Google Life Magazine photo archives were broken for the past month or so and I was starting to think that I would eventually need to write a post by myself. Luckily the photo search is working again and I am back to posting pictures.
On another technical note, I changed the comment system here, after liking how it worked on the Pitch’s blogs. Hopefully it will work faster, look cleaner and be easier to use with multiple ways to log in and subscribe. Give it a shot, I really don’t feel like figuring out how to go back to the old system.
In 1963 Life Magazine published a special issue dedicated to the USSR, which included unique photos taken by the Life’s correspondents over a period of one year. Although the foreign correspondents were usually “gently” guided by their KGB “guides”, they managed to obtain an unprecedented access and photograph the real Soviet Union, its people and sights. Today I will post some color photos, which are a rare find for these years.
First, a short organizational announcement: I am trying to see if I can run a caption contest on my FB page, but so far there is only one participant and a winner by default. Feel free to join in. Next time I’ll just run it here.
Driving through Kansas is never very exciting. While there are many historic sites and things to see, they are pretty well spaced out, separated by miles and miles of endless fields and roads stabbing the horizon. Even by Kansas standards 200 miles between Kansas City and Hutchinson are pretty boring. Only few places made an effort to lure the passing traveler but even I, usually curious about all the rural wonders, wasn’t going to get off the road to see the “Rhino Capital of Kansas”. We did a 5-minute detour in Peabody, KS which posted several signs announcing its main attraction 1880’s Main Street. The Main Street looked exactly like every other small town in Eastern Kansas, most of which were built around the same time. Instead, I liked this house and that’s all I have to say about Peabody, KS.
I used to be better at remembering useless dates, I blame the atrophy of my memory on the iPhone. It’s the iPhone’s fault that I am posting this photo three days late. Vladimir Illyich Lenin died on January 21,1924.
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.
It may surprise you but I am not a huge supporter of the Kansas City E-Tax which is just a modern version of highway robbery. But this post is not about my feelings about the tax, which is already well-covered on this blog. I was always interested in how it was originally sold to the prehistoric Kansascitians back in 1963, when it was only .5%. So I made a trip to the library and spend some time looking at women spinning microfilm. I bet not too many of you have seen any of these.
*note: I am not a fan of PDF files, and this is probably a rare time you’ll see them embedded on my blog, but I think they would actually make some of these newspaper clippings more readable; they are fully scrollable and magnifiable. Others were converted to image format, they are clickable and linked to better readable versions. Let me know if you encounter any problems.
This open letter to the property owners was printed in the Star/Times the day before the elections – December 16, 1963.
