Messing With Bessie

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 3-27-2016)

Don't mess with Bessie.

That message comes through loud and clear from certain locals whenever Janesville's iconic cow gets adorned with anything from high heels to pink spots to Mexican headwear.

So I imagine a segment of the population is none too pleased about the recent announcement that Bessie is transitioning from a Guernsey to a Holstein. Apparently cows,

"Pic-Cow-So"

 unlike leopards, can change their spots.

I certainly understand the reasoning behind the change. After all, when you think of cows, especially Wisconsin cows, the image that usually comes to mind is that of a black-and-white Holstein. At the Wisconsin-themed gift shops, you'll find everything from T-shirts to mailboxes adorned in Holstein colors. And no less an expert than “Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson chose the Holstein as his representative dairy cow in hundreds of strips.

Not that there is anything wrong with Guernseys. I'm sure they are perfectly fine cows. But do these reddish-orange bovines make you think “Wisconsin”? Personally, having grown up on a dairy farm where we exclusively milked Holsteins, I like the impending change.

But this reflection of the local zeitgeist is about more than just aesthetics. Making Bessie a Holstein could truly be a cash cow for Janesville. The change in appearance should stimulate lagging merchandise sales. “New” Bessie T-shirts, postcards, photos andother items will likely be solid moo-vers. Consider Bessie's new look the equivalent of a sports team adding alternate jerseys. It's no accident that the Packers occasionally wear blue, and Brewers jerseys come in every color from gold to blue to red. A new look equals new sales, a fact not lost on city fathers.

To that end, “Bessie's Milk House” will be constructed in a section of the parking lot next to Bessie. The small gift stand will feature the aforementioned Bessie items as well as other related goods like Cow Pie candies.

Although the benefits to Bessie's Holsteinism are many, it is acknowledged that not everyone will be happy about the change. Artist Harry Breederman of Chicago was ultimately chosen to do the work on Bessie after local artists were offered the job – and turned it down. One Rock County artist told me that she believed the backlash would kill her career here. “I wouldn't touch Bessie with a 10-foot brush,” she said. Others apparently felt likewise.

Breederman, however, seems a perfect choice for the job. Renowned for “bold” projects in the Windy City, Bessie will not be his first Holstein. To celebrate Illinois Farm Progress Days in 2004, Breederman temporarily transformed the Picasso in Chicago's Daley Plaza into an abstract version of Bessie-To-Be. He dubbed his work - wait for it - “Pic-Cow-So.”

The mixed reviews that project generated may serve as ample preparation for what Breederman might hear once work begins on Bessie, depending on how outraged art lovers express themselves as opposed to outraged agriculturalists.

Whether it's a new bypass around Milton or the closing of the General Motors plant, change is often hard to swallow. But with time, wounds heal and we move on. Rock County residents are a sturdy lot, and while we may get our bibs in a bunch for a brief spell, I suspect that the new black-and-white Bessie will be warmly embraced. Excitement will be in the air on the day of her grand unveiling, when the city council and the local chamber ambassadors pose for a photo in front of Bessie and unfurl a banner that reads:

“April Fool.”

The Jeffris' Final Act

(From the Janesville Messenger, 12-27-2015) 

In a book or play, the denouement is described as the final outcome of the story, generally occurring after the climax of the plot.

That definition can be applied to the recent demolition of the old Jeffris Theater in downtown Janesville. Its fate was sealed nearly a decade earlier when much of it was taken down, leaving the facade and not much else. But the march toward its ultimate demise began 32 years ago with a devastating fire. That was followed by carving the building into multiple screens, and eventually abandonment, years of decay and destruction.

By the time of my childhood, the Jeffris was already a faded rose, no longer the “luxurious” showcase described in its 1924 grand opening advertising. I recall shabby, threadbare carpet in the lobby and wear and tear throughout the building. But I also remember the stairs leading to the balcony providing a clue to the theater's former grandeur.

The Jeffris was cavernous, with 1,500 seats. Unlike today's screen-on-the-wall cinemas, the Jeffris had a stage and curtains, a reminder of its history of live entertainment. Rather than being an ignored part of its past, the curtains were still drawn and closed at the beginning and end of movies.

As a lover of good motion pictures and ornate old theaters, it was painful to have a front-row seat for the beginning of the end of the Jeffris on March 27, 1983.

For me, that Sunday morning started out much like any other over the previous year and a half. A journalism major at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, I was working a part-time job at WCLO/WJVL Radio writing and delivering the weekend newscasts. While other college students were sleeping off their Saturday night misadventures, I was making 5 a.m. visits to the law enforcement agencies, checking the blotters for any items worthy enough to write up for the morning newscasts.

Weekends were often slow for local news, which was just fine for a kid trying to learn his craft. But the Janesville Police Department had a scoop for me: the Jeffris was on fire. I remember not being overly impressed with that information at first, maybe because I was still in the process of waking up. One glance down Milwaukee Street, however, shook the cobwebs from my brain; I had a big story to cover.

