By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
I know this is hard to believe, but once upon a time, serving in the Wisconsin Legislature was a part-time – very part-time – job. Our elected representatives saddled up, trotted to the capitol and earned a heady $2.50 a day for every day the Legislature was in session, which was not very often.
Yes, times have changed, as have wages; consequently, it would be a challenge to find anyone to serve even on a town board for a paltry $2.50. Of course, the job took only a small number of days per year, and when it was done, the legislator harnessed up his horse and headed home to his full-time job running the farm or the mill or whatever
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
My last two columns, in which I carped about the endless studies of the Kickapoo Valley, inspired a reader, Barbara Rice of Sparta, to dig through the archives for an old newspaper clipping written by her late brother-in-law, John D. Rice.
You may recall that John D. was the rare and nearly extinct Monroe County liberal. As general manager of WCOW, his daily editorial opinions seemed
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
One pitfall of writing a weekly column is that at least one or more readers will disagree with you, or worse yet, you will be caught in an error. The first is unavoidable, and the latter requires getting the facts right before they go into print.
Thus I managed to come down on the wrong side of Marcy West, Kickapoo Valley Reserve executive director, when I wrote last week that
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
It does seem that academics are greatly intrigued with shoving the Kickapoo Valley under a microscope. The University of Wisconsin-Madison Life Sciences Communication Department presented such an effort last week at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve.
I can’t say why others find us so fascinating. In my estimation, we are just common folk struggling through life, doing ordinary things for the most part. In 2005, the book “A Thousand Pieces of Paradise” delved deeply into the ecological
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
A wave of astonishment swept through the Kendall Community Hall on Sunday afternoon when Leroy Petersen stepped up to the microphone during the country music show.
What did he plan to sing?
“Battle Hymn of the Republic,” he said.
The sad dirge from the Civil War wasn’t quite in keeping with the motif
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
If you are old enough to recall the “guy groups” of the 1950s, such as The Four Aces and The Four Freshmen, then you are either really, really old or a music historian.
OK, the music leaned to the syrupy side (“Love is a Many Splendored Things,” “Three Coins in the Fountain,” “Sincerely”), and its moment of glory was soon eclipsed by the pop music of the 1960s and the British invasion, but it made enough
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
A reader took exception to my column a few weeks ago about the grassroots government of town boards. It was his observation that government in the town of Plymouth was at least as rife with “cronyism, nepotism and favoritism” as any larger unit of government, if not more so.
Indeed, I did recall that Plymouth appeared to play politics at a higher RPM than did most
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
March has come and gone, and the usual feasting on pancakes and
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
Here’s something to contemplate as we slog our way through this never-ending
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
March 10-16
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
It has been 23 years since computers first made a daring appearance
By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
I had not heard of the Elmwood School until Steve Olson of
