Ken Dryden's #29 Retired By Canadiens

From Canadian Press:

MONTREAL (CP) - The pantheon of Montreal Canadiens' immortals has a new member - goaltending great Ken Dryden.

The erudite goaltender from the powerhouse Canadiens of the 1970s had his No. 29 retired Monday night prior to the club's 3-1 win over the Ottawa Senators in a moving 48-minute ceremony at the Bell Centre. Alternating between French and English as he addressed the sell-out crowd, the 59-year-old thanked the fans and people of Quebec for accepting a young goaltender from Toronto who joined the team in 1971 and went on to greatness.

"How do I thank you?" Dryden asked after receiving a long standing ovation. "Sometimes when you're lucky you get really lucky.

"I was lucky to be here in Montreal, in Quebec, to play at the Montreal Forum and to be a member of the Montreal Canadiens. You gave me a gift. Thank you."

Dryden was joined on the ice by his wife, Lynda, his two children and a three-week-old grandchild, while his older brother, Dave, a former Buffalo Sabres goalie, and his first coach, Al McNeil, addressed the crowd.

A banner with Dryden's name and number was raised from just in front of the Canadiens' net, brought out by captain Saku Koivu and the two current goalies - Cristobal Huet and David Aebischer. The Canadiens, all wearing jerseys with No. 29, applauded from their bench.

"This is that final piece," a visibly moved Dryden said later. "Who would ever dream of having their number retired by the Montreal Canadiens? It's just great."

Former coach Scotty Bowman, teammate Larry Robinson and former Boston Bruins star Wayne Cashman offered taped testimonials on the scoreboard.

Dryden was introduced at centre ice by his opposite number in the pivotal 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union - Vladislav Tretiak - who received a standing ovation almost as warm.

"I played against Team Canada in 1972 and in 1975 against the Montreal Canadiens - the best hockey I ever saw," said Tretiak, now president of the Russian Ice Hockey Federation. "Ken Dryden played unbelievable.

"He was a fantastic goalie and a great man."

Dryden, 59, had a 258-57-74 career record with a 2.24 goals-against average and 46 shutouts in 397 regular-season NHL games, all for Montreal.

Dryden joins other Habs stars: He is the 12th Canadien to get the ultimate tribute.

The others were: Jacques Plante (1); Doug Harvey (2); Jean Beliveau (4); Bernie (Boom Boom) Geoffrion (5); Howie Morenz (7); Maurice (Rocket) Richard (9); Guy Lafleur (10); Yvon Cournoyer and Dickie Moore (12); Henri (Pocket Rocket) Richard (16); and Serge Savard (18).

Mobile, Biloxi & The Gulf Coast Ready for Mardis Gras (AP)

From The Associated Press (Via Yahoo):

A.P. writer Garry Mitchell describes how Mobile, Al has benefited in its Mardis Gras celebration as the Gulf Coast continues to try to recover from Hurricane Katrina last year.

Festivities in Mobile will start on February 2. A listing of parades and events can be found attached to the article.

The piece also cites how Biloxi, MS, hard hit by last year's hurricane, will be limited to one parade in their Mardis Gras celebration.

For more, see:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20070122/ap_tr_ge/travel_trip_mobile_mardi_gras;_ylt=As6eSTF4OkhXUHLB_22Wnu48sM0F;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

City ignores him but Capone is still big (AP)

From The Associated Press (via Yahoo News):


By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jan 27, 2:57 PM ET

CHICAGO - Al Capone refuses to be rubbed out.

Chicago officials shun any association with "Scarface," whose Prohibition-era exploits made his name synonymous with the city.

"Anything that glorifies violence we are not interested in," said Dorothy Coyle, director of the city's office on tourism.

But 60 years after his death, they still can't run his memory out of town and visitors from all over the world are very much interested.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070127/ap_on_re_us/capone_chicago;_ylt=Ajd88tULe.8jl3NAGz8hbLVvzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM-

Restoring Dignity to Sitting Bull, Wherever He Is (NYT)

From the New York Times:

There are lines drawn everywhere at the Standing Rock Reservation - between Mative lands and non-Native lands, between North Dakota and South Dakota, and between those who think they have secured the remains of Sitting Bull and those who belive that those remaions are not those of the Indian leader of Littler Bighorn.

