Short & sweet "From the readers"

It's a nice summer Sunday for a short roundup of recent reader comments!

Hoping to see UFOs for 1976 bicentennial Independence Day: Wendyvee of roadsidewonders.net alerted me to the "You know you are from Girard or Lake City, PA when..." public group on Facebook. There's a March 8, 2019, post in which someone asks, "I was wondering does anyone remember the ufo landing site built in or around lake city back in the 70's."

That question spurred more than 50 comments about the famed UFO port that I blogged about earlier this month. Here are some of the more interesting comments:

• "Yes it was at community park and my niece loved to go see it when she came to visit. Also we would take my kids to go on the big slide and swings and they always wanted to see it."
• "I remember a helicopter landing on it with green man taking someone."
• "yup that was my Dad that they took."
• "I thought it was your DAD that was a great memory"
• "I think the only other time we had national attention was studs turkel came to town"
• "Yes I do, always wondered what the $&@% archaeologists would think of it if they dug it up 20,000 yrs from now. It would start a whole controversy."

In addition, Brian Busby of The Dusty Bookcase commented on the UFO post:

"I wonder whether the good people of Lake City weren't inspired by the St Paul, Alberta UFO Landing Pad. Constructed in 1967 for — you guessed it — Canada's Centennial, it's recognized by Guinness World Records as the first official UFO landing pad. This is not to take anything away from Lake City's project, which I note is the world's '1st official UFO landing port [emphasis mine].'

"An UFO enthusiast in my adolescence, I'd have visited both. As a skeptical adult, I've made made no attempt, though I'm happy to report that the St. Paul pad hasn't shared the same fate as the Lake City port.

"You may enjoy this two-year-old report from the CBC: 'For Canada's centennial, the Alberta town of St. Paul built a UFO landing pad ... but why?'"

Vanished place: Old South Bar-B-Q Ranch in Clewiston, Florida: Unknown writes: "Jim McCorvey was the creator of this restaurant. He was taught by Joe Culpepper of Plantation Pit Barbecue in Miami, circa 1958. Joe also taught the owner of Carboys Barbecue [?] and many others. Joe was a kind and giving Christian man. My Dad"

Vintage photo: Learning practical design in Boston: Dr. Geoff Drutchas writes: "Thanks for a fascinating post. The 'Students of practical design at work-school of industrial art, Boston,' pictured in the Henry Davenport Northrop volume were more likely enrolled at the Lowell School of Practical Design, which was organized under the auspices of MIT. The school, located in Boston's Back Bay, is now part of Northeastern University."

"Whispers of Transylvania" photo postcards: Inky writes: "The photos on these are lovely. Can't help wondering if that 'lurk' in the poem was meant to be 'look' and things went wrong in translation. If looked at from a folkloric perspective, though, maybe lurking after deer in Transylvania is perfectly normal."

Morris didn't fare much worse than Louie Youngkeit: Commenting on this decade-old post, "M. Anon" notes that Louie Youngkeit filed for the American Party nomination for Utah senator in 1974 and appears not to have advanced to the primary. 

That time Tony Pérez mailed me his autograph: Commenting on Facebook, Nena Zachary Challenner writes: "Great story and keepsake!"

Lost Corners: "SPACE WANTS TO KILL YOU": Roger Allen writes: "As well as schadenfreude at their discomfort, the other pleasure to be derived from the Great Macho Competition is knowing they aren't spending money on things even more pointless and damaging for the rest of us."