Isn’t it a great day?

That crisp air this morning on the way to work felt great. Fall’s truly just around the corner.

I wondered on the way in to the office this morning how long it would be before I overheard someone comlplaining about the cold, given all the complaining about the hot summer.

It didn’t take long. Someone in the newsroom was bemoaning the chill before noon.

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They’re bottling soda pop in Seymour. Seymour, Wisconsin, that is.

Seymour businessman Brett Sciarra of Quality Business Products recently left a newspaper clipping that an old friend of his had mailed.

The story, “Still manning the bottle station,” appeared in the Aug. 8 edition of the Wisconsin State Journal and focused on Seymour Beverage in Seymour, Wis., a suburb of Green Bay. (The writer, John Wiedenhoeft, must be a Packers fan or really know his audience. He described Seymour as being 14 mile west of Lambeau Field, where the Packers call home.)

Sciarra left the story with a note saying he thought I’d enjoy it. He was right, too. It was an interesting read. Sciarra received the story from former Seymour resident Mark Redicker, who now calls Minnesota home.

Seymour Beverage has been making pop since 1883 when it opened as Seymour Bottling Works.

Folks can apparently walk into the plant and enjoy a cold bottle of pop and pick up an order. It has a limited distribution area.

“Passing through the threashold of the bottling room is like slipping into a temporal eddy that has eluded the electronic age. Gears whizz and whir and sunlight from the open windows dances off the upside-down bottles as they make their way through from the wide track of the washer to be filled single file,” the story says.

Seymour Beverage is still producing 7-ounce returnable bottles of pop.

Remember those when we were kids (or adults, dpending on your age)? I always though Coke in those small bottles that my Uncle Carl always had in his fridge tasted so much better than the 16-ounce bottles.

When drinking those little Coca-Cola bottles, we used to play a game to see whose bottle had come from farthest distance into Mr. Ed’s Grocery on the southside. Remember how the bottler’s city was etched into the bottom of the bottles? Somehow I have trouble seeing today’s computer-hooked kids finding such a game as enjoyable as we did.

Seymour Beverage produces 17 flavors, including a blue raspberry that one customer says will make your mouth turn blue. Others include lemon lime and just plain lime.

Having first moved here in 1984, I was curious about whether there was a Seymour Bottling or a Seymour Beverage Co. in our city’s past. Do you know?

Also looking back, the story of Seymour Beverage reminded me of the Royal Palm soda company that was based in Terre Haute. As a kid, we always enjoyed grape and orange bottles of pop from Royal Palm when visiting our grandparents in Patricksburg, over in Owen County.

I tried to Google Royal Palm on TribTown.com but didn’t find anything except for some collector sites where can buy old bottles.

Those little bottles of Royal Palm sure tasted good, and I just imagine those from Seymour Beverage in Wisconisn taste great, too.

Georgiann Coons of Jackson County also responded with a “thanks for the nice flashback” and a request for fair and balanced journalism. You guessed it, Coons is a Purdue University grad and she prefers to recall the Farm Bureau Insurance spot that introduced Boilermakers basketball games.

“I really loved those Farm Bureau commercials, but I think another ad was much better — the man who is up in the attic, finds his old tuba and begins to play the first few notes of the Purdue fight song when he hears the entire band playing with him. Now that was a great commercial,” Coons wrote.

Coons, a 1981 Purdue grad, pointed out, however, that she “covertly cheers for IU and Notre Dame when they’re not playing Purdue.”

She suggested that in fairness that I publish the words to that tune, “Hail Purdue.”

Here they are, courtesy of Coons:

To your call once more we rally,

Alma Mater, hear our praise

Where the
Wabash spreads its valley

Filled with joy our voices raise,

From the hills with swelling echoes

Come the cheers that tell the tale

Of victories and your heroes,

Hail Purdue, we sing, all hail!

Hail, hail to Old Purdue,

All hail to our Old Gold and Black,

Hail, hail to Old Purdue,

Our friendship may she never lack,

Every grateful, ever true

Thus we raise our song anew,

Of the days we’ve spent with you,

All hail, our own Purdue.

Do you have gout?

I do, and boy does it hurt.

I’ve had a broken leg. I’ve passed some decent size kidney stones. I’ve had a rock propelled into my right eye from a slingshot.

I’d take the pain from any of those over a severe flareup of gout any day.

 Before any mothers out there write back to say, “Yeah, but have you given birth,” I concede that I have not. So I’ll not pretend that gout can be as painful as giving birth.

 But it is a real pain.

When I was younger, before gout first flared in my right big toe, I often wondered why Mom complained so whenever her gout showed up. I often gave her the same look that I sometimes see pointed in my direction these days. I’m sorry I ever doubted her.

While I often receive those looks that just scream “get over it,” I can spot a fellow gout sufferer. Their looks are those of understanding. Their looks are ones of understanding. Of saying, “I’m glad it’s your toe and not mine.”

We also share stories of pain and possible remedies. Cherry juice seems to help my swelling, although not always. Do you have any recommendations for relief? I’d appreciate you sharing them.

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Freeman Municipal Airport officials dedicated its new terminal at a reception Wednesday afternoon.

