Lumberjack Days

I once again made the most of the day, started early on more of the cleanup I wanted to do. It meant sending more items to the storage locker. Around 12noon- 1pm I knew I needed to quit for the day in order to attend a festival- Lumberjack Days in Stillwater. Still wearing the button from it, and this evening I even mentioned it while onstage at a comedy club for open-mic night. I enjoy attending festivals a lot, though I didn't enjoy the traffic. I decided to avoid the bumper to bumper crawl and turned around, eventually going into Wisconsin and then entering the town on the lift bridge as I hate the sound of my car's engine idling. Once I got there I decided to tour a museum first, the warden home, as there is a prison in the area. It was  one where members of the James/Younger gang were sent after convictions for their role in the Northfield bank robbery. After this I went into the food and drink section, closer to the river. Sometimes it's nice to go on the final day, as there are more food specials. I got 2 pork chops for $5, and I like them enough I like having them at the state fair as well. Also got a smoothie at another stand.
   I am pleased to see a comment was posted on a previous entry, from a few days ago. It was when I was ranting about the history of law schools, and mentioned Clarence Darrow. The reader informed me how Darrow attended Michigan Law School but did not graduate. This is something that received little mention in the writings about Darrow that I have read, as most center in on his law career and not his education. I liked how I did learn something from it, so thank you, Joe Luttrell. Hopefully you read this post as well, as it was more than fair to point out an inaccuracy. I read further in the Darrow article on Wikipedia that said he did not graduate from his undergrad school, Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, either. I was unfamiliar with where he attended for undergrad school. With his early life most speak of him being from Kinsman, Ohio, and little more.
   I do recall when I first started reading extensively about Darrow, it was after I had made my first visit to Washington, DC and saw an artifact from the Scopes Monkey Trial on display at the Smithsonian. It was called 'About That Monkey Business in Tennessee'. I was excited with what I found there, and told my dad about it when I got back. He was unfamiliar with this trial, but when he heard mention of the lawyer's name he brought out a true crime book, which profiled the Leopold/Loeb case from a year earlier, 1924. He called it 'the thrill kill' as this was the motive given for the crime, they had hoped to commit the 'perfect crime'. Meaning they didn't expect to be caught.
   I liked how it spurred me to read even more, and I found the case of Dr. Ossian Sweet in Detroit. It was about a physician and some of his family  who was on trial for shooting some rioters who didn't want a black doctor in a white neighborhood. While not as well-known as the other two, it came as no surprise how Darrow took this case as he fought for the underdog. Being a defense lawyer for much of his career earned  him the nickname 'attorney for the damned'.
   Darrow died in 1938, but he was the type of lawyer that would have had the courage to lock horns with Senator Joe McCarthy had he lived that long. I saw a DVD called 'Point Of Order' about the Army-McCarthy hearings where the era known as 'McCarthyism'- the blacklisting and Red Scare of the 1950s- was beginning to end. I think Darrow would have been pleased with Joseph Welch, the Army attorney, asking McCarthy if he had any decency left. Since somebody was standing up to a bully.