FREE WHITEWATER

Food, Restaurant, Review

Restaurant Review: Fin & Hooves

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Fin & Hooves is the restaurant at the Whitewater Country Club, on Highway 89 just outside of Whitewater. 

Prior to this review, I had not visited the Whitewater Country Club in years, and for dining prior to the opening of Fin & Hooves, I would have had no reason to visit.  (I’m not a golfer, although I respect the sport and follow prominent tournaments.)  Quite simply, the Whitewater Country Club in its prior form offered nothing adequate for dining or atmosphere. 

That’s not true, now: Fin & Hooves gives the entire venue a needed – and significant – boost.  I visited three times for this review, and will visit again both for a follow-up review and likely on other occasions simply for my own enjoyment. 

This is one of Chef Tyler Sailsbery’s three establishments nearby (The Black Sheep & Casual Joe’s being the other two), and I was not disappointed to find that his commitment to a proper meal and a congenial atmosphere was present here (as I’ve found at The Black Sheep). 

He’s taken a property that served poor food in a decrepit dining room and transformed the dining experience of both food and atmosphere. 

This review is the composite of three visits (a late lunch, an early dinner, and Sunday brunch).  So we’re clear: food, service, and atmosphere all matter, and while they are integrated as a combined experience, I’ll suggest that it’s impossible to enjoy a restaurant that serves poor food.  So, however combined, quality of the meal is paramount. 

The most important part of air travel is that the plane stays in the air; the most important part of dining is that one receives good preparations. 

The food at Fin & Hooves is easily recommended in choices and desirability.  It’s simply delicious.  This is a New American cuisine, a favorite of mine, with a moderately-sized lunch and dinner menu that offers a combination of appetizers (3), soups (2), salads (3), burgers (3), two chicken selections, and cheesecake.  A separate Sunday brunch menu now offers just under a dozen selections, among them omelets (3), skillets (2), sandwiches (2), and traditional plates (3) of pancakes, French toast, or eggs.  

The foods used throughout the menu are, I think, locally sourced, and that seems to include meats from nearby Sorg’s.  Local sourcing is not a favor to other merchants – it’s a benefit to patrons dining at Fin & Hooves.  Fin & Hooves gives diners the local elements they deserve, avoiding the many problems with freshness or quality (especially of fish) that patrons otherwise might face. 

Of my particular favorites from among my visits was a salmon omelet that was among the best breakfast preparations of salmon that I’ve ever had: fresh salmon of the right color and soft texture, breaking apart on one’s fork slowly, neither crumbling immediately nor unyielding to that utensil.  A portion of feta within was evident but not overpowering, onions caramelized only lightly. 

For a lunch visit, I’d recommend the seafood chowder.  It’s served as a moderate portion, but even twice as much, in a larger offering, would be welcome.  That’s not the intention of the offering now (it’s meant to be paired with a contrasting selection), but on its own it is light enough to enjoy, perhaps with a small portion of salad as an accompaniment. 

The burgers are certainly ample (about eight ounces), seasoned properly, and suitable for eating even without a bun. 

The sweet pepper chicken, served over potatoes, is a mixture on the plate of a light element (chicken) with a heavier one (mashed potatoes prepared so that they’re thicker than one might have had elsewhere, giving them a more substantial texture).

Looking around the dining room (two rooms, one near the bar and one with a view of the course outside), I remembered not even a trace of the prior establishment’s disappointing furnishings.  (I did notice a large mirror in one of the rooms was cracked, but there’s a good chance the placement is in jaunty defiance of superstition, a declaration that broken glass doesn’t decide one’s fate.  It doesn’t, of course.) 

All three visits were, for me, happy ones.  Yet, on one occasion it was noticeable that the young staff seemed concerned about something else that happened recently, before my arrival, or once out-of-earshot while I was there.  On one occasion, I saw that a party nearby seemed upset with their orders, although I don’t know why. 

It’s my guess that this staff has not had time to settle into a steady, mostly unflappable response to patrons’ concerns or unexpected errors.  When they spoke with me on one occasion, my waiters and waitresses were polite, friendly, but almost apologetic over something that must have happened earlier.  They seemed overly-worried about my reaction and that of other patrons, as though diners might be upset or impatient.   

They had no reason to be worried over any part of my experience, or of those with me when I visited, with this exception: being overly-worried without reason is, itself, a distraction from an experience. 

I’ll be back, to enjoy the food, atmosphere, and to visit to see how the servers are growing into their roles.

