Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Monday, January 20th, 2025.
Have your host, James J. Maylove here.
At 430 today, we're going to talk to our good friend, Nicole Menzel,
library director over at the Lester Public Library of Rome,
looking forward to that.
Right now, the perfect way to kick off this week,
our friends at Historic Point Boss joining us,
we have Mike Hittner and Paula Klovene with us
to talk a little bit about some of the events going on over at the Store Point Boss.
Good afternoon, you guys. How you doing?
Good afternoon, James and everybody in WFHR land.
Hello.
Appreciate the time from you two and everything you guys,
and your group and the organization over there puts into our community
and helps keeping history alive.
And one of our signature events over there is the ice harvest
and that is right around the corner, Mike.
Right. And I like show and tell on the radio, James.
Yes. Yes. Oh, wow.
Yes.
I brought an ice saw today with us, folks.
And it's a heavier steel than what you'd use for wood
and the teeth are a little more separated.
And of course, iron handle on this is just a trim saw.
Which is probably about 28, 30 inches long.
And it's just for trimming them once they come out of the water.
And if maybe if they're too big or they've got a little break on them
and a little off shape, they trim them with this.
But normally the big saws I got them on my car out here,
but I think they're about, you know, six, seven feet long.
And so those are the ones we actually use for cutting ice.
So we'll be out there January 25th from about 10 to 1.
And anybody wants to come out in just watch?
We've got a lot of people calling to ask about that.
Or if you want to participate,
we certainly encourage people to come and help us cut
where as we know, James getting a little grayer and a little older.
So it's a little harder for us to do the work.
So if we've got some young people,
we've contacted a couple of the high schools
and hopefully we'll get some teenager out there
and want to really work and cut some ice.
And then we'll haul down to the site and put it in our ice house.
We can hold about 120 blocks depending on the ice.
We put up our fence last Monday, excuse me, last Thursday.
It was too cold last Monday, it was like today.
And we decided to do on Thursday.
And the ice was about 16 inches thick.
So I would think after this cold snap,
probably in the range of 20 probably.
So that's a nice amount of ice.
Last year was our worst year ever, 12 inches.
And it was very crystallized.
And it kind of broke like in icicles.
And of course it was just a warm winter.
And I think I heard some plays that was like the worst year
in Wisconsin for ice in recording since 1950 or whenever.
Remember that recording that ice thickness
and everything was kind of one of the worst year or so.
So we're looking for a good harvest.
And it's part of the Port Edwards Lines fishery.
And we want to give a shout out to them
for letting us be a part of them.
It's at Nebko Lake just by the shelter house.
Just off shore, we were about 40 feet off, 50 feet off shore.
So eight foot of water.
So we want to maybe make sure everybody's safe.
You don't like anybody who goes swimming
when they don't want to swim.
Right, Mike, I'm spoiled.
You spoil me all the time.
I get show and tell and you show me some of these things
over the years.
And they're fascinating to me.
Not just I think is a lover of history
and coming from a construction background,
but just the idea of the history in itself.
And in the uniqueness of these items,
when people come to the event,
are they going to be able to look at these?
Well, yeah, yeah, and then use some of them.
The smaller children, we don't want to get them
by the open water, but they can do some trimming
with that.
And the older kids can come and try their hand at it
and do some more.
We're fortunate.
Sometimes some people come there and stay, you know,
two, three hours.
And it's like, way great.
That sort of thing.
So then we haul it down and put it in their ice
house, pack it away.
They're also welcome to come down there.
That would start somewhere around probably 12 or something
like that.
And then we've got our sawdust.
We picked up at Golden Eagle log homes
and we got that in a trailer there.
And of course, pack it was sawdust because that was the main
kind of throw away thing they had for insulation in those days.
If they didn't have sawdust,
they use straw or hay for that sort of thing.
One of the things I think I bring this up for is, you know,
history is, is there's a million history classes out there
being taught, you know, not today,
but tomorrow and stuff when school is back in session.
