BEWARE OF TRAINS.

Schützenfest season continues, with "Die Parade der Hubertus-, Scheibenschützen, Artillerie, und Reiter" in Holzheim.

Note some train movements leading to pauses in the parade.  Note also that breaking ranks to avoid the horse-apples (what, nobody with a wheelbarrow and scoop shovel in the circus fashion?) is permissible.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

Your reminder that every media figure in the past 10 years who posed as the defender of democracy just meant “I want libs to win elections and court cases.” https://t.co/j7gvajO364

— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) June 28, 2025

Well, why not?  "Liberals who claim 'democracy is dying' seem to view democracy as getting what you want when you want it."  Stated bluntly!  "When they referred to 'our democracy,' Democrats always meant 'our hegemony.'"  Deviate from that hegemony at your peril.  "It's always the 'we must protect our democracy' people who don't like the Constitution or institutions like the Supreme Court when they don't rule the way they want."

Thanks, feminists.  "The partisan gender gap, begun some 40 years ago as feminists decried toxic masculinity, has been widening in recent years as bros recoil at toxic femininity."

The weekly round-up of mostly pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes follows.

A PROBLEM LONG FESTERING.

The [Not the Detroit] Free Press contributor Zac Bissonette laments "The Death of the Public Library."  Not because of fiscal stinginess in Washington or the local town hall, either.  "Public libraries are in decline not because of the internet or because people are reading less, but because they have become de facto homeless shelters."

Once upon a time, library inclusivity was something to commend.  I recall a local interest reporter for Milwaukee's Journal (yes, after the merger but before the name change) doing a compare-and-contrast of Milwaukee's Central Library with the nearby Marquette University library.  My memory is hazy as this is an old story, the reporter characterized the students going about their business at Marquette, including using the card catalog, as somehow creating a more elite environment than was the case at Central Library, where people down on their luck came over from the Rescue Mission to look at the classified advertisements.  (How many things did I just name that the younglings have no knowledge thereof?)

A SCHISM WORTH HAVING.

I've cracked wise about how those present in New England ("New England town clusters (East Millpond, Millpond Centre, Millpond Hall, Millpond Heights) represent an irreconcilable breakdown of consensus among relatively like-minded people") and sometimes congregations fret over the hymnal.

Then there was the creation of the American Baptist Assembly.

Jennifer Cromack was combing through the American Baptist archive when she uncovered a slim box among some 18th and 19th century journals. Opening it, she found a scroll in pristine condition.

A closer look revealed the 5-foot-long document was a handwritten declaration titled “A Resolution and Protest Against Slavery," signed by 116 New England ministers in Boston and adopted March 2, 1847. Until its discovery in May at the archives in Groton, American Baptist officials worried the anti-slavery document had been lost forever after fruitless searches at Harvard and Brown universities and other locations. A copy was last seen in a 1902 history book.

“I was just amazed and excited,” Cromack, a retired teacher who volunteers at the archive, said. “We made a find that really says something to the people of the state and the people in the country. ... It speaks of their commitment to keeping people safe and out of situations that they should not be in."

The document offers a glimpse into an emerging debate over slavery in the 18th century in the Northeast. The document was signed 14 years before the start of the Civil War as a growing number of religious leaders were starting to speak out against slavery.

It is only fitting and proper that such a document remain in a local church office rather than an Ivy League university.  Boston's First Baptist  affiliate with the American Baptist Churches maintaining an office in Valley Forge.  I wonder if there's a copy of that scroll in the archives there.

RUNNING BEYOND THE WIRES.

Here's one more thing for New York public radio to put into their next pledge drive.  Study shows switch to electric buses poses challenges.

A new study shows the switch to electric buses may be tricky in colder climates.

Cornell University mechanical engineering professor Max Zhang said there are potentially a lot of upsides to using electric buses.

"There are potentially environmental benefits," he said. "You reduce greenhouse gases. There are health benefits in terms of reducing human exposure to diesel exhaust."

