Mystery Photo 20: Shocking Monuments!

     I certainly didn't know about this place until we visited it on one of our trips. I challenge you to just pick the country of location for this famous temple. If you know the country, then you might also know the name of the city. Watch for the answer in a week or 10 days on this site. There is a lot of history in its story.

    
      Send me a guess of first the country and then the name of the city.

A wonderful old toy: the Blackboard Easel

     In my toy collection, I have two blackboard easels that I love. You may recognize this toy from your grandparents, parents or your own childhood. I have one that belonged to my mother which probably dates to the 1920s. I received mine in the late 1940s when I was about 6 years old. Both of my sisters then played with it. I recall we used it to play school as well as to draw on and use as a desk.
     Here is my mother's easel:

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Clearly my mother's was made during wartime, as the roll
contains several views of wartime machinery, ships, and
airplanes.

Several scrolled views are devoted to teaching arithmetic.
This one deals with a topic that often gave school children
difficulties -- fractions.

Here a reading readiness view teaches the basic words and
then substitutes pictures for more unknown words. This one
was very seasonal if the easel was a Christmas gift, dealing
with Santa, his home and his habits.

Compare these Wonderland drawings to similar fanciful
drawings on my easel below, 10 to 15 years more modern.

Some drawing instructions and patterns for use in drawing
or on the blackboard.

Some drawing and craft instruction.

Various US flags and patriotic symbols are pictured.





          The Richmond School Furniture Company was founded by a Quaker attorney named William Foulke Spencer in Richmond, Indiana in 1892. It made school desks, bookcases, benches, chalkboards, etc. (Spencer had formerly partnered with another furniture company that was destroyed by fire.) At the same time he formed the American Lawn Mower Company and the two businesses shared facilities. The companies moved to Muncie in 1902 to be nearer the recently discovered natural gas sources, so we know that your chalkboard was made after that date. The company stayed in business, essentially producing the same sort of things, until the mid 20th century. (The American Lawn Mower Company is still in business today!)

     Here are some photos from my Blackboard Easel, probaby of late 1940s or early 1950s vintage. Some of the paper scroll views are in color which were black and white earlier. There are more modern military views and not as many as on the previous version. And some views of cars and other technology have advanced.

     I have seen the vintage easel such as belonged to my mother on sale online for a requested $125.00. But my mother's may be worth more since the paper educational scroll though torn is all present. In the case of my more recent piece, the paper scroll is entriely intact. Both are otherwise in good shape. I have seen the more modern version selling of $50.00. I do believe that a lot of these were made over the years. They were produced probably until the 1960s or so.

     Here are some still photos of my later version of the easel.

    

     I also didn't realize that I had mounted a video of me scrolling the educational roll on my easel in a 2010 post on this blog. If you would like to see more of the scroll views you can turn to that blog of mine. It was posted on 12/10/2010.

    

    

    








 

An Aboriginal piece of art: Explanation

Sunset in the Australian Outback

     When we were in Australia, visiting the outback and Uluru, especially at Alyce Springs, we came across some Aborigines people who had set up some of their art laying on the ground for sale to tourists.     
     Read on to learn about the art we obtained in the Outback, Australia.

Hovde's Ad: 8 Things You Need to Know About Obama - 620 WTMJ - Milwaukee's Source for Local News and Weather

My readers, as you have seen in reading my blog over the years, I have never posted anything political. But this election for President of the US is so very very important for the future of our country, I can not remain silent. I am a fiscal conservative and generally lean to the left on social issues. But I am prepared to give up even my feminist causes because I feel that the actual future of our country is at stake and sometimes you have to pick what is most important to determine your vote.

Mr. Hovde, a young Wisconsin businessman, who ran against Tommy Thompson for US Senate in the Wisconsins primary has not just disappeared from the political arena after he lost to Thompson. He paid for this political ad to be placed in every newspaper in the State of Wisconsin except for the Madison newspaper. He considered such a Republican ad to be a complete waste of money in the Democratic People's Republic of Madison newspaper. Please go to this ad and read these 8 items about the last 4 years with Obama as President.

Hovde's Ad: 8 Things You Need to Know About Obama - 620 WTMJ - Milwaukee's Source for Local News and Weather

These 8 slightly different ways of looking at things are very concise, very pointed and basically summarize the ways things are. I especially was shocked at Number 8. He called exactly 2 meetings of his cabinet during the last year and he attended 250 fundraiser events. Isn't there something drastically wrong with this? It is also a fact that he does not attend morning security briefings in the White House, but rarely. Is that why he didn't know Benghazi was at risk and didn't know what was going on when the attack that killed our ambassador and 3 others began, or even 2 weeks later? Is that why he didn't know how to react, how to get assets that were 2 hours away over there to stop this attack that went on for 7 hours? Or did he just choose to ignore this problem because it ruined his campaign stanse of having gotten Bin Laden and having El Qaeda on the run? And why is not the standard media carrying all this information? Only Greta Van Susterin on Fox is delving deeply into the occurances in Libya that led to the results of the Benghazi attack.

I also strongly recommend you get on ON DEMAND tv this weekend. The movie, Obama 2016, is available to rent for $4.99. It has a very interesting and unique explanation for Obama's views and some of the very strange things he has done, like sending back to England the bust of Winston Churchill which was a gift to the US and has been in the Capitol. There is an explanation for this strange behavior, and many of the other things that Obama does. His beliefs are not just liberal, are not just socialistic. There is more to it than that. According to an author and producer of the movie, a professor at an Ivy league school out east, Obama has been remarkably effected by his father who was caught up in the Kenyan independence movement, and by other professors in his education which have made Obama hate colonial empires, including the US, which he regards as a colonial power. See the movie; it presents this idea better than I can.

