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9th Street NW Reconstruction

The City of Great Falls and the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT) are working with Sanderson Stewart on the 9th Street NW Roadway Reconstruction project.

The project will reconstruct 9th Street NW from Central Ave W to the NW Bypass.
Deteriorating pavement will be replaced, storm drains will be upgraded, damaged sidewalks will be replaced, and ADA-compliant curb ramps and missing sidewalks will be installed.

The 9th Street NW/Watson Coulee Road project is currently in Phase I also called the Survey Phase. MDT is actively seeking public comments during this phase of the project. To provide comments, please contact Ella Currier via email at ellac@strategies360.com or via phone at 406-465-7198.

Project map (tap or click image to enlarge)

To learn more about the project and to see additional maps, please visit https://www.mdt.mt.gov/pubinvolve/9thWatson/

Watson Coulee Road (tap or click image to enlarge)
9th Street NW (tap or click image to enlarge)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – The Bob May Story

Ronald D. Lankford, Jr., described Rudolph’s story as “the fantasy story made to order for American children: each child has the need to express and receive approval for his or her individuality and/or special qualities. Rudolph’s story embodies the American Dream for the child, written large because of the cultural significance of Christmas.”

Chicago 1938

As the holiday season of 1938 came to Chicago, Bob May wasn’t feeling much comfort or joy. A 34-year-old ad writer for Montgomery Ward, May was exhausted and nearly broke. His wife, Evelyn, was bedridden, on the losing end of a two-year battle with cancer. This left Bob to look after their four-year old-daughter, Barbara.

One night, Barbara asked her father, “Why isn’t my mommy like everybody else’s mommy?” As he struggled to answer his daughter’s question, Bob remembered the pain of his own childhood. A small, sickly boy, he was constantly picked on and called names. But he wanted to give his daughter hope, and show her that being different was nothing to be ashamed of. More than that, he wanted her to know that he loved her and would always take care of her. So he began to spin a tale about a reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team. Barbara loved the story so much that she made her father tell it every night before bedtime. As he did, it grew more elaborate. Because he couldn’t afford to buy his daughter a gift for Christmas, Bob decided to turn the story into a homemade picture book.

In early December, Bob’s wife died. Though he was heartbroken, he kept working on the book for his daughter. A few days before Christmas, he reluctantly attended a company party at Montgomery Ward. His co-workers encouraged him to share the story he’d written. After he read it, there was a standing ovation. Everyone wanted copies of their own. Montgomery Ward bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee. Over the next six years, at Christmas, they gave away six million copies of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to shoppers. Every major publishing house in the country was making offers to obtain the book. In an incredible display of good will, the head of the department store returned all rights to Bob May. Four years later, Rudolph had made him into a millionaire.

Now remarried with a growing family, May felt blessed by his good fortune. But there was more to come. His brother-in-law, a successful songwriter named Johnny Marks, set the uplifting story to music. The song was pitched to artists from Bing Crosby on down. They all passed. Finally, Marks approached Gene Autry. The cowboy star had scored a holiday hit with “Here Comes Santa Claus” a few years before. Like the others, Autry wasn’t impressed with the song about the misfit reindeer. Marks begged him to give it a second listen. Autry played it for his wife, Ina. She was so touched by the line “They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games” that she insisted her husband record the tune.

Within a few years, it had become the second best-selling Christmas song ever, right behind “White Christmas.” Since then, Rudolph has come to life in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, coloring books, greeting cards and even a Ringling Bros. circus act. The little red-nosed reindeer dreamed up by Bob May and immortalized in song by Johnny Marks has come to symbolize Christmas as much as Santa Claus, evergreen trees and presents. As the last line of the song says, “He’ll go down in history.”

The secrets of Medieval Castles

Ever wonder why most staircases in medieval castles were built to be extremely narrow and spiraling in a clockwise direction?

Since medieval castles were built mainly as fortifications, staircases were designed to make it extremely difficult for enemy combatants to fight their way up.

Since most soldiers were right-handed, they would need to round each curve of the inner wall before attempting to strike, inevitably exposing themselves in the process.

The clockwise spiral staircase also allowed the defenders to use the inner wall as a partial shield and easily allow them to swing their weapon without being hindered by the curvature of the outer wall.

The stairs were also intentionally poorly lit and built to be uneven, making it even more difficult for the attackers to gain any sort of balance or momentum during their fight up to capture the castle.

Watch the video below:

… to learn more about the ingenious design of Medieval Castles.

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The simple joys of Blind Dating

I’ve never been on a blind date.

Back in my single years, I had buddies that would try to fix-me-up with someone they thought I might like, but all of those attempts eventually led to a ‘nah’ for whatever the reasons.

Tho’ I’ve never been, there are those guys and gals that might prefer to live on the bleeding edge of society by blind dating.

Blind dating has always been somewhat of an adventure in apprehension, and now we have the internet to further the cause of that apprehension by coupling it with anxiety and fear.