The general public will have an opportunity to take a look at the building Sept. 1. An open house is planned from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. that day, Airport Manager Don Furlow said Wednesday.

Although The Tribune editorialized against the project last year because of tight financial times for the city and the airport, it was still good to see that the project turned out well. Given the tough financial times, it was also good to see that the airport board moved slowly in terms of leaving the second floor’s completion for a later project.

Furlow, Mayor Jim Bullard, U.S. Rep, Baron Hill and Airport Authority President Bob Zickler described the terminal as a gateway to the community. And they’re right, for the folks who enter the city through Freeman Field’s flightline. The hope is that a more presentable — and more functional — terminal will encourge more air traffic into and out of the city.

It was also good to see that the building’s design paid tribute to the genesis of Freeman Field as a training airport for pilots during World War II.

A reader indentifying themself as “Sherry” offered a reader comment to a column in The Tribune concerning Seymour Board of Public Works and Safety members upset with our coverage of their role, or lack of their role, in the officer Bernard Petro discipline.

Sherry posed a question toward the end of her comment: “I wonder who’s picture you will replace hers with and who you will pick on when she is gone,” referring to Seymour Common Councilwoman Mary Voss.

I assume Sherry’s talking about the use of Voss’ mugshot with news stories in The Tribune.

I’m inferring from Sherry’s question or comment that she thinks the use of mugshots with stories is punitive, but that’s not the case.

Newspapers publish mugshots for two basic reasons — they provide a little art on a gray page and they let people see who’s making a point of providing leadership, regardless of what you may think of that leadership.

We routinely run mugshots of public officials when they are quoted extensively in a story. If a public official shows little leadership or comments very little in public meetings, their mugs aren’t likely to be used too often. If someone speaks out, if someone provides leadership, their mugshot will likely be published quite often.

That’s the case with Voss.

She’s been a vocal city council member, and that voice will be missed when she leaves council at the end of this year, regardless of whether you agree with her on any number of issues she’s dealt with over the years as a council member.

Voss said after losing this spring’s primary election that she assumed she lost because of the smoking ordinance. She also quickly pointed out that she would not change what she did concerning that ordinance. That’s leadership. And that’s why you’ll see mugshots of people like Voss and others in the newspaper.

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I mentioned early Sunday that I had been mostly unconnected to TribTown.com and my work e-mail while on vacation last week.

Generally, that wasn’t such a bad thing. We all need time to re-energize ourselves, and taking a look at other Web sites and newspapers offered food for thought. There was also time spent simply thinking about what’s coming next here in the newsroom as we migrate more and more toward the Internet.

But there was certainly a downside to being away from e-mail. The missives stacked up, with most being junkmail despite our spam blocker.

I had to wade through more than 200 e-mails. Again, most were junk and were easy to discard. Most of the rest were from folks here at the office, and they knew I was off. Most were simply heads-up notes on what was going on.

How do you handle e-mail while you’re out of the office for an extended period? Do you have others go through them? Do you bounce them all somewhere else? Are you so tethered to e-mail that there’s no way you could survive a week of vacation without it?

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The family and I have been on vacation, and although I brought my laptop, I ‘ve been virtually disconnected.

The WiFi card wouldn’t allow a connection, and I couldn’t figure things out at the Barnes & Noble. Hence, no blog postings until now, on our trip home.

We’ve had a great vacation, including our younger daughter’s first trip to the ocean and the beach. It was fun watching her eyes and hearing her initial, apprehensive giggles turn into shrieks of laughter.

About not being connected, I’m not exactly complaining. At times in recent years as many of us become tethered to e-mail and our offices, I’ve felt like I’ve spent more time reading e-mails and checking out what’s happening via TribTown.com than I enjoying my time off.

Anyway, I’m connected again and recharged to face the challenges of the coming week.

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Have a safe and happy Fourth of July.

And thanks for reading Tribtown. and Dan’s blog.

Have you driven past the old Seymour Elks Lodge golf course lately?

What a shame. It looks pretty sad and lonely. The greens are overgrown. Ditto the fairways. And talk about roughs.

Driving to Brownstown on Thursday, you couldn’t help but notice the green and tee box closest to U.S. 50 looked like you could cut it and bale it. On the drive home to the office that afternoon, someone had mowed it. It still looked like you could bale the grass.

What’s going on with the property’s sale from Elks Lodge 462 to Lucas Ackerman of Brownstown? We don’t know for sure, except that deal apparently is not complete. We’ve also heard that there is, or was, a chance that the land could survive as a golf course. That would probably make some area golfers and neighboring property owners happy.

But taking a look at the overgrown greens, fairways, tees and roughs, it’s hard to imagine you could see anyone opening up golf course there this summer, even if there is something to those rumors.

A friend remains irritated with me that The Tribune took an editorial stance against the city of
Seymour buying the property and converting it into a municipal golf course. Seymour Common Council agreed.

I still think that was the right position for the community, although I understand his assertion that having the property remain a golf course would be a community asset while people like Jim Plump as they attempt to recruit industrial prospects to locate their operations in

Jackson
County.

I just think the private sector should decide whether the best use of that ground is for building new homes or sinking incredible putts.

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