But there are also challenges. Zhang and other researchers at Cornell looked at how seven electric buses responded to the Ithaca area over a two-year period.

The study found that batteries on the electric buses consumed 48 percent more energy in cold weather (25-32°F). Zhang said it’s more efficient to charge electric vehicles when the battery is still warm, but buses are used more frequently than electric cars.

"For electric buses, they're operating all day, and the only time, potential time, you can charge them is after their service," Zhang said.

For optimal battery usage, communities with cold weather could work toward providing enough inside space and charging stations to charge their buses immediately after their routes. Zhang also pointed out that buses can struggle to keep cabins warm in the winter, particularly in urban areas with frequent stops for passengers.

"I think that definitely is another reason for the higher energy consumption for electric buses, to basically maintain the cabin temperature to the desirable range," he said.

In this situation, communities could consider having the bus doors open for less time at each stop.

Gosh, what would we ever do without studies?  The mind boggles at the prospect of an impatient electric bus operator scolding a transit-dependent older person about taking so much time to board, or some policy by which one or two passengers at most are permitted to board.  Let the record show that in winter, the biggest power expense at preservation railways operating Santa trolleys is for the electricity used to heat the cars: the traction draw is about the same summer or winter.

IT GETS TIRESOME.

"People die when the government messes up."  Well, yes, but the argument usually presents as emotional blackmail.  "Do Republicans Want Some of Us to Die?"  "Millions Will Die Unless US Aid Money is Replaced."  "Incompetence Is Not Virtue.  Also, People Will Die."  "Public radio, a matter of life and death."

FARCICAL ANTI-HEROES.

It might have presented as prole drift, or as a transgressive arms race where there were no limits to the crudity.  "I remember when tattoos went from being the province of middle-aged men who had survived World War II and picked up a tat on the night before they hit the beach in Normandy, and began to be worn on the arms (or butts, in Cher’s case) of 'transgressive' pop stars."

That was Ed Driscoll of Pajamas Media, meditating on the Super Bowl, but resonating with a fear of mine that there were creative people who took transgressive stances as a product differentiation tactic.  "Changing core values, though, is all about mentally disturbed people claiming their condition is actually being on the cutting edge of social evolution."

MONTAGUES AND CAPULETS.

In Monday's Meme Madness Twitchy's Fuzzy Chimp included this.

Best orchestra prank ever, the funniest trombone section, WAIT FOR IT!!😅 pic.twitter.com/9nDAAT1ynE

— 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 ✨🎵 (@Hoang_HQ) July 11, 2025

Who knew Prokofiev offered an ad-libbing opportunity.

WOODY ALLEN MOVIES OUGHT NOT BE LIFE-COACHING MANUALS.

"Nobody Has a Personality Anymore," laments [Not the Detroit] Free Press contributor Freya India.  Her key insight?  "Therapy-speak has taken over our language. It is ruining how we talk about romance and relationships, narrowing how we think about hurt and suffering, and now, we are losing the words for who we are."

A PROTOTYPE FOR EVERYTHING.

Some years ago I found somebody's attempt at building an interurban car that never got finished and wound up as a bargain purchase at a swap meet.

My thinking: perfect control trailer to pair with a doodlebug.

Now comes "Unexpected New York Central" at Hicks Car Works, and among the photographs, a Michigan Railways heavy steel combine, repurposed as control trailer MT-9.

Image linked from Hicks Car Works.

The prototypes all went for scrap.  The model is back in the shop line somewhere, awaiting onboard power to be put on the doodlebug first.

THE INCOHERENCE OF PROGRESSIVE GROCERY STORE POLICY.