No matter how compelling a person’s picture or bio is, there’s never any way of knowing for sure who will show-up on the first date. Yet, most people have probably never had a first date turn out as badly as Imgur user minilogo37.

Please checkout his story below so you’ll have a better idea of what to look out for — and then read on about the additional blind dating disasters below to give you even more of an incentive to become familiar with Murphy’s Law.

Seduced by a Super-Like:

I signed up for Tinder, just to see what would happen. A few hours later, I got “superliked,” which is apparently better than “liked”. We talked for a few days, she seemed super cool. I suggested a date, and she insisted on it being dinner. Cool.
We met up tonight at a restaurant I’d picked out. She didn’t look at me, wore sweatpants, and immediately ordered an $13 appetizer. Okay, not a dealbreaker. I tried starting a conversation a few times, but she only gave one word answers. Then, she orders a $25 steak and $22 crab legs. She drank 4 $9 glasses of wine. I got the steak, and a few drinks myself. Right about the time our main course(s) arrived, I’d pretty much given up. She talked more to the waiter.
As we were finishing, I excused myself and went to the restroom. While I was in there, a light bulb went off.
I left the bathroom, headed out the door, got in my car, and drove home. Now, here I am. She messaged me a few times, called me a “fucker” about twelve times. Eh.

Blind dating has been around for about as long as the human race has I think. Some stories are the stuff of legend.

Here are a few of those stories below.

Madame alias:

“I chatted a girl up online for about a week or so, and things went pretty well, so we decided to meet up. Let’s just say her photo didn’t match her appearance. Her excuse was that she had a crazy ex that was stalking her, so she used her sister’s photo and name. HER NAME!!! SHE LIED ABOUT HER NAME! Anyway, come to find out that she was an only child. She didn’t catch her slip up, but I sure did.”

Anti-climactic:

“This was 1993. He took me out for dinner and a movie. We saw Schindler’s List at the dollar theater. No lie. His choice. Afterwards, he told me he didn’t believe the Holocaust happened. Dinner was at Burger King. My meal of chicken tenders and small fries cost under $4 at the time. Afterwards, I bid him good evening and he complained that I didn’t put out because he bought me dinner. Hell, even if I did it for a living I’d charge more than $4. I didn’t stick around to go watch Apollo 13 and find out if he thought the moon landing was faked, and perhaps eventually barter my favors for an entire extra value meal. My self-esteem in college was low, but not that low.”

Too deep to handle:

“I once had a blind date walk into the restaurant wearing a Niqāb. She wasn’t Muslim, but wanted us to have a conversation without me knowing what she looked like. Kind of a WTF moment or something out of a tv show, but I saw her point. I ended up disliking her based on her personality.”

Too shallow to handle:

“My blind date gave me an IQ test on the spot. When he found out that I had a ‘good score’ he said he won’t be able to date me because I’m too smart for him and I will end up making his life miserable.”

Pure fetishes:

“I was set up on my first blind date by a friend who swore up and down that this guy was perfect for me. I asked her if he knew that I am basically a very geeky goth and she said he had a thing for goth girls.”

The threesome:

“I was about 21. This college girl, who otherwise was a pretty and smart girl, showed up with her little brother. He was about 17, with a peach fuzz ‘stache. He had on a tank top and looked like a little thug. We were going out to the movies and he tagged along. He sat between us. I thought I was being set up by those candid camera shows. Such a f—ing joke. To make matters worse, we had gone to see The Flintstones. Horrible experience all around.”

Straight-up sexual harassment:

“I went on a blind date with this guy who seemed really sweet. We went out to a really classy dinner. The food was great, the atmosphere was fantastic but at the end of the main course, he whipped out his phone and started showing me pictures he’d taken of his d—. Like different angles, lighting, dynamic effects — I rode with him to the restaurant, so I had to sit next to him on the ride home and fight the urge to fling the door open and tuck ‘n roll.”

Dinner disasters:

“I’ve been on two blind dates. One ended with me getting hot tea poured deliberately into my lap, and the other one told me her last fling gave her genital warts midway through dinner.”

Blocked by bacteria:

“I wasn’t feeling great, but decided to meet her anyway. We met at a Belgian beer bar. She was gorgeous, fun, and totally into me. I felt a gas pain, so I leaned forward slightly to quietly relieve the pressure. I completely and explosively shat myself. The odor was immediate. I excused myself to the bathroom, but the damage was too great. I walked out of the bathroom, muddy-panted, out of the bar, and boarded the train for home. The humiliating date was nothing compared to the horror of the following three weeks recovering from E-coli.”

Graveyard shift, saved by the bell, and dead ringer

Back in the day, when they started running out of places to bury people, they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to the “bonehouse” and reuse the grave (the bonehouse is where they stacked all of the bones).

When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins was found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night “graveyard shift” to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be “saved by the bell” or was considered a “dead ringer.”

Credit: Our Lady of Victories R.C. Church, Harrington Park, New Jersey