Barney Miller was fair and thoughtful, and a little flawed. During the run he had a separation from his wife, which they eventually figured out. Barney was always the even, measured voice of reason. I can see why my mom had such a huge crush on him.

Sgt. Stanley “Wojo” Wojciehowicz — it’s spelled just how it sounds — (Max Gail) was simple and kind of dumb, he was passionate and headstrong, but a little misguided at times. His character showed the greatest development as the series progressed.

Sgt. Ron Harris (Ron Glass) was the snappiest dresser, and had a wonderful sarcastic streak. Those three characters lasted throughout the entire run.

Sgt. Philip K. Fish (Abe Vigoda) was the source of every old person joke the writers could think of, which is hilarious to me now considering the fact that he was only 54 when the series started. He was eventually replaced by Sgt. Arthur Dietrich (Steve Landesberg) who was one of my favorite characters due largely to his intelligence and quick, sarcastic wit.

Sgt. Nick Yemana (Jack Soo, who died during the run) was like a walking one-liner machine.

Sgt. Chano Amengual (Gregory Sierra) was a Puerto Rican cop with a strong moral streak who hated seeing his fellow countrymen breaking the law. Chano disappeared from the show with no explanation.

My least favorite character when I was watching the show as a teen was Officer Carl Levitt (Ron Carey), who became one of my favorite characters upon my recent viewing. He was sarcastic, and a little needy, but was one of the best cops out there.

Same deal with Inspector Frank Luger (James Gregory) who I found annoying in my youth. That opinion didn’t change, Luger was supposed to be annoying, but seeing how James Gregory played him made me change my mind.

Honorable mention has to go to Linda Lavin who played Detective Janice Wentworth on several episodes. She played the character with such spunk and drive, and I really wish they could have kept her on longer. But she went on to make the series Alice, and she did pretty well there.

Then we can talk about the cavalcade of recognizable faces who played other cops, perpetrators, and victims who paraded through the episodes. Fans of M*A*S*H (like me) or pretty much any TV show of the era saw so many character actors parade through the ol’ 1-2 — sometimes several times playing the same or different characters.

The show wasn’t just a goofy comedy. It dealt with real world issues, and contemporary themes of the times: nuclear proliferation, gay rights, city and national elections, freedom of speech on the job, feminism and sexism, and did it all without being too trivial or too preachy. Very few modern comedies (many of which I see as just an endless procession of terrible people being terrible to each other) could say that.

My life changed in April of 1981 when my dad died at the age of 50. TV shows weren’t all that important to me then, and that hasn’t really changed much (the notable exception would be the Star Trek franchise). As a result I never saw the last couple of seasons of Barney Miller.

The last three episodes are about the precinct building being sold by the city for development, and the final scene has Barney having a few short flashback memories of Amengual, Fish, Wentworth, and Yemana. Barney turns out the lights, walks out, and closes the door behind him.

And I cried.

I cried for a lot of reasons. I cried because the characters all went their separate ways. I cried because I remembered how my family used to gather around the TV to watch the show. I cried because of my dad.

It’s weird to cry over a show that’s over 40 years old, especially one that I could just start over by just clicking “play.”

Nostalgia is a hell of a thing.

Washington (AP)– The army said Thursday it had received a report that ther Germans were using a new and diabolical booby trap–candy with a piece of thermite implanted in its center. When eaten, the candy melts away and the termite (sic) flames up i nthe throat and mouth.

Two experts in booby trap detection told of the device during a demonstration of weapons and mines at acting Secretary of War Patterson’s news conference.

The Germans also are using the Yankee desire for cleanliness in devising other traps, the experts reported. A liquid soap dispenser is filled with sulphueric acid, or similar material, to burn the hands when tipped up. Another gadget is an innocent looking cake of soap which can be used for some time and then, when the outercoating is worn away, detonates an explosive to blow off the hands.

Trivia

Thermite, according to Wikipedia, is “a pyrotechnic composition of metal powder and metal oxide. When ignited by heat or chemical reaction, thermite undergoes an exothermic reduction-oxidation (redox) reaction.”

A paint can of thermite can burn through a car engine. Even a small amount is violently destructive, as shown in the following video:

I have to wonder how many people fell victim to such a diabolical trap. Nasty.

