Present for the Pit Crew

Here's a fun image from last year's robotics competitions.  The Team 5826 pit crew being so ridiculously prepared and confident that they had a running card game going most of the time.

I thought it would be fun to get them an "official" custom deck of cards.  If you look closely you can see they are playing Uno.  Weirdly it seems to be possible to get custom Uno decks but not possible to have them sent to the US.  Copyright issues I figure.  But for a conventional deck of cards, no such problems exist.

Oh, I'll figure out how to get them an Uno set as well.  Hey, UK friends.....can I have your help on getting a bootleg set across the Atlantic by tournament time?

Pickle Beer

Grand Unified Theories of Existence often occur to me at the bottom of a pint glass.  Or on occasion, somewhere nearer to the top....

In general I see wine drinkers as being cat lovers and beer drinkers being dog people.  Your mileage may vary.  I'm clearly in the hops n' hounds category; and am of the opinion that there are really no Bad Dogs or Bad Beers.  That being said you do on occasion encounter a dodgy looking mutt, one that looks at you with rheumy, slightly crossed eyes and dares you to pet it.  Or....you see Pickle Beer on the drinks menu.

We were out for a celebratory dinner with one of our sons and his lady.  Birthday that ends in a zero, that sort of thing.  Spotting this on the drinks menu raised a few questions.  The waitress was also curious, and she said she'd never served one.*

A sample was forthcoming and as it turns out my misgivings were.....justified.  It tastes like the brine from a jar of home made pickles.  Now to be fair one of our party liked it, and in small doses it might be really swell.  As a chaser for a Bloody Mary for instance.  But having over the years made regrettable, often language hindered drink selections in out of the way places I can say that slogging through a full pint of Weird Beer is usually not much fun.

But, to each their own.  There is a tradition of fruit based Sour Beers.  It's mostly Belgian I think.  At least that's where I've run into it.  And there are other brewers who have taken on this interesting style variant.

Enjoy, or not, as you see fit.

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 * I want to go on record as saying that the Oliphant Brewing Company over in Somerset, Wisconsin, is a delightful and inventive outfit.  I've met their owners, sampled some of their other offerings and enjoyed both experiences. 

Tales of the Old Lieutenant

Now and then I do a bit of housekeeping, cleaning out drawers and such.  Recently I came across a big stack of cards.  It was a mixed batch.  Sympathy cards after my dad's death.  Thank you cards from families of robotics students.  Well wishes on my retirement from family practice 16 years ago.  When you switch over to the less personal ER work you don't get quite as much in the way of personal thank yous.

One note was about 20 years old.  It was from the family of a long time patient and thanked me for a story I had told at his visitation.  This was something I had entirely forgotten about, but I sure remember both the patient and the story.

The Old Lieutenant was a classic example of The Greatest Generation.  Small town boy.  Joined the Army.  Became a combat officer in Italy.  Came home, started a career, married his sweetheart and had a bunch of great kids.

Unfortunately he also was of the "smoke 'em if you got 'em" generation, and carried his pack a day habit with him when he took off the olive drab and put on civvies.  He had emphysema, and bad.

I took care of him for many years.  After a while he and I both had things pretty well figured out.  What combination of breathing treatments, steroids, antibiotics and oxygen would pull him through a flare up.  Usually we were on the same page.  But the man could be stubborn.

Once I had him in the office and could see that he was heading for trouble.  His color was not good. He was breathing a little faster than he should.  The long ago sweetheart and I both wanted him admitted but he refused.  Well I was always of the opinion that I work for him not the other way around, so we opted to try him with home treatment.

I was expecting to get a late night call that he was on his way in by ambulance but instead he turned up a few days later in the office doing better.

He did admit that it was touch and go for a while.  Between lack of sleep, low oxygen levels and the side effects of big doses of steroids he was both short of breath and feeling confused.  He found that at least the breathing aspect of this was better if he sat in his lawn chair in his garage with the door open.  A gentle breeze, a little cool air.....it was a minor bit of relief but a welcome one.

And then he looked up and saw a large, hostile raccoon staring at him.

Now, when you have been hallucinating there are limited options for deciding whether a sinister apparition like this is real or not.  He yelled at it.  Nothing.  He waited for it to go away.  It did not.  Finally he decided that either the raccoon was imaginary or it was a seriously ill and deranged critter.  The raccoon perhaps had a similar notion.

