[Magdalen] Windy, waiting Williston

[Jay Weigel]

Years ago when I lived for a spell in rural Columbia County, WI, everyone
"out in the county" had a "fire number" in addition to their RFD P.O. Box
number. That was to tell the fire department or sheriff's department where
you were. If you called either for help they would ask you for your fire
number. The new system does make more sense, despite Sibyl's grumbling.
When I was hospitalized overnight following the MVA that could have killed
me but didn't (thank you, seat belts!) my roommate was an 80-something
woman who had fallen at home and broken her hip. She had crawled across 2
rooms and pulled her phone to the floor to call for help but by that time
could not remember her fire number. It took them awhile to find her but she
was going to be okay. They grow 'em tough up there!

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 12:24 AM, Joseph Cirou <romanos at mindspring.com>
wrote:

> Devon used to be shibboleth for north and south siders.
>
> Joe
>
> -----Original Message-----
> >From: Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com>
> >Sent: Apr 24, 2016 10:10 PM
> >To: "Magdalen at herberthouse.org" <magdalen at herberthouse.org>
> >Subject: Re: [Magdalen] Windy, waiting Williston
> >
> >I still remember our ridiculous address in Muskego, a suburb of Milwaukee:
> >
> >S67 W13882 Hardwicke Place
> >
> >It was explained at some point that this grid system was applied for
> >emergency services.
> >
> >Similarly, at some point the Michigan State University campus adopted
> >regular addresses. Previously an address there would be simply "136
> >Music Building, MSU, East Lansing, MI 48824" but the post office
> >wanted a street address as well, so it became "253 West Circle Drive,
> >Room 136" or something. Saint Meinrad Archabbey's campus now has its
> >buildings all with addresses as <some number> Hill Drive. It's not
> >that big a place, but I guess whether for mail purposes or pinpointing
> >an emergency, that's how things are now.
> >
> >Here in Chicago we have our trusty grid system: eight hundreds to a
> >mile, so our address of 6311 N Glenwood Ave tells you (if you're
> >grid-savvy) that we're just north of Rosemont Avenue and just south of
> >Devon Avenue, which is 6400 North or exactly eight miles north of
> >Madison Street.
> >
> >On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 8:59 PM, Sibyl Smirl <polycarpa3 at ckt.net> wrote:
> >> My little town, even though unincorporated, was platted
> >> and street-named, and they just ignored our street names and arbitrarily
> >> changed them to names of birds.  Our land is flat enough that it was
> pretty
> >> easy when it was being settled to lay out roads along the grid lines of
> >> square miles, with a few exceptions for the river, and now our roads
> are 10
> >> (invisible)(not even any thought of ever paving them: it'd sure mess up
> a
> >> lot of farm land!) "blocks" apart.  It does have its positive points,
> but
> >> the system is still a pain in the neck.  I'm guessing that North Dakota,
> >> with a lot fewer humans per square mile, is going through the same
> (@%$#%
> >> process.  Got to have everybody pinned down to the square inch!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >Scott R. Knitter
> >Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA
>
>
>
>