The City of Milwaukee has always been the center of your universe and, although you now know of cities that are bigger, more historic and more glamorous, Milwaukee is still home and that has always trumped everything else. You also know that people outside of Milwaukee don’t always have a whole lot of respect for […]

The long, terrible weekend has finally come to an end. The commercials have returned to TV and radio and with them all the regular programming. You went back to school, ate your lunch, went outside at recess, did your lessons and came back home. And now, it’s back to life as usual. Except that it […]

For the last several summers now your home-away-from-home (and probably the only reason Mom hasn’t killed you and your brothers yet) has been the recreation center at Irving Elementary School on 102nd and Grant Streets. You go every weekday to play lazy games of baseball on dusty sun-baked diamonds. You play kickball or four squares […]

I know you think that downtown Milwaukee in this year 1962 is a pretty awesome place, and it is. But wait ‘til you see it 55 years from now! There will be new and bigger buildings, new convention centers, new sports arenas, new hotels, new restaurants and new museums. There will be a 75-acre park […]

You’ve always loved it when Dad chose to enter downtown Milwaukee by way of the Wisconsin Avenue viaduct, haven’t you? The new freeway is a faster way to get downtown, of course, and goes right past the stadium, which is always fun. And the routes of the busses and trackless trolleys through the city’s South […]

You won’t always remember when you and your brothers came up with those idiotic categories for all worldly pleasures, but you will always remember what they were: Toys, Candy, Games, and Rides. According to you three nitwits, all the best things in life could be filed neatly under one of those four headings. Let’s look […]

You didn’t see the plane land. That must’ve happened on a runway you couldn’t see from where you were. But there was an announcement of its arrival and Mom told you that Daddy was home.

Turning Eight was no big deal, in and of itself. Oh there was a cake and presents and your brothers were jealous (always a plus), but birthdays are birthdays and you’ll have many more…trust me. What made this one so special—so Never-To-Be-Forgotten—was something else entirely, wasn’t it? Today, December 28, 1958 was also the day […]

About a hundred years before you were born a poet named Robert Browning wrote a piece called “The Faultless Painter,” which included the line “Less is More.” Then, a couple years before you were born, some big-shot architect used it as a sort of motto. Now, of course, on the surface “less is more” doesn’t […]

“The Baby Boom was the first generation to grow up with television.” You’re going to hear this observation many times in your life. I guess it’s supposed to reveal something about people your age and the way they see the world, and maybe it does in the larger scheme of things. But you’ve never known […]