But what the raccoon did not have was a shovel.

Mustering his considerable determination he stood up, grabbed the nearest garden tool and beat the potentially rabid raccoon to death.

That's how he knew he'd make it through this flare up, and in fact I had the privilege of caring for him for several years after that.

Tubbs and the Bilious Man's Friend

Continuing my survey of 19th century patent medicine companies from Western Wisconsin.  Why? I suppose the answer could either be Why Not?  Or, who else is gonna do it?

Today we visit the Tubbs Medicine Company of River Falls, Wisconsin.

Yes, their logo was a wooden tub and their flagship product Bilious Man's Friend.  Notice that it is touted for Bad Colds, Bad Stomachs and Bad Tempers.  With that combination a man might not have many actual friends.

Thomas Emerson Tubbs was born in Vermont in 1836.  As a young man he "Went West", driving a team out to the frontier town of Prescott Wisconsin in 1854.  He liked what he saw and staked out a claim in an area called Glass Valley.  His first business was a small wagon and sled manufacturing business which he moved to River Falls in 1866.  

Tubbs was a very enterprising young man.  In addition to the wagon and sled trade he ran eleven different insurance companies and also peddled, "Babcock Fire Extinguishers",  fire and burglar proof safes and a complete line of school, church and farm bells.

Some time in the early 1870s he added patent medicines to his portfolio.  Supposedly he brought with him from Vermont certain formulas including an "Elixir of Life".

In 1876 the Tubbs Block, from which he ran his many enterprises burned to the ground.   Reappraising his situation Tubbs decided to focus on the medicine business, although he still ran his various insurance agencies.  The product line was the usual array of nostrums for Man and Beast.

Tubbs proved to be a good businessman.  He made distribution arrangements with a major Minnesota wholesaler and also recruited a local traveling sales force for closer to home.  He made a wide array of medicines....and a fair bit of money.  

T.E. Tubbs died in 1894, handing the business off to his son Willard.  The good times kept rolling on.  Bottles of syrups and elixirs, advertising almanacs in many languages, pills and plasters, went out the door in their thousands.  Many have survived as you'll see below.

Eventually the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 started to put a crimp in things.  No longer could you keep the ingredients secret.  Or make outlandish claims for curing human ills.  Veterinary products remained fairly unregulated.  

Willard passed on in turn in 1931.  Around that time the company was sold to outside interests and does not seem to have survived for long thereafter.

The commonest Tubbs items you run across are these little guys.  TUBBS is embossed on each side.  They have many different labels.

No fewer than 35 items are listed on the back.  Not all are medicinal.

The side panels tout their flagship brands, one of which was Bilious Man's Friend.

I actually have a bottle of the stuff.  Unlike the 1900 era bottle above, this goes back to the 1880s at least in terms of bottle style.  The label is fading and there might not be many more examples in existence, so I'll show as much as I can.

No post 1906 hedging here.  IT CURES a wide array of problems.  Costiveness, Heart-Burn, Nervous Disorders, Nightmares, Scrofula.  Like most such patent medicines it had a good wallop of alcohol in it.  Probably not good for the Heart-Burn but it would at least make you worry less about all the other stuff.

Back panel.  

About those almanacs.  This one has a blank space at the bottom.  Usually the druggist or merchant who sold the medicines would stamp their name there.  The military scene depicting the Victory of General Health is generic.  Vaguely Civil War in its imagery but more contemporary with the Spanish American conflict.

Chock full of pictures of suffering people.

As such things are figured, the TUBBS company was small potatoes by the standards of the great patent medicine millionaires like Dr. Kilmer.  But it was an enduring enterprise that did a profitable trade for roughly six decades.  Not a bad track record.

The Inventive Mind(s) of Menzo Gates

Perhaps unwisely I have agreed to do a presentation in a few months on the topic of "Patent Medicine Men of Western Wisconsin".  It is an obscure subject, and while it affords plenty of opportunity to tell stories I'm not sure how general the interest will be.

But I agreed to do it, so it was off to my files.  I have notes on the subject going back decades.  And in some cases the random loose ends can now be better addressed with the wonders of this here Internet.

Consider the curious case of Menzo Gates.