Mint’s plusses are that we could both get unlimited data, the cost would be significantly less than AT&T, and that the T-Mobile network that Mint uses is far more extensive. I also noticed that even in town I was getting a LTE service from AT&T instead of their promised 5G. So it was pretty much a no-brainer to switch.

At the same time I was looking to get rid of Spectrum Business as my internet provider at work. When I opened my shop in 2018 I needed to get internet hooked up, but Spectrum doesn’t offer their services a la carte, and they force you to bundle at least two of them. Since I already had phone service through AT&T (I had been with them since they were Ma Bell), I opted for internet and TV. The TV box never got hooked to a TV, and yet I paid for it for all these years to the tune of around $270 per month. Mint offers a service called “MINTernet” that costs only $70 per month. All tolled it costs $773.88 (taxes & fees included) for a 12-month agreement which saves me literally thousands of dollars per year. Another no-brainer.

So I ordered up Mint phone and internet. A few days later the troubles began.

A few technical things: my iPhone uses an eSIM to set up service, Kate’s phone is older and requires a physical SIM card–or so I thought. But that’s later… So I ordered a 12-month unlimited data plan for an eSIM phone, an unlimited data plan for a SIM phone, and MINTernet.

The box showed up just a few days later on a Friday. I took the internet gateway out of the box, and set it aside to setup the following Monday as I was anxious to be done that day. I brought the SIM card home, and was going to get everything switched over on Saturday.

The SIM card comes on a larger card that’s about the size of a credit card, and there is a code on it you use to activate your account… or so I thought. I mean, it does activate an account, but I thought it was going to be for both phones. I opened the Mint app on my phone, as you are supposed to do, and entered the code, and that’s when my troubles started.

What I didn’t see was a little link that read “I have an eSIM” and so I took all the steps they asked for for the wrong phone without knowing it. I ported my phone number away from AT&T which put my phone in SOS mode, but was not able to get it hooked to Mint. It was because I was trying to get my eSIM phone to work with a SIM code. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time.

There was also an issue of my phone still being locked to AT&T, which was supposed to just “automatically switch” to the new carrier. It did not. I was on a tech support phone call with them for about 45 minutes before they were finally able to unlock my phone, all due to the fact that I had purchased it second hand off of Back Market. This was exacerbated by the fact that I had already ported my number to Mint.

Mint has an AI chat bot that is very good at resolving technical issues, but even it has its limits and I was eventually connected to a real human. It took some doing, but they were able to switch the SIM stuff to eSIM and I was able to get Mint working on my phone on Monday morning. It took two days.

So it’s Monday, I’ve successfully gotten my phone switched, now it’s time to hook up MINTernet.

The unit powered up, and was getting excellent signal. I could even connect my computer to the WIFI signal and everything, but I wasn’t able to get it connected to my Mint account. It took another tech support phone call and a lot of “enter this 6-digit code” until we finally got it all taken care of. It took almost 4-1/2 hours to do so.

Then we worked on getting Kate’s phone going. It turns out that her phone can also use an eSIM, which is great because all the fucking around caused the code for the card they sent me to become invalid. It only took about 35 minutes to do so. It should have taken far less.

Now, I admit that a lot of this could have been avoided if I had made sure my phone was unlocked from AT&T before I started, and had I clicked “I have an eSIM’ right from the start, but that doesn’t change the fact that this whole ordeal was stressful as fuck.

Ultimately, I am glad we switched everything over. The savings alone makes it worth the time and effort it took, and I look forward to enjoying our new services.

• 35 miles of walking
• 7 breweries
• 4 museums
• 2 cemeteries
• 1 distillery
• Countless restaurants

The highlights for me were the Art Institute of Chicago, and seeing the U-505 at the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry.

I think we’ll start with our hotel, which was on the corner of Wabash and Harrison. You can clearly see the L-train and Roosevelt University, as well as some street murals.

And then we’ll move on to some architecture and street art, as well as a little Picasso (which is actually huge).

Art Institute of Chicago

We spent right around 5 hours at the AIC. I could have spent another 5 hours, but our brains were pretty full and we were hungry. There was a special display of the work of Henri Matisse, and we made sure to get the extra tickets.

It was cool to see so many well known works of art as well as others I’d never even imagined. My absolute favorite, and the one that stopped me in my tracks, was Norman Lewis’ 1942 painting “Multitudes.” The photograph doesn’t do justice to the depth in the colors. The more I stared at it, the more I saw: people, tables, buildings, doors…

Field Museum of Natural History

I didn’t take many pictures at the Field Museum — the exhibits were all so dark. But I did get a couple of good shots.