It’s quite a feat, even now, to have transformed this location so positively. 

Recommended.

LOCATION: N9035 Wisconsin 89,  Whitewater, WI 53190.  (262) 473-3305, (tables), (262) 458-2227 (events).

Online:
http://www.finandhooves.com/
https://www.facebook.com/finandhooves

OPEN:

Closed Monday

Tuesday 11-9pm

Wednesday 11-9pm

Thursday 11-9pm

Friday 11-10pm

Saturday 11-9pm

Sunday Brunch 8:30-2:30

PRICES: Main dish and a drink for about $12-20, depending on selection.

RESERVATIONS: Available.

DRINKS: Full bar, soda, water.

SOUND: Quiet. 

SERVICE: Attentive, friendly, but a bit overly-concerned about patrons’ reactions (where there was no reason for that concern).

VISITS: Three (late lunch, early dinner, Sunday brunch).

RATING: Recommended 3.25 of 4.

GoldStarGoldStarGoldStarGoldStar25

RATING SCALE: From one to four stars, representing the full experience of food, atmosphere, service, and pricing.

INDEPENDENCE: This review is delivered without financial or other connection to the establishment or its owner. The dining experience was that of an ordinary patron, without notice to the staff or requests for special consideration.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.21.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Thursday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-nine. Sunrise is 5:25 and sunset 8:17, for 14h 51m 26s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 12.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM (for an appreciation dinner) and the city’s Police & Fire Commission at 6:30 PM.

 

On this day in 1927, Charles Lindbergh completes a solo flight across the Atlantic:

Six well-known aviators had already lost their lives in pursuit of the Orteig Prize [to be awarded to the pilot of the first successful nonstop flight made in either direction between New York City and Paris] when Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on his successful attempt in the early morning of Friday, May 20, 1927. Burdened by its heavy load of 450 U.S. gallons (1,704 liters) of gasoline weighing about 2,710 lb (1,230 kg), and hampered by a muddy, rain-soaked runway, Lindbergh’sWright Whirlwind-powered monoplane gained speed very slowly as it made its 7:52 am (07:52) takeoff run, but its J-5C radial engine still proved powerful enough to allow the Spirit to clear the telephone lines at the far end of the field “by about twenty feet [six meters] with a fair reserve of flying speed”.[52] Over the next 33.5 hours, he and the Spirit—which Lindbergh always jointly referred to as “WE”—faced many challenges, including skimming over both storm clouds at 10,000 ft (3,000 m) and wave tops at as low at 10 ft (3.0 m), fighting icing, flying blind through fog for several hours, and navigating only by the stars (whenever visible), and dead reckoning before landing at Le Bourget Airport at 10:22 pm (22:22) on Saturday, May 21.[53] The airfield was not marked on his map and Lindbergh knew only that it was some seven miles northeast of the city. He initially mistook the airfield for some large industrial complex with bright lights spreading out in all directions. The lights were, in fact, the headlights of tens of thousands of cars all driven by eager spectators now caught in “the largest traffic jam in Parisian history.”[54]

A crowd estimated at 150,000 spectators stormed the field, dragged Lindbergh out of the cockpit, and literally carried him around above their heads for “nearly half an hour”. While some damage was done to the Spirit (especially to the fine linen, silver-painted fabric covering on the fuselage) by souvenir hunters, both Lindbergh and the Spirit were eventually “rescued” from the mob by a group of French military fliers, soldiers, and police, who took them both to safety in a nearby hangar.[55] From that moment on, life would never again be the same for the previously little-known former U.S. Air Mail pilot who, by his successful flight, had achieved virtually instantaneous—and lifelong—world fame.[56]

Today is also the day that a record for a paper airplane is set, in Wisconsin:

1985 – Distance Record Set for Paper Airplane

On this date Tony Feltch of Wisconsin set the world record for longest distance flown by a paper airplane. Feltch’s airplane, launched at the La Crosse Center, flew 193 feet. [Source: Paper Aircraft Association]

Here’s the Thursday game in Puzzability‘s Prhymetime series:

This Week’s Game — May 18-22
Prhymetime
For your viewing pleasure this week, we’re airing a series series every day. Each day’s clues lead to a series of answer words that, in order, rhyme with the title of an Emmy-winning TV series (comedy or drama).
Example:
Pretending to be sick; tartan pattern
Answer:
Breaking Bad (faking; plaid)
What to Submit:
Submit the series title and the rhyming words (as “Breaking Bad (faking; plaid)” in the example) for your answer.
Thursday, May 21
Feather pen; break the rules in order to win; vacation on a ship

Blogging, City, Local Government, Politics

Measuring the Strength of a Position

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A good way to measure the strength of a position (considering its quality of being strong, its merit, and its desirability) is to ask: would one trade that position for another one?