I knew him from a passing reference on a roll of microfilm giving assorted copyright data.  Evidently he was marketing something called "Gate's Remedy for Diptheria" back in 1885.  At that time he was living in Cadott, Wisconsin.  This is a sleepy little village about ten miles east of where I live.  

Usually a small town patent medicine will be put up by the local druggist.  But applying for a copyright was quite unusual.  In general they just mixed things up, stuck a label on a generic bottle and called it good.

Imaging my surprise when a search for the highly distinctive name Menzo Gates came up with this 1899 US Patent.  Why, our pal Menzo looks to have upped his game over the intervening 14 years!

This seems like a terrible concept.  You teach your kid how to swim by setting up a guy wire across a body of water, then have the tyke go back and forth with some sort of ring around them.  The tyke on the left looks he has the harness around his neck!  

News articles with illustrations of this gizmo actually appeared quite widely in 1900....

Alas for my narrative there amazingly were two men named Menzo Gates.  The man who manufactured the obscure patent medicine died in Cadott Wisconsin in 1890.  He had one child, but it was a daughter, so there is no evident link to the inventor living over in Copemish, Michigan.

I am having difficulty tracking the further details of story down, and in fact there may have been yet another Menzo Gates living in New York at about the same time.

Tree Shaped Tombstones - Hammond, Wisconsin

Sometimes I just know where I'll find a batch of "Tree Shaped Tombstones".  Hammond Wisconsin for instance.  It's a tidy little village, old as such things are reckoned in this part of the world.  It was prosperous back in the day, now it is sort of "quiet and genteel".  Some time back I was looking at an old map and noted a cemetery that was in an obscure corner of town.  With a bit of extra time recently I swung through and had a look.  

The light was not in my favor on this day.  It sure would be easier to plan photographic missions if the ancient Christian policy of having graves face east had been continued...

Yes, the light is sure nice on the unmarked back of this one...

And not too bad on the front.  This is a classic "two trunks" type that you see with married couples.  The little subsidiary logs are probably plot corner markers.  I think one is missing.  This style tends to be pretty stable in the ground.  Note the suggestion of a large base under the surface.

There will always be lesser examples, but sometimes they have their own little mysteries.  This one is marked as someone's wife.  So...where is he?  Remarried?  Moved away?  Was this a later monument that replaced an earlier one and reflected a new situation?

Of course I have to show you some Good Ones.  This large family monument is almost comic in appearance with the branches/arms seeming to be held up in an "Oh No!" configuration.

The Bixby patriarch strikes me as a bit pompous in death.  Might have been an ok guy when still among us.   

Note the plot markers back behind.  One of them is very nicely done.  I've not see a "sickle and sheaf" example for a while.

Usually the branches of these big family monuments are reserved for the next generation(s).  It was getting a bit crowded out there with the assorted Bixbys and Boinks...

And finally one of the "New Form" trees.  Again a husband and wife.  The gentleman has been gone a few years.  The wife is still waiting to be reunited with him.  I bet she comes and stands in front of this on warm spring evenings....

Note the stones on the plinth.  I've seen this often in Jewish cemeteries but the name Anderson would make this less likely.   

Robotics Update - One Month to go....

The chaos of build and competition season is only a month and change away.  The preseason has had a lot going on.  Here's a few highlights.

Team members present to the School Board.  Their attention was in part held by the spectacle of the middle school robot with its pneumatic catapult being aimed directly at one of the Board members.  To be fair, he is an old friend...

The team did a stellar job.  Many questions followed including a surprising and unprecedented number that involved goats (our team mascot btw).

Build has been working on multiple projects.  One intriguing example is this:

This is a swerve drive base similar in some respects to last year's competition machine.  But there are two differences.  The wheels are entirely 3D printed.  And the electronics are mounted upside down on the bottom of the main deck.  They are - hopefully - protected by that black under shield.  This would allow for a cleaner base on which to mount, well, whatever the actual non drive mechanisms turn out to be.  It has not been operational yet.

Ah, and software.  Its always so hard to document what they do with their ones and zeros.  Here's one of our smarter kids hard at work.  What he has worked out is a program that allows the robot's vision tracking system to basically identify any combination of shape and color, isolate that image.....and put a targeting mark in the center of it.  Sure, what could possibly go wrong with this technology.

Then I remembered that last season he, for no discernable reason, started wearing dark sunglasses all the time.  And....did I detect a slight Austrian accent.........?