Dan Barry of the New York Times have journeyed to the desolate intersection of this discussion:

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/us/28thisland.html

For TV’s Trixie, the Honeymoon Lives On (NYT)

From the New York Times:

A Metropolitan Section (by Glen Collins, January 27) feature in The New York Times profiles what life is like these days for Joyce Randloph, now 82 years old and the last living cast member from the 1950's version of "The Honeymmoners", starring Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Audrey Meadows.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/27/nyregion/27trixie.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1169971841-XTifDezdJ9xLQ4enKJK4jg

Passing: Gump Worsley, Popular Goaltender for Lowly Rangers & Champion Canadiens (CP)

From the Canadian Press:

1/27/2007 11:43:31 PM

MONTREAL (AP) - Lorne "Gump" Worsley, the Hall of Fame goalie who didn't wear a mask until the final season of his 21-year NHL career, has died. He was 77.

Worsley, who died at his home in Beloeil, had a heart attack Monday, The Montreal Gazette said Saturday night.

Born Lorne John Worsley in Montreal in 1929, he was tagged with the "Gump" moniker as a child because his hair stuck up like Andy Gump, the comic strip character.

The five-foot-seven Worsley began his NHL career in 1952-53, winning the Calder Trophy as the rookie of the year with the New York Rangers. He helped his hometown Montreal Canadiens win four Stanley Cup titles in a five-year span and finished his career with the Minnesota North Stars in 1973-74 - playing only his final six games with a mask.

"He was a terrific goaltender," former North Stars teammate Lou Nanne said. "If I could pick any goalie to win a big game, it would be Gump."

Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1980, Worsley was 335-352-150 with a 2.88 goals-against average and 43 shutouts in 861 regular-season games. In the playoffs, he was 40-26 with a 2.78 GAA and five shutouts.

"He was one of the first real characters in the NHL," Nanne said. "He had a lot of personality and really showed the human side of the game. He didn't look like an athlete and smoked like a chimney between periods, but he was terrific when he put the pads on."

Acquired by Montreal from the Rangers in a 1963 trade that sent fellow Hall of Fame goalie Jacques Plante to New York, Worsley won 29 of 36 playoff games in helping lead the Canadiens to Stanley Cup titles in 1965, '66, '68 and '69.

Worsley won the Vezina Trophy in 1966 and 1968 as the NHL's top goalie, was a first-team all-star in 1968 and played in the all-star game in 1961, '62, '65 and '72. He holds the NHL record for career losses.

An obituary written by Red Fisher of the Montreal Gazette:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=a9b0f9a5-7b21-4dec-89b6-1bfed58007b8&k=46884

Here's a fine read by The Gazette's Ian MacDonald, who in 2003 wrote this Where Are They Now feature on the Gumper (I found it at habsinsideout.com):
http://www.habsinsideout.com/2007/01/rest_in_peace_gumper_habs_lege/#comments

And a nice tribute by hockey historian Joe Pelletier:
http://www.legendsofhockey.blogspot.com/

Legends of Hockey Video (via You Tube):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJlLUWme83A

250,000 Classic Car Fans Flock to Arizona Auction (NPR)

NPR News reports on the 36th annual Barrett-Jackson Classic Car Auction in Scottsdale, Ariz. It's the country's biggest event of its kind. A quarter-million car fans flocked to the six-day show for a chance to eye — and buy — a work of art in chrome and steel.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7003476

A Traditional Quebecois Meat Pie Goes Public Radio (NPR)

Tourtiere is a Quebecois pork-and-beef pie popular throughout the winter months. It's found it's way across the border as a featured dish about Humble Pie in an NPR feature.

The recipe can be found at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6949446#6968105

The complete feature on Humble Pie can be found at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6949446

Heard on The Radio: National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

They're gathering again in Elko, Nevada - this year for the 23rd edition of the National Cowboy Poetry Festival. This year's theme is "The Ranch" and a highlight will be cowboys from France (along with their music - a type of gypsy music).

Two poets and a cowboy musician joined us at Left Jab Radio (XM Public Radio, Channel 133) to talk about the festival, cowboy culture and more. You can hear the program on Sunday morning (8 est; 5 pst) with a repeat Monday morning 2 am (11 pm Pacific).

For more you can go to hiddenamerica.com, leftjabradio.com or westernfolklife.org.

Digging Up the Truth About Jamestown (NPR)

From NPR News (Weekend Edition Saturday, January 2, 2007; by Thomas Pierce):

Dr. Bill Kelso first came to James Island decades ago as an aspiring archaeologist. At the time, the fort was believed to have eroded into the James River. Since breaking ground in 1994, Kelso has uncovered the fort , numerous skeletons and thousands of artifacts.