There's certainly amazing school teachers out there
doing great work and encourage, you know,
more and more people to learn more and more about history and
learning, but especially when you're young,
one of the quickest ways to get a young person to learn
something or start a spark is then to feel it.
Then to actually touch the items, you know,
words can only do so much and being able to actually physically
be at this event and touch that saw, see those saws.
I thank you for doing that.
Also, though, I think that I encourage people to come down
for it as well.
Yeah, it's a great way to learn.
And as you and I all know and Paulo also, I'm sure we learned a
lot in school, but a lot of us wrote memorization,
which is okay, you know, like multiplication tables,
you got to memorize those, otherwise they aren't,
they aren't right there when you need them.
But for a lot of kids for the history end of it,
I think it's a really sinks in when they see it,
touch it, feel it, that sort of thing.
It's kind of interesting, you know,
just a little off the beaten path,
but I was reading a biography by a slave woman,
written about 1860 and she was a slave and then escaped
or got her freedom, whatever.
And her brother was 10 years old and she was a little older.
And her brother got sold $720 in 1850.
Guess what that is in today's money.
I think 34,000.
So you can see why when the South in the Civil War
was fighting so hard, not only was it labor,
it was their economy.
If you had 100 slaves, you might have had a, you know,
three quarters of a million dollars worth of a money
invested in them.
And so when they get freed, all of a sudden you lost your labor
and you lost the value that you paid for though.
So unbelievable amount.
It's timely to think of now, especially,
and Martin Luther King Nation.
Right, absolutely.
When it comes to the event and the ice harvest,
are there other things people are going to want to know,
especially if they have, I always like to talk about these,
like, no, it's somebody who hasn't attended it,
which is far fetched for us to think of in this area,
because he's so popular and everything.
But the idea you first time come into the ice harvest,
some of the things you'll experience.
Well, you experience us cutting.
And if they want, if they're old enough
to cut themselves or to do trimming, you know,
off the water.
And we'll talk them through the process
and what we're doing, we'll show them the sauce,
what we use and how we use them.
We kind of fool around for the first couple of years,
James, and we know too much.
But all of our sauce, you know, they have what they call nowadays.
We have Johann that does this.
But you can see a kerf on some of these
where some of these are a little bit over a little bit
further than the other ones.
And that's what helps your cutting.
First couple of years, we didn't know anything about that.
And so we were sawing by literally by friction.
So it took a lot to cut through a 24 inch block
was friction.
I mean, we got tired of before we got through almost.
But now that Johann dresses these and corrects them
and everything, he's got the right kerf on them,
we could really cut.
Because then the individual little points of the blade
are offset so that it has a bigger cutting effect.
So one of those things that,
and also when people come there,
we encourage them to get involved.
And if they don't want to be involved.
And then, of course, we talked about our site
and what we're doing.
And a lot of people, it's their first glimpse
of what we do in a historic point by us.
What's that, you know?
And surprisingly, as you and I know, James,
that people have been here for,
and we've been here for almost 40 years now.
And those people just don't realize that we're here.
And it's, you know, it's not their fault necessarily.
It's probably our fault.
We don't get the publicity out or don't do
in the right format or whatever.
Because nowadays it's a TikTok.
Or if that's still around anymore,
possibly resurrected for a while.
Or it's a Facebook or something like that.
And that's the way we have to market.
And of course, we market with posters,
but it's almost archaic, you know,
in a certain sense.
Because you do see them like when you go to the library
or you go to the barber shop or something like that.
But a lot of places, you know,
I don't think people appreciate what you're doing.
I appreciate what you're saying there.
I think, you know, accountability is certainly important.
Mike, but it's also on the community to meet you
halfway on these things too.
It's a two way street.
It is.
And it's that's I talk about a store point.
I was like, I don't know if I've ever shared.
I think the second field trip I ever went on
when I moved to the state was the store point box.
