Math is hard

 My hometown newspaper, the Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wisconsin, has an alarming headline:

Some. What's going on in Wisconsin? The article reports:

Eight Wisconsin metro areas have landed on the New York Times' list of places across the country where new cases of COVID-19 are rising the fastest. 

La Crosse is number one on the New York Times' list, which was updated Thursday afternoon. In third is Whitewater, and the Oshkosh-Neenah area is in eighth. Stevens Point, Appleton, Platteville, Madison and Green Bay take up the 15th through 19th spots of the list, respectively. 

With the exception of Appleton, all the Wisconsin cities on the list are home to a University of Wisconsin System campus. 

Appleton, in the crosshairs, even without a UW campus! And then we get the numbers:

According to the New York Times' analysis, comparing the number of cases from a week ago to now, adjusting for population, the following Wisconsin metro areas have seen an increase of:

La Crosse: 436 new cases per 100,000 people

Whitewater: 228 new cases per 100,000 people 

Oshkosh-Neenah: 157 new cases per 100,000 people 

Stevens Point: 106 new cases per 100,000 people

Appleton: 105 new cases per 100,000 people 

Platteville: 101 new cases per 100,000 people 

Madison: 98.4 new cases per 100,000 people 

Green Bay: 97.9 new cases per 100,000 people

105 cases per 100,000 people! But let's do the math -- that's 1/10th of 1%. That means 1 out of 1000. This is a crisis?

The Post Crescent used to be an interesting newspaper, but like most daily newspapers in Wisconsin it is now a Gannett property. Those are the same simps who run USA Today. And the dumbed-down version of journalism they've been pumping for 40 years is now what you get in my hometown. This is not progress.

A few days off

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was pretty good. We spent a few days back in my home town of Appleton, Wisconsin, a prosperous small city of about 75,000 people, not including the sorta suburban areas to the west, north, and southeast of town. Add those in and you get to about 100,000. I took some pictures; here is the doorway of St. Therese, the church where my parents were married in 1963 and I made my First Holy Communion in 1970:

Doors of my life

We got back to Minnesota on Christmas Eve and went to Midnight Mass (well, it was technically 10 p.m.) at our home parish and then had an uneventful Christmas Day and Boxing Day at home. It's been a busy stretch for us; we were in St. Louis the previous weekend and we've been furiously trying to catch up since Thanksgiving. One of these days I might even write our annual Christmas letter.

Apparently Trump is in trouble again, or maybe after yesterday he isn't. It's tough to know, really. It's becoming increasingly difficult to figure out what's happening, because all news is so heavily encrusted with bias it's tough to sort out what really matters and what is purely invective. Is it more important that Trump didn't visit the troops, or that he did, or that he might have had foot problems 50 years ago? Is it more important that the stock market had a rough patch, or is it more important that it went up 1000 points yesterday? Apparently the government is shut down, although signs of government are everywhere and there's seems to be no trouble with tax withholding, either.

I am going to try to get back to a more normal blogging schedule now that we're back in town. I hope the coming days are joyful and prosperous for you as we approach the coming year.

Nice 'n' Neat -- Part Three

We're approaching the endgame in the Brett Kavanaugh saga. His sins, the ones he committed and several he almost certainly didn't commit, are out there now, forever. It won't matter what the truth is, really. You can still find people who think Alger Hiss was innocent. We've said it before:

I came of age in the same era as Brett Kavanaugh. Our paths never crossed; there was never a chance they would, really. We at least one similarity -- we both went to Catholic high schools. The difference between Georgetown Prep and the Xavier High School of the late 1970s-early 1980s is significant, though. While some of the parents who sent their kids to XHS were wealthy, many weren't. Kavanaugh and his family had significantly more resources than I ever did and he was able to leverage those resources, the greatest of which is proximity to the corridors of power. I don't begrudge him that; what would be the point?

