It’s very seldom that something really is happening for the first time. Authentic, historic days are few and far between.
However, the Hillsboro Tigers basketball team’s trip to state qualifies!

Far too often, however, the press is caught in the middle of bad timing. Our Tuesday deadline can sometimes be more of an enemy than a friend.

The absolute deadline is Tuesday night and we have no control over it. The paper is prepared in Lancaster that night after being sent by us and the presses role Wednesday morning, with delivery of the papers late Wednesday afternoon.

Morris Newspapers owns nine newspapers in Wisconsin, and the Lancaster printing plant handles a number of them.

Frankly, any changes in production rules happen as often as the Chicago Cubs win a pennant.

Something like this state tournament game Thursday morning sentences us to an early setup and a tardy report of the game. It sort of goes with the business, and we’re definitely not alone with this problem.

We’ll do our best, however, and our sister papers have top professionals at the scene and solid photographers snapping away. It just may take a while for us to get into your hands, but trust us. The wait will be worth it!

Go Tigers …all the way!

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What popular holiday features the colors green and red?

You’re no doubt, thinking Christmas and that’s probably right, but for some folks, with a family tree that started in the Emerald Isle, it’s Saint Patrick’s Day.

It’s the wee folk that started people “wearin’ the green” and after a Day of National Chugging, their cheeks and eyes account for the red.

There’s just something different and, to a point, special about Irish pride. Don’t ever argue about that in an Irish watering hole, or you’ll find yourself adding the colors black and blue to the equation.

I can only claim a wee bit of Irish. My great grandfather came over from the Isle. The now ancient family tale is that he was secretly put on a ship to America after killing a patron in a bar brawl.

In America he became a cop in Milwaukee and later policed for the Treasury Department before settling down to grow potatoes in southern Illinois.

That’s the sum total of what qualifies me to wear green on the sacred day.

However, my wife, the former Mary Jane Lanahan, is 100% and proud of it. I always think her family surnames sound much like an Irish law firm: Lanahan, Gleason, Maloney, and Slattery!

I could never even consider doubting she is Irish, although she does have a problem with cabbage!

Back in Chicago they always take St. Patrick’s Day extremely seriously. Of course, they still pour green dye into the Chicago River and sponsor an old fashioned Irish parade down Michigan Avenue.

In that city, believe me, everybody claims to be Irish and most folks try to believe them if they can believe anything by the end of the all-day celebration.

After the green dye floats out to Lake Michigan, the parade ends, and things get a little woozy, thousands of celebrants start walking to Chicago’s fabled Irish pub, Butch Maguire’s, which is legendary for it’s popularity among the Irish drinking folks.

When the chief bartender yells “fill’er up” he’s not talking about a mug of beer, he’s telling the police to let a few more people in the front door. Outside a 2-deep line actually circles around the entire block.

A trip to Butch Maguire’s on Saint Patrick’s Day for an Irish Chicagoan is almost like a pilgrimage!