“They told me if you’re looking for the fort, you’re too late. It’s long gone, washed away. I actually was standing in the fort as it turned out.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6608615

Passing: Art Buchwald (NPR)

From NPR News:

"Columnist Art Buchwald Leaves Us Laughing"
by David Folkenflik

NPR.org, January 18, 2007 · Humorist Art Buchwald has died at the age of 81. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist, suffering a debilitating kidney failure, took himself off dialysis last February. Doctors gave him weeks to live. Instead, he left his hospice and survived another 11 months.

He wrote a final book — Too Soon to Say Goodbye — about the experience.

"The last year he had the opportunity for a victory lap and I think he was really grateful for it," his son, Joel Buchwald, said. "He had an opportunity to write his book about his experience and he went out the way he wanted to go, on his own terms."

At the height of his popularity, Buchwald was syndicated in hundreds of newspapers, where he poked fun at the foibles of celebrities and politicians.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5249437

Two Impactful Personalities on the Ice Look Forward & Back

In separate articles, two vital cogs of Stanley Cup teams in the 1960's have been profiled this week.

John Ferguson was an enforcer for the Montreal Canadiens. On a team known as the Flying Frenchman (with the likes of Jean Beliveau, Henri Richard and Yvan Cournoyer), Ferguson (along with the likes of Terry Harper, Ted Harris & Claude Larose) offered toughness to round out a talented team. Many consider Feguson to be the most vital contributor in helping the Canadiens of the mid-60's to be transformed from a pretty good team to a Stanley Cup Champions. In fact, with Ferguson around, the Canadiens won cups in 1965,66,68,69 and 1971.

These days Ferguson the battler is in a different type of battle - he is fighting bone cancer and receiving treatment at a Toronto hospital. And this comes after bypass five years ago, and then prostate cancer two years ago. A column in the Winnipeg Free Press updates Fergie's conidition and how he is handling things talking about his condition.


See:http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/subscriber/columnists/top3/v-full/story/3844750p-4449236c.html




In Toronto, Eddie Shack was known as The Entertainer. There (and other stops)
he played a similar role as an energizer and character - helping the Leafs to Stanley Cups. This year their last, now 40 years removed, is being remembered.

A good profile of Shgack recalling that great unique Leaf team and its personalities (including the likes of Frank Mahavolich, Bobby Baun, Tim Horton, George Armstrong, Dave Keon, Terry Sawchuck, Johnny Bower and coach Punch Imlach).

The Clown Prince, the cut-up, the head case in a hockey sweater, was arguably the most unprofessional professional player on those Leaf teams. He was a character off and on the ice.

His playing style was unique as well. It appeared as though Shack was on rails, and a saying was coined to match the unorthodox style: "Clear the track, here comes Eddie Shack."

Taking up a cause personally dear to me, Shack would like to see a return to a more innocent and entertaining NHL era, where men would wear shirt and tie and women elegant gloves to games.

Everything was dressed up," he said of the old days. "Now, you look at the crowds, and you see a Montreal sweater, Los Angeles, or whatever it is, and you just wonder."

He does not watch today's game. He does not know the names of today's players. And he does not appear to care.

"We knew all the players names because we had no helmets," Shack said. "There were no concussions. All we had was hangovers."

See:http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/sports/story.html?id=32e3b674-4421-4f3a-b4d7-2c8cc7c2b483

Loss of a Beloved Department Store in Chicago Breeds a New Kind of Superfan (NYT)

From The New York Times (by Libby Sander; Published: January 17, 2007):

The Marshall Field’s flagship store in Chicago became a Macy’s last September. Since then, some residents have boycotted Macy’s and signed a petition to keep the old name.

“Chicagoans would have welcomed Macy’s to our market alongside Field’s,” said Grant Paplauskas, 28, who works in marketing and lives in the southwest suburbs. “But there is resentment because in coming to Chicago, they took away what was ours. We miss what was here.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/us/17chicago.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The Offbeat Federal Holiday

Today is Martin Luther King Day.

It's a federal holiday but yet in many places it does not feel like a holiday.

It's now 21 years since MLK Day was declared a legal holiday. But in many ways the day is till getting its footing as a time of national commemoration.

Many business leaders questions say most big companies are honoring the King holiday by making it a paid holiday for their workers. But some transit agencies are saying that there are still too many people commuting to work on Dr. King's holiday for them to treat it like most other holidays (New York Times).

