First timer? In this formerly once-a-day blog (and now pretty much a once-a-week blog) I use an app that provides a random latitude and longitude that puts me somewhere in the continental United States (the lower 48). I call this “landing.”
I keep track of the watersheds I land in, as well as the town or towns I land near. I do some internet research to hopefully find something of interest about my landing location.
To find out more about A Landing A Day (like who “Dan” is) please see “About Landing” above. To check out some relatively recent changes in how I do things, check out “About Landing (Revisited).”
Landing number 2642; A Landing A Day blog post number 1087
Dan: Right out of the gate, I must apologize for the dearth of posts. Has it been a whole month? Just about. And what the heck’s going on – after all, I’m retired!
Conventional wisdom would have it that with retirement, I would have plenty of time to focus on something I’ve loved doing for decades – i.e., landing.
But strangely, that is apparently not the case, Anyway . . .
Today’s lat/long (N41o 28.284’, W94o 56.127) puts me in southwest Iowa:
Here’s my local landing map:
My streams-only map shows that I landed in the watershed of the East NIshnabotna River (3rd hit); on to the Nishnabotna River (also 3rd hit), on to the Missouri (466th hit); on to the MM (1027th hit):
One of the reasons that there has been such a gap between posts is the fact that this part of southwest Iowa is astoundingly:
Like, maybe my most hookless landing ever. See all of those small towns scattered across my local landing map? I checked into each and every town, looking for that elusive hook. And wait until you see all I could come up with . . .
Well, you’re not going to have to wait very long. So, Kirkman it is. I’ll start out this this population info:
1920 204
1940 185
1960 92
1980 98
2000 76
2020 56
It was founded as a railroad town in 1880, and named after (what else), a railroad “official,” a Mr. M. M. Kirkman.
Here’s a Google Earth (GE) shot, showing that the Orange Dude could get no closer than this to Kirkman:
Here’s what he sees:
But he let me know that at least Kirkman does a sign announcing its presence to passing motorists:
So why is Kirkman titular, one might ask. Well, here’s the hook: Kirkman is the hometown of Lew Anderson, who played Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody Show.
It was one of the first TV shows ever broadcast, beginning in 1947. It lasted through the 1950s, with its last show in 1960. It starred Buffalo Bob Smith, and featured a simple string-operated puppet named Howdy Doody:
From Wiki:
Bob Smith, the show’s host, was dubbed “Buffalo Bob” early in the show’s run (a reference both to the historical American frontier character Buffalo Bill and Smith’s hometown of Buffalo, New York). At first the set was supposed to be a circus tent, but soon was changed to a western town. Smith wore cowboy garb, as did the puppet. The name of the puppet “star” was derived from the American expression “howdy do,” a commonplace corruption of the phrase “How do you do?” used in the Western United States.
One of the most notable characters on the show was Clarabell the Clown. From Wiki:
Clarabell – The mute clown who communicated in mime, by honking horns on his belt, and by squirting seltzer. Originally played by Bob Keeshan, who went on to create the children’s TV character Captain Kangaroo, he was later played by Robert Nicholson and finally by Lew Anderson. Clarabell did not talk because he could be paid less for a non-talking part, and it was a low-budget show.
And yes, I do remember watching the Howdy Doody show when I was a kid, and yes, I do remember Clarabell the Clown.
But check out the last moments of the last show (which I don’t specifically remember):
I’ll close with a little oddity I stumbled on a few miles from my landing. Here’s a GE shot of an intersection of two dirt roads:
Looks like there’s a tree in the middle of the intersection, eh? Well, there is, and Giang Nguyen posted this photo on GE:
I love that some road builder decided that the tree was worth saving . . .
That’ll do it –
KS
Greg
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