What grade were you in, James?
I guys had to have been six seventh grade.
I'm like, right now, something like that.
And for me, it sparked something in me.
I can't even necessarily tell you remember every event
we did or anything.
But I do remember my feet getting on the soil out there.
And it felt different.
And there's something about that.
Again, going back to physically being on site
or physically being at these events and how much difference
and how much more they hit home.
Which is a reminder to all of our schools out there
that there's always field trips and things available.
We got our first school group.
I think Academy from Rudolph.
I think me first.
So that's already coming.
And they'll start rolling in more consistently now.
But those teachers out there, those parents
that are involved with their children's education
and maybe in the classroom, let their teachers know
in the principal know that you like to come out.
Because we get booked up because everybody
wants to be in the end of May.
Of course, there's only so many days.
And our people are volunteers.
And after four day weeks are pretty rough on a lot of us
because we're there seven, eight hours for that day.
And if you get four or five in a row,
it gets to be a long day.
I also encourage those people to get in contact
because it's sooner than later.
Yes, we have 1,000 people.
1,000 kids come through a year.
That's awesome.
And it's amazing.
And the beauty of it is, James,
is when you talk to them when they're adults,
they all remember it.
Yeah, yeah.
They were second graders or fourth graders
or in your case, sixth grade.
They all say, oh, yeah, I remember that time we're out there.
You know, sort of thing.
And I think a lot of them came as kids.
But they maybe didn't remember,
or they moved away for a while and came back
and didn't remember that it's actually there yet.
And it's flourishing and it's bigger than it ever was.
And they have their candle.
Yeah, yeah, a lot of them save them.
Yes, yes.
Oh, that's great.
That's great.
The next event at the historic point boss will be
the ice harvest coming up January 25th.
For at NetGo Lake from 10 to 1,
be sure to go to their website to find
more historicpointboss.com.
And now looking forward to seeing you down there.
This is a work point boss.
We'll be hosting this 11 to 3 as well.
Mike, we're 11 to 3 at the site.
One to 3 at the site.
Watch us pack it away or help us with that process.
Right.
Next, I wanted to talk a little bit about the next event
coming up after that.
The Piney Road Snowshoe hike coming up.
Paul, can we talk about this a little bit?
Yes, hopefully we will have snow.
We're working on it.
We're working on it.
We're hoping with the snow gods.
Yes, yes, we're working well.
We're hoping for it.
But if it's not conducive to snowshoes,
it's also we can hike.
I mean, there's no reason why except a pouring rain
that we wouldn't be out there.
Right.
Right.
It's kind of nice this year.
We got a scout group's coming out.
And they're going to cook their dinner there.
And they're going to partake in it.
And so it's kind of nice.
Tom was talking to me about that the other day.
Tom Breaker.
So we'd like to get that inclusivity with other groups
and people like that.
And Paul, you make such a strong point with this.
Well, we don't know what kind of what Mother Nature
will have for us.
We do know that we got the land there.
We got, I mean, we can we can snowshoe.
You can hike.
You're going to be able to enjoy this event either way.
Yes, last year we were there.
Not a flake insight.
But we still had the big bonfire.
We got a lot of work done.
Well, we do have a lot of extra like stumps and stuff
that we have to shake care of.
So that's a good point.
Yes, and we cleaned up a lot.
We did, we actually did quite a bit.
And we old hiked.
So this year, the school's open for warming house.
Whether snow or not, we're going to hike.
Yeah, and there's there's a lot to take in with that hike too.
It's not only beautiful out there, but again,
the history of that area.
So unique.
Yes, hopefully we have northward adventures
that are going to bring the snowshoes.
Hopefully we can use them.
Yes, and we'll help, you know, the kids are the adults
if they don't have their own snowshoes to outfit them
and that sort of thing.
And we got a very reasonable rental on those sort of things
and they can use them.
If they come in in the morning, they can use them all day long.