Maybe I'm making too much of this in an era where teh emanings of Memorial Day, and Labor Day have been lost. And to too many July Fourth is just a long weekend.

But as one who likes to look back at where we have been as a nation and who thinks that we have lost a lot of what used to be good about our communities and nation (urban sprawl, mass culture, pro sports as examples), I prfer to look aheah to a time with this holiday is finally treated as the day it should be - remembering Dr. King, remembering all less famous those worked as did Dr. King for equality, and to honor those universal principles Dr. King's legacy has becoem associated with: diversity and not just tolerance but acceptance.

When we all accept MLK Day we all finally would have accepted something about ourselves asd Americans and human beings.

With Each Anthem Sung, Family's Philadelphia Legacy Carries On (NYT)

Yes, I know we've dome alot of sports lately - and especially alot oh hockey. But it's all been pretty good stuff.

And, here's another one.

Today's New York Times has a nice piece by Dave Caldwell on Lauren Hart, daughter of Gene Hart, the play-by-play announcer on Philadelphia Flyer radio broadcasts from the team's inception in 1967 until 1995. Gene Hart, who died in 1999, became known as the Voice of the Flyers.

Now, Lauren Hart is that voice of the Flyers.

Not as play-by-play announcer, but as the anthem singer at Flyers' home games.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/sports/hockey/15hart.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1168869670-bKpuAVsxdA+juCDngFmpSw

Former Love Returns to Town for Playoffs:"It's Hard to Look at the Blue & White Uniforms And Cheer Against Them" (Baltimore Sun)

From The Baltimore Sun:

The Colts are playing their first playoff game into Baltimore years. But last time around the Colts were the home team. Today they are the visitors - at least to most.

The Colts fled Baltimore for Indianapolis years ago. They were replaced on the field by the Ravens, and it is the Ravens (themselves formerly the Cleveland Browns)who since have won a Super Bowl - not the Colts.

These unique circumstances and divided loyalties by some are examined in the Baltimore Sun.

"I'd hoped this day would never come," Baldwin said of the first playoff between the clubs. "It's going to hurt, but I have to root for the Ravens.

"It's heartbreaking, rooting against my Colts. It's hard to look at the blue-and-white uniforms and cheer against them.

"They'll always be in my heart."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/football/bal-te.sp.cheerleaders13jan13,0,7955468.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

By the way, the day after the game the headline in the Baltimore Sun read "City's old team leaves with win over Ravens". Final Score: Indianapolis (formerly Baltimore) Colts 15 Baltimore 6.

Dave Anderson writes of this subplot to Saturday's game in Sunday's New York Times:
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/sports/football/14anderson.html?ref=sports

Shut out of Shinny: Outdoor rinks feel the heat (Montreal Gazette)

From the Montreal Gazette:

Warm weather is wreaking havoc with outdoor hockey. Are the days of shinny in fresh air really over, or is this unseasonable winter just a one-off freak of nature?

by JOHN MEAGHER, The Gazette
Published: Saturday, January 13, 2007

Planet Earth is running a fever this winter and in many parts of Canada the symptoms are as plentiful as they are troubling.

An ancient ice shelf the size of Manhattan breaks off Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic; ice fishermen in Quebec are bobbing for apples; the Rideau Canal in Ottawa will probably be open for boating only this Winterlude and some pond-hockey tournaments across the Great White North are skating on thin ice.

In Montreal, the tell-tale sign the world we knew is off its melting axis is when little Johnny can't play outdoor shinny again today, Jan. 13, which also happens to be Hockey Day in Canada.

Given the warming trends and slushy weather, could the backyard rink be going the way of the cod?

"It's certainly getting tougher to have a backyard rink with the weather being so goofy now," said Gaston Gingras, a former National Hockey League defenceman who won a Stanley Cup with the Canadiens in 1986.

"I tried a few years ago to get my own backyard rink going, but it died. You have to work on it every day because of the fluctuations in the weather."

Gingras often tours the province with the NHL Legends team or to hold youth hockey clinics.

"I was just in Sherbrooke, the Beauce and Quebec City, and there's no ice anywhere," he said. "I was up in James Bay in October and it was the same thing. The elders up there told me they've never seen anything like it before."

Across Montreal, rink boards stand idle like relics of winters past.


For the cmpolete article, see: http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=23689397

Red Fisher on A New Season of the New NHL on NBC (Montreal Gazette)

From the Montreal Gazette:

RED FISHER, The Gazette
Published: Saturday, January 13, 2007

I am excited, and I hope you are, too, that NHL on NBC is embarking on its second season this afternoon with a national Game of the Week featuring the Pittsburgh Penguins visiting Philadelphia.

