Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this Friday, August 30th, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailov here at 430 today.
We're going to talk to the editor-in-chief Carol Connery from the old
farmer's Almanac looking forward to that conversation.
And as always looking forward to talking to some of our favorite people.
We have this store point boss in with us right now.
Mr. Mike Hittner with us. Mike Good to have you with us.
Thank you James and WFHR and everybody in radio land.
And we want to welcome in Paula with us too.
Paula Clavine as with us. How Paula, thanks for being here.
Thank you for having me.
It's nice to have you here. And thank you right away in our pregame
for the throwback memory. That was very nice. I appreciate that.
Mike Paula, we have a lot to talk about today.
We're going to focus on harvest fair in a moment.
But Mr. Hittner, if you don't mind, I'd like to talk about the town hall moving first.
Yeah, the Saratoga town hall.
Well, I guess it was kind of a mutual thing.
We were kind of interested in it and the town of Saratoga approached us
if we'd be interested in taking it. And then we had some negotiations to do
because the cost of moving it is expensive of course.
And we didn't have the funding for that.
So they gave us the town, gave us $35,000 to move it,
which will cover maybe the basement. I don't know.
Sort of thing because we've got a basement in place.
Now it's up on the circle where the Columbia school is on our site
on the east of the creek.
And we're just trying to make a kind of like a little town of Saratoga village sort of thing there.
And so put those two buildings together.
The 1860 Columbia school and the 1898 town hall.
So we've taken the floor out so far. The basement is built and the walls are up.
And so sometime this fall where the weather is nice yet,
the rest of the town hall will come over to the site.
And we're really looking forward to it.
It's kind of saving that part of history.
We are part of the town of Saratoga.
And so I think it was a providential that we got the town of all.
I was looking at this and talking with the owners of it 15, 20 years ago.
But it just never worked out.
And so now it's coming to fruition.
So we're happy.
It's really cool to hear. It's exciting news.
Back in my old construction days,
I was a part of a couple of projects about like this where we were taking a house from one town and moving it.
It's a big project. It's something big to do.
But it's done when it's important.
And this is important.
It's one of those things that we don't want to lose to history.
It was also used at besides the town hall.
It was used as an overflow for the schools.
Whenever they had too many students in certain one of the schools,
I think there was foreign Saratoga way back.
Columbia, I think, was one of the first ones.
But they had school in there. They had elections in there.
They did a lot of things probably up until I would say probably the 60s or 70s
or something like that. And then they built the new town hall.
And it was moved originally on the closer to the corner of 1373.
It was moved north of that about a block or in block and a half.
So we're excited.
You know, it'll be a great addition to our site.
And it's where it belongs, really.
Yeah. That's a well set.
This is a big project.
And we greatly appreciate the work that you guys do at this Torrent Point Boss.
But we don't want it to all be on your shoulders.
Is there ways as a community we can help with a project like this, Mike?
Or will there be ways made?
Well, certainly volunteers are always needed.
We have a Monday.
This next week it'll be Wednesday because Monday is a holiday.
We have a Monday work group that men can be women,
doesn't matter who it is, we accept anybody.
Come down and work and help out with the chores that have to be done.
Everything from cutting grass to trimming trees to picking.
This next week will be picking apples for our apple harvest,
for making our cider at the harvest fair.
And so we can always use that.
Certainly, if you can't donate in that way,
certainly economically we could use some dollars.
That move of the town hall is expensive.
And certainly that initially that 35,000 from the town of Saratoga was appreciated.
But it will no way cover the total cost of putting that building back up on that site there.
And we're probably looking at it probably another $100,000.
It's probably close to that.
So I mean, certainly we can take donations for that if anybody is willing to do that.
Especially anybody in the town of Saratoga that likes to see their history retained and preserved.
Reach out to the store.
Pointboss through their website, historicpointboss.com.
And be sure to bookmark that page.
Thank you for that information, Mike.
Appreciate it.
And looking forward to seeing how that develops and how ways we can impact and help with that.
One way we can help is attending events at the store point boss and making sure they are well attended and celebrated.
And we got a great one coming up in the first week of September.
Harvest fair is right here. It's finally time.
Yeah, it's just like eight, nine days away.
It's on Saturday, September 7th from 10 to four.
It's a great event.
Let Paula talk in the minute here about a little bit.
She's co-chairing with me and she's come up with a lot of new and great ideas.
