EWGSI

  You may have noticed that for a time, blog posts will appear oftener than the regular Tuesday and Friday. Why? Because I could not blog for a month? Why? I'd installed what I thought would be a good extension (Web Ad Blocker) and thanks to Julie Rosenoff and Connie Bunch who diagnosed the problem (I NEVER WOULD HAVE!) I'm back to work and catching up with posting. Clear as Mississippi Mud? Last October, 2022, I was blessed to take a cruise down the entire length of the Mississippi River...... from St. Paul to New Orleans. All the shipboard chatter was that the river was at a historic 40-year low. My first thought, ignorantly formed, was is this a big deal? The answer was absolutely this was a huge big deal. We were told that our ship drew 7-feet of water (a hotel atop a barge, really). The river was only 9.5-feet in some places!! We were told by the Corps of Engineers a couple of times to "pull over and tie up until further notice" because of dredging downstream. A ...

 Read clear to the end for my big announcement! I knew that my maternal grandmother, Clara Ann Joseph, was born on 14 Nov 1894 in the Mississippi River town of Ivy Landing, Illinois. By 1900, the Joseph family was living several miles inland which gives a big clue as to way I could never find Ivy Landing on any map. It must have surely washed away! In those early days, men’s attempts to control the Mighty Mississippi were puny at best. It was well into the 1890s that the Corps of Engineers began building dams to (hopefully) better control the river. In late October 2022,  I tool a cruise down the entire length of the Mississippi River. I was very surprised to see miles and miles and miles of empty sandy river bank looking much like the picture above. Was this where Ivy Landing was? I’ll never know for sure but I’ll bet it was a tiny town back in the trees along a stretch of river bank just like this.   Now for my big announcement:   On this recent cruise, I kep...