And even if the snowshoes aren't used,
you're going to be able to see a construction demonstration
of putting them together, which I think is one
of the more cool parts of this is being able to see how the
we've all seen snowshoes before.
I don't know if many of us have seen how they're put together.
I think Jeff Stewart does a nice job and then he's come
to our festival for a number of years and done the same thing.
But last year we tried to get him,
but he had a conflict, but this year he's going to be there.
So it'll be great just to people to watch that whole process.
And all these are, of course, the old traditional wooden snowshoes.
It's just a fascinating process to be able to see.
Like, and I know how many people out there are creatives seeing this
might even inspire some people to try to make their own or something.
I think you can buy them in kits and you can do it yourself certainly.
It's kind of cool.
That is a pretty cool unique part of this.
And of course, with all of this,
there's also going to be a bonfire in the upper parking lot
and one of the make sure that we mention that too.
And that is going to be nice.
Paula, anything else you want to add with this?
There'll be marshmallows.
Larry's excited about that.
Hot apple cider.
Hot apple cider.
Come and see us.
Yeah.
This is a wonderful event happening February 1st.
And again, snow or shine, we will be having this event.
And I like that snow or shine.
It's going to be fun.
Now, for those that haven't taken it in before
and just kind of preparing themselves,
how long is the hike itself or snow shoe walk?
Well, Paula, we got two or three trails.
So depending if you put them all together,
what about three and a half miles of trails.
And you can go short trails.
Long trails will give you a trail map.
Yeah.
There's hills, there's flat.
There's any sort of adventure that you want.
If we had enough snow, you could even besides snow shoe,
you could probably do cross country skiing also at the site.
It's a good place for some people I've done.
Nice, nice.
Very cool.
And so all this to keep in mind, everybody,
because again, we don't know whether it might be,
but we do know that the event is going to be going on.
And we're going to have a good time lined up
for you when it comes to this.
And part of this, James and listeners,
is we want to have a year round site.
And this is just one more event to make it accessible
to the people year round.
So we eventually want to have some event
probably other than me every month,
so that we got something going all year round.
So that would, that's our ideal anyway.
And this is a new one that we've started last year or so.
Well, again, and well, I haven't talked about prices.
This is one of those segments that I don't worry
as much about it because they don't change.
You guys do such a nice job to the community
of making these things affordable,
even with the rise of other things going up and down
and everything.
We try to especially make the children's price reasonable
so that a person, they got three or four kids can come out
and maybe spend $10, $12 total for the whole family.
That's what we're trying to accomplish all the time
is make this children a accessible price for them.
So we don't price people out of it
because this is an event we want everybody to enjoy.
And this is again where I come in
with meeting you guys halfway.
I think the historic point Bosco is above and beyond
to make these events accessible to the community,
to make them affordable to the community.
One of the least things we can do
is attending these events
and promoting these events.
Now maybe you're going to be out of town
or something on one of these days.
Well, if you have a social media account,
you can still promote it.
You can share their things
and share these things on your social media.
You never know who might be able to see it.
And we're always any day of the year,
any event we're looking for volunteers.
Excellent.
Yeah, and we always kind of finish up the program James
with we always need volunteers.
We can use them in any capacity
from somebody that doesn't even work on the site
but does different mailings
or does different research for us
that you don't have to be exactly there.
You know, when we have an event,
you can be a docent if you want.
Not everybody wants to do that.
But we got sewing, we need done
and we classification of our different costumes.
We're going to try to reclassify everything
and put it a little better order.
Hopefully move it to below the Saratoga town hall
and probably in a year or so.
And so this is all sort of things
that people can involve in.
Monday mornings we have a work week, a day, not today.
It's a little cold even do anything inside.
We don't have a lot of inside spaces to work when it's warm.
I mean cold and so we kind of took today off
and I would have been here anyway
so I would have been late for whatever they had going on.
