Bruce's Smorsasborg

By Bruce Shawkey Ford is most known for cars, but they also made farm tractors. The company began making tractors in 1907, when Henry Ford and two associates built an experimental tractor they called the "automotive plow." The Fordson, the first mass-produced tractor, was introduced to American farmers in 1918. I found a 1948 operators manual for a Ford Tractor on the Internet. Here's a picture of of the tractor in the manual: The tractor cost around $1,000, which was quite a chunk of money back then, equivalent to approximately $13,000 in today's dollars. Here is an article on Ford tractors from the Internet:  Mr. Ford was the pioneer for mass production of automobiles. Less well known is that Ford Motor Company also claims that Ford was the first to mass produce tractors for the  U.S. farm industry. The first experimental Ford tractor was built in 1907, and at the time, Henry Ford called it his “Automobile plow.” The first tractor came with an engine and copper wate...

 By Bruce Shawkey Lots to do in and around Prairie du Chien, Wis.. One of the things to do is tour Fort Crawford. It contains remnants of a military hospital which offered care for sick and wounded soldiers beginning in 1831. Dr. William Beaumont, the post surgeon, helped found the study of medicine when he researched digestion at the fort during the 1830s. The building contains several exhibits, including an 1830s ward room explaining Dr. Beaumont's experiments, artifacts discovered at the fort barracks, and an antique pharmacy and dentist office. Then, there's Villa Louis, home to fur trader Hercules Dousman (1800 – 1868). Through his various enterprises as a fur trader, lumberman, land speculator and frontier entrepreneur, Dousman would acquire a fortune. Right across the Mississippi River, in McGregor, Iowa, was another attraction, Moody's Musical Museum. It featured a collection of mechanical pianos, orchestrations, and other musical instruments. The museum included a ...

 Bruce Shawkey East Towne Mall in the early '70s One of the things I really enjoyed as a teenager in the '70s was going to the mall, in my case, the East Towne Mall, Madison. Opened in 1971, it had four "anchor" stores (J.C. Penny, Sears, Gimbels, and Prange's) and numerous smaller stores, including a Burger King, an arcade, and a McCrory's drug store with a lunch counter. Even a movie theater with two auditoriums. Many a time as a senior in high school with a freshly minted drivers' license, me and my buddies would cruise on over to East Towne during our lunch break and have a "Whopper-Fry-Coke" at the Burger King (costing $1.50 by the way), followed with a game or two of Foosball and/or pinball at the arcade next door. Video games were just coming into vogue, including "Pong" and little later "Pac Man." I even had a part-time job at J.C. Penny as a shoe salesman at the young age of 17 through a work/study program at my high ...

 by Bruce Shawkey I was introduced to Robert Kiyosaki's money-making system in my travels to Florida. One of my landlords, Heather, was a Kiyosaki disciple and had actually made some money and even worked for the Kiyosaki organization for awhile. I don't believe she ever actually met Kiyosaki, but she traveled around the country and helped set up his seminars, which could cost anywhere from $500 to $15,000 a person. She bought up a few distressed properties and fixed them up with the help of her fiancé. Of course, this was during the time of the big real estate bust, I believe 2008-2009, when you could pick up cheap properties that had been foreclosed on by the banks. Kiyosaki has been both praised and panned by financial experts, the latter of which say his advice is dubious at best. But his followers adore him, even when the real estate market recovered. Kiyosaki has had to shift his emphasis away from real estate and to other commodities, including gold and other rare metal...

 By Bruce Shawkey Eighty-five years after its release in 1939, the Wizard of Oz movie continues to thrill children and even adults (me, anyway). It was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). It had an all-star cast, including Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, and Margaret Hamilton, and of course, the Munchkins. It was a film adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy story. I found some of the original artwork for the book on the Internet, and here it is: Much of that movie's script has even crept into our popular lexicon:     "We're not in Kansas any more."     " There's no place like home."     " Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." It used to scare the be-Jesus out of me as a youngster with the scenes of the wicked witch flying on her broomstick, flying monkeys, and the wizard stirring up all kinds of fire before he was "outed." Did you know Margaret Hamilton later did co...