And I think it'll just add to this event.
We have a foraging class that's led by Ann Rosner, one of our members.
And Scott just talked to Paula before we went on air that we got 14 people signed up.
And they're coming in by twos and threes.
So Ann's going to take them like foraging, find out what's available in the area,
what the use of those different herbs and plants are for.
And so Ann does a great job on that.
If anybody wants to sign up, they're still taking sign ups until Monday.
Labor day and then after that, we'll have to cut it off because we got a certain limitations on space
and where we can handle the facility and that sort of thing.
So Ann will be doing that from 9 to 11 on Saturday, September 7th.
And then Ann will also be, she's made some jellies and jams out of different wild berries and wild flowers
and everything should be selling some of those on the site later.
It's going to be a great event as always, the apple cider.
All of our apples are growing pretty much on site unless we have a bad year.
We do go off site to pick some pairs to add a little extra flavor to the apple cider.
We'll pick those for one of our local cranberry marshes that have donated them.
And we've did plant this year.
James is kind of interesting for everybody out there.
We had a dedication for one of our past people that was involved in our site, Walter Webster.
It passed away about a year ago or so.
And we had a dedication with, we always plant a tree usually for our people that were special to us.
And so we planted a pear tree because we always looking to add a little more to our site down there.
We got about, I think about 80 apple trees now that we planted two pear trees.
And so four or five years from now we'll be having pairs from our own site.
So that's always kind of nice and kind of shows how we're growing different directions and that sort of thing.
And it's very full circle for him and his memory.
I really love that.
When you see the tree, you just know all that one's for so-and-so and that one's for you know.
Sometimes, unfortunately, we kind of forget which one is planted for who, but I think the families...
We had a nice turnout for the Webster family.
I think we had, was that the evening of the Saturday, the first day of our festival this year.
And we had, I think there were six or eight members.
The Webster family came all the way from over the Appleton, Caucana, Green Bay area and came over to our site and took part in the dedication.
So it was really nice that they took the time out and came over for recognizing what he meant to us and what he meant to them also.
That's beautiful. That's sweet. And it's very fitting.
And it's really cool.
And then we'll have, of course, making out the crowd.
We'll have some samples there from last year's crowd.
And so you'll be able to taste some of that and we make the crowd which we use at our Winterfees.
So it's always these things that are being used later.
The site will be used. You'll get some samples.
But it also is used at Spirit Walk and James, by the way, we have an opening for you.
If you want to be a spirit.
Really? Yes.
19th and 26th of October.
So contact me if you're interested.
But we have a little opening this year.
And so we're looking for a few more spirits.
We're going to talk, sir.
Yeah, we'll talk.
So that's that side will be used for the Spirit Walk and also for our Winterfees which is in February.
So we make good use of everything that we make down there and produce.
And then, of course, the house will be open.
We also be open.
We have Virginia asked, who's an expert in wool and anything to do with wool.
She'd be there doing the display and doing different things.
And we also have Brooke Mitchell, who will be under a little fly.
And she's our resident soap maker.
So if you need to buy some soap, we have Paula.
Maybe you can go into the produce that we're going to have.
That's the first time in many, many years.
Yes, we have contacted Rosher Creek Farm from Friendship Wisconsin.
And they are going to have their display.
So finally, at Harvest Fair, we're going to sell vegetables.
They will be selling vegetables.
They'll have their whole display.
That's wonderful, Paula.
It is.
Also, we have a lunch with the Wisconsin Genealogy Society.
They're going to be providing lunch for sale.
Be a nice addition.
It will be.
Another thing we're going to do this year for fun is different games.
We're going to have games such as skillet throwing.
I've been researching that.
We have a couple sets of like three and a half phone skillets.
A couple sets of a pound and a half skillets.
We'll see which works best.
Yeah.
We'll have to block the area off.
You don't need nobody to get hit by flying skillet.
Exactly.
But we're limiting it to women actually this year.
We don't know if you have a big enough area for the men.
Yeah, it's probably small.
No, no.
And I've read before that when they've had this at different events,
that they have the husband's taunting.
But we don't want any injuries.
Yeah.
So we're going to hold that down.
Another thing we have, we have one of our members want a husband calling contest.
Okay.
So she's going to lead that.
That is cool.
I've heard about this recently.
These are fun.
These are fun little contests that people have and everything.
We see them in a lot of fairs.
Yeah.