(Everybody wants to see the No. 30 Flyers, right? Regional games include the Boston Bruins at New York Rangers)

I am also excited over the fact that NBC Sports coordinating producer Sam Flood wants you to know that "the wonderful thing about our group is that everyone is a total 'puckhead.' "

(Close, but no cigar, Sam).

On the other hand, I want Sam to know that he's lost me before the first puck is dropped for the very good reason that while the No. 30 Flyers will be seen four times, you won't find a Canadian team anywhere on the schedule.

For the Complete article see:

Remebering Hockey's First Brawl (Montreal Gazette)

From the Montreal Gazette:

"It was butchery, not sport, in Westmount"

100 years ago, hockey had its first brawl, as the Ottawa Silver Seven and Montreal Wanderers engaged in a stick-swinging melee that left three players unconscious
Article Tools

by DAVE STUBBS, The Gazette
Published: Friday, January 12, 2007
It was more a crime scene than an arena, three Montreal-uniformed hockey players clubbed senseless, two left unconscious by the violently swung, heavy sticks of the visiting team.

One hundred years ago tonight at the Westmount Arena, 10 years before the founding of the National Hockey League and 23 months before the birth of the Canadiens, the Ottawa Silver Seven and Montreal Wanderers engaged in what newspaper reports of the day described as the most vicious, despicable battle the fledgling game of organized hockey had seen.

It would be more than eight decades before something remotely this savage would occur again on Montreal ice. But the so-called Good Friday Massacre of 1984 between the Canadiens and Quebec Nordiques - 252 penalty minutes, including 16 fighting majors and 10 game misconducts - was waged only with fists, not lumber, and it didn't spill onto the police blotter.

The brutality of April 20, 1984 erupted in the Forum, at the corner of Ste. Catherine St. and Atwater Ave., a slapshot east from the 6,000-seat Westmount Arena, which opened with huge fanfare on New Year's Eve 1898.

For more, see the complete article at:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/sports/story.html?id=669f52ee-3cdc-4cb2-add6-8c0376be3fbf&k=79396

Something Different: Banff World Television Festival

If you're like me, television you can recall a day of far fewer television options. There were three major newtorks (two major Canadian English networks). But somehow with today with virtually hundreds of choices,many of us nonetheless feel there are
not that many real good options.

Looking for something different ? Contemplate this.

The Banff World Television Festival is the world's most important television content creation event. Now in its 28th year, this annual forum is dedicated to the development of business and creative opportunities for those in television programming and new media industry. In addition to honouring excellence in international television, the Festival provides a global platform for networking, discussion and debate, and explores current issues and challenges within the industry.

The 2007 Festival takes place June 10-13, 2007, at the Fairmont Banff Springs in the Canadian Rockies, and will draw television professionals from around the world. Features will include provocative seminars, inspiring Master Classes, unique pitching opportunities and more.

The Festival combines a prestigious international program competition, the Banff World Television Awards (in Partnership with Alberta Film), with a comprehensive conference agenda. Within this marketplace of ideas, co-production deals are secured and advanced, new business relationships are formed and future trends in the industry are identified and examined.

Submissions for the 28th installment of the Banff World Television Awards are being accepted before February 10, 2007. This is your chance to join an illustrious winner's list which reads like a veritable who's who of the international television industry.

Along with announcing a new category for Telenovela & Drama Serial Program, BWTVF has introduced several expanded categories including Best Mobile Program Enhancement Award, Best Interactive Program Enhancement Award and Best Internet Only Production Award. These new additions, as well as our new Judging Process, will allow us to salute the very best that television and digital media has to offer.

For information see: http://www.bwtvf.com/

Passing: "Lily Munster"

'Munsters' Star Yvonne De Carlo Dies
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 11, 2007
Filed at 7:46 a.m. ET

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Yvonne De Carlo, the beautiful star who played Moses' wife in ''The Ten Commandments'' but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's ''The Munsters,'' has died. She was 84.

De Carlo died of natural causes Monday at the Motion Picture & Television facility in suburban Los Angeles, longtime friend and television producer Kevin Burns said Wednesday.

De Carlo, whose shapely figure helped launch her career in B-movie desert adventures and Westerns, rose to more important roles in the 1950s. Later, she had a key role in a landmark Broadway musical, Stephen Sondheim's ''Follies.''