If the answer is that one would trade, then there’s something better in an alternative by way of greater heft, reason, or enjoyability. 

If, by contrast, one would not trade one’s present position for another, then at least one might say that his or her position is stronger than the alternatives.

Standing pat is a bet that the future will not prove one’s constancy false. 

Looking at the principal political institutions and factions in Whitewater, there’s not the slightest reason to trade  an independent position for membership in any particular clique. 

On the contrary, looking at the alternatives, there’s every justification and encouragement in making one’s own way, and staying as far as possible from proponents of one sad scheme or another.

It’s not even a close call, truly; it’s an understatement to say that trading would be unnecessary and unjustified.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.20.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Midweek in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty-seven. Sunrise is 5:26 and sunset 8:16, for 14h 49m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 6.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s CDA Seed Capital Committee meets at 4:30 PM, and the CDA Board meets at 5:30 PM. The Fire & Rescue Task Force has a working session at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1873, a United States grants a patent for pants:

…San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans.

Born Loeb Strauss in Buttenheim, Bavaria, in 1829, the young Strauss immigrated to New York with his family in 1847 after the death of his father. By 1850, Loeb had changed his name to Levi and was working in the family dry goods business, J. Strauss Brother & Co. In early 1853, Levi Strauss went west to seek his fortune during the heady days of the Gold Rush.

In San Francisco, Strauss established a wholesale dry goods business under his own name and worked as the West Coast representative of his family’s firm. His new business imported clothing, fabric and other dry goods to sell in the small stores opening all over California and other Western states to supply the rapidly expanding communities of gold miners and other settlers. By 1866, Strauss had moved his company to expanded headquarters and was a well-known businessman and supporter of the Jewish community in San Francisco.

Jacob Davis, a tailor in Reno, Nevada, was one of Levi Strauss’ regular customers. In 1872, he wrote a letter to Strauss about his method of making work pants with metal rivets on the stress points–at the corners of the pockets and the base of the button fly–to make them stronger. As Davis didn’t have the money for the necessary paperwork, he suggested that Strauss provide the funds and that the two men get the patent together. Strauss agreed enthusiastically, and the patent for “Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings”–the innovation that would produce blue jeans as we know them–was granted to both men on May 20, 1873.

Strauss brought Davis to San Francisco to oversee the first manufacturing facility for “waist overalls,” as the original jeans were known. At first they employed seamstresses working out of their homes, but by the 1880s, Strauss had opened his own factory. The famous 501 brand jean–known until 1890 as “XX”–was soon a bestseller, and the company grew quickly. By the 1920s, Levi’s denim waist overalls were the top-selling men’s work pant in the United States. As decades passed, the craze only grew, and now blue jeans are worn by men and women, young and old, around the world.

Here’s Puzzability‘s Wednesday game:

This Week’s Game — May 18-22
Prhymetime
For your viewing pleasure this week, we’re airing a series series every day. Each day’s clues lead to a series of answer words that, in order, rhyme with the title of an Emmy-winning TV series (comedy or drama).
Example:
Pretending to be sick; tartan pattern
Answer:
Breaking Bad (faking; plaid)
What to Submit:
Submit the series title and the rhyming words (as “Breaking Bad (faking; plaid)” in the example) for your answer.
Wednesday, May 20
Arid; bird of peace; really wet, as a tasty orange

Business, Corporate Welfare, Government Spending, State Government, WEDC

12 Points on the WEDC’s $500,000 Loan for Campaign Contributor’s Failing (and Lying) Company

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Seemingly, all Wisconsin is discussing a $500,000 Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation loan to a failing company of a Walker political contributor. 

Here’s a summary of what’s known so far.

1.  The loan was to Building Committee Inc. (BCI), a business owned by William Minahan, a Walker political contributor (and Minahan made contributions to other campaigns, of both major parties).  It was meant to allow BCI to renovate bank or credit union buildings for “energy efficiency.”

2.  The 2011 loan to BCI created no jobs. 

3.  It’s uncertain where the money went.

4.  It’s not been repaid, and the state is suing BCI.

5.  Then-Secretary of Administration Mike Huebsch wanted the WEDC to extend a forgivable loan over eight times as large ($4,300,000).