As a raw rookie and the only one on duty, handling this developing story while doing the newscasts on both stations kept me hopping. Eventually, the narrative took a tragic turn when a body, asphyxiated by the smoke, was found in the adjoining Monterey Hotel.

It was a rarity on a Sunday morning when the telephone in the newsroom rang. But it started ringing off the hook. WTMJ from Milwaukee called, asking me to provide audio for them. Gulp. I still broke into a sweat when the “On Air” light came on in the WCLO studio in little old Janesville. Now I was recording a news story for a Milwaukee station? It took me two takes, and the second was less than perfect, but I wasn't going to make the poor big city producer sit through another one. The Associated Press picked up the story, too, sending it over the teletype to radio stations statewide with my name on it.

The Jeffris fire was my first big on-the-job test. I passed, but any satisfaction I felt was always tempered by the realization that if a downtown landmark doesn't burn and a hotel resident doesn't die, it's just another Sunday that I filled out a time card.

With the Jeffris' final exit, all of the local movie screens that existed when I was young have now vanished. It joins the Myers, the Hi-Way 26 Outdoor and the Mid-City Outdoor as cinematic ghosts.

But the loss of the others isn't as meaningful to me as the Jeffris. As downtown redevelopment begins to take hold in Janesville, I think of that 1983 fire and wonder “what if.”

A Life of Leisure

(From the Janesville Messenger, 11-29-2015)

They exist.

Like the name of Lord Voldemort, they are not to be spoken of aloud in my house. But every so often, they show themselves. Their appearance fills me with unspeakable horror. Others are thrown into convulsive fits.

Of laughter.

They are...the Leisure Suit Photos.

These horrible prints exist to prove that I was the epitome of the awkward adolescent. The baby blue leisure suit was, incomprehensibly, my wardrobe of choice for major events in my 8^th grade year. Thus, the amazing Technicolor nightmare-coat is captured for posterity in photographs of my church confirmation and my class trip to the nation's capitol. My round baby face, bowl haircut and wire-rimmed glasses accentuate a look that can best be described as Androgynous Math Team Captain. But the topper, so to speak, was my attempt to complete the stunning hipness of the leisure suit by donning a newsboy cap adorned with Schlitz logos. I am not making this up. You will have to trust me because you will never, ever see those photos.

My only consolation is that I wasn't the only one suckered into the leisure suit fad during that time period. But I can't count that as an anomaly. My particular brand of fashion cluelessness knew no bounds. In fact, the only reason I ever stopped wearing flare pants was when the stores stopped selling them.

Fortunately, other photos of me from four decades ago are a little less embarrassing. And they provide interesting snapshots, if you will, about what was popular in culture at the time.

For example, one unearthed picture shows me sitting in my bedroom chatting on a CB radio. Like so many others, I jumped with both feet into the CB fad, mesmerized by the world of truckers and the excitement of the song “Convoy.” My handle was “The Flying Camel,” a nickname given to me thanks to my ineptitude on the basketball court. Sometimes you might as well just embrace the truth.

In retrospect, CB was an electronic forerunner of Facebook. Like Facebook, your conversations and proclamations were out there for the world to hear, and often laced with too much information. And as adults have stolen Facebook from the college kids, the wave of non-truckers ended up hijacking CB from the truckers (for a while, anyway).

This is not to say that I was a complete slave to every fad that came along. Pet rock? Never owned one. Mood ring? Ditto. Disco music? Ugh. It made me want to run rather than dance, though neither option was a pretty sight.

But the old photos do reveal the other fad I was involved in - beer can collecting. Stacked against my wood-paneled bedroom wall, a pyramid of rusty tin and shiny aluminum rose up like a shrine. Besides the obvious brands and cans, there were the collectibles that everyone wanted. The Schmidt cans with all of the outdoor scenes. The Steel City can with the Pittsburgh Steelers team photo. The Olde Frothingslosh can with the plus-size bathing beauty.

Serious collectors like me, however, had to go the extra step. If you wanted the old, rare cans, you needed to get your hands dirty. So the teenage me hopped on his bicycle and rummaged through dumps looking for old beer cans.

There were several little private dumps in my rural neighborhood, pieces of property where I was technically trespassing. Without the aid of gloves or cleaning supplies (yuck), I picked through piles of old cans like an archaeologist clearing away the soil to reveal the ancient layers of rock below. Whether it was a Pabst from the age before pull tabs, or an early version of Lite, or even a much-prized “cone top” can, I rarely came away empty-handed.

These newly rescued prizes needed to look as wonderful as possible. So I removed the rust by dipping the beer cans in a solution of oxalic acid, a compound you could get at the local drug store. Yes, I even turned beer can collecting into a junior high science experiment.

Doesn't that sound exactly like something a geek in a leisure suit would do?