Common Ground

Would you believe that after my wife had a piece of glass in her salad, I had a hunk of plastic in my egg foo yong? No damage done and the business actually offered something to make up for the experience unlike the char house did. I declined as I was uninjured.

So in a stretch of being related, here are some thoughts and observations from my various eating experiences around the city. None directed at any particular business.

Don't refuse credit cards and put a $2 ATM in your entrance.

Don't provide plastic utensils that are unable to handle the food that you serve.

Egg drop soup should not have crab meat in it.

Sub sandwiches freshly made from unfresh items sitting in the open all day are not fresh.

Toasted is better.

If you include a beer or wine with a meal, soda should be a free substitute.

Processed cheese is not cheese.

Fried rice should not have peas and carrots in it. Where are the bean sprouts?

Offering fruit in place of potatoes is very much appreciated.

Does anyone use that hot chili sauce in the big bottles that all the Chinese restaurants seem to have now?



"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." - Will Rogers

I was nearly blown off my feet when I found out that HAWS was receiving nearly a million dollar bequest. Congratulations!

Most people probably know HAWS as the Humane Society. The place that takes stray and unwanted pets. What people may not know is that there are many grass roots organizations, called Rescues, that perform similar work. Sometimes with specific animals types or breeds. Sometimes not.

Tina and Dawn have operated a cat and kitten rescue and recently celebrated their fiftieth adoption this weekend. The cats that they have are checked by a veterinarian for good health, monitored at a foster home and then made available at Aquatic World in Oconomowoc. A background check is made of the people wanting to adopt a cat to insure that they go to a good home and don't end up for any other purpose than being a pet.

It is a labor of love. However some people think that it is a business and want to donate cats. Wrong! While working with the cats can be an enjoyable experience, it would be preferable to have no unwanted pets so that rescues were not necessary.

The message to spay and neuter your pet is a message of love. If you intend to breed or show your pet, then yours may be an exception. Either way, love your pet.

While I'm on that message, I have to admit to a bit of jealousy on the part of the bequest to HAWS. You see, I'm head of the Waukesha Dog Parks Organization. I've long believed that dogs need unleashed exercise. It seems to me that getting dogs adopted is not enough. Providing for what has been bred into them is necessary too.

Presently the only off leash dog parks in Waukesha County are the city of Brookfield's Mitchell Park and the city of Waukesha's Dog Run. The county is working on one in Minooka Park which is expected to open next month and plans are for another in Nashotah Park and possibly other county parks. However, private money is necessary to make these happen and to create improvements within them such as drinking water for the dogs and other things.

I recently visited the Humane Society in Freeport Illinois. It is located on the edge of town and has several acres for dogs to get that exercise they need. It is a model for other Humane Societies.

There are lots of causes looking for money. Dog Parks and Rescues are some of them!

Managing a pet store means turning over many types of animals. Never would I have thought that a person could become attached to a tortoise. We have some African spurred tortoises and while not on the same level as a cat or dog, do have some personality that you can get attached to. One of the tortoises is yet to have her name announced from a contest, but she seems to recognize some people and has on occasion responded to my calls to change direction and come towards me.

Peetrie is a smaller tortoise. He is a few years old and still can be held in one hand where the other is twelve and weighs around 60 pounds. He's been with us for about as long as we've had the store and Pat has nursed him though a respiratory infection. When you do that and feed and clean him each day for many months, you become attached more than the wonderful pets that are here for only a few days or weeks until going to a new family.

Recently, a family had the occasion to tend to a similar tortoise for a while and decided it was a pet that they could love. One fact of business is that everything is for sale. Some tears were shed but we knew Peetrie was going to a good home.

On a recent morning while leaving for work, I heard an unusual sounding aircraft departing the county airport and turning over my house. I recognized it as a VariEZ. It is an unusual looking design, one of many by Burt Rutan who is famous for designing Voyager which flew around the world on a single load of fuel and most recently was the first private company to send an aircraft into sub-orbital space, winning a huge prize for doing so and qualifying the pilots for astronaut wings from the FAA.

I would have liked to visit the big fly-in. I used to belong to the association and began going to the fly-ins when they were still held in Rockford Illinois. I did some volunteer work. Usually waving planes off the active runway so it was safe for both them and the approaching planes. This can be fun when the planes land long!

The EAA was founded in Hales Corners and the first museum was there on Forest Home Avenue. Near by was Hales Corners airport, which now is covered with condominiums. It wasn’t a great airport as the runway was so hilly that a smooth landing was nearly impossible. But it was filled with people who loved aviation. Few people remember Maitland field, though thousands of Summerfest visitors walk over it. For what it means, I don’t remember it either!

Also gone is Aero Park Airport, which was over on Lisbon and Lannon roads. I learned to fly there in a sailplane when I was 15. Each Father’s Day our EAA chapter held a fly-in which included an airshow, food and plane rides. The airport is now planted with soybeans and all that remains are remnants of the parking lot.

After learning to fly there, I got a job gassing airplanes, cutting the grass runways and sweeping out the office and hanger at Capital Drive Airport, which thankfully is still there. The air was always filled with planes departing and landing. Often a half dozen or more planes where in the traffic pattern. When I was old enough to get my pilot’s license, I flew over to our county airport where Harlan Sedgwick gave me my fight test. I’d rent the occasional Piper Cherokee 140 there as a break from the high wing Cessna’s and my Dad’s Aeronca that I flew at Capital.

As I watched that VariEZ fly overhead, I thought of all the airports closed, airplanes lost and pilots that either passed away or like me, resigned to the fact that general aviation is a hobby for the well to do. I also wondered about the old hanger that was disassembled and bought by an organization that was to rebuild it at another location. It was perhaps the last reminder of a golden age of general aviation at the airport.

There are several reasons things have changed. Besides things just getting very expensive, government promotion of becoming pilots was done around WWII, which caused the explosive growth of the number of airports and airplanes. Most known to non-pilots as the Piper Cubs. These men and women have aged or passed along and the efforts of the EAA have not been able to sustain these numbers.

General aviation is far from dead. It will indeed live on but on a higher level than the so-called grass roots days. I don’t know that this is a good thing. I don’t think Dale or Dean Crites would either.