When we talk about the late-year holidays Thanksgiving and Christmas come first to mind, and maybe some would throw in Pearl Harbor Day. But hey, speaking of getting bombed, there is another holiday, which, until I saw an ad in one newspaper this week, had somehow escaped me entirely.

If we needed any further evidence the world is going to hell in a handcart – and we don’t, of course, but it keeps on coming – check out the story in many weekend newspapers about the decline in visits to America’s national forests. (And yes, I know that makes me sound like an old fogey.)

I have admitted in the past a tendency to go off Cliff Clavin-like by trying to impress people with knowledge that leaves them, well, unimpressed. I mean, I can bring a dinner party to its knees by raising arcane points about Wisconsin history or quizzing others with questions like “Which of the following Wisconsin counties – Adams, Washington, Lincoln or Grant – was NOT named for an American president?* Toss that one into a conversation and the next question is hey, where is everybody going?

I went into town this morning for coffee and the Sunday papers and, while waiting for the barista to foam my latte just right, chatted with Dr. Bob, my neighbor from down the trail (and not to be confused with Artist Bob, Pool Bob, Park Bob or any of the other Bobs who haunt the place). Like me, Dr. Bob was wearing red but when he asked whether that meant I had walked into town I shook my head and said no. I might be wearing brighter red than Bucky Badger’s game-day briefs but during this one week each year I leave woodsy Wisconsin to others.

While I have always thought of myself as a knowledgeable and wordly guy, I’ve long been secretly embarrassed at being undereducated. Credit-wise, I mean, and we can probably forget the “secretly” part now that I’ve shared my shame on the world wide Internet. While many of my friends and former colleagues have advanced degrees or law degrees or medical degrees of every sort, I left the University of Wisconsin-Madison with exactly 120 degrees on the head, not one more than the bare minimum for entering the workaday world with a college degree.

I was in Rhinelander the other day and so naturally stopped to capture a photo of the Hodag outside the Chamber of Commerce headquarters. Sure, capturing a photo of a Hodag is not nearly so good as capturing one live but lacking a Hodag license I was left to shoot only photos.

Everybody talks about the weather but, well, everybody talks about it.

I had to laugh yesterday when I read the latest forecast from the National Weather Service, which has concluded that this winter will “almost certainly” be less snowy than last year’s. First off, any forecast with an “almost certainly” in it comes with a built-in excuse. And since last year’s 101.4 inches of snow set a record for Madison and Milwaukee’s 99.1 inches was similarly twice the yearly average, even I could have predicted this year will “probably” be less snowy.

Photo by Barbara McCann

It might be an obvious thing, but murder isn’t always the best thing for tourism.

The weak morning light coming across Lake Superior this morning revealed a November day that looked exactly as it should. It was dark and gloomy, the gray-white sky was spitting rain and the lake’s surface rocked and rolled, but only enough to permit the day to be thought stormy. The Gales of November, if they are coming, will have to wait.

One of the more memorable stories I covered in my newspaper days was a forest fire in northern Wisconsin. Well, not really a fire, given that the flames were out before I could get from south to north with pad and pen in hand, so in order to salvage the assignment I decided to interview a forest fire observer, which was a perfect plan until it occurred to me I would have to climb his tower to see him.