Trail Hogs

This photo I snapped recently shows one of my pet peeves when riding my bike on La Crosse's marsh trail: people who hog the trail while walking on it, giving little room for bicyclists to pass by. When I approach such walkers from behind I have to ring my bike's bell or sing out, "Passing on your left." The reaction I often get is a hard glare and frown from the walkers as if I have intruded on their own private walkway. Go figure.

Childhood Memory Maker

This old billboard for Sunbeam Bread (featuring "Little Miss Sunbeam") on the side of a building in downtown La Crosse affords me memories of my childhood as the bread was a common sight on my family's kitchen counter during my boyhood days in the 1950s. Erickson Bakery was a well-known bakery in La Crosse for many years, operating from the late 19th Century to 1989 though I only recall its Sunbeam Bread being sold locally from the 1950s to early 1970s. Though it's been a long time since I tasted Sunbeam bread, I don't recall it being anything special . . . just a bland, white bread that was much inferior to my grandmother's tasty homemade bread which she made nearly every morning most of her adult life. Who does that anymore? Few I would suspect.