Personal
Melba Easterday
My Great Aunt Melba was recently named as a Citizen of the Year by the Culver Lions Club. (See the Article to the right). I’ve written about her here before. (previous posts here and here)
She has had a long and interesting life. She is the last surviving member of the second generation of Easterday Construction Co., Inc. She was married to Edward Lee (Red) Easterday, Russell’s middle son and she worked for the company for a time during World War II when Red was in the service.
She’ll be celebrating her 100th Birthday next month. It’s great to have her represent that generation of our family. She has long served as the family historian and I hope to learn a few more anecdotes the next time I can see her. Unfortunately she’s currently living at Millers Merry Manor in Culver and with Covid restrictions, I haven’t seen her in over a year.
Thank you to the Lions Club for recognizing her contributions to the community. I won’t reiterate what’s in the article, but I know it only scratches the surface.
DST: Still not a Fan…
Everyone talked about the extra hour of sleep they got Sunday morning. Nope. Still woke up at the same time. Then tired all day. This morning was the same thing. I’ll be dragging all week. We really need to end this idiocy…
Granted, Fall is better than Spring when it comes to the DST change, but change is bad. Nope. Nope. Nope. I do not like it…
You can find a couple of my previous DST rants here and here or just search DST in the search bar. Nothing as good as John Oliver did in the video above, but still worth it if you want to laugh at my folly… or with a few of them, maybe even learn something. Ha!
Pony Barn
This is another installment of Easterday Lore. Those that have been to our office have probably noticed the old barn adjacent to the main building. Internally this is referred to as the Pony Barn or the Red Barn (though it’s only vaguely red anymore). This is dates back to when this property was part of Great Grandpa (Russell) Easterday’s farm. At that time the property was at the edge of town. Back then there were a couple of cattle barns on the site as well. One had been swallowed up by nature back in the seventies and the other was replaced by a pre-engineered steel building around that same time.
By User Robert Merkel on en.wikipedia – US Department of Agriculture, Public Domain
In the early days, the Easterday farm included the property extending from the current site of Easterday Construction up to highway 10 and across 10 to 17th Road. In the 60’s, Russell’s Hereford cattle would graze in pasture at the end of Slate Street. Up until the construction of the high school in 1969, kids would ride their bikes up to the end of Slate Street to pet and feed the cattle grazing on the other side of the fence. The field behind the baseball and little league diamonds and the farmland directly north of the Culver Middle/High School are all that remain of this farm owned by descendants of the Easterday family. This is all leased property now. The working parts of the farm were sold off over time.
The Pony Barn truly housed horses & ponies in the day. Russell’s grandson, Larry Berger, had a pony housed there when he was a kid. Russell owned and rode a beautiful five-gaited horse that was also stabled there. (That was before the offices actually moved to that location from their original location in the State Exchange Bank. That’s another story for another time.) At that time, Russell and his wife, Wanda, lived at 309 Ohio Street. Between the farm and the construction company, Russell was successful and always drove a Cadillac. But as a farmer and contractor, that Cadillac was a working man’s car. There was often grass caught in the bumper and cow manure in the wheel wells from when he’d driven it through the field to inspect the cattle. And the day Grandpa Easterday bought his grandson Larry a pony… that pony road home in the back seat of his Cadillac!
Happy Constitution Day!
Happy Constitution Day! Congress created Constitution Day in 2004 and chose September 17 as the day to celebrate it based on that being the last day of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Check out this link for an article in the Imprimis titled “Reviving a Constitutional Congress” with Christopher Demuth, Sr.‘s take on where our nation has gotten off track with concern to the Constitution and what steps can be taking to put us back on the right path.
From the article’s first paragraph, “Our Constitution is often treated as a reliquary, worthy of reverence but no longer of much practical use. Yet the Constitution reflects, in many deep and subtle ways, the character of the people who established it and have lived and prospered under it for centuries. This is particularly true of its structural features of federalism and separated powers, which vindicate Americans’ democratic nature, our distrust of power, and our taste for open competition.”
Please take a moment today to remember the 39 brave men who signed that document in 1787. Their courage and commitment should be celebrated.
Sweet Caroline Ban! YES!!!
I heard some great news today! Finally something good is coming out of 2020 Covid-19… Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline sing-a-longs are being banned at bars and sporting events around the world! YES!!!
I heard several weeks ago that Neil himself was trying to save the song by updating the lyrics. All that radical, pre-Corona B.S. about hands touching hands and reaching out touching me and touching you… NO TOUCHING!!! Stop it!!!
But now it’s been acknowledged that all the drunk yelling of the song into other drunk faces is not safe. To be honest, it was always just the chorus. No one actually knows the words to the song. Though groupthink has added “Bump-bump-bums” and repetitive “So Goods” sprinkled throughout the parts they do know. As stated in the article about the Irish Pub in Spain banning it, “Play it late into the night at any venue in either country and you are likely to get a vocal response from the intoxicated customers present. “
A quick Google search confirmed that I’m not the only Sweet Caroline Hater. Former Yankees Pitcher Joba Chamberlain Says “Sweet Caroline” Was Worst Part of Fenway. Way to go Joba! Thanks for having the courage to speak out against this atrocity. Catchy does not equal good…
I also found where it has been banned at Penn State football stadium, though that’s more about the touchy-feeling part of the song and the connotations revolving around Jerry Sandusky scandal. Though is “reaching out, touching me, touching you” really appropriate at Beaver Stadium anyway?
It’s just become annoying and part of that is because it’s so ubiquitous at bars and sporting events. To paraphrase what Mr. Chamberlain said in his interview on the Balk Talk podcast, “Is it catchy? Yes. I won’t deny that. But at the same time… I don’t want to hear it.”
The last time I enjoyed hearing it even a little, was when Pete & Wayne butchered it on stage at Sloppy Joes in Key West. They professed their hate for it when a paid request came to them to play it, claiming they didn’t even know the words. A bidding war ensued in the bar upping the ante on both the play side and the no play side with Pete & Wayne raking in several hundred dollars in tips though the good-natured melee. Their version was funny and proved the sing-a-long idiots only cared about bump, bump, bumping through the chorus.
Much like Covid-19, I don’t think Sweet Caroline will die out anytime soon. Both seem to be way too infectious and often spread by drunk crowds. But one can always hope that this could be one of the few good things to come out of 2020… That would be Sweet! Maybe even worth a So Good! But please, no Caroline…