That's a great addition.
Oh, that's fun.
So the other game we're going to, or other thing we're going to do.
Hopefully we'll do a three-legged race if we get people to sign up.
We've also got the board walks where three people have,
or two or three people have to coordinate with each other to walk with their feet on these boards.
So we'll see.
That might just be for fun.
I don't know that we'll have a competition this year.
It depends on how many people sign up.
Maybe some hawk throwing, just depending on how many volunteers we have.
If we can specify a certain time or something like that.
And that's always a lot of fun for the, I'd say, anybody from students from fourth grade up,
usually, and their parents, you know, do the little hawk throwing, which is kind of fun.
And one of those things that we do with our student groups when they come down there,
and a lot of school groups, Paul just told me before we went on here,
that we had a new group from Nesita, Wisconsin, coming up six to ninth graders,
a charter school down in Nesita.
And they just drove by and saw a sign about who'd done it.
And they checked our site out, went down there, and on their own, and checked out,
and then contacted Paul out, hey, can we come?
And of course, we don't turn hardly anybody ever away, so.
That's really cool.
You know, one of the things that I always love about the different add-ons or events
that you host at the historic point, Boss, is the tied to history,
while also trying to fund a fun way to do that.
And, you know, when we have families and kids down there,
and we're teaching them this history, wanting them to embrace it, and really take pride in it,
these things can help.
They are that extra thing that gets that spark going in that brain for them,
that to do that.
And it gives us adults something fun to do, too.
Yeah, and you want to have hands-on things, and we're a living history site,
so certainly we're hands-on.
But we want to encourage more of that hands-on by the games, or whatever they do.
They can help with the crowd-making.
Certainly, Don always needs help with, you know, cranking up the apples,
and crushing them, and pressing them, and that sort of thing,
because it's a lot of labor involved in those kids with all their enthusiasm.
Have all this extra labor that sometimes as we get older, we don't have anymore, so.
And of course, the harvest fair is going to feature ability to be able to visit some of the great houses
and different locations that we have on the historic point box.
Yeah, I think everything is open.
The school is occupied with the forging class, and so I think everything other than the school will probably be open.
Tom Braemer is coming home, and he'll be in the cabin.
He comes home for this.
He's up north usually at his cottage, but he'll be home.
So the blacksmith will be there.
We have an itinerant one that comes from the outside, but helps us quite often.
And so all the buildings will be occupied, and you can go in and tour.
Try out some things, I know, usually in the house they're doing something that the kids can get involved with,
or whatever sort of thing, and different projects.
So I think, you know, Johan will be in the barn, so Johan can talk to your off.
People go in there sometimes, and I'm kind of wondering, Johan, what'd you do?
Capture those people or whatever they come out 20 minutes later, but they're all real happy about all the information he gave.
But that's a great thing about it.
You know, people really get into it.
You know, when you guys were getting together to look to add on some things to this event, Paula,
how important was it for you to be not, and this is something this historic point box does so well,
of things that I was talking about before, fun for the kids, fun for families, and different things,
but also really tying into the community and helping the community.
I look at the Rocha Creek farm being there as a perfect example of this.
We wanted to, we also want anybody, anybody that wants to volunteer to help us with the games.
We sent out a few things, and I've gotten a few people interested, we'll see if they show up.
Some of them wanted to do some games that way I said no.
They were teasing us, but I think it's a great way to involve.
When we have the school groups, some of the parents are with their kids as chaperones,
and they say my kids wouldn't love to be here, can they come?
I said yes, and we have costumes.
You know, the great thing about the school groups we have, and have one of those school groups,
actually, I think Paula and Paula can probably verify, there's as many adults as our children.
There's like 25 or 30 children.
I think there's probably 15 adults there.
It's unbelievable sometimes how many adults come, especially with that one particular group.
Usually most of them, they have half a dozen adults, but this one has about 15.
I think what we're trying to do, and James says you can see with the price,
$3 for adults, and $1 for students.
I mean, this is truly a family event.
I mean, you can go there and probably get by less than $10 for entry fee,
and there's no charge, of course, or parking ever, so I mean, it's a great event.
I love when this happens. Right in my notes, that was my very next thing to touch on, Mike.
Because not only are the prices noteworthy for the conversation, but noteworthy in general in 2024.
There is virtually nothing you can do with your kids and your family for four bucks.
Like adults, three children, $1, and that's really important to what you guys,
two you go at the school appointments.