Let's see if I understand progressive grocery store policy.  On one hand, when a state liquor commission or food commission use its negotiating power to acquire cases of vodka or crates of fruit at better prices, that's serving the Public Interest.  On the other, when a national retail chain, whether it's the now-departed A&P or the more recent Wal-Mart, or even one of the dollar stores, use its negotiating power to acquire cases of vodka or jars of pickles at better prices, those are unfair methods of competition. And somehow those unfair methods of competition lead to the closure of independent grocers and the creation of food deserts, which is to say, people living at some distance from the nearest dollar store or super center, because those unfair competitors can't be bothered to set up shop closer to those people.

That was the abstract.  Here are the details.

The surprise winner of New York City's mayoral primary proposes to set up a Gastronom in each borough, in order to ensure that comrades get sufficient fresh vegetables.  We find the case for soupcan socialism in, predictably, The Progressive, where Glenn Daigon asks, "Is It Time for a Public Option for Groceries?"  His case opens, also predictably, with the argumentum ad misericordiam.

Amy Stevens, who lives in a town of fewer than 3,000 people in central Georgia, has to drive thirty minutes to buy fresh food. “It is shocking that we are surrounded by food growers, but we have to travel to get that food,” she told 13WMAZ last September.

Melissa Kaemingk’s trip from her home in Maple Falls, Washington, to the nearest grocery store with fresh food isn’t short, either. A one-way trip to buy nutritious food, she told the Cascadia Daily News in January, is twenty-seven miles—at least a twenty-five minute drive each way.

Both of these women live in food deserts, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines as either urban areas where more than a third of the population lives more than one mile away from the nearest grocery store, or rural areas where the same proportion of the population lives more than ten miles away. According to the latest USDA report, 17.4 percent of U.S. citizens live in food deserts.

Inconvenient transportation distances are not the only challenge for residents of food deserts. For those whose most readily accessible food options are highly processed foods such as fast food, obesity and diabetes rates are higher, while life expectancy is lower.

“The impact of not having access to fresh, healthy food in their lives has an impact on their health and, in turn, has an impact on the vitality of that community, including the economic activity,” Jose Luis Rojas, chief lending officer of the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund (LEAF) tells The Progressive. LEAF is a nonprofit that finances organizations that embrace shared ownership, such as food, housing, and worker co-ops.

For many advocates, public grocery stores—which are intended to provide a service to the public, rather than solely to make a profit——are seen as an increasingly viable option to combat food deserts in low-income communities, as well as price gouging by private grocery chains in higher income neighborhoods. These stores can be owned and operated by a variety of entities, including the government, nonprofit organizations, public-private partnerships, or cooperatives made up of consumers.

“Public options are part of the fabric of this country,” Margaret Mullins, director of policy options and government for the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, tells The Progressive. “They expand freedom and opportunity and give people access to services they might not be able to get or afford.”

With respect to that incoherent progressive grocery store policy, the article clearly begins in medias res, with no background on why local grocers left central Georgia or Maple Falls.  (To get into the economics of shipping the good apples or peaches out will take us too far afield.)  Were these places once served by Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery, until the A&P or Wal-Mart set up supermarkets and later super centers a convenient drive away?  Or are these the kind of places that the likes of Kevin Williamson would argue should be left to depopulate?  Moreover, those people have cars to drive, rather than a bicycle or a pony and trap to make those food runs.  How well nourished were their ancestors?  Oh, and maybe shipping the local good apples and peaches out had something going for it in the form of disposable income for the locals.  Finally, that complaint about "price gouging" in "higher income neighborhoods" suggests something else might be going on, and perhaps by the time this mini-dissertation ends we'll have clarity there.

LET'S STOP ENABLING IRRESPONSIBILITY, WE MIGHT GET LESS OF IT.

Mental health experts reveal reason why some people can’t help being late.  What, oh what, would we ever do without experts?

Chronic lateness can be frustrating for those left waiting and is often attributed to laziness and carelessness.

But experts say a health issue called time blindness could be to blame for perpetual tardiness.

