Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from me to you.  This will be my last post for 2016, as I take some time off to be with family and enjoy the season. I hope the last 12 months have been good to you, but if not, my wish is that this holiday season will help you salvage some good of what's left of the year. 

Enjoy your families and your time off, and give thanks for what you have. I will strive myself to remember the real meaning of Christmas, for as someone once told me, if Christmas isn't found in our hearts, if won't be found under a tree. 

I am thankful for you, my dear readers who have kept up with me all these years.  I so greatly appreciate your support, your contributions, and your friendship.  Let's share some more Menasha memories in 2017.  See you then!

Bike Winners

December 24, 1964, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

What a thrilling Christmas it must have been for these two kids to walk away from the Brin with these bikes.  Firefighters and kids have always been a great combination so it was especially great that the Menasha Fire Department put on this annual Christmas party at the Brin theater. 

Movin' Down the Street

December 28, 1963, Appleton Post-Crescent

Not sure why this building was being towed to the Jersild site in Neenah, but I suspect it simply belonged to the construction company that oversaw the Menasha garage project and was needed now at the new job site.  Still, it makes for semi-humorous filler for the newspaper and...this blog.  (Some days, this is the best I got.)

Huron Christmas Carol

The "Huron Carol" (or "Twas in the Moon of Wintertime") is a Canadian Christmas hymn (Canada's oldest Christmas song), written probably in 1642 by Jean de Brébeuf, a Jesuit missionary at Sainte-Marie to the Hurons in Canada. Brébeuf wrote the lyrics in the native language of the Huron/Wendat people; the song's original Huron title is "Jesous Ahatonhia" ("Jesus, he is born"). To this day, the song is a common Christmas hymn in Canadian churches of many Christian denominations. It is also found in several American hymnals, to include those of the Episcopal Church, the United Methodists, and Evangelical Lutherans.

Wet, Packin' Snow

 

December 21, 1966, Appleton Post-Crescent

As the newspaper said, there was nothing like "packy" snow, as we called it, necessary for well-formed snowballs and snow forts.  It was the lifeblood of northeastern Wisconsin kids in all eras, I believe. 

Storytellers

December 21, 1969, Appleton Post-Crescent

What better time of the year than Christmas to have had a conference devoted to story time for children?  Christmas is rife with storytelling opportunities. At least in this day and age, storytelling seems to be a dying art and how many other venues are there where kids are exposed to someone telling them a story than at the library or in schools?  Sure, we read books to our kids at bedtime, and there's the occasional experience of a guide telling us something of note during a museum trip, perhaps.  But too often our default position has become the isolated one-on-one experience in front of a computer, TV, or tablet. Few of us have forgotten the magic of sitting in a group, while being told an engaging story, be it in Kindergarten or at the library. 

Alleys

December 12, 1965, Appleton Post-Crescent

During one of Menasha's many periods of renovation and innovation comes this idea: what if we created more parking for the downtown businesses by eliminating buildings on Broad Street?  This was the era of the "New Menasha Committee" designed to get things rolling again for the downtown.  Despite the "sprucing up" of the rear entrances, it was what it was...an area not ready for primetime, so to speak.  Not necessarily the greatest view from Broad Street, but just the way it was.