The Harvest Festival

You missed some fun if you didn’t go to the Vicksburg Harvest Festival last Saturday.  Could have been a bit warmer, but still not too bad, and there looked to be a decent turnout.

I got some cheese and some locally grown plums, and picked up a small wooden box from one of the antique dealers.

The big attraction was the old steam-powered saw.  It was churning out planks that were being made into rustic benches.  I’ve never seen one of those operating before.  I don’t imagine that there were many workers of those saws that had many years of experience AND all of their limbs.

New Auction House in Vicksburg

A new auction house is opening soon in Vicksburg.  It’s the “Premier Auction Service and Mercantile” shop, and will be at 120 S. Main, right next to the Boundary Waters cafe.  They describe themselves as a “monthly consignment auction and upscale resale shop.”

It will be interesting to see how this will affect the R&M Auction house, which has a pending sale.  Owner Ron Stafford recently announced his planned retirement, and a buyer has been found who will assume ownership in six months.  Mr. Stafford has said that he will stay on up to the transfer of ownership, and possibly a bit longer during a transition period.

An “upscale” resale shop, huh?  Will someone please tell me where the upscale customers will be coming from?

The Mysterious Manila Envelope

I was passing through downtown Vicksburg early Friday evening, and I noticed a police officer walking down the street.  This caught my attention, because I don’t think I’ve seen Vicksburg cops walking a beat before.  I also noticed that he was carrying a large manila envelope.  “What could he have?” I wondered.

I watched as he proceeded to the door of the Unique Furnishings store on the corner of Prairie and Main.  He dropped the envelope in the mail slot, and then turned to walk back down the street.

I wonder what was in that envelope?   Police officers generally don’t deliver mail.  A summons would be handed to a person.  A notice of a code violation is typically tacked to the front door.  Evidence wouldn’t be returned without a signature.

Very curious….

Low Crime in Vicksburg

Vicksburg rates among the safes cities and towns in Michigan, according the FBI’s latest set of published uniform crime statistics.

Out of the largest 395 communities in the state, Vicksburg ranks 330th for violent crime (in terms of incidents to population), and 374th for property crime.  That beats Schoolcraft considerably, and Portage and Three River by far.

If it hadn’t been for single incidents of aggravated assault, burglary and arson, we’d have been even better positioned on the list.

(Saginaw had the worst record, if you need to know.)

[Link to FBI site]

Elvis Spotted in Vicksburg!

Not sure how long ago, though.  According to an article in the Kalamazoo Gazette, a Louise Welling of Vicksburg claimed that she spotted Elvis in the Felpausch supermarket on W. Prairie.  I wonder if hes’ still around?  I could imagine him pushing a cart up and down the aisles, hanging out at the Village bar, or buying up old LPs at the R&M Auction.

I wonder if there were any songs running through his head while he was grocery shopping?  Songs like…

• Don’t Be Cruel (To The Fresh-Picked Fruit)
• Love Meat Tender
• (Don’t Want This Pop) It’s All Shook Up
• I Want Cheese, I Need Cheese, I Love Cheese
• One Night of Spoilage
• I Need Your Ice Cream Tonight
• Return to Felpausch
• Crying In The Bottle Return
• Burning Ribs
• Hard Headed Broccoli
• A Big Hunk o’ Cheese

Vicksburg: Steroid Outlet?

The Kalamazoo Gazette has a story about an unnamed 38-year-old Vicksburg man who was allegedly supplying illegal steroids to area gyms and even police officers.

He apparently raked in thousands of dollars a month over several years by importing HGH and other steroids from Hong Kong, then reselling them all over Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.

The supplier may have escaped local prosecution by naming his customers, although federal charges may be forthcoming.

Is he still in business?  Is he still living in the area?

I have to wonder how much of Vicksburg’s economy is being supported by the illegal drug trade…?

There’s Something in my Basement…

I live in one of the older homes in Vicksburg.   The basement is damp, and water even drips off the walls during a heavy rain.  I try to keep it aired out, but I can’t really store things down there, so I’m not down there that often.

I was over in Saugatuck last weekend, and house was closed up the whole time.  I thought I might have heard something in the basement Monday night, but I dismissed it as just noise from the water heater or the house settling (sinking).

I went down there Tuesday evening to open up the windows and turn on a fan, and I found something that hadn’t been there the previous week.  Right under the stairs was a big pile of dirt.  I’m talking buckets of dirt.  It was at the end of a long crack where (I presume) a big tree root had lifted up the cement.  The crack has been there since I moved in, but the dirt was not.

The dirt looked as if it had been pushed up from underneath, but the crack was no more than 3/8″ at its widest point, and the concrete appeared to be too thick to be lifted up by anything small enough to  dig 10′ under my house.  I searched the whole basement, but could find no other place where an animal could have gotten in, and I couldn’t imagine how or why any animal would be bringing in dirt to pile under my stairs.  I even checked outside, around the house, to see if there were any animal holes.

There were no tracks that I could discern, but there were a couple of depressions, where it looked like something small might have tried to dig into the pile, but not very deep.

The dirt was pretty dry; it did not at all look as if it had seeped in as mud.

Where did all this dirt come from???