Along The Ad Routes

by Mike Reilly

I think I’ve come to the realization that Thursday Christmas and New Year have to be the worst possible days for a holiday, especially when it comes to weekly newspapers. For one thing there is very little anything going on between Christmas on a Thursday and New Year on a Thursday! Also, Monday is the worse possible day to have the final deadline for an issue of the paper. People are still adjusting from the weekend and it doesn’t don on them that Monday is the final day to get something into that week’s paper! There are no meetings or sporting events between Christmas and that next Monday because you can’t expect things like the Bi-State Wrestling Tournament to start on the day after Christmas because teams would have to travel on Christmas Day! That moved that tournament and the Mid-States Tournament to Monday and Tuesday. So they both end after our papers are out for that week! Oh well, life will go on!

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We had almost a full house for our Saturday morning breakfast. We just missed our usual driver - Tom - as he still had grandkids in his house. So it was Bob, Terry, Potsie, Royce and me meeting at the Chronicle at 7:15 - early because we wanted to head to Mazomanie and make a stop at Rookies. Dave, coming from a little ways to the west, met us there. Royce was the only one who hadn’t been there before. He was amazed at all the memorabilia that was all over the place, mostly  baseball with some football and NASCAR racing stuff all over the walls. Angelica now owns Rookies. She lives in Arena and said it was pretty foggy when she left there around 6:30 to open at 7:00. It was foggy in Dodgeville when we left and all the way to Highway 14 and then it pretty much lifted. It was till pretty foggy in Dodgeville when we got back and still was around 3:00.

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Angelica remembered our group being at her place one of the first days she opened. Actually it was the first day she served breakfast. There were only three other tables there when we were. The food was pretty good, especially my “Rookies” omelette with American fries with cheese and onion!

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I really miss having a “Christmas  Community Meal” like the one Culver’s let church groups do with volunteers putting it on for people in the area with no place to go on Christmas! It was always a good time talking with people you don’t usually see and seeing the volunteers delivering meals around the county, some to shut-ins. It brought out the Christmas spirit!

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We had our “Reilly” Christmas at niece Kelly’s house in Waunakee on Sunday. A good share of his family made it. Snow was supposed to come that evening and go into Monday. Temperatures that had been in the 30s and nearly 50 went way down into the low 20s with terrible winds. That made of a “not so good” ending to the year!

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My Christmas Eve dinner was tacos at my nephew Ryan’s home then on Christmas Day brother Pat made lasagna. So I was filled up both times and I didn’t have to travel very far!

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If you call 23 degrees on next Saturday warming up, then that’s what it will be. We have temperatures into the teens most of the week starting on Monday!

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Besides today (January 1) being New Years Day, it also is “Polar Plunge Day” . now that’s a day I could do without. I don’t like the cold (water) and I can’t even swim. So drowning in cold water would be at the bottom of my list!

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HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone. I hope 2026 brings you nothing but health and happiness!