For the past two days, I've relayed a few anecdotes about my youth. None of what happened then has anything to do with how I've lived my life since those days. Once I met the future Mrs. D, our lives have been on a mostly steady progression to the middle of the middle class. We've never been wealthy and we still have to talk about money most months, but we've been able to send our kids to college and support their activities along the way. We've been mostly immune from economic hardship and our health has been good enough.

Like Kavanaugh, my 50th birthday is in the rearview mirror. He's on the verge of being a Supreme Court justice; I'm a middle manager. My past will mostly remain hidden because middle managers are a dime a dozen. No one really cares what I did 35 years ago, because it's not relevant to anyone, even my immediate family. What Kavanaugh did, or didn't do, 35 years ago isn't relevant, either. But we print the legend.

More to come.

Nice 'n' Neat -- Part Two

We were talking about parties and stupid behavior. Let's move ahead, to the summer of 1983. A bunch of us went to a drive-in movie. We brought beer and cherry bounce, a homemade concoction made from cherries infused in brandy. For reasons that still seem odd to me, one of the people along with us that day was an older woman who had been one of our teachers in high school. She was single and we were all drunk. I don't precisely remember the sequence of events, but as the night went on we left the drive-in and ended up at a tavern. Somehow, she and I started to make out, right in the bar. It started to get a bit more intense and, suddenly, she had enough and burst out of the bar and went home. And that was that. Nothing ever happened with her again, although I saw her numerous times over the rest of the summer.

The next summer, I remember going to a party about a mile from my house. This party was completely out of control -- booze and pot and cocaine were all available. Somehow I got into a conversation with a guy who claimed to be a drug dealer and, in a drunken stupor, I remember discussing the possibility of helping him sell drugs at my college. In my drunken state, that seemed like a fine idea. I never saw the guy again. I walked home and enjoyed the hangover I'd earned the next day. Later on, I found out one of my friends who had been at the party got busted for drunken driving.

Those were two events that, had things gone a little differently, could have significantly altered the course of my life. I am certain there are people in my life who could recall these two events. If I were a public figure and one of these individuals were looking to monetize their relationship, or to settle a score, it would be relatively easy for that individual to draw up an affidavit and speak of my deviant ways, now 35 years ago.

More to come.

Nice 'n' Neat -- Part One

Almost forty years ago now, I heard these lyrics, from a song by the Boomtown Rats:

Bits and pieces I remember slightly, it was a long time ago
We'd have our hot and holy conversations
And solve the problems of the drunken world

This was about 1980; I was 16 most of that year, but it was never an issue to get alcohol in the Wisconsin of that era. And we'd have hot and holy conversations, although sometimes we'd fall short of that. We didn't get drunk all the time, but when alcohol was available, we availed ourselves of it. Sometimes it would be in somebody's basement. We would also rent motel rooms; I remember playing penny ante poker at Bloomer's Motel with some buddies and mixing sloe gin with orange-flavored Mister Misty slush drinks from the Dairy Queen. Class all the way.

Later, I  remember going to a party at the Guest House Inn the following year, in which a number of my drunken classmates trashed a hotel room. I remember leaving quickly as the mayhem started to ramp up. I don't believe anyone actually got arrested for the incident, because the person who booked the hotel room paid cash and booked it under the name of Duane Roland, who was the guitar player for Molly Hatchet. The garbled police report that ran in the local paper a few days later claimed Appleton police were looking for a "Milwaukee woman" in connection with the vandalism. Don't think they ever solved that case.

That was 1981. That was an actual crime I witnessed. I was there because the girl I liked at the time was there. She wasn't involved in trashing the hotel room, either. The statute of limitations has long passed. I still wouldn't identify the classmates involved; none of them have gone on to a life of crime, as far as I know, and even though there would be no legal consequences, it wouldn't be good form to rat them out now, now would it? Some of them are now grandparents; most of them have had good lives. I'm sure the insurance at the Guest House Inn paid for the vandalism.

More to come.

Goodbye, Dayton's

You're not gonna make it, after all

It hasn't been Dayton's for a long time now, but the huge set of buildings that was once the flagship of the Dayton Hudson department store chain, where Mary Tyler Moore famously tossed her tam, is now being closed for good by its current owner, Macy's:

Macy’s Inc. is closing the biggest store in downtown Minneapolis.