I think even soft liberals and certainly undecideds and moderate view people must look at these issues and really question their decision to vote for Obama. A vote for him for another 4 years provides undue risk for our country, for our diplomatic core, for our military and for every US citizen.  

Medical benefits: the Didgeridoo

My fine instrument -- the didgeridoo
 

  Who would have thought it? This week I attended the Medical Grand Rounds at CSM, the hospital where I practiced. The topic of the lecture was: Sleep Apnea: a Complete Look at Advanced Diagnosis and Treatment.

       The speaker, a pulmonologist who specializes in sleep medicine, sited that learning to play the didgeridoo using what is called circular breathing actually can help people with sleep apnea and can decrease the number of sleep apnea episodes. Now I haven't read this article from the British Medical Journal, but I assume this would really only help those who have fairly mild sleep apnea. It is presumed that this activity helps by strengthening the muscles that support the tissues of the throat and that surround the airway, letting those muscles work to keep the airway open better during sleep.

4:00 AM Awakening: Owls & Venus Glade

     This morning I awoke at about 4:20 AM. I don't know what awakened me. At first, I was just moving around in bed to try to find a warm comfortable position. Then I became more aware. And I heard what sounded like the neighbor's dog barking. It was a series of 2 barks together, then a pause, then 2 more barks, repeating this pattern. This was unusual. The neighbor's have a chocolate lab mix with what looks like some hound in her. She is normally very quiet -- seldom barks. But it sounded like the soft bark of a dog that was waiting to be let back in the house. Then the sound changed to more of a yip and finally a medium loud shrieking or squawking call. I altered my identification -- the coyotes are playing in our neighbor's back yard. But then shortly, the culprit certainly identified itself -- with a hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo whoo whoo. It was our pair of great horned owls. They were calling to each other in our cottonwood trees just outside my bedroom window.

     We think they nest in Virmond Park just north of us, in some tall mature spruce trees in the center of the park. They have been seen there roosting. For as long as we have lived here on Lake Michigan we have occasionally seen one of the owls fly in front of our car headlights from a fencepost or tree perch. They are magnificent birds with up to a 5 foot wingspan. One year shortly after we moved here, a pair of owls were out flying in the late afternoon and they perched on a snag out front of our house in a small wood lot.

 

Mystery Photo 19: Remagen Bridge Head

The remaining towers of the Bridge at Remagen, Germany

The Ludendorff  railroad bridge at Remagen, before its destructionin WWII

    The structure pictured in my Mystery photo is the remains of the Bridge at Remagen, immortalized in the American war film, The Bridge at Remagen of 1969. This movie was based on historical facts, but it is otherwise fictionalized. It implies more strategic importance to this bridge than really existed.

     There was indeed a small battle to take the bridge. Soldiers of the US 9th Armored Division conquered the bridge on March 7, 1945. And it is true that the Germans tried very hard after its conquest to destroy the bridge but initially failed. After the Americans took the bridge they spent considerable engineering skills to try to repair what the Germans had done. They were sometimes under sniper fire or air straifing during this repair work and sometimes had to shoot out the lights they were using at night to prevent some of these attacks. The bridge's continued existence was important to the Allies morale and damaged the morale of the retreating Germans, because the first Allied troops to cross the Rhine river in mass crossed this bridge. But it was known that it would not tolerate the degree of traffic necessary to supply the war as it advanced further toward Berlin. It was also located in the middle of the fighting lines. There was more requirements for intact bridges to the south where General Patton's and General Bradley's troops were entering Germany proper. And in the north it was General Montgomery who led the second largest contingent into the Rhineland.

     This bridge at Remagen, called the Ludendorff Bridge was originally a railroad bridge with a single pedestrian pathway. The Germans had put planks across the bridge to allow vehicular traffic. But the Americans quickly put up two ponton bridges both upstream and downstream from the Remagen bridge because they knew the huge and heavy traffic of war would need these extra bridges.
And on the tenth day after capture, the Ludendorff bridge suddenly collapsed into the Rhine killing 28 soldiers of the Army Corps of Engineers. My father was in the 181st Engineering Corps, but his unit had been engaged in erecting one of the ponton bridges 3 miles upstream on the Rhine at Linz.

     There are memorial plaques on these remaining towers  honoring both Americans and Germans killed here. But the bridge no doubt has more presence in our minds because of that famous 1969 movie than because of any real strategic importance in history. Interestingly that symbolic importance has also found its way into several video games, one for Playstation and others. Even the movie that we watch every Christmas, The Wonderful Life refers to some WWII battle scenes and one character is sited as having died at Remagen taking the bridge. Since 2009, an annual reenactment of the battle at Remagen has been preformed at Tidioute, Pennsylvania where a bridge of similar structure to the Remagen bridge crosses the Allegheny River.

     When we did a river cruise on the Rhine a few years ago, I was looking for the remains of this bridge from the deck of our river ship, the Avalon. I felt a certain closeness to the area because I knew my father had been near here in 1945 working on ponton bridges. I was somewhat disappointed in seeing these two small stone towers set against a hill on the Rhine. If not forwarned, I could have easily missed them. For whatever reason, in our minds this bridge and the little town near it which gave the bridge its name have for us symbolized one of the more heroic episodes in the long story of World War II.