The Civil War, Some Hot Dogs, CDs and a Big Snow

SATURDAY, JANUARY 29

Drove to Crystal Lake, Illinois, for the McHenry County Civil War Round Table discussion meeting at Panera Bread.  Today's topic was the "The End, February and March 1865."  I, of course, brought up the Wilmington Campaign, also called the Battle of Wilmington, in North Carolina.  That was the follow-up to Fort Fisher's fall. 

It started snowing about half way through the meeting and coming down quite hard.  I decided not to go to Algonquin and visit Barnes & Noble or Half-Price Books because of it. Driving home, road conditions were getting quite bad.  

Stopped at Happy Jack's in McHenry for their great hot dogs and then The Vinyl Frontier Record Store, a real Mom and Pop store featuring albims, 45s and CDs as well as toys and stereo equipment.  One of my most fun places to go.

Snow conditions continued to get worse and I went home and stayed.  We had our biggest snowfall of the winter with around 8 inches by Sunday morning.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29

Way too much snow to shovel by hand, and sadly, stoll couldn't get the snowblower started.  Later, I heard a snowblower out in front of the house and saw that a new neighbor was clearing my driveway and sidewalk for me.  I tanked him and said I couldn't start my snowblower so he took it home to take a look at it.  What a great neighbor.

Later I drove to Sunnyside and actually got a seat at the bar, something very difficult to do in Sundays when it gets reallycrowded.  Watched the NFC Championship game and part of the AFC one.  Came home and watched the rest of it.

--RoadSnow

Two of My Favorite Things

The May 19, 2020, Hi and Lois cartoon strip hit home especially for me.

FIRST FRAME:

Lois is inside a store and speaks to someone else:  "It's great to see  a new brick-and-mortar business back in town..."

SECOND FRAME:

She finishes by say, "filled with paper and ink."

The owner of the store looks at her and says:  "Bookstores are back."

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I sure am going to miss brick-and-mortar stores.  I love to walk around and look.  You never know what you're going to find.  Plus, I really like bookstores.  I am a book freak, even if I don't usually read all of them, I love them.

I still miss my McHenry Borders and then the nearest Barnes and Noble to me in Crystal Lake, Illinois closed down. Even though they are Big Box stores, they had that little book store feel, plus, of course, music in the form of records and CDs.  My other favorite thing.

--RoadDog


LAUGHTER HELPS WITH THE "V":  "We all owe an apology to 2019 for what we said about it."

JSIS: Wings Crisis?-- Barnes & Noble

JSIS:  Just Some Interesting Stuff


1.  WINGS CRISIS?--  Super Bowl is becoming synonymous with chicken wings as far as eating goes.  hey, eggs at Easter, chocolate ate Valentine's, candy and more candy at Halloween.  But sadly, I have to report a serious shortage of wings because of last summer's drought

As a result, some 12.3 million fewer wings will be eaten this Sunday, but that still leaves 1.2 billion. down the gullet.

By the way, those new boneless wings are really just chunks of chicken breast.

I still plan to eat a bunch o' wings at Donovan's Reef.


2.  BARNES & NOBLE--Sad to see that the last of the big box bookstores, Barnes & Noble is on its way down like my favorite, Borders.  They are closing stores, scaling back from 689 stores to 450 to 500.  They had a jump in sales after Borders liquidated but lost 10.9% of their sales over the Christmas season.

Even though Borders and Barnes & Noble were Big Box stores, they kept that little bookshop feel.


Like the Chickens Said "Et Mor Bef!"  --RoadDog


WHAT SHE SAID AND WHAT SHE MEANS:  Do you like this recipe? = It's easy to fix, so you'd better get used to it.