The retail giant said Wednesday that it is selling the three buildings on Nicollet Mall that the store occupies, a place known to Minnesotans for decades as the flagship of the Dayton’s department store chain. A New York firm with a record of remaking older properties will take over.

The move ends more than a century of department store retailing in the heart of Minneapolis.

Shoppers have wondered for several years whether the store would survive as Macy’s was shuttering stores in city centers across the United States. Company executives signaled last year that they were seeking a buyer for the Minneapolis property after they failed to form a redevelopment team for the site.

Macy’s announced the deal as part of a larger restructuring that involves dozens of other store closings and a cut of about 10,000 of its 150,000 jobs across the country. About 280 people will lose their jobs when the downtown Minneapolis store closes in March.

I worked for Dayton Hudson, now known as Target, for nearly ten years. I spent a lot of time in the downtown store, but I really didn't buy that much. If I needed something, I was more likely to buy it at Rosedale. I was hardly alone in that, and Macy's is keeping its Rosedale location open. Thousands of office workers in downtown Minneapolis would walk through the store every day but I'm guessing they didn't buy much, either.

The downtown department store of my youth was H.C. Prange, which had a six-story monolith in downtown Appleton, Wisconsin. I'm guessing this picture was taken about 1970 or so, around the same time that Moore tossed her tam:

The big white puzzle palace on College Avenue

Many towns had a big department store like Dayton's or Prange's. Chicago had Marshall Field's, Detroit had Hudson's, Los Angeles had Robinson's. They were great places to shop and, for a kid who didn't have money, a great place to kill an afternoon, as long as you kept your hands off the merchandise. Those days are long gone. The downtown department store has been going away for a long time now. Prange's decamped for the mall years ago and is now part of the Younkers chain. The Prange building in Appleton is now a multi-use space that includes offices, a children' museum, and City Hall. The old white monolith has been opened up somewhat; this picture shows the building from the opposite side and was taken about five years ago:

Windows on the world

Things change. The business model that made sense for Prange's, and for the Dayton family, is no longer viable. The business model for suburban mall shopping locations seems to be changing even as we go about our business now. In 20 years, a mall Macy's may seem as quaint and out of date as the downtown buildings we remember. One could write books about the reasons for these changes; people do. We adapt, though -- we always adapt.

We're #1! We're #1!

As most readers of this feature know, I grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin. Appleton is in the news today for a particular reason:

A new list of the “Drunkest Cities in America” puts a perhaps unwelcome spotlight on Wisconsin, which is home to 12 cities in the top 20, ranked by the highest rates of binge drinking in adults.

The findings were compiled by online financial news outlet 24/7 Wall St.

And look what city comes in first?

Wisconsin outdrinks any other state, results showed. Our neighbor to the east boasted seven of the top 10 “Drunkest Cities,” including the top four: Appleton, Oshkosh-Neenah, Green Bay and Madison.

Why do people in Wisconsin drink so much? It's nothing particularly new. My people are of Bavarian and Irish ancestry and drinking is part of the culture; a lot of people in Appleton have similar ancestry. Downtown Appleton has bars galore on the main street, College Avenue, and in my youth I spent plenty of time downtown. Appleton is also, by and large, a fairly prosperous community, and young people have disposable income and opportunity to go out and party. If you look at the list, nearly every non-Wisconsin location is a college town.

So what does it mean? Well, the story mentions something in passing that I think is especially significant:

The group analyzed self-reported data from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a joint program with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. Excessive drinking, concentration of bars and alcohol-related driving deaths all were contributing factors in determining America’s drunkest cities — all but two of which are in the Midwest.

Emphasis mine. People drink in Wisconsin. Sometimes they drink a lot. I think people in Wisconsin are simply more honest about how they go about it -- there is no particular stigma to drinking in the state; you don't have a lot of people who are teetotalers. If you grow up in Wisconsin, none of it seems very unusual. This bit from the comedian Lewis Black is spot-on. It's also, without question, NSFW.