  Grandma (Mabel) Quam. For some reason, she never looked directly into the camera, fearful maybe that it was an act of vanity.   Anyway, this picture was taken on the porch stoop of my grandparents' home July 1969, when Mabel was 74 years old. S Here is Mom and Dad's wedding photo, circa 1942. Dad is in his uniform, a corporal in the Airforce stationed at Truax Field in Madison, Wis., as an aircraft radio repairman. Mom is 24, already pregnant with my brother Curt. Such a slut! She had already been boinked by a previous lover in Lodi, Wis., we assume a high school boyfriend by the name of David Moul, who would figure prominently in her later life. The wedding gown, by the way, was borrowed from a cousin, Arlene Steffenhagen. They didn't have a lot of money in those days.

By Bruce Shawkey I suppose like many people, my earliest memory is of a traumatic event. I was four years old, and was given eye eye surgery to correct a crossed eye. As a small kid, it didn't bother me; I could see okay. But my parents knew if it wasn't corrected, I would be teased unmercifully in school. There aren't very many photos of me at an early age. I suppose my parents didn't want me to be remembered as cross-eyed. Most photos I've seen are shot from the side. One of the few photos I have of me at an early age is seen at left, presumably my first birthday with a cupcake and a single candle. Mom and Dad didn't have a lot money back then! Anyway, when I was four years old, before Kindergarten, I was playing in the backyard one day, and Mom threw me a candy bar from the fire escape off the second floor of our apartment. She asked if I wanted another one and of course I said yes. Mom knew me well and knew how to get my attention!  She told me to come up to...

 By Bruce Shawkey This is hands-down my favorite eating apple. It was developed at the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station's Horticultural Research Center at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. It was patented in 1988, and released in 1991. It was once slated to be discarded, but rapidly become a prized commercial commodity, as its sweetness, firmness, and tartness make it an ideal apple for eating raw. The apple wasn't bred to grow, store or ship well. It was bred for taste: crisp, with balanced sweetness and acidity. The Honeycrisp also retains its pigment well and has a relatively long shelf life when stored in cool, dry conditions.  Pepin Heights Orchards delivered the first Honeycrisp apples to grocery stores in 1997. The name Honeycrisp was trademarked by the University of Minnesota. It is now the official state fruit of Minnesota. I'm not sure the Honeycrisp is the best pie apple. I prefer a tart apple for pies. My grandmother made the best apple pies, us...

 By Bruce Shawkey I had a buddy, Don Kershner, who worked for National Cash Register (NCR). He sold customized receipts and waitress order pads to bars and restaurants. He eventually was forced into retirement when electronics came into being and cash registers basically became obsolete. He hung out a lot at the old Avenue Bar on East Washington Ave. The Avenue was one of Don's customers, and we met there many times for lunch and trading. He was a watch collector and I bought, traded, and sold many watches with him. NCR made many types of specialized equipment for different industries, but one I found most interesting was this one made for United Airlines for printing passenger tickets.  I mean, look at the thing! It must have over 100 keys. I'll bet it took an operator over a week to learn how to operate the darn thing. This ad is from the 1950s and was probably the last of mechanical ticketing machines before the computer age. But even in the '60s ticket agents were sti...

 by Bruce Shawkey One of my heart throbs growing up was Raquel Welch. She starred in many movies, but my favorite was Fantastic Voyage, about a submarine crew which is shrunk to microscopic size and venture into the body of an injured scientist to repair damage to his brain. In one scene, Welch is attacked by antibodies while in her diving suit as she attempts to destroy the brain tumor with a laser gun. Her team members attempt to scrape those antibodies off her suit and I remember thinking 'I wish I could volunteer for that job.' Jo Raquel Welch (née Tejada; September 5, 1940 – February 15, 2023) was an American actress. Welch first gained attention for her role in Fantastic Voyage (1966), after which she signed a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox. They lent her contract to the British studio Hammer Film Productions, for whom she made One Million Years B.C. (1966). Although Welch had only three lines of dialogue in the film, images of her in the doe-skin bikini became ...