Often misunderstood as an inability to perceive time, the condition disrupts a person’s ability to estimate how long it will take to complete tasks, affecting everything from daily routines to long-term productivity.

Scroll down to the key message of the article.

Time blindness is not listed in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which is the accepted reference book for mental health and brain-related conditions, [Laurie] Singer noted.

While there is no formal diagnosis for the condition, the inability to perceive and manage time is included in the DSM-5 criterion for ADHD.

Laurie Singer runs her own (bespoke?) behavioral services shop in (where else?) California.  If by now, you're fearful that in the same way that "mental health experts" have tried to spin skepticism about Islam as "Islamophobia" (not in the manual) or about troubled boys in girls' sports as "transphobia" (not in the manual) you might be right.

In daily life, time blindness can manifest as missed deadlines, difficulty transitioning between tasks, or underestimating how long a task will take, resulting in stress and frustration, according to experts.

Socially, it may be interpreted as disrespectful or careless behavior toward others, potentially damaging relationships.

Sometimes that's focus, sometimes that's a power move, sometimes that's optimism about what one can get done.  Yes, there are multiple confounding factors that might be leading to somebody's lack of punctuality.  "The condition can also appear in individuals with autism, OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder), traumatic brain injuries, depression, anxiety, and even conditions like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, experts say."

Fine.  It's good manners to be sensitive to people dealing with brain injuries, depression, and chronic debilitation.  It's also good manners to show up on time.

INCOMPETENCE, STILL THE SIMPLEST EXPLANATION.

Our President included among the campaign promises he has kept to release more classified documents involving President Kennedy's last trip.  Red State's Ward Clark hailed that request.

It's probably unrealistic to expect any huge revelations from these documents. Many of them are likely to be copies of documents that have already been released. Others may prove to be not directly related to the assassination. If there were any documents in any of these archives that contained information of any conspiracy, any additional gunmen on the famous grassy knoll or elsewhere, they would have likely been removed many years ago by people who had something to gain from keeping the secret — or their existence would have been blown by someone who wanted to become rich and famous by blowing open the greatest political conspiracy in the history of the republic.

Still, we have a right to know what lies in those records, even at this distance in time. If there were any shenanigans, not just around the assassination of President Kennedy but later in the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, we have a right to know about it. And if it turns out that nothing new is revealed, well, we have a right to know that as well.

Shortly thereafter, Peter Savodnik, writing for The [Not the Detroit] Free Press, asserted, "The people don’t want the truth."  It's worth recalling, dear reader, that although Free Press contributors are refugees from the excessively trendy coastal cosmopolitan media, many of them still share that class's contempt for Normals.  "[I]f you want to believe that Oswald was not the lone shooter, that he was part of some massive, labyrinthine plot, you can certainly extract lots of intriguing tidbits—circumstantial pieces that, with the right soundtrack, the right lens, can be made to sound very unsettling."  He goes on to note something that regular readers of Cold Spring Shops have long understood, namely that no intelligence officer worth his diplomatic cover would have recruited Lee Oswald.

Committee members kept pushing Nosenko to confirm the theory that the Kremlin was involved in JFK’s killing.

But in these newly released documents, Nosenko reports that the KGB found Oswald to be not “interesting,” and that was why they didn’t recruit him. Nosenko’s questioners were unpersuaded. They continued to theorize aloud that the Soviets must have been secretly steering Oswald.

“He might have been a cryptographer in the Marine Corps,” Congressman Harold Sawyer said to Nosenko. “He might have been, as an enlisted man, he might have been a cryptographer and know all our codes and code methodology that might help break codes and that sort of thing, but nobody ever asked him. That is what I don’t understand. And I can’t believe it, very frankly.”

But it's easier for even a disgruntled coastal cosmopolitan to trash the Normals than it is to see what is right in front of his nose.

