Tag Archives: Mississippi River

Sunrise today over Muscatine

River

This is what sunrise looked like today over the Mississippi River at Muscatine.

Sunrise was pretty spectacular again this morning over the Mississippi River at Muscatine. I’ve already posted this photo on Instagram, which means it has been tweeated and posted to Facebook. But it seemed worth sharing here, too, because we Muscatine residents are proud of our connection to writer Mark Twain, who once said:

And I remember Muscatine — still more pleasantly — for its summer sunsets. I have never seen any, on either side of the ocean, that equaled them. They used the broad smooth river as a canvas, and painted on it every imaginable dream of color, from the mottled daintinesses and delicacies of the opal, all the way up, through cumulative intensities, to blinding purple and crimson conflagrations which were enchanting to the eye, but sharply tried it at the same time. All the Upper Mississippi region has these extraordinary sunsets as a familiar spectacle. It is the true Sunset Land: I am sure no other country can show so good a right to the name. The sunrises are also said to be exceedingly fine. I do not know.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain

In 1855, Twain lived briefly in Muscatine and worked at the Muscatine Journal, which was partly owned by his brother, Orion Clemens.

I’ve heard that Twain made similar comments about the sunsets in San Francisco, so maybe he plagiarized himself. I don’t know. But I am plagiarizing myself, because I’ve written about this before.

 

An apology to Bill Decker and Muscatine school district

black-crow-silhouette-perchThe season’s first snowfall arrived today at Brome Hill with a heaping order of crow.

When I woke up at 4 a.m., it was raining pretty hard. In fact, we had thunderstorms throughout the night here on the west bank of the Mississippi River. Without getting out of bed, I grabbed my phone and started reading my Twitter feed to find weather news.

And then I sent out this tweet:

tweet

Unfortunately, misspelling “cancelled” wasn’t my biggest mistake with this tweet, because the canceled winter storm warning was upgraded to a blizzard warning.

After I headed for the Muscatine Community Y to teach a cycling class, Bill Decker, the Muscatine superintendent of schools, responded with a tweet that I can’t find now in order to post it here. But according to the text message I received from Twitter it said:

“@CSteinbach, winter storm warning canceled because it was upgraded to a blizzard warning. Student safety>name calling #NotFunny. #NotClassy.”

Fair enough. And I apologize to Decker for jumping the gun with a tweet that was meant to be funny and fell short.

For what it’s worth, he got the last laugh without knowing it a few hours later when I was pelted by sleet as we loaded Christmas food baskets at the Salvation Army for 30-some MCSA residents.

The lessons learned from this experience for me are:

  • School officials are often second-guessed for closing — or not closing — school when winter weather strikes. From here on out, however, I no longer plan to be among the second-guessers.
  • Without a doubt, student safety should always be priority No. 1.
  • Flippant tweets sent at 4:30 in the morning are best left to others. And the next time I feel the urge, I plan to roll over and go back to sleep.
  • Crow isn’t very tasty, but it can be choked down if eaten with enough Sriracha sauce. (OK, no more jokes, I promise.)

As for my not being funny or lacking class, I’m not going to spend much time today worrying about such shortcomings. I’m going to be too busy shoveling snow.

Restaurants making changes in Muscatine

A bit of Mexico has come to Muscatine.

A new outdoor seating area looks nearly finished at La Guadalajara, 203 E. Second St. Staff say it should be open in a couple of weeks.

Of course, I’m not sure seats will be easy to get if this area becomes as popular as the rest of the restaurant is at noon (for the buffet) and on Tuesday nights (for $1 tacos) and Wednesday nights (for 99-cent margaritas.)

But it looks like it will be a great addition to downtown Muscatine. It also has a pretty good view of the Mississippi River.

Speaking of new additions downtown: I        hear Francesca Vitale’s quietly opened about a week ago at 128 E. Second St. Haven’t been there yet, but I’ve heard good things from friends.

This and that: One thing is for sure, if you want to build traffic on a blog,you have to post new stuff all of the time. Sorry for being a bit absent for the past few days.

I had a couple of meetings Tuesday in Davenport. And today I am going to West Liberty this afternoon and speaking at a class tonight at Muscatine Community College. Not sure if I’m making progress on the job front, but at least I’m keeping busy.

And I may not blog much the rest of the week. I actually have a couple of freelance writing assignments to get done this week.

Speaking of the job search: Today, I’m wondering if it’s a good sign to get a LinkedIn invitation from a business person I met with a week or so ago and haven’t heard from since. I’m going to view the glass as half full.

Quote of the day: To insure peace of mind ignore the rules and regulations. — George Ade, American playwright (1866-1944) Note: Not to sound too much like an old editor, but I think George probably said ensure.