Jack’s Winning Words 10/31/13
“The greatest escape I ever made was when I left Appleton, Wisconsin.”  (Harry Houdini)  Houdini died on Halloween, 1926, in Detroit.  He had promised to come back after his death, to prove that there was life after death.  The great escape artist has yet to free himself from the handcuffs of death.  I didn’t know that Harry had lived in Appleton, where his father was a rabbi.   What was the town where you grew up?    ;-)  Jack

 FROM HONEST JOHN:  I remember your Moline.   My Mom shopped there often.   I loved M Wards, the NY Store, WT Grants, Woolworth's, and, most of all, Temples Sporting Goods.    My Aunt lived at the top of 10th Street...right where the hill started.====JACK:  My mother was the office manager at Monkey Wards.  I also remember Hickey Bros. at the corner of 5th Ave & 16th St.  "Your purchase free if we ever forget to thank you."  I tried, but never got anything free.

 FROM PC IN MICHIGAN:  My dad was a professional magician and for my entire childhood through teens I was his assistant. Each year we would attend the Magic Convention in Colon, Michigan (the Magic Capital of the World by the way) where I would meet magicians from around the globe. Harry Houdini and his escape skills were often a topic of discussion. I have read several books about him. When my father passed away I inherited all of dads illusions...to this day I could be levitated or cut in half. (That is...if I am still as limber!)  Happy Halloween!====JACK:  What a great story!  Recently I asked a group of people to "tell us something about yourself that we probably don't know!"  People would have been surprised to see someone who had been cut in half. 

  FROM TARMART REV:  Fran and I lived in Appleton for three years in between coming to Willmar, MN in 1989 to 1994 and moving back again in 1997 until presently. Out daughter, Maria, attended Houdini Grade School. We could have , but didn't visit the museum named for him and his noted accomplishments, and is housed in a former church building. His home is displayed in another portion of that city. BTW... true, there has never been a great escape artist who has yet freed  himself from the handcuffs of death . . . however, be both are very acquainted with the Great Escape Artist whose Father freed Him from death and the grave!====JACK:  Houdini Grade School?  That must be a scarey place!  So, you've escaped from Appleton and other places, too?   It's interesting that the name of the Holy Ghost has been changed to the Holy Spirit, probably to make it less frightening.

 FROM TAMPA SHIRL:  Of course, Moline, which was a wonderful place in which to grow up and to learn the values needed to lead a productive and satisfying life.  But, the whole world is very exciting, too, and I feel blessed to have seen so much of it and to meet so many people from all over the world. ====JACK:  So, when you left, it wasn't so much an escape as it was going off on an exploration.

 FROM SHARIN' SHARON:  Bayard, Iowa. It's not the same as when I grew up. There aren't that many families with children there anymore (big farms, not so many family farms left in Iowa), no school, no doctor or dentist, no grocery store or hardware store, the nursing home has been converted into a drug rehab place and people come from near and far to get off drugs, people who rent the apartments and some of the houses come out from Des Moines on public assistance, Church of Christ usually only has about 25 in attendance on a Sunday morning, actually, interestingly enough, Bayard is now much more diverse than when I was growing up and more "citified" except not with the great art and music, etc. culture of a big city but with the same stuff we're dealing with here in my suburb of Detroit where people are moving out of the city for the better life they dream of outside of the city. People of the countryside just need to get used to city people, because they will eventually try to come and live next to you wherever you are and I suppose vice versa. Gives the Church a lot of work to do preaching to people to love their neighbor. ====JACK:  Oooooh!  That's scarey to some people.....neighbors moving in who are different!  Bayard ain't like it used to be.  Neither is the world.

 FROM GOOD DEBT JON:  One of the greatest weekends I ever had was in Appleton. ====JACK:  Appleton might have been great for you for a weekend, but Harry was a teenager, and he wanted to be "free" to see the world.  Isn't it interesting that he  eventually came to Detroit and never escaped?====JON:  I was not a teenager, just an old guy, speaking to 4,500 high school kids about personal finance for an FDIC Money Smart program. So I guess it depends on what you are doing in Appleton. Super nice people throughout the community, I liked it. Had a Starbuck's near the Kimberly Event Center.====JACK:  Maybe Harry left because he couldn't find a Starbuck's at the time.  We each move on for our own reasons.

 FROM MICHIZONA RAY:  Southfield, Detroit, Royal Oak...I was a part of nine siblings, and we needed to move each time our "shoe" had so many children my parents didn't know what else to do! Having a large family like that had many advantages --- but privacy wasn't one of them!====JACK:  I suppose you never moved to a place where each of the kids had a private room.  My parents slept on the unheated front porch (wearing stocking caps in the winter) so my sister and I could have our own rooms.  I can't remember if I ever thanked them.