But we talked about on a Thursday and just said,
well, you know, why kill people on this stuff.
Discretion the better part of the ballerah.
Make it easier for people.
But Paula was down there this morning
and did something at schoolhouse
and one of our volunteers came,
I guess I forgot to call them or something like that.
So they come discuss as a matter of fact,
we always work Monday mornings
unless it's a holiday or something else.
And along with the volunteering
and the good that you're going to feel doing that
and putting into your community,
keeping history alive,
one thing that I've noticed over the years
of you and I talking Mike
and the different guests that have come in with you
and everything,
the camaraderie that exists,
the friendship that exists with these organizations,
with this organization and this group of people.
Not only have an opportunity to make a new friends,
but like minded people that are just like you
that love history,
they want to keep it around,
we get more and more isolated,
it seems like in here
and have less and less opportunities
as we get older to make friends
and these kind of things.
Like I don't know if I sound lame saying any of this,
but you're honest, I think it's a cool part of this.
You're right because you read more and more
about this so-called depression people have.
It's because there's so much screen time
and they're doing it all by themselves
and even different times when you have family gatherings,
some will be on their screen there or their phone
and people are talking around them
and they might be messaging the person
at the end of the table a cousin or something like that
and it's crazy.
I've seen it.
We have to screen time is good and it's important,
but we got to moderate this thing
and this is where we love it
because we have everybody down there
and we've got, like you say,
that Monday group is camaraderie
and they come from all walks of life.
One guy drives in from Pittsville.
I mean, they're coming from all over
and they just enjoy it
because we have a good time.
We laugh and we joke
and nothing's ever very serious
and we're always very careful
and very kind of slow
because we're not young kids anymore
and so we just do it
and we know we're going to get it done
but it might take a while.
And like we were talking about this,
you want to get away from the screen
a little bit more, little ones, big ones,
whoever out there.
This is the kind of events
that get people engaged,
to get people actually touching
and seeing things and stuff
and really taking in that information
and you just never know what spark it might create.
And then you can realize too later
that how many friends I have
that are outside of my normal group of people.
Yeah, that's one thing.
And right now, if you're out the site,
you will see the house on Stilts.
Oh, yeah, that's so cool.
Yeah, yeah.
You will see the town hall in process.
Yeah, so a lot of things are happening
and of course, most of it started late fall
or you know, first or December.
So, you know, the house was off
and moved to the west towards the river.
Now it's back over top of the site,
bridged up and they poured the footings on Thursday
and I think talked to the people
that are doing the concrete work
to probably back Friday
or Saturday and set the forms
and probably pour the walls and everything.
So a lot of things are happening down there.
Normally, we don't have much going on the site
other than the putting away of the ice
and also the Piney Road snowshoe and hiking event.
But normally, you're not down there
and winter very much to see what's happening.
But to come on down,
even to hike around and take a look
and see what's happening around you.
Make plans to check out the historic point
boss' ice harvest January 25th
over at NEPCO Lake Things Kickoff at 10.
Be sure to find out more about that
and it makes plans to attend
their Piney Road snowshoe and hike
coming up February 1st.
That'll be going from 11 to 4.
You can get information about all this
again at historicpointboss.com.
Be sure to bookmark that webpage
and keep up the day
and all the great things they're doing over there.
And if you'd like to volunteer
or find out ways
that you can impact your community,
again, reach out to them on there.
There's a great contact information right there for you.
Follow them at social media as well
and share their things on your platforms.
You just never know who might see it otherwise.
Mike Paul, thank you so much for being here today.
I appreciate you guys.
Happy New Year by the way.
I meant to say every new day of dreams and thank you,
James and WFHR.
We'll talk again real soon.
And we'll be promoting these events
on our morning shows.
Make sure you guys get a good attendance.
We'll take a time out.
We'll check in with more our partners
and we'll come back and have some more midday magazine
for you right here at 97 5 FM 13 20 AM WFHR locally grown radio.