Griffin Museum of Science & Industry

Our time at the Griffin was limited, but the only thing I really wanted to see was the U-505, a Nazi uboat captured by the American Navy in 1944. It was the only intact uboat captured by the US during WWII. I was a little underwhelmed by the tour, which didn’t go into enough depth (pun intended) for me. Still it was a dream come true to be onboard, and to see how the sailors lived in such a small and cramped war machine.

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison was great. I actually liked it better than Chicago. It’s clean, friendly, not oversaturated with humans, completely walkable, and I didn’t see any rats (saw one in Chicago). I would go back to Mad anytime.

We started at Resurrection Cemetery and Forest Hill Cemetery, which are across the street from each other. Forest Hill is one of the most beautiful cemeteries I’ve ever been to.

In our walks we saw a lot of fun stuff, and visited the Contemporary Art Museum of Madison, which was probably the oddest museum I’ve ever been to, and not because of the art. One gallery had pieces enclosed in stained glass boxes, and we both thought the stained glass was more interesting than the art they contained. Another gallery on the lower floor had only two paintings by two different artists. The second floor was in the midst of having a new exhibit installed and was closed to the public. And the top floor open air “sculpture garden” had only one sculpture. All-in-all, Kate said she counted only 21 pieces. It was free admission, but we donated some money anyway in hopes that they will get some more art.

And I’ll end with a few random shots from our long hikes.

We had a lot of fun, despite a few traffic jams on the way, and we both look forward to our next adventure together.

Fish Caserole (1944)

Recipe by Charlotte Adams

0.0 from 0 votes

Course: MainCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy

Servings

4

servings

Cooking time

40

minutes

From the St. Cloud Daily Times, May 19, 1944

Ingredients

• 2 lbs. Fish fillets: cod or any kind of fish (keep skin and bones aside)

• 2 cups Mashed potatoes

• 1/2 lb. Mushrooms

• 2 cups White sauce (described below)

• 1 Bay leaf

• 1 Carrot

• 1 Onion

• Few leaves of celery

• Salt & Pepper

• Dash of nutmeg

• Dash of paprika

• Chopped parsley (optional)

• 1/8 cup Sauterne*

Directions

• Boil the fish 10 minutes, adding skin and bones, bay leaf, carrot, onion, celery.
• Remove fish, throwing away skin and bones, and bay leaf. Reserve liquid with carrot, onion and celery in it.
• Make a white sauce with butter, flour and the reserved liquid of fish and milk. Add the wine if desired.
• Add spices and cooked mushrooms.
• Grease a baking dish, put the fish in, then cover with a layer of white sauce and repeat until all is used up.
• Top with a layer of mashed potatoes.
• Put in a moderate oven (375°) until potatoes are golden brown (30-40 minutes).
• Serve sprinkled with chopped parsley.

Notes

• * Sauterne is a sweet white wine that is apparently rather expensive. Alternatives are available, and can be found with a simple internet search.

So many missing ingredients and steps. It kind of assumes you have mashed potatoes sitting around, and tells you to add cooked mushrooms without ever telling you to cook them. Not sure if I’d ever actually want to try this, but who knows?

When reading the papers, I will sometimes look up the names mentioned in the articles, and so I looked up George Harsh. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. He wound up getting his death sentence commuted to hard labor. While in prison he saved the life of a fellow inmate by performing an appendectomy (there’s a story I’d love to hear), and was released after serving 12 years.

After drifting for a few years he emigrated to Canada where, during WWII, he joined the Canadian Air Force, serving as a tail gunner. His plane was shot down and he was captured by the Germans. In 1944 he helped 126 Allied prisoners tunnel out of Stalag 3. You might remember that caper from a little movie they made about it called “The Great Escape.”

In 1971 he wrote a book called Lonesome Road and became an anti-capital punishment advocate.

He went from teenage thrill killer to war hero to author and activist, and died in 1980.

The video is of real clouds that I filmed in my favorite walking park. It was a beautiful day.

• Muggsy Lauer – acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin, autoharp, vocals, keyboard and drum programming.
• Jeff Engholm – bass
• Recorded at my home, mixed by Jeff Engholm at Hunny Nut Studios