But for TV viewers, she will always be known as Lily Munster in the 1964-1966 slapstick horror-movie spoof ''The Munsters.'' The series (the name allegedly derived from ''fun-monsters'') offered a gallery of Universal Pictures grotesques, including Dracula and Frankenstein's monster, in a cobwebbed gothic setting.

Lily, vampire-like in a black gown, presided over the faux scary household and was a rock for her gentle but often bumbling husband, Herman, played by 6-foot-5-inch character actor Fred Gwynne (decked out as the Frankenstein monster).

While it lasted only two years, the series had a long life in syndication and resulted in two feature movies, ''Munster Go Home!'' (1966) and ''The Munsters' Revenge.'' (1981, for TV).

At the series' end, De Carlo commented: ''It meant security. It gave me a new, young audience I wouldn't have had otherwise. It made me `hot' again, which I wasn't for a while.''

''I think she will best remembered as the definitive Lily Munster. She was the vampire mom to millions of baby boomers. In that sense, she's iconic,'' Burns said Wednesday.

A long journey north to say goodbye (PRI)

From PRI's The World:

Anne Abraham vanished in a remote part of Canada thirty years ago. She went there on an archaeological mission to find a 7,000 year-old rock quarry. This year, her sister Alice marked the anniversary by tracing Anne's final expedition.


http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/6875

How Pepsi Opened the Door to Diversity (WSJ)

From the Wall Street Journal:

A 1940s All-Black targerted a New market and broke a barrier (Check-out the classic Pepsi ad). To be found on B1. Adapted from "The Real Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business", by Stephanie Capparell. Copyright 2007.

Along the Lincoln Highway (American Public Media)

Last summer, Weekend America (American Public Media) started a trip across the Lincoln Highway, America's first coast-to-coast road. The road opened in 1913 and started the venerable American tradition of the cross-country car trip. So now they are starting the New Year by wrapping up the trip at the highway's end, in California. Weekend America's Pat Loeb reports on driving the final stretch, which for her, was like a dream come true.

http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/programs/2007/01/06/lincoln_highway.html

American "Heritage" Explored (PRI)

"The Changing World" explores the archeology of patriotism in the US, delving into America's past by visiting the places where history was made, and uncovering some new facts about this nation's early days.

"The Changing World" is a series of documentaries produced by the BBC World Service and PRI's "The World." The series is distributed nationwide by PRI.

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/pri/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1020117

Arts of Winter Festival at the Ice Hotel

For a most unique event in a most unique seeting check this out.

The Ice Hotel Quebec-Canada (Hotel Glace) is hosting the third edition of the "Festival Arts D'Hiver - Arts of Winter Festival" This festival is comprised of three parts: Interior Ice Architectural Design, International Ice Sculpting Competition, and Ice Painting Symposium, and will be held from January 5 th to April 1.

The scene of these events is the Ice Hotel. Located just outside Quebe City, it is the only ice hotel in North America. Made entirely of ice and snow, it is comprised of some 15,000 tons of snow and 500 tons of ice. With a surface of 3,000 square meters (30,000 square feet), it features 36 rooms and suites that can accommodate more than 88 people per night.

Each year, artists create intricate designs that become the hotel for that winter.
Guests at the hotel have the chance to sleep a luxurious structure crafted each winter from nature's materials: ice and snow. There are ice sculptures and ice paintings. There is dancing in a "N'Ice Club" and a Ice Lounge. There are outdoor hot tubs, and an "Ice Chapel" that provides a "fairytale-like setting" for weddings.

If you're not inclined to stay there at $199 per night (which includes a cocktail), you can still take a tour of the Ice Hotel ($7.50 children; students/seniors $13; adults $15; Families $42.

For more information about the festival and the Ice Hotel, see:
http://www.icehotel-canada.com/

Heard on the Radio: Fruitcake Toss

Christmas season is gone, the tree is about to come down, you're on to trying to keep New Year's resolutions. But we've got this fruitcake staring you in the face.

Apparently, you are not alone. In fact, in Manitou Springs, Colorado there are a whole lot of folks who come together with fruitcakes and chuck them - actually it is described as a "toss".

The event is the 12th Annual Fruitcake Toss in Manitou Springs. Floyd O'Neil and I came together with the boys at XM Radio's "Left Jab Radio" to talk about it.

You can hear it all at leftjabradio.com.

By the way, after the event (hopefully this weekend, but we hear that snow might be a problem)we'll be talking to Floyd again on our podcast, conversationsontheroad.com to see how it all went.