From Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator (1940)

Read about the film here.

Note to Congress:

Pass the Jobs Bill (Mr. Obama's)

It is a busy time.  I am recorder for two organizations and have had to get two notices out regarding meetings coming up (one on the 23rd and one on Oct. 1.)  I also have to get ready for the meetings so I have been too busy to think. Hope you have a great Thursday.  The week-end is coming.  This week-end there are breakfasts at two Masonic Lodges in Des Moines - One on Sunday and one on Saturday.  both are good deals so if you are free check them out.

Time 
Saturday, September 17 · 7:30am - 10:30am


Beverdale Masonic Lodge

Masonic Lodge behind Christopher's is having the best pancakes in town this Saturday the 15th. All the trimmings, Scrambled Eggs, Link Sausage, Biscuits & Gravy, the whole 9 yards. All you can eat too.

Help the Masons continue their charitable works by supporting their local events.
Come have coffee, eat and visit with your friends for a while.


See you there.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
And on Sunday

1141 69th St, Windsor Heights, IA is the address where Waveland Park Lodge holds a breakfast (8:00 - 12:00) every month for the benefit of their scholarship fund and also to help kids at Parkland Academy with supplies and warm coats as well as mittens, etc.

Sunday is the monthly breakfast at Waveland Park

We are having scrambled eggs, link sausage, PANCAKES, biscuits and gravy, milk, coffee, and juice. Love to see you all come in and sit a spell

Not only is it a worthwhile cause you can get a great breakfast for $6. and they are helping kids at the same time.  

Someone (Dom) sent me this... I had a roommate who used to have a beer for breakfast. Have a good day. Hugs.

My family helped build this town.

Probably the most wonderful traffic convenience in our town is the underpass.  This is a picture of it being built.  It came from the Ames Historical Society Web Site.


Why am I featuring it?  Because today I want to brag about my family. This is a picture of my grandfather and his three brothers

The Cole brothers, left to right: Ben, William, Lew, and Clarence.

The four Cole brothers, who were active in the business and professional life of early Ames.  Lew Cole (1880-1954), a farmer and owner of a Landfill South of town; William (Will) Cole (1871-1955); Clarence "Dig" Cole (1882-1968), a veterinarian who from 1927 to 1952 was the head of the Hog Cholera Station, the forerunner to the National Animal Disease Laboratories, in Ames; and Ben Cole (1873-1939), a builder whose company, Ben Cole & Son, constructed the Grand Avenue underpass in 1937-1938 (See picture above) and the new Ames High School (since 1990, the Ames City Hall) which opened for classes in the fall of 1939 on the west corner of Sixth Street and Clark Avenue. 

Again from the Historical Society's connection to the Farwell T. Brown Photo Archives


John Cole, (My great-grandfather)  a Civil War veteran, came to Ames in 1865 at age 19. He became a builder and erected this building on Onondaga (Main) Street in 1895 at the commission of Professor Joseph L. Budd, head of the Horticulture Department at Iowa State College. 


The building's first occupant was the Fair Store, founded by Joseph Jacobs in September, 1895. Located on the south side of Main Street, east of Kellogg Avenue,... Shown here (around 1913) are E. W. Valentine, Joseph Jacobs, three unidentified male clerks, Catherine Cole, Ethel Meeker, and Kate McMichael (later Mrs. Lew Cole). 


My great uncles were a part of my life as I was growing up from 1941 until my mother remarried and we moved to Atlantic Iowa in 1951 (?)  My Uncle Lew and my Aunt Kate (Kate McMichael in the picture above) were my school lunch program while I was in school.  Their home at 522 Crawford was about 4 blocks from school and I would go there every day for lunch and also on Wednesday evening.  On Wednesdays I would hang out with the slightly older boy who lived with his parents in the apartment upstairs.  I loved the house and the neighborhood (still do)  It had been built by my maternal great grandfather George Underwood who was tall and built it with high ceilings and doors.  He was mayor of Ames for a period and was also Master of Arcadia Lodge #249. (His daughter is in the picture just above Ethel Meeker).  


My Uncle Billy is a more distant memory because he was killed in a car accident when I was little. I don't remember Uncle Ben at all but I do remember his son who took over the Construction Firm.  My mother and I lived with my grandfather who did not like the name Clarence and went by "Doc" or "Dig" (He and the other Clarence who worked at the station called each other P.T. I found out later that the initials stood for Pig Turd.  They did work at the Hog Cholera Research station after all.)


There were five sisters - Elizabeth, Avis (school teacher in Ames for 40 years at Roosevelt School,)  Catherine (Kate) who worked at the University (in the picture above)  When I was little three of them lived in the "home place" at 13th and Burnett Ave. Aunts Jess and Nell were married and I did not know them very well)

Every Saturday night I would spend the night there and we (Aunt Kate, Aunt Kate Mike, Aunt Avis and I would all pile into Uncle Lew's car and go for a drive.  Many times we would stop outside "Red Shipley's Barber Shop in Campus town and wait while Uncle Lew went in and got his hairscut.  I remember his old Nash and how neat it was when I was finally able to stretch from door to door.  Uncle Lew seldom closed the door to his car.  He would just get in and gun the engine and the doors would close automatically. People describe him as a hard man to work for and he probably was but he treated his great nephew wonderfully.  I adored him and would ride around with him and go to the land fill where people were going through the mounds of trash to find things of worth that they could pick.  I suppose they were the first American Pickers.


William was my great-great grandfather and he was the one who brought the family to Ames in 1865. With all the history of the Cole family and the building that they did in this town it seems strange to me that there hasn't been a Cole Street somewhere in the town. 


Why did they come to Ames in 1865.  Simple - that was as far as the trains went at that time.  I think that it was a good move.  Ames has been a great place to live and I think my family has made some good contributions to Ames.


Oh, one more thing. Mrs. Meeker (my grandmother's sister) was a photographer and took lots of pictures.  I had books and books of pictures which I had in the basement for a long time.  No longer...what did I do with them?  I donated them to the Historical Society.  Seems to me they are better preserved there.  


Thanks for stopping by. Hope you enjoyed the little story. Hugs, j

Inquiring minds want to know

In a discussion in one of my nephew's college classes yesterday the following was overheard:

A student asked the professor"
"If a man marries another man in Iowa where same-sex marriage is legal, moves to Nebraska where it is not legal and marries a woman and then moves back to Iowa, would he be guilty of bigamy?"

I don't believe the issue was ever resolved.

Sunflower Sunrise - Photos by Bob Kelly

The colors of the morning sunrise, contrasted with the silhouette of an ethanol production plant, make a dramatic background for the lowly sunflowers being kissed by the glow of the dawn.  There is a good chance that the cornfield behind the sunflowers, will be harvested to produce ethanol in the months ahead.

Mike's Fish

This is my cousin (First, once removed) Michael's "Big Fish"  -  I caught a 13 pound Northern once. It was the most exciting fish I ever caught.  You can tell by the expression on Mike's face that he is pretty proud of this one.  Mike fishes for Muskie and he practices "catch and release" for a lot of the fish. He is one of the absolute nicest people I know.  He and his sister Amy are very special to me.  I think of them more as a niece and nephew than as a cousin.