The plane trip was prescient, in a way. On the aircraft I did not get a window seat. When I got to the office the next day, I learned that I did not get a window seat.

This probably should come as no surprise. Even though I have seniority, the Managers are higher up the chain in Power, and hence are accorded the perks. I am seated at my old desk for the last time, in case my pod-friend shows up. We can have a chat over the divider, as usual. The divider is higher in the new area and there will be no opportunities for conversation. The word for all of this is “alas.”

It feels like "my last desk."

One more thing about the airport. Even though I had a hamburger -

Hold on waaaait a minute, where’s this hamburger talk coming from, you gotta ease into this, give a time some time to process

Sorry. I wrote at length about the procurement of lunch yesterday. Those of you up to speed on the matter may have concluded the comestible issue was settled, but no; there was still the evening flight to come, and I knew I’d get peckish en route. So I bought some peanuts - approximately one dime per legume, at airport prices - and looked in the cooler for a sandwich or snack tray. Nothing had a price. You had to compare the name with a list on the door. Fine, fine, what’s the problem? THE NAMES.

   
  Really easy to read, no?
   
  MEGA STYLE
   
 

Gah

Here's the problem:
   
  YOU HAVE TO SEARCH BY ADJECTIVE.
   

Sorry about the missing images - it's a long story. One extra spacebar press while naming a folder, and it appends a character that busts the paths. No problem except I made the mistake while putting together the template for the year. It reproduces itself every fifth week of the month.

Fixed now, if you want to look.

   
  So! What's the journey that takes us from this image . . .
   
  . . . to this one?
   

Every so often I come across an old news story that changes completely the way I view something. In this case, something that’s not even there.

u/lasocs on reddit has a subreddit after my own heart, posting old historical pictures and newspaper clippings. This was a jaw-meet-sternum moment:

It was never built. Old man Depression killed those expansion plans. There were many such plans for big hotels in the 20s and 30s, with the Wesley Temple, the Ivy Tower, the Sheridan. But the Curtis expansion was different. It makes me rethink those two strange towers.

What’s more, the two towers are prefigured by the two original buildings of the hostel, now tucked in between.

It’s possible that the hotel might not have been demolished if this monster had been built. But it would’ve suffered the usual trajectory. A building that big, from that era, would’ve changed the character of its neighborhood in the 80s, and might have spurred a different type of development. Who knows. I can’t find anything in the archives about the decision not to build, and it’s hard to search because Curtis hotel returns a billion hits. It was the place where people had their meetings.

   
 

The Typothetae? A group of master printers.

   
  Usadians?
     

The only thing that comes up is a Saskatoon executive association group. The about page says:

The name “Usadian” originated from joining the designation “U.S.A.” and “Canadian”. The name Usadian was used in both Canada and the United States of America (USA). The purpose of the name was to affiliate the Executive Associations of all major cities in Canada and USA under the same name.

Okay, that helps. Plug that into newspapers.com, and you get lots of results. International Business Association. Philanthropy. Fellowship. Connections. Lots of 21st century hits, but they’re all Canadian. There doesn’t seem to be a going concern on this side of the border anymore, which is rather sad.

   
 

Surely that's disbanded?
   

Only one hit in Mpls now:

The Mercury Club is celebrating its 102 nd  anniversary and is proud to announce this year’s winners of what is believed to be the longest running Jewish scholar-athlete award in America. 

Low-profile org, otherwise.

Lithographers. Shoe-rebuilders. Freight Agents. So many organizations, and how many exist today? Probably more by a factor of 10X - but they’re all online. Not the same.

Anyway, the search landed me on a 1937 edition of the Star, and two things stuck out that will be familiar to faithful Bleatniks, and show how we’ve assembled our own corner of cultural literacy.

Remember these contests? I found another.

Remember the unsatisfying, attenuated story of Bela Laren, court reporter? I found another batch.

Sigh. Am I obligated to hoover up these for later release? I think we now the answer to that.

 
 

   

Another look at Linton. Last week I used, by mistake, the placeholder copy from the start of the year, when we look at depressing Detroit streets. This is not that! This is a world away from the bleak blasted avenues of the battered big city.

Ah, the old Opry.

Where never an opera was ever performed.

Perhaps someone can explain this: the postcard at the historical society appears to show an entirely different building.

I guess they had two.

Different brick. Or something happened that made them look different. One side has the original windows; the other is dead and rotted.

Suddenly, the FUTURE!

Looks like an old Embers restaurant.

Well, at least they have a nice antique store to bring the folks downtown -

Oh

A stolid bank. This town, by the way, was one of those difficult examples; it was hard to orient the view correctly, or get a full picture. It felt like turning around a tanker truck in an alley.

This is 2008, and you know what that means.

The demolition revealed the marks of the previous structure.

I’m always haunted by the remainders of staircases - if that’s what those are. They seem a bit vague, and there doesn’t seem to have been a second floor for that building.

I know the architect and the building itself wouldn’t like to hear this, but, well, it’s just sorta cute.

But wait! There’s more!

Looks as if they made space for name blocks, but never carved anything.

Let’s take another look at this beast, which we saw last week.

It’s the old dry-goods store. Quite the accomplishment, and now utterly dishonored. There was something at the end:

Turns out there’s more than we discussed last week. Yes, it was built as the J. W. Wolford building, but it became the G. C. Murphy.

News:

. . . some of the older Lintonians may recall, G.C. Murphy was an almost magical place of retail in downtown Linton many years ago — offering candy, toys, vinyl records, and more. It was part of a much larger chain of “five and dime” or variety stores in the United States from the time period spanning 1906 to 2002. Later, the same building would become known as the Linton Variety Store, a local remake of sorts of the past G.C. Murphy “five and dime” store era. 

Never heard of the Murphy chain.

Finally, a look from a few years ago . .

Now there's one, waiting for its master to come home and take him away.

But hey: planters.

That'll do. One pathetic postcard to end out the restaurant section. I mean, I suppose I could start motels today, because it's May! But we'll wait for the first solid week of the month.