Now the conspiracy theorists are, increasingly, the power. The president of the United States, the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (RFK Jr., JFK’s nephew), Joe Rogan (whose audience is bigger than that of every legacy media outfit in the country), a growing constellation of influencers and mini-influencers on the MAGA right—they’re all promulgators of, or believers in, alternative explanations, to put it charitably, of the assassination of the 35th president of the United States.

We imagine the conspiracy theorists being on the outside looking in—tired and schlubby and marginalized—but these people are on the inside, which has legitimized and popularized their conspiracy theorizing. It’s not just that many, even most, Americans don’t believe the truth about the Kennedy assassination. (That’s been the case from the beginning.) It’s that their conspiracy theorizing is becoming more elastic.

So soon after the corona tyranny, it's healthy to be skeptical of Official Pronouncements.  It's that skepticism that keeps the Kennedy - Dallas - Vast Conspiracy industry in work.

But no, there’s nothing in all the new JFK documents—at least, nothing that has been unearthed so far—that should cause anyone to rethink the conventional wisdom, which is that, on November 22, 1963, at around 12:30 p.m. Central Time, in Dealey Plaza, in Dallas, Texas, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, fired two bullets at the convertible in which President Kennedy was sitting, and that the first bullet hit his upper back and the second one pierced his skull, ultimately killing him.

The question we should be asking is why we are so determined to believe that we are being lied to, why we cling to this faith, or anti-faith, with an unbreakable tenacity.

We want to think that, on the one hand, we are possessors of some world-shattering truth—that the “truth” is not the truth—and we also want to believe that we are impotent. We seek to communicate to the world that we know what’s up but can do nothing about it. We crave the permanent smirk, the angry pose.

The Cold Spring Shops position has long been that incompetence, not some CIA or Mafia or KGB plot got Lee Oswald into a day job with a view of the motorcade, and incompetence, not some cleverly orchestrated tidying of loose ends, got Lee Oswald dead while in police custody.  That post offered at least one stronger explanation for the CIA documents remaining classified.

One is that U. S. intelligence was running and continues to run a CARDINAL style operation in the Kremlin, and the redacted passages would reveal specifics they'd rather the Russians not know. Yes, I went all Tom Clancy on you. Deal with it. The second is more troubling. We know domestic counterespionage (primarily the FBI) was aware of Lee Oswald and on occasion interviewed him. Were there recriminations about the Bureau not paying more attention to him the week of the motorcade? Or are the recriminations about their handling of the Edwin Walker investigation. The former general lived in part because the shooter, allegedly Oswald's, aim was off, and because the general, who was working on his taxes, chose the moment of the shot to give his eyes a rest.

Now those documents are out, and there was no CARDINAL operation in progress.  Here's Hot Air's David Strom, and strain though he does, the best he can do is suggest CIA preferred to conceal their slip-ups.

After six decades of life, I have become a terrible cynic, but I still don't believe the CIA actively conspired to kill the president. Still, I am perfectly willing to believe that they conspired to cover up their gross or even criminal negligence in allowing it to happen. I've never believed that Johnson had Kennedy killed--no, I am not CERTAIN he didn't, but it strikes me as vanishingly unlikely--and a CIA conspiracy to kill the president seems way too risky for all involved. Too many potential leaks to risk it, even if they wanted to.

My personal theory has been that Cuba was behind the assassination. Oswald was a communist, had deep ties to Cuba and the Soviet Union, and even visited the Cuban embassy in Mexico right before he killed the president.

I still believe that, and as then, I believe the massive cover-up in the United States was directed to hide the fact that all of this was easily prevented because the CIA had all the necessary evidence to do so, had they connected the obvious dots.

In a new tranche of documents, we learn more about the CIA's contacts with Oswald and that the agency lied to the Warren Commission, Congress, and everybody else for decades.

Pajamas Media's Matt Margolis comes to a less wrought understanding of the same documents.

