Along The Ad Routes

by Mike Reilly

Since we put out 3 newspapers and a shopper from the Dodgeville Chronicle location, we recently received a note from Gene and Marcia Kolb, Pecatonica Valley Leader subscribers from Argyle. They said, “Thank You and a safe and Happy Holidays to You N Staff - Great Paper!!

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We also received a note from Harry Pilling of Salem, West Virginia with his renewal of the Dodgeville Chronicle. He said, “Merry Christmas. U All! Hi U All. We pray that you all have a very Merry Christmas!”

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I had a dual reason for getting everyone to head to Arena for Saturday morning breakfast last week. First, we hadn’t been to Grandma Mary’s for quite some time. But I was also planning to go to the Wildlife Forever/ArenaVFW Greet Santa and Christmas Shop to take a few photos!

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At Grandma Mary’s we put together enough chairs for seven of us to sit together at one table (round one). It was Tom driving Terry, Potsie and Royce while Bob rode with me for company since I was driving myself and staying. Dave pulled in just as we all arrived at about 7:57! The menu is huge so it took awhile for us to read it all and decide what we wanted. Terry and I had four cinnamon swirl French toasts with bacon. Then there was a variety of things like a Denver omelette, blueberry pancakes, eggs, toast and American fries, biscuits & gravy and steak & eggs. We had a good variety of selections to try almost everything!  It was all very good with Jenny as our waitress. She is originally from Arena, but now lives in nearby Spring Green. She was the only waitstaff and got to everyone pretty darn fast. She also had to clear the tables!

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Potsie went to the next table and began talking with a couple of guys. One fellow came over to our table before he left. It was Ray Porter. His mother, who has passed away, used to write the Arena News for us! His brother used to run the brewery that was in Arena too!

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I had a nice talk with a longtime Arena VFW member, Kenny Amble, who welcomed me coming to their event. Then another member and I talked about raising Hampshire hogs. He said he and his dad raised them for years. He was intrigued when I told him about our farm and “Reilly’s Hamps” - showing them in several states and selling them for breeding stock in several states besides showing them at fairs/events

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Check out the advertisements and update section of this week’s paper for a lot of “Holiday’ events going on this weekend! If you saved our “Gift Guide” there were a lot listed in that too. You can find cookies/candy, gifts and Santa at a lot of places!

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Oh, and it’s 14 days until Christmas as of this paper date - Thursday, December 11. I guess I had better start thinking about making my shopping list!

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Hey, and just what we needed - more snow on top of the 10+ inches we already had on the ground. That was courtesy of Saturday night and Sunday morning. I also understand there is more coming during this week too!

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For my special day, I’m jumping one day to Friday, December 12. It’s Gingerbread House Day and celebrated on December 12th. It’s a fun holiday encouraging families and friends to build and decorate festive gingerbread houses, often using kits or homemade gingerbread, with royal icing as glue, to kickstart holiday creativity and tradition. It became popular after the Grimm's fairy tale Hansel and Gretel and is a chance for hands-on fun, themed parties, and sharing creations online with #GingerbreadHouseDay.

I think I tried to build a few gingerbread houses in my youth, but I pretty much failed at keeping them together. One reason was because I ate the frosting and gingerbread before I put it on!