I'll be back in Appleton over the weekend for my stepbrother's memorial service. I would imagine we'll have a few beers as well. It's the way we roll.

Will KKR love MFF?

Mills Fleet Farm has been sold:

Family-owned Mills Fleet Farm has agreed to sell to New York-based KKR, one of the country’s largest investment concerns that has holdings in various industries totaling about $100 billion.

Terms of the deal, expected to be announced Tuesday, were not disclosed. However, after the Mills family put the privately held chain of 35 stores up for sale last fall there was speculation in the investment trade nationally that it would fetch in neighborhood of $1 billion. Reuters last month cited unnamed sources putting a likely price tag at more than $1.2 billion, including debt.

A few thoughts:

• While Fleet Farm is headquartered in Brainerd, it has long been an important employer in my hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin. Hundreds of people who work in merchandising and operations are headquartered there and a lot of people are likely getting nervous about it.
• The notion put forth is that KKR is going to expand the brand beyond the area where Fleet Farm currently operates (the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin). I'm a big fan of Fleet Farm, but I'm not sure what they do will translate well in other parts of the country. Put it this way -- I don't expect we'll be seeing orange silos in New Jersey any time soon.
• Some people are speculating that the sale is more about the political ambitions of Stewart Mills, who will again run for Congress in this cycle. I don't think that's the reason for the sale, though. Mills has plenty of money for his campaign.

The larger question, in my mind, is whether a giant conglomerate will really embrace what makes Fleet Farm a successful operation. Most retailers target the female customer; Fleet Farm has called itself "The Man's Mall" and has pursued a decidedly male customer base. One thing worth noting, though -- for all the farm equipment and tires that Fleet Farm sells, it has always been a formidable softlines retailer and clothing is a huge part of their overall assortment. I wonder if that will be a focus for the new ownership. It's going to be fascinating to watch.

Artifact

My dad's family, circa 1948-49:

A Catholic family

My dad is back right in the two-tone jacket. The two younger children are my Aunt Mary and my Uncle Ken and they are the only people in this picture who are still alive. The others are my Aunt Patricia (seated), my Aunt Julia and my Uncle Joe. I never met my grandfather (also named Joe), who passed away four years before I was born, but you can tell that he was a formidable fellow. My grandmother (also named Julia) passed away in 1976; she was a wonderful lady. All told, my grandparents had nine children; two (John and Eleanor) died in infancy and another, my Aunt Margaret, died of peritonitis in the 1940s.

My grandparents weren't wealthy -- my grandfather was a millwright who worked at the Institute of Paper Chemistry, a specialized school that is now housed at Georgia Tech, but had been located in my hometown until the late 1980s. My grandparents valued education and all of my aunts and uncles attended college, which was unusual for this generation.

I don't have a tidy summation here. I just think it's cool.

The boys

Four well-meaning Catholic boys

I went to Wausau yesterday to see my three best buddies from childhood. The faces you see on the picture are Pat O'Connell, John Gosling, yours truly and Mark Miller. I've known these guys for 40 years or more, which is hard to believe, but the calendar says 2015, so it's true.

We are all graduates of St. Mary's School (1977) and Xavier High School (1981), four Catholic boys from middle-class families in a prosperous town. We had our struggles growing up, but in general it was a pretty good circumstance to come of age in Appleton, Wisconsin, in the 1970s. You don't always realize your good fortune when you are in the middle of it, but we had it pretty good.

We don't get to see each other as much as we'd like, since we all live in different places, but we all are greatly blessed in our own ways -- all four of us have been happily married to our respective spouses for 25 years apiece, give or take a year. All of us have two children apiece, who are all coming along nicely. We have our health, for the most part, and our wits about us.

I spend a lot of time writing about misfortune, perfidy and stupidity. There's plenty of that going around. We need to be thankful for what we have. And I am greatly blessed and especially thankful that these gentlemen are my friends.