Let’s be clear: the new evidence doesn’t show that [intelligence officer George] Joannides or the CIA ordered a hit on Kennedy. But it does reveal a level of incompetence and subsequent cover-up that’s breathtaking even by Washington standards. The CIA was warned repeatedly about Oswald. They had every reason to know he was a dangerous, unstable man with deep communist ties and a penchant for violence. They watched him, they interacted with him, and then they utterly failed to connect the dots. After the fact, they did what bureaucracies always do—they circled the wagons and buried the truth.

Which is exactly where we were sixty years ago.  The FBI, with the responsibility for keeping track of communist sympathizers while in the United States, didn't notice Lee Oswald going from New Orleans to Mexico to fruitlessly remonstrate with the Cuban and Soviet embassies to return to Dallas and to secure work at a warehouse that had a good view of the motorcade that had not yet been announced when he got the job.  That got an FBI man, James Hosty, on the wrong side of J. Edgar Hoover.  Read your Reclaiming History.  The CIA, tasked with keeping track of Communist machinations overseas, might even have noticed Lee Oswald going to those embassies in Mexico City, but as none of the known controllers of agents took a meeting with him and as far as CIA could see, he was sent away without any invitation to come back, and as there were limits on how CIA and FBI could cooperate, once Oswald got back into the States, it was FBI's job to keep track on his movements.  Which apparently they didn't.  Oops.

After sixty years of governmental credibility gaps, shouldn't we well understand that public officials will deceive us (we can end poverty, we are winning in Vietnam, there are weapons of mass destruction, social distancing works) and the non-actions of FBI and CIA alike are simply the normal course of governmental events?

Isn't that simpler, dear reader, than the sort of mental gymnastics people must engage in to support their claims of a plot?

[I]mprobabilities magnify when conspiracy theories have to explain what actually happened. Five shots are wildly improbable, and in sixty years, despite all efforts there has never been physical evidence of any other shooter. The bullets supposedly fired by the two other mystery shooters have never been recovered.

Oswald did it, an action that was foreseeable but poorly foreseen.

IT'S BEEN GOING ON FOR AT LEAST A QUARTER CENTURY.

Strong Towns founder Charles Marohn visited an infrastructure conference in New Zealand.

I came prepared to be curious. I expected to find a radically different place, shaped by its own geography, politics, and history. And in many ways, the parts of New Zealand I experienced were that. But the more I listened, the more I spoke with people, the more I realized: The problems they’re facing—the ones keeping local leaders awake at night—are strikingly, painfully familiar.

When I got up to speak, I opened with a disclaimer: “I’m going to talk about the United States because that’s the context I know. Please feel free to tell me afterward how different it is here.” And then I started talking about our struggles: cities that can’t maintain their roads, water systems failing in places big and small, development that doesn’t pay for itself yet is locked into place by outdated regulations that make adaptation nearly impossible, and the quiet bankruptcy creeping up on communities that built too much, too fast, without doing the math.

When I finished, people lined up to talk. Not to argue. But to say, “That’s us, too.”

He built more recovery margin into his schedules than I do, discovering on his first (domestic) flight that he had not packed his passport and still managed to arrange a work-around either to retrieve it or to have other arrangements made before boarding his overseas trip.  The missing passport has been a nightmare once or twice but thus far I've always had it on hand before hopping the limo to the airport (or, in one instance, to the railway station.)

HOW DID YOUR WORK WEEK GO?

What better way to close out a week of reporting on Eventful Things than with a sketch worthy of Mad?

That's a wrap for this week. Thanks for looking in.

FRIDAY short TAKES.

Donald Trump Is Not Gonna Bomb Iran. (Never mind.)  We finished the job.

The eternally unpleasant.  "My people don’t fly the American flag. In fact, we hate the flag and what it represents: a deeply flawed nation. And we don’t like the Americans who proudly wave it either. Patriotism has always been for other people, or other generations."  Read it in full, she gave up on the people she thought of as "my people."

