Firefighter's memorial

Sunday was a really nice day. PW and I went to the State Capitol grounds to witness the dedication of the newest memorial on the lawn - a statue to the 207 Minnesota firefighters who have died in the line of duty in Minnesota's history. PW's son, Steve, who is the fire chief in Grand Rapids was there with his wife, too, so we sat near them.

 The firefighters from across Minnesota came to the dedication and creatively hoisted a very large U.S. flag near the Capitol building.  Fire trucks for scale.

This is the new memorial on the Capitol lawn.  It may look familiar to some.  It was for a time displayed in the Lindbergh air terminal at the Twin Cities Airport.  It depicts a fireman rescuing a child from a fire.

It was a nice ceremony, but pretty lengthy, because they read the names of all fallen firefighters and presented the family of each a rose and an opportunity to shake the hand of the guv (Mark Dayton), the St Paul mayor (Chris Coleman) and Minnesota's senior senator, Amy Klobuchar, plus other local dignitaries.  Somehow Al Franken missed the event.

Today was another really nice day.  The main photographic highlight was a tour of Lake Como to see how the leaves were turning.  Some are still green, some are very red and yellow, and some of the ash trees have given up completely.  It's been dry and the ash trees are notorious quitters.

I'll probably revive the concept of Kelsey trees.  Those are the ones that refuse to give up and keep their leaves long after the pikers have packed it in.  It's a little early yet to begin judging the tree's vigor, but it will become clear later in the month who they are.

This is a partially obstructed view of the lake from the south side of Como.

Quite a lovely red maple stands near Lake Como, on the east side near the parking lot.  It was the best of the lot today, IMHO.

I chatted some this morning with PP. She got an email, purportedly from Winona Laduke, saying that Winona had been mugged in Madrid and needed 1450 euros to pay her bills and get home. The email asked PP to send it if she could. PP has had some contact with Ms. Laduke on a volunteer basis at the White Earth Indian Reservation, so she thought it might be a valid situation, but after talking it over with Unky Herb and me, it was clear that there had been a hacking of Ms. Laduke's email account and someone was trolling for dollars. PP sent an email to Winona advising her to change her password, preferably to something more complicated than the usual run of passwords. I think PP changed her own password, too, to be on the safe side. I guess that Tanzania is the wild, wild west of the internet.

A New Statue

Yesterday Bill Clinton was in town to dedicate a new statue on the capitol lawn in St. Paul. A lot of current and retired politicians showed up for the dedication. I wasn't invited, as far as I know, but today was a beautiful day and the PW and I wanted to see what the statue looked like, so we went down there to scout out the location of the memorial. The Happy Warrior, Hubert Humphrey, has been gone from this world for 30 years. Yesterday Walter Mondale and Skip Humphrey, HHH's son, were there along with our current senators and a smattering of Representatives and unveiled the statue. Today, there were far fewer people and no politicians at all there to view the site, which is just north of the Charles Lindburgh memorial and somewhat closer to the capitol itself. It's not a bad likeness from what I know of HHH, and a pretty nice tribute to the former VP, multiple term Senator, and one time mayor of Minneapolis.

The Minnesota State Capitol on a beautiful August day. The scaffolding indicates that work is going on maintaining the very old building which is much in need of repair. We walked around the grounds, looking at most of the memorials, but the capitol building itself was locked. One of the guys who was catering an event in the afternoon said that the building was to open at one p.m., but we didn't hang around to go inside.  It's quite a nice capitol building.  I dare say one of the top 50 in the nation.

The Viet Nam War and Korean War Memorials are both quite striking and remind me of the many wars we have fought in my lifetime. As is the newer World War II exhibit. 

Another memorial at the Minnesota Capitol is dedicated to living soldiers, those who survived their time in the service of their country.

Just a word of congratulations to Andy Murray who won the men's singles gold medal in straight sets at the London Olympics. It was a big day for the Brits and the Scots today, and not so good for Roger Federer and the Swiss. Murray also was able to win a silver medal in the mixed doubles - one of the best tennis days for the English populace since about 1937 or so.