6.  The WEDC lent BCI the half-million, aware that even that large-but-reduced amount was “fairly risky.”

7.  No other state or federal programs were willing to lend BCI anything.

8.  The original underwriting documents (different from a loan application) for the BCI loan cannot be found. 

9.  State officials never conducted a loan review.

10. BCI failed to disclose lawsuits pending against it, although a loan application required that they be disclosed. 

11.  BCI listed business partners on the energy efficiency project who received no funds and did almost no work. 

See, Top Scott Walker aides pushed for questionable $500,000 WEDC loan @ State Journal.

12. Some of Minahan’s employees contend he asked them to submit political contributions to candidates (in other states) that he designated, and that Minahan promised to reimburse them.

See, Company obtained loan from WEDC, unsuccessful elsewhere @ State Journal.

Below is a selection from FREE WHITEWATER on the WEDC.  There’s also a category link useful for following updates: WEDC.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.19.15

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Good morning, Whitewater.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of fifty-six. Sunrise will be 5:27 and sunset 8:15, for 14h 47m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1649, Parliament passes an Act Declaring and Constituting the People of England to be a Commonwealth and Free-State:

Be it Declared and Enacted by this present Parliament and by the Authority of the same, That the People of England, and of all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging, are and shall be, and are hereby Constituted, Made, Established, and Confirmed to be a Commonwealth and Free-State: And shall from henceforth be Governed as a Commonwealth and Free-State, by the Supreme Authority of this Nation, The Representatives of the People in Parliament, and by such as they shall appoint and constitute as Officers and Ministers under them for the good of the People, and that without any King or House of Lords.

On this day in 1675, Father Marquette passes away:

1675 – Fr. Jacques Marquette Dies

Fr. Jacques Marquette (1636-1675) died on this date in 1675 near Ludington, Michigan, at the age of 39. After the famous voyage down the Mississippi that he made in 1673 with Louis Joliet, Marquette vowed to return to the Indians he’d met in Illinois. He became ill during that visit in the spring of 1675 and was en route to Canada when he passed away. His diary of the trip is online in our American Journeys collection.

Here’s Puzzability‘s Tuesday game:

This Week’s Game — May 18-22
Prhymetime
For your viewing pleasure this week, we’re airing a series series every day. Each day’s clues lead to a series of answer words that, in order, rhyme with the title of an Emmy-winning TV series (comedy or drama).
Example:
Pretending to be sick; tartan pattern
Answer:
Breaking Bad (faking; plaid)
What to Submit:
Submit the series title and the rhyming words (as “Breaking Bad (faking; plaid)” in the example) for your answer.
Tuesday, May 19
Chirping insect; taste and touch, for example

Business, City, Government Spending, Health, Local Government, Marketing, Planning, WGTB, WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN

First Vendor Presentation of 1.21.14 to Whitewater’s Common Council

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WGTB logo PNG 112x89 Post 8 in a series.

First Vendor Presentation of 1.21.14 to Whitewater Common Council from John Adams on Vimeo.

In this post, I’ll look at the first vendor presentation on the digester proposal to Whitewater’s Common Council.

(Every question in this series has a unique number, assigned chronologically based on when it was asked.  All the questions from When Green Turns Brown can be found in the Question Bin.  Today’s questions begin with No. 60.)

60. City Manager Clapper (Clapper) mentions that one of the vendors presenting, Trane, is working with Whitewater to evaluate energy efficiency as part of a separate project. What happened with Trane’s energy efficiency contract with Whitewater?

61. Wouldn’t how Whitewater’s energy efficiency contract with Trane progressed show (1) what Trane is like as a vendor and (2) how skillful city officials (particularly Clapper) are in evaluating and managing city projects?

62. Clapper mentions that city officials (full-time staff, presumably) and the vendors did not have time to draft an agreement before the 1.21.14 meeting, so the 1.21.14 meeting will be a presentation only (that is, there will be no request to vote on a contract). Does Clapper think that a presentation and vote on the same night without time for later reflection would have been a good practice, had the vendors and city staff produced timely a draft agreement?

63. If Clapper thinks that a presentation and vote on the same night would have been a good practice, then what does that say about the level of diligence his administration (full-time staff) should be required to meet?