Winning.  "Biden is quoted as saying, 'Many of the things I worked so damn hard, that I thought I changed in the country, are changing so rapidly.'  You can almost hear everyone who voted for Trump answering, 'Yes, that’s the point.'"

Political economy is hard.  "Republicans once talked seriously about aligning taxes and spending.  They cared about economic distortion, simplicity, and broadening the tax base.  Now, too many just want the sugar rush of tax cuts without fiscal discipline.  Meanwhile, Democrats want to vastly expand the state and pretend that billionaires alone can foot the bill.  Both sides are wrong.  The math doesn't work, and the morality of the reckless spending is worse."

A lot can happen in three weeks.  The resumption of pithy elaborations on traditional Cold Spring Shops themes will focus today on the more timely topics.  The mix of pessimistic labels is deliberate.

WRINGING OUT THE ATMOSPHERE.

Thursday, it was the State Line's turn for heavy rain and flash flooding.  Rockford and Belvidere got the brunt of it.

Unattributed WIFR photograph, somewhere on the east side of Rockford.

Today was supposed to be the Alpine Kiwanis Brat Days, a fund-raiser that sometimes features the Johnsonville Monster Grill, with drive-through and eat-outside options at the Cherry Valley Mall and a Love's Park Farm and Fleet.  The weather gods had other plans.

“With the structure damage, the tent damage, tents that have been blown all over across Riverside and in other businesses’ yards and on the roads. We are unfortunately going to have to cancel this event,” said Karen Tilly with the Alpine Kiwanis Club.

Tilly also notes the group has to cancel the event for the health and safety of the community.

She tells WIFR she was setting up at the Brat Day’s space at the Blains Farm and Fleet in Loves Park when the extreme winds, rain and hail hit.

“At one point, everything was blowing; the tent blew into my car, and then the porta potty actually hit my car,” explained Tilly.

Both Tilly and Kathy Vigna with Alpine Kiwanis Brat Days say it’s with heavy hearts they have to cancel the event, but call on registered volunteers for support.

“If you’re around, if you could go to one of the two sights and help us clean up, that would be super,” said Vigna. “This is the first time in 54 years that this has happened to us. We’re pretty sad about it.”

But they urge volunteers to be cautious because the tent structures at both locations are not safe.

Tilly says they hope insurance will get there early enough to determine it is safe enough. They hope to start cleaning up somewhere around 9 a.m. Friday.

A decision to reschedule will be made in the near future, according to the organization.

We'll follow up with news of a rescheduled event, should that be the case.  Because high summer is short and the inclement season formerly known as winter running long, there are lots of competing events this time of year.

SOMETHING BREWING IN MILWAUKEE.

The Brewers called up pitching prospect Jacob Misiorowski in June and he put on a show.

Jacob Misiorowski made history in his Major League Baseball debut Thursday night with the Milwaukee Brewers, becoming just the ninth pitcher since 1901 to throw at least five no-hit innings in his first start.

The Milwaukee Brewers' top pitching prospect showed why he's been highly anticipated, with his first three pitches each reaching triple digits on the radar gun. Misiorowski was pulled early in the sixth inning after rolling his ankle.

The Brewers were far enough ahead for Aaron Ashby to earn a nine-out save.

THE PERILS OF RAILWAY PRESERVATION.

During our time away from social media, I worked in visits to two preservation railways on my way home.  My first call was at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, which recently opened its interpretive center.

Each of those kiosks with step stools for the littlest ferroequinologists offers a different interactive, in the best, old-school Museum of Science and Industry way, way to introduce people to a late nineteenth century technology.  And yes, that interurban car at left includes a controller, brake handle, and video screens for a visitor to attempt to control an electric car.  In real life, think "handling an automobile on an icy street."

A SAD PROPHESY COMING TRUE?

Cold Spring Shops, three years ago.  "In my gloomier moments, I wonder if we're not one looted convenience store away from some jurisdictions again becoming sundown towns."