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Ron Dentinger, former Dodgeville Chamber of Commerce Director, former manager of the Don Q Inn, professional comedian, humorist, book author and just all around good guy, hit the nail on the head with the "Top Story of 2013". Here's his rendition:
Top news story of 2013:
After digging 10 feet, New York archaeologists found traces of 125 year old copper wire and soon a New York Times story concluded that New York had a telephone network 125 years ago. Not to be outdone a Chicago archaeologist dug 20 feet and found 150 year old copper wire and a story in the Chicago Tribune said Chicago had a telephone network 25 years before New York. A week later, after digging 30 feet in his pasture near Dodgeville, Ole Swenson found nothing. Ole contacted the Dodgeville Chronicle and they ran a story stating that 175 years ago the Dodgeville phone system had already gone wireless.
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I received a call from Tory (McGraw) Meyer, one of good friend Kathryn McGraw's daughters, New Year's Eve Day. She had just returned from Texas where she and her family had been visiting with brother Shawn and his family. She said, for years she had been reading about my plight with Iowa drivers and kind of laughed it off. But, while driving back from Texas, they came through Iowa. There had been a little snowfall and she couldn't believe all the cars they saw in the ditch, probably sliding off due to going too fast. She said now she knows what I have been talking about! She said their Wisconsin driving background easily kept them out of any ditch - there wasn't that much snow either!
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I want to thank the person who left a torn apart (but not cut into the right sized pieces) extremely large chair box outside of the Dodgeville Chronicle Saturday evening. After having the "Reilly" Christmas Sunday at nephew Ryan's house I spent a good 15 minutes cutting apart that box (it was a BIG box) and placing it in one of our recycling containers. That's was just EXACTLY what I wanted to be doing on a Sunday - bringing in the box parts from the -6 degree temperature and cutting them apart to recycle!
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Speaking of the "Reilly" Christmas, we usually have it after Christmas as brother Pat's kids and families have several Christmases to attend as all have extended families and kids. It works out OK except for Ryan and Lauri, who have to keep their Christmas tree up for longer than they probably would like to! All of Pat's kids and several spouses made it - Darren and Michele with Gavin and Liam; Shelly with Danielle and Grant; Ryan (of course) with Lauri, Sean, McKenna and Addison; Kelly with Quentin, Jade and Taylor; and Amy with Emma and Reilly. It was a good time with a lot of good food and conversation. The kids all made out pretty well with gifts and everybody else didn't do too badly either! The only thing that could've made the day better would've been a Packer win!
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Speaking of Packer win, talk about a game of inches - an interception by Micah Hyde on San Francisco's last drive would've probably turned into a touchdown or at least a field goal and would have salted the game away......but would've, could've should've!