this odd curved "thing" built over the main road of the Roman fort?  Had to be Sub-Roman, but what?

The arc seemed to enclose the jumbled mass of demolition that we had to pick through so carefully back in early May.

When digging at Vindolanda there are always those who come before you and those who follow after.  A more recent crew has painstakingly cleared away the rubble.  Before this "stuff" went away it was carefully recorded, and every nook, cranny and flat surface was examined for clues.  Sub-Roman strata rarely give up much.  More on that in a moment.  From a recent session end video, here's the wall with its continuation.

It's big.  It might have used the existing earlier wall as its back side.  I am pretty sure I am seeing the other curved bit peeking out on the left side, although not having the yellow high light makes it a bit harder to say for sure.

So, what is this big, oval, decidedly non-Roman thing?

The Period 5 video round up discusses it a bit.  Here's the full video for those interested.

If you want the short version, it could be a "hall" of some sort.  Some Post Roman notable, perhaps a war lord or some such, lived and/or feasted there.  

Things that were on a Roman site after the Romans are not as well documented as they should be.  Early archaeologists were called Antiquarians, and their notion of proper excavation was to hire a bunch of local lads to swing pick axes and mattocks on their way straight down to where they thought the good stuff was.  Temples, headquarters buildings, that sort of thing.  Obvious later stuff, in addition to being more beat up by plows, was just considered shoddy rubbish to be bashed out and forgotten.

I suppose we have to cut them a little slack.  Their understanding of history had a definite "Imperial" flair to it back then, and also, Sub-Roman structures did not have much for artifacts.  When your political and economic world implodes you, for instance, stop having any new pottery.  Oh, people still knew how to dig clay and probably how to make the stuff, but real expertise was gone, the roads were no longer safe for commerce, and coinage had gone away.  

Hopefully the few bits and bobs that were found - and I only know some of them - will help tell the story of these people.  People who lived sadly among the ruins of what must have seemed to them to be a lost, advanced civilization.

Or maybe not.  Perhaps the freedom to build and to live any darned way they pleased was precious to them.

It's necessary, but a bit sad, to see delicate features like this go away as the excavations go deeper.  But they've all been carefully documented.  And besides, that mysterious arc extending out the front will be preserved forever.

Tree Shaped Tombstones - Calvary Cemetery, Sheboygan

Funny how things work out some times.  When the robotics team was over at the State Tournament in Sheboygan recently I looked at the map and saw that a cemetery was next door to the venue.  Hey, I need an occasional breath of fresh air and a few moments of quiet, so out the back door I went to get a few "Tree Shaped Tombstone" pictures.  

Above is a nice "Tree and Book" specimen.  Anchors are rather common on all such memorials, maybe Sheboygan has a few extras, being a lake port and all.  In front of this was a slightly odd one...

Death dates in the 1860's, too darn early for this style of marker.  (The one back behind it has a person buried in 1911).  Probably a replacement for something that did not endure.  Note the little subsidiary marker with MUTTER on it behind and to the right.  Lots of German in use here.  Gest. means Gestorben, or "died".

An interesting arrangement of the stacked logs.  A "rugged cross" style generally indicates a Catholic cemetery.

There were a couple of the dramatic multi section "trees".  And then there was this:

I can't quite puzzle out what is happening here.  The obvious base for the monument is the random looking collection of flat slabs to the right of it.  But what is that thing to the left?

It is tempting to consider this the base, but the imprint on it is circular, where there should be projections from the roots.  You don't see segments joined together with spacers in between.  If it is a new base waiting to be used in some rebuild program then what was its previous use?  And for that matter, where are the other two segments of the tree?  Somebody will have to put this puzzle, and perhaps this tombstone, together some day.

Old Ghosts and a New Species

Sometimes I get tips, suggestions on where I might catch a new fish species.  Of course the easiest way to do this is to launch a boat and range far and wide, but I'm trying to place a geocache near each new species catch site, so we are mostly talking bank fishing here.

I had a hot tip on a species called "Mooneye".  I've been after this one for years.

On the way down to the site I passed a really old cemetery.  Said to be haunted.

Old stones.  Felled by time, but still trying to preserve memories.

And then on with the fishing.  On about the second cast up came this guy!

Yes he does have weird eyes, but this is a Sauger.  And is a new species for me.  So of course I had to work it up for a Strange Fish geocache.  This cache container is not fish shaped - this would be a tough one to do - but does contain a handy guide to help folks tell the difference between Sauger and their close cousin the Walleye.

Strange Fish #13 - Sauger