• Johnson County,KS: Then and Now

    Today’s “then and now” is in bustling downtown Olathe, KS.

    Looking west along Park Street between Chestnut and Cherry in Olathe. Shows these businesses: Hyer Boot Company Building; Shriver Hardware; Taylor Drug, Laborers AFL-CIO, TG&Y. (1960’s)

    Looking west along Park Street at Chestnut in Olathe at buildings under construction (1970’s).

    P1020059

    Same view today.

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  • Old Photos: Times Square Through The Years

    Few images of New York’s Times Square through the years.

    Lights in Times Square being dimmed to conserve energy during WW II.April 1942.© Time Inc.William C. Shrout
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  • Polishing The Old Sausage

    It’s true what they say: eating sausage is like riding a bicycle, do it slow and everything will be OK. For years I was longing for a firm piece of sausage that would taste like real meat. Industrial sausages are like marital aids – they may have the right look and size but they just don’t taste right. Finally I got tired of living with mediocre impostor sausages, the time was right to visit Krizman’s House of Sausage in Kansas City, KS (<–click on the link for the address to magically appear).
    Finding Krizman’s is pretty easy. Moving North on the 6th street, go past “Fat Matt’s Vortex”.

    This view on the right is a good sign you are on the correct track.

    Slow down by the VFW post.

    Right by the tattooed chick…

    …turn left into the parking lot.

    If you are driving past this…

    …you missed it.
    Just to reiterate, this should be the view ahead of you…

    …and this is where you came from.

    According to this site, Krizman’s has been making the real sausages since 1939. The assortment is not mind-boggling and the Polish sausage seems to be the item most women people want. If you are lucky, Vice President Joe Krizman himself will weigh you several hefty links of this delicious sausage. While I was in the store they were packing a special order of sausage to be shipped off to California where the sausage seems to be in high demand but there is an unexplained abundance of tacos.


    Krizman’s Polish Sausage costs just little over $4/lb leaving no excuse to munch on a limp corporate sausage.

    For those who crave some exotic sausages they offer blood sausage and other unusual varieties, but I am just a traditional Polish sausage guy.

    On the way home I took a few pictures of this church with an Orthodox Christian-looking cupola…

    …and a view of the downtown worthy of showing to people who will never visit this area.


    Leaving Kansas City,KS I thought that Krizman’s should call themselves Joyeria to better reflect on the small pleasures they share with the sausage lovers everywhere.


    Fresh sausage calling my name from the back seat of my car, I drove home to enjoy the rest of my day.

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  • International Women’s Day!

    The 8th of March is almost near us,
    My heart is pounding away.
    Don’t let me down, trusty penis
    On International Women’s Day.
    Russian Folklore (Free Translation by Me)

    Every spring starts with sunshine, melting snow, more revealing clothes on the most beautiful women and the International Women’s Day on March 8.

    International Women’s Day is a holiday for all women; it doesn’t single out mothers or women who have diamond-bearing men in their lives. Instead it celebrates every woman: a woman living alone with multiple cats pets, a woman who doesn’t get invited to romantic dinners, a scary woman at work, a cigarette-smelling waitress at the Waffle House who calls you “hon” and even the woman holding a “slow” sign in the highway work zone. These women may not look like models or be pleasant to deal with, but that doesn’t mean they should be excluded from a holiday based on arbitrary prerequisites such as having children or being in a relationship. That’s why I am surprised this holiday is virtually unknown in the US even though it was first introduced here in 1909.

    All kidding aside, women make our lives happy and exciting, they surround us with beauty and give us a reason to go on, they give us great memories and make our hearts pound. Making a woman laugh is one of the greatest pleasures of life and it never gets old.

    This year I am posting this a few days early so you can plan your upcoming celebrations, purchase flowers and presents, as well as locate and hug your nearest woman and, while she is calling the police, try to convince her you were just trying to congratulate her with the International Women’s Day.

    Happy International Women’s Day!

    This song is called “Million Red Roses”

    httpvh://youtu.be/ieqlySC2M-Y

    Previously: 2009

    P.S. I always wanted to translate the poem you see above this post and I have to say I am pretty proud of myself.

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  • Jews:1 Missouri Nazis:0

    You can complain about the Missouri Legislature, but you cannot accuse them in the lack of the sense of humor. Rick Hellman, the heir to Hellman Mayonnaise fortune editor of the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle reports that the Missouri legislators passed a bill meant to tweak the Springfield chapter of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement.

    In the beginning of the year local news reported that a neo-Nazi group has joined the state’s “Adopt-A-Highway” volunteer litter pickup program, taking advantage of a free speech court fight won four years ago by the Ku Klux Klan. Now they will be picking up litter along the “Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway.”

    Rabbi Heschel was a steadfast supporter of the Civil Rights and marched along with Martin Luther King in the Selma Civil Rights March.

    Heschel’s concern and action have been pivotal in two issues: race and peace. On the first, many will remember the picture of his striding alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., in the protest march at Selma, Alabama. Mrs. Coretta Scott King, in recalling that event, called Heschel “one of the great men of our time.” Rabbi Heschel described the march in these words: “For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was both protest and prayer. Legs are not lips, and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.”

    Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is seen 2nd from the right during the Selma March

    Said Missouri Nazis: “Oy Gevalt!”


    View Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway in a larger map

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t101rO7WuAM

    Read about it: HB1197

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