 FROM RI IN BOSTON:  My hometown was St. Charles MO, with a population of 11,000 during the years I was growing up.  At age 25 I finished my military service abroad, and "how yuh gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?"  Since then I've had some life experiences that couldn't be matched in St. Charles.  Nevertheless, I've enjoyed going back for a look from time to time.  Contrary to the dictum, "you can't go home again", you can...you just don't want to stay.====JACK:  The Cardinals couldn't beat the Boston Red Sox in the World Series,  But there are some things in a small Missouri town, like St. Charles, that can't be beat by Boston, either.====RI:  Your comment is so true...there are two sides to every story!  (Regarding the Sox winning the Series, it's not a big deal for me because I'm not a big baseball fan like you are.  For your benefit and for everyone in Detroit, it would have been great if the Tigers had held on and finished on top at the very end.)====JACK:  I've been taught to pray, "Thy will be done."  I didn't know that God was a BoSox fan.

 FROM JB IN WISCONSIN:  Irma WI====JACK:  You had to live in Irma to really appreciate it... Bethany Lutheran Church...the general store...the railroad track...the school...the ball field...the Irma hill...the farms...the Maybe Inn.  What I liked most were the people.

 FROM BLAZING OAKS:  GOOD OLD MOLINE, IL.  IT WAS A GREAT PLACE TO GROW UP, AND ALTHOUGH WE HAD CURFEWS, QUITE STRICTLY KEPT, WE WERE GIVEN SOME FREEDOM AS TO WHAT WE PLANNED TO DO WITH OUR TIME.  OF COURSE, OUR CHOICES WERE PRETTY TAME! BICYCLE HIKES, TENNIS MATCHES, MOVIES, SCHOOL AND CHURCH ACTIVITIES.====JACK:  The pace was a little slower, as I remember it.  Not so much school pressure.  We proudly and enthusiastically sang..."We are Moliners, we're from Moline!"

 FROM BBC IN ILLINOIS:  I didn’t know he was from Appleton either – my father was born there, from whence I claim my Green Bay Packer roots.====JACK:  I always thought you liked Da Bears.

 FROM BM IN MICHIGAN:  Detroit!  1.8 Million residents in 1950.  Tacit segregation.  Overcrowded public schools; beginnings of freeway systems, making it easier to move to the suburbs.  As a kid, I never thought it wasn’t a good place to grow up.  In 1961, when I was 20, my parents moved to Oak Park. ====JACK:  Perceptions change as time changes.  The good old days are made by the good memories that we have of them.  That's the way it is with many things in life.  We remember what we want to remember.  I remember staying at the Tuller Hotel when I made my first visit to Detroit.  It was a fancy place at the time.  Now, it's a vacant lot.

 FROM PLAIN FOLKS CHESTER:  I grew up in Moline, Illinois, known in those days as "Sin Town." I never knew why, bit maybe that's because I was too young.  It is on the Mississippi River and gets "cleansed" once a year, so I guess it is all right now. I visit there often and my daughter and granddaughter live there now. They tell me they are happy there and enjoy the Moline Ethic. I'm not sure what that means, but I think it is a good thing. You should go there sometime.====JACK:  The Moline I grew up in doesn't exist anymore, except in my memory. ====PFC:  What does? That's progress. Not always for the better.  One thing is the same, though... Ginny McKibben's house!====JACK:  At the corner of 7th St and 20th Ave with the glassed-in front porch!

 FROM MH IN ILLINOIS:  There is a museum in Appleton devoted to Houdini and displaying a lot of the equipment he used such as chains, locks etc.  They count him as a resident, but I didn't know he wanted to get "out of town".  Times change.====JACK:  Sometimes we forget that adults were once teenagers, too, like Harry.  Many young people can't wait to leave "this place" and try new things.  I wonder if young Jesus had those urges, too?

 FROM MOLINER JT:  Good old Moline. Actually Coal Town, including the one room school house till 9 grade.  Do you remember ?====JACK:  I remember going to your house with the Luther Leaguers.  It was always fun to go "out in the country" to the Teskes.

 FROM GUSTIE MARLYS:  My Aunt Edith Mattson lived in Appleton for 25 years.  She was head dietitian at Russell Sage Hall at Lawrence College.====JACK:  Appleton, like most cities, has a lot going for it.  Houdini was probably looking for a bigger stage.

 FROM EMT SINGS IN TC:  Echo, MN  Population never more than 500 people!====JACK:  499 when you "escaped."

 FROM HC CHUCK:  Jamestown, New York  The states "Lil Sweden"  the home of Lucille Ball ,  Chief Justice Jackson, the bird watcher whose escapes me right now,  a Furniture mfg center of the 19 hundreds,  a winter wonderland ,  a sportsman's paradise.  A city of Churches with a tavern on every corner.  That's my home town.====JACK:  I didn't know that Lucy was a Swede.  I read interesting stuff about Jackson. He went to Frewsburg H.S. and never graduated from college.  He was appointed to the Supreme Court by FDR and was the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.