64. Wastewater Superintendent Tim Reel (Reel) claims that Whitewater would produce energy by “bringing in and increasing our acceptance of different and variety [sic] of industrial wastes.” What kinds of industrial wastes – by Reel’s account there are different kinds and a variety – would he import into the city from other places?

65. How would Reel’s contention that the city would need to “increase our acceptance” of waste influence the current standards for waste processing at the plant?

66. Reel contends that there would be an energy savings, but he doesn’t say how much. Why not? By his own admission from 12.3.13, there have been multiple meetings (off-camera) by this time, with vendors and a waste hauler. Why no energy estimate, even a loose-fitting one?

67. Reel mentions that there is excess capacity at the city’s existing digesters, as he has previously (12.3.13). Using his own analogy of a digester as like a human digestion system (3.16.15 presentation to Whitewater School Board), if a person’s stomach is half-full, does that compel eating until one’s stomach can hold no more? Even if Reel contends that it does compel engorging oneself, does Reel believe that what one puts into one’s stomach – what foods (or in a digester’s case what wastes) doesn’t matter?

68. How does Reel estimate the value of an idle digester? That is, not as how much, but how he arrives at a particular figure? Did he, himself, produce a figure? If not, who did? What is the analysis underlying that dollar figure?

69. Reel contends that, on behalf of the city, he sent letters to 12 industrial waste providers to see if they would be willing to dump industrial-strength waste into Whitewater’s digester. To which providers did he send that letter? How did he arrive at that list of twelve names?

70. Reel claims that three companies expressed interest in dumping industrial-strength waste into Whitewater’s digester. Which three?

71. Reel claims that although three vendors have expressed interest without a commitment, the volumes that they could dump into Whitewater’s digester could “drive the project.” What would those volumes be? How many trucks would that require, on what schedule?

72. Reel introduces two sets of vendor representatives, three from Trane (“Rachel, Jeff, and Todd”) and two from Black & Veatch (“Steve and Paul”), all on a first-name basis. How well does Reel know them? How much time has he spent with them, particularly those from Trane (as Trane was at this time already in the city working on an ‘energy efficiency’ project)? How often has he met them, and in what settings?

73. Trane advocates a performance contract where the “design team and the construction team are one in the same,” over a traditional designer-contractor partnership. Trane’s representative contends that a performance contract approach means no details will be missed within a unified team. How does he think so (does he believe that one business formation over another assures infallibility)? Can he show that no performance contract has ever failed for want of a detail?

74. What risks can Trane guarantee?

75. Trane wants Whitewater to pay for a feasibility study. Isn’t that simply asking Whitewater to pay for Trane’s cost of a sales (feasibility) presentation? Shouldn’t Trane alone bear the risk of what it can and cannot do for Whitewater? How, if at all, is this different from a baker asking a potential customer to pay for an estimate of whether the baker can bake bread for a would-be patron? Shouldn’t that be a cost that the baker bears?

76. Where is the (completed) Trane study? Did Trane complete the study?

77. Trane contends that Trane would manage and Black & Veatch would build the project. Can Clapper show, himself – with concrete figures – that this performance contract approach with self-selected companies would be superior to a conventional bid process?

78. If Clapper can’t, himself, do so, then how is he fulfilling a duty to manage and protect the city’s financial interest? Does Clapper’s fiscal obligation to Whitewater merely involve relying on what private parties looking for municipal payment tell him?

79. Black & Veatch’s representative lists a project, by his own admission, ten times the size of a likely Whitewater project. How useful does the Black & Veatch representative think that an order-of-magnitude-larger project is to Whitewater? He says that’s the most similar project to Whitewater’s project that his company has. Has he nothing closer? Why not?

80. The Black & Veatch vendor contends that Whitewater might increase its waste by importation to handle in total up to four times (or even eight times) as much “high-strength” waste as it now produces locally.

81. Do Clapper and Reel think that importing into Whitewater multiple times as much waste as we produce locally will have no environmental impact? Why do they think that (that is, what environmental analysis have they done)?

82. Black & Veatch contends that they could “get the plant off the grid” and “sell some excess [power] in addition.” How would they know this, even before a city-paid feasibility study?

83. The Black & Veatch representative admits that among industrial wastes, there are “good wastes and bad wastes to receive.” Who will secure and assure, day in and day out, that Whitewater will receive only “good wastes”? Who will monitor that importation, and how will others see results that are accurate and reliable?

84. Reel mentions that he has a 1.29.14 meeting with a waste hauler. Which one? How did Reel learn of that hauler? Did they meet? Did Reel take notes for that meeting?

