By Dan Dauw
Geneseo Current
2025
It sure didn’t start very good with the New Year’s massacre at New Orleans. Just plain senseless. I hope I’m wrong, but let’s pray there are no copy cats out there willing to kill innocent people for some stupid cause.
Go, Bears & Others
Last weekend I was happy to see my favorite sport teams come away with wins. My “Super Bowl” was ‘da Bears beating the Packers. Great game!
So was the Notre Dame women’s basketball team beating North Carolina. They are so awesome. Other fun-to-watch teams were Illinois, Nebraska and Iowa State. All winners in either football or basketball.
Hornpipe Dance
I like to watch military parade marching bands from all over the globe. One that I recently found on the internet was from India. You will see an India Navy band marching and when it stops, about 75 young lady India Sea Cadets do a really neat and nautical performance. I forwarded the video to friend, Tony Petreikis, and he hit the nail-on-the-head.
The music was like that of the old Popeye cartoons. The ladies mimicked many Navy nautical moves like swabbing the decks, etc. Check it out by typing the following: The Hornpipe Dance by Sea Cadets of the Indian Navy 2024 (or 2023, it’s the same routine).
Garrett Petreikis, son of Tony Petreikis, retired local Game Warden, recently caught this northern pike in a Wisconsin lake.
Speaking of India
One of the foreign students we hosted during the recent Thanksgiving holidays was from India and attending the University of Chicago. She is Mrs. Vartika Singh, 38. She was one very bright young lady. I enjoyed teasing her and she would match my joking. I told her I should say prayers for her poor husband! Anyway, it was nice having her stay with us and also learning more about India.
When I wasn’t Old
When I was a teen, I worked summers pumping gas for pleasure boats at the Rock Island Boat Club. One time I had forgotten my gasoline pump keys. I drove my motor bike (Mo-ped) in a big hurry to get the keys. I switched lanes and a big old Buick hit me from behind. Back then, helmets were rare to be seen. Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt badly and the guy took off.
My poor Mo-ped actually made it home so I got the pump keys and made it back to work. I was very lucky!
You would not believe the drunks that came to the dock. Sometimes they would come in way to fast and scratch the side of their boat. One time a guy fell when he hit the dock. He was so plastered.
Switching gears, remember guys our haircuts back then? The crewcut, mohawk, and flattop were popular. I always got a crewcut at Arnie’s (Anderson) Barber Shop, 2300 block of 5th Avenue in Moline. One time I had a crush on a gal that worked at the LeClaire Hotel in Moline.
I was a substitute letter carrier and the hotel had a mail chute. I had to go inside and empty the mail from the chute. One time I was in a hurry and somehow broke the glass on the inside door. I didn’t get in any trouble. However, one winter I hit a car with my postal vehicle. It was a very minor accident, but I did get my wrists slapped! That was 1961. Oh, one more thing. When I had a mail route in Moline I had to deliver mail in the 5th Avenue Building. I can’t remember exactly how many floors, but I would drop off #3 postal sacks full of mail on various floors as I went to the top floor. Now just think, that would never fly today. It would be so easy to steal mail from the sacks.
The building also had mail chutes and they would often jam from someone pushing bundles of letters in the narrow chutes. Long ago, Moline Postmaster, Wally Babl, and I would have lunch together. Often a waitress, when we were leaving would say, “Thank you, and have a nice day!” Wally would say, “No thank you, I have other plans!” He was funny.
Humor
Don Morrison, North Carolina, is quite the bird guy. A few days ago his obese parrot died. It was a huge weight off his shoulders.
Dale Dobbler, Cambridge, got another deer. Yeah, like he needs another deer head on the wall. Pretty soon he’ll have them mounted on the “outside” of his home. He told me the other day he should invent a beer called, “Occasionally.” So, when asked, Dale can say “I drink occasionally.”
Dale Collis, Galva, went to his doctor. The doctor said, “You have the “Peak A Boo” virus. So, he sent Dale straight to the ICU.
Dale Kiser, Geneseo, recently saw a documentary on beavers. He said it was the best dam show he’d ever seen.
Quote of the Week
“To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”
George Washington