For sure, for children, we don't want to raise that type of price.
If ever we can help it, because we want to keep getting children there,
and adults, and families there.
But of course, we have budgets to meet, and bills to pay, and that sort of thing.
But we want to make it affordable for people, and sometimes we think to ourselves,
well, maybe we're not charged enough that they think there's nothing there, or something.
But I think if they come there, there'd be actually quite amazed about how much things we have going on,
and for the price, it's a great economy.
Yeah.
I've had people comment as they left at the end of the day saying,
I wish I would have come sooner.
I would have spent much more time at all the different areas to talking to the people
that they didn't a lot enough time during the day to do the site.
Well, you touched on something, actually, I wanted to get to.
And thank you for the tea up there.
Well, this isn't the first event of the year.
To me, Harvest Fair has always been kind of the beginning of a really important stretch for you guys at this store point boss,
where you've got back to back events coming up.
And it's another opportunity, not only for us to get there, and enjoy their store point boss,
and some of the great things that you guys are doing, but attend these events,
and help you guys keep history alive over there.
Because while you're taking in these events, you're also being able to do that.
And James and for listeners, we're working on, and we don't know if it'll come to fruition,
but we're working on a civil war event.
It's just all civil war.
A new event, it'll be added probably in next August.
And we're researching it right now and talking to the civil war groups and everything.
And that event would be totally the civil war.
It'd be different than any of our other events, and it would be just dedicated to civil war.
I think we're throwing around the idea of calling it a wakely civil war reunion.
Playing on words a little bit.
Of course, we always like playing on words.
Yeah, it gets me every time.
What a great idea.
I'm curious to see how that develops in everything.
We've got a couple of our members that are going around to different sites
where the civil war groups are doing events from year to year,
and talking to them and see if they'd be willing to come, and what weekend works best for them.
And so hopefully we can work it out and hopefully our public can look forward to it
and see it in some of our advertising and our brochures
probably by January or something like that.
The further we get from something like that too,
it's important especially for us in the north or in places where you might think it didn't affect
or didn't have as much of an impact, it sure did.
And it's nice to be able to think of that too, a part of that.
Yeah, well, and for members of the Wakeley family,
either cousins or sons of the Wakeleys were in the civil war.
So certainly it affected us up here.
We're Robert Wakeley, tried to harness the water power in point boss,
you know, to put a dam in there and stuff.
And he was under under man because of the civil war,
and he couldn't get it done.
Of course, then it was harvested and controlled on the acoustic side that we know today.
But otherwise, if he had his boys all home,
maybe he could have done it on that side.
Also in James in February, we're going to have a snowshoe event.
So hopefully last year we had it, but we didn't have any snow.
This year I think looks more promising from what I understand.
Yeah, it does seem like that.
Always enjoy talking with you too, Mike.
I could talk to you for days.
Appreciate the history there with civil war that you were mentioning.
Everybody keep in mind the historic point bosses.
Harvest fair is coming up Saturday.
September 7th, 10 to 4.
Meet them over there.
Find out more at historicpointboss.com.
Attend this event.
It's going to be a blast.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
And there's so many fun, unique ways for you to not only impact this work that they're doing at the store point boss,
but also to have a great time.
And as something that Paul and brought up earlier wanted to make sure to end on,
we could always use volunteers.
We could always use good hands on, especially all you younger people out there.
Definitely want you to get on down and that help us out.
Well, we got a whole basement of costumes.
So we can cost you anybody.
We'd like to especially get families with younger kids there.
Because when you go to historic site years ago,
it wasn't all old people or gray hair people.
It was younger people too.
So we're really looking for those families with children and everything that we could dress them actually.
So we appreciate that.
Yeah, yeah.
If people want to be a part of things,
whether it's volunteering or donating,
or just finding out more about some of the great events that Mike and Paul and I have been talking about,
go to historicpointboss.com.
It's all one word, historicpointboss.com.
Be sure to follow them on social media as well.
It's great to follow in a great way to keep up the date on the history being kept alive over at the historic point boss.
Appreciate both of you,
what you're doing in our communities and what you're doing over there.
Thanks a lot for the time today.
Thank you, James and WFHR.
Thank you, James.
I appreciate it.
We'll talk soon, guys.
And we'll have more midday magazine coming up for you right here at 975 FM 1320 AM WFHR.
We are locally grown radio.
