Iola is the scene of an upcoming gritty drama sequel to the Baywatch – Methwatch, where less toothy but a lot more animated characters save lives of unsuspecting citizens.
Recently a set of photos taken at the Kansas City’s Wonderland Arcade in the late 1960’s made rounds on the Internet. These photos are stored at the National Archives in the file “Wonderland Inc. v. United States of America, 1968 – 1968”. The National Archives allows searches but not direct links or bookmarks, so you will have to enter your own search terms.
The Arcade located at 1200 Grand from the 1940’s to the early 1980’s was covered in the press numerous times, like this Billboard Magazine article: Wonderland Arcade Good Model of Well-run Amusement Center published in 1946, when The Billboard was still an amusement industry trade magazine.
Same magazine in 1947 informed about the time when the Wonderland Arcade was robbed of $150 in nickels, some of which was spent on a “new suit, shoes and a tour of the city by taxicab”.
As my friend The DLC pointed out, I have now blogged just about everything and now pathetically spend my time posting links to my own blog, where I previously opined on whatever subject is being discussed. I constantly catch myself thinking about writing something just to discover that I wrote about it at length last year or the year before. That’s why when we came back from the apple orchard on Sunday all I had to do is search and find my last year’s post about apples and another one about the apple recipes. Even my photos looked the same – the same place, the same apples. Luckily we made a little detour or I would’ve had nothing at all.
The Main Street in the city of Ottawa, KS hasn’t changed much since the old days. As a matter of fact it looks very similar to the old photos of Neosho, MO I recently posted, they must have used some standard project for the smaller rural towns.
This is what the Main St. in Ottawa, KS looked like in 1942:
This is what it looks like now:
We got off the highway in Ottawa to wait for the apple orchard to open and promptly found ourselves in the middle of the antique car show known as Ol’Marais River Run. I don’t consider myself a giant car fan and all the talk about cubic inches, shaved hoods and custom paint jobs does nothing for me, but it’s hard not to stand in awe admiring the time when a car was a work of art. These cars may not have been the safest or the most technologically advanced but they represent the era when the car was still a wonder, an object of pride, an engineering dream trimmed with chrome.
Due to some peculiar historic and political circumstances the cars of my childhood looked almost identical to these, so strangely these shows are just as nostalgic for me as they are for someone who grew up here.
The car show had a feel of a State Fair complete with signage:
…Elvis and Marylin:
…delicious food:
…Republican Party:
…and boyscouts:
In the olden days, before the Ad Wizards took over our lives, the states had simple nicknames. Nebraska was known as a “Beef State”:
Iowa had to settle for the “Pork State”, Alabama went with the “Heart of Dixie”
Arizona called itself “The Grand Canyon State”
and Missouri was known as it is known now as “The State That Thinks It’s Better Than Other States But Is Sadly Mistaken” but is was hard to fit on the license plate.
After the show we finally made it to the orchard:
This year seems to be one of the best years for apples, trees were heavy with fruit.
I spent a few minutes on the pond:
enjoying the wildlife:
Here is what the pond sounds like:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a28tgsr3jRg
We picked 25 lbs of apples:
…paid a visit to the country store:
Took another look at the giant apple in the sky where all the worms go after they die:
…and were home in no time.
Hello Ladies! There may be times in your life when you are craving something chocolaty and who knows why you may want it to be shaped like sausage. You are at the right place, kick back, relax and learn how in less than twenty minutes you can make your very own delicious rock-hard Russian Chocolate Sausage.
For this recipe you will need just a few simple products:
4 packs of Maria’s Cookies from the Mexican Aisle in your grocery store;
1 cup of sugar;
4 tablespoons of milk;
Vanilla extract;
Cocoa;
2 sticks of butter;
1 egg;
Nuts are optional but they sure taste good;
Now that all of your ingredients are assembled you are ready to start. Mix sugar and egg, add milk, vanilla extract and cocoa. How much cocoa depends on how chocolaty you prefer your chocolate sausage; put too little and it will be unappealingly pale, put too much and you will have hard time finding it in the dark when you crave it the most. Now place the mixture on low heat and continue to mix with rhythmical circular motions until the sugar completely dissolves and it slowly starts to boil. Do not beat it with the whisk, you are not trying to whip it into cream, just mix slowly so it doesn’t burn. When the mixture starts bubbling a little, add softened butter. Do not stop mixing but remove it from the heat. It’s warm enough. When the butter melts you can finally stop.
Now proceed to break the cookies into small pieces. You should end up with a mix of small pieces and crumbs. Some of you will be tempted to use a food processor but restrain yourself, chocolate sausage likes manual touch.
Combine the chocolate mixture with broken-up cookies. If you decided to experiment with nuts, now would be the time to add them.
Make sure that you are doing a thorough job, I recommend using a spatula with brisk up- and down- motions. You don’t want to leave any cookies dry, it will adversely affect the chocolate sausage.
Place a large piece of parchment paper on the table and spoon the mixture in the even layer close to the edge.
Starting at the near edge tightly wrap your chocolate sausage. When it’s wrapped squeeze and roll it as needed to even out the mixture distribution.
You are doing very good, almost done. You may want to wrap the sausage in another layer of aluminum foil just in case. Now place it in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.
That’s one long thick sausage you have. Doesn’t even fit on the shelf. I know you want to eat it right away but you need to wait. Leave it there for now.
When the sausage is hard remove it from the fridge, unwrap and slice up to your liking. Let it melt in your mouth, smell the chocolate, feel the crunch. Enjoy the Russian Chocolate Sausage!
