7/29/00 - I guess my age and ignorance show when I have to go to a Country Music Festival to learn that a popular song of the day is "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy." We always thought of tractors as awkward, loud and dirty - but most of the guys that drove them were pretty sharp. Now, after three or four hours of emptying beer coolers, a few of the country music fans could be described as awkward, loud and dirty - which, I suppose, makes a cool, quiet, powerful, modern tractor look pretty good! Times change.
7/27/00 - It's not fair! The County Fair Board members are too fair. They can't be bribed. The people they picked to judge the Fair Queen Pagent at the high school earlier this evening couldn't be bribed, even though I've known one of them for years. They said the winner will be announced at 10 a.m. tomorrow, opening day of the Menominee County Fair, and they meant it. My whiny "But I can't be there. I have to leave at 9 a.m. to take someone to a doctor appointment in Escanaba," got no sympathy at all. So, if any of you are lucky enough to be at the Angeli's tent at Shakey Lakes tomorrow morning at 10 please let me know which of the five attractive, talented young women was crowned Fair Queen 'cause I'm sure the Fair Board members will be very, very busy for a while. They'll be making sure all fairgoers get three days of fair treatment.
7/25/00 - The County Fair is this weekend - 28th, 29th and 30th at Shakey Lakes. The Fair Board, particularly Nina Desjarlais and Stephanie Bruno, have really worked to make this the best ever by lining up activities and programs for all ages every day. There will be daily chainsaw woodcarving demonstrations, music at the pavilion, pony rides and milking contests, lots of food, and a wide variety of kids' activities (particularly on Friday). That's in addition to the animal and food and craft displays. The price is right this year too - only $2 per person at the gate. Check it out. You can hardly lose.
7/24/00 - Just in time July Horoscope: Watch out for July 28th. It will be a heck of a rotten day because everything will probably go right for a change and that will make you really, really nervous.
7/19/00 - Temperatures were in the chilly 50's Tuesday night but things warmed up considerably when the Riverfront Ramblers opened the concert on Stephenson Island in Marinette with a hot rendition of "Fidgety Feet." The Dixieland jazz group kept toes tapping and feet moving for nearly two hours with popular jazz and blues tunes. The crowds turn out, even in less than ideal weather, for the
concerts in Menominee on Thursday nights (the Robin Nolan Trio from Amsterdam this week) and in Marinette on Tuesday (Jess Hav'n Phun, featuring country and classic rock on July 25th).
7/18/00 - John Dedich's wife, Eloise, sometimes refers to him as Grandpa Moses. He's an electrical engineer who, after his retirement in 1990, joined an artist's group and developed a style of watercolor painting that has just a touch of the look of Grandma Moses' work, especially in a painting he did of the village of Nadeau as it was in the early 1900's. It and four other paintings showing the arrival of his ancestors, the Piche family, in the area in l886, th family home and barn scenes from the early 1900's, and a view of the farm as it is today, were donated to the Menominee County Library in Stephenson. The public was invited to an open house at the Library on Sunday to meet the artist.
John's mother was one of the nine children of the original Piche clan and Eloise's maiden name is Jenkins. They live in Marion, Iowa, now but both spent part of their early years in this area. Almost everyone in the mid and northern parts of Menominee County knows at least one Piche or Jenkins so the Dedichs were warmly welcomed "home" and soon had many visitors recalling those wonderful days when homes were heated with wood-burning stoves and many houses had a trapdoor in the kitchen or living room leading to a basement filled with canned goods, homemade wine, root beer and other treats.
The Dedich paintings are on permanent display in the Hayward Room and in the area of the main desk of the library.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please take a minute to write H. Barb Upton.
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