85. Black & Veatch’s representative states that “typically tipping fees [paid by those who dump waste into a location] will generate more revenue for the city than for example selling peak power back to the grid.” If so, isn’t this truly less an energy project than a waste dumping project?

86. Reel says that a conservative estimate might be “twenty thousand gallons” for a facility that “would be open 24/7.” How many trucks would that require?

87. Is a large flow of waste haulers’ trucks into Whitewater a reason for the business lobby’s interest in truck traffic in the city? Will each and every member of the business lobby personally stand by waste importation into Whitewater?

88. Why would a hauler as far as Fond du Lac (as a council member mentions apparently from notes) be interested in dumping in Whitewater? Will no one closer take that hauler’s waste? Why won’t anyone closer take it?

89. What does it say about one of Trane’s representatives that he cannot answer a question about the study’s initial cost, but instead relies on a council member to quote that figure to him? Does the vendor representative not know? Is he shy to mention a $70,000 initial cost?

89. Clapper mentions that Reel will be the one who will “ultimately answer” questions about the project. What is Reel’s educational and professional background?

90. Why would City Manager Clapper, as city manager, not assume ultimate responsibility for the information about this project?

Original Council Common Presentation, 1.21.14
Agenda http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/agendas/common_council/2014/2014_1-21a__Complete_Council_Packet.pdf (link broken)
Minutes http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/minutes/common_council/2014/2014_01-21.pdf
Video https://vimeo.com/86074358

WHEN GREEN TURNS BROWN: Mondays @ 10 AM, here on FREE WHITEWATER.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.18.15

by  • 

Good morning, Whitewater.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of sixty-eight. Sunrise is 5:28 and sunset is 8:14, for 14h 45m 50s of daytime. It’s a new moon today.

On this day in 1863, Gen. Grant begins the Siege of Vicksburg:

On this day, Union General Ulysses S. Grant surrounds Vicksburg, the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, in one of the most brilliant campaigns of the war.

Beginning in the winter of 1862-63, Grant made several attempts to capture Vicksburg. In March, he marched his army down the west bank of the Mississippi, while Union Admiral David Porter’s flotilla ran past the substantial batteries that protected the city. They met south of the city, and Grant crossed the river and entered Mississippi. He then moved north to approach Vicksburg from its more lightly defended eastern side. In May, he had to split his army to deal with a threat from Joseph Johnston’s Rebels in Jackson, the state capital that lay 40 miles east of Vicksburg. After defeating Johnston’s forces, Grant moved toward Vicksburg.

On May 16, Grant fought the Confederates under John C. Pemberton at Champion Hill and defeated them decisively. He then attacked again at the Big Black River the next day, and Pemberton fled into Vicksburg with Grant following close behind. The trap was now complete and Pemberton was stuck in Vicksburg, although his forces would hold out until July 4.

In the three weeks since Grant crossed the Mississippi in the campaign to capture Vicksburg, his men marched 180 miles and won five battles. They took nearly 100 Confederate artillery pieces and nearly 6,000 prisoners, all with relatively light losses.

On this day in 1964, Milwaukee students protest:

1964 – Milwaukee Students Participate in First School Boycott

On this date, the 10th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, students from Milwaukee schools participated in the first boycott of the city’s public schools, a critical moment in civil rights and desegration movements in Wisconsin. Two months earlier, in March 1964, the NAACP, CORE, and other civil rights organizations formed MUSIC — the Milwaukee United School Integration Committee. Its purpose was to implement mass action to highlight the issue of educational inequality. For two years, sit-ins, picketing, prayer vigils, marches, and boycotts had raised public awareness about segregation but failed to move the school board to action. In December of 1965, Wisconsin civil rights activist and attorney Lloyd Barbee filed a formal desegregation suit in federal court on behalf of 41 black and white children, eventually decided in their favor in 1976. [Source: Rethinking Schools].

Puzzability begins a new week with a set of games, entitled, Phrymetime:

This Week’s Game — May 18-22
Prhymetime
For your viewing pleasure this week, we’re airing a series series every day. Each day’s clues lead to a series of answer words that, in order, rhyme with the title of an Emmy-winning TV series (comedy or drama).
Example:
Pretending to be sick; tartan pattern
Answer:
Breaking Bad (faking; plaid)
What to Submit:
Submit the series title and the rhyming words (as “Breaking Bad (faking; plaid)” in the example) for your answer.
Monday, May 18
In the clothes hamper; group of sheep