This and that: A pre-Thanksgiving Saturday

Nov 23, 2024

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Some notes on a Saturday morning …

This year’s Purdue Memorial Union Christmas tree was hauled through the massive doors Friday, ahead of lighting ceremonies from 5:30-8 p.m. Monday in the Great Hall. Purdue writer David Ching had a nice look at the origin story for this year’s tree, a 32-foot spruce from the yard of Darrell Smith, a maintenance technician at Purdue for the last 33 years. Smith offered the tree to the Purdue Student Union Board, saying it was something his wife, Tina, who died eight years ago, always wanted to see happen, as a fan of the Union’s annual holiday decorations. Here’s the story: “Tina Smith wanted to donate a Purdue Memorial Union Christmas tree. Tina’s husband, Darrell, helped fulfill that wish.”

I don’t know about you, but I had Purdue beating Michigan State in a kind of band of brothers moment in what’s now a 1-10 football season. So much for that. Here’s the J&C’s Sam King on embattled coach Ryan Walters after Purdue’s 10^th consecutive loss, this one 24-17 before some pretty empty stands in East Lansing: “To frustrated Purdue football fans, tearful Ryan Walters hears you: 'It hurts.’” There’s always the prospect of spoiling IU’s dream season next week in the Old Oaken Bucket game.

This has been knocking around a month now, but the Cover Lafayette Project ended its 10-year run this season. Founder Julie Albregts announced the move at the end of October, “after 10 years, thousands and thousands of skin covers later, hopefully lives saved along the way.” The project, hosted on the back porch of The Buttery Shelf restaurant at 10^th and Main streets, essentially was a leave something/take something collection of bins of blankets, mittens, hats and any other coverings to get through the coldest seasons. Among “upside goals” listed by Albregts as she closed things out ahead of winter 2024-25: “That when others are in need, people will whole heartedly do whatever they can do to help. You proved that (hands down) countless times.” She offered this, too: “All in all it has been a wonderful experience, and I hope you will continue to be warm hearted in cold weather. If you have donations please consider; It's My Closet by (Lafayette Jefferson High School), Lafayette Transitional Housing, Lafayette Urban Ministries, Humane Society for used blankets, and any other groups in place to serve.” Read Albregts’ full post and farewell to the Cover Lafayette Project here.

The next public meeting on the first phase of Lafayette’s $40 million Lead Service Line Replacement Program, set to start in early 2025 with 867 homes in the city’s north end, will be 6 p.m. Monday, Nov. 25, at the McAllister Center gym, 2351 N. 20^th St. Letters hit mailboxes in the past week about the federally mandated work for 3,200 Lafayette homes that have lead or galvanized water service lines. For more details on the 10-year project, here’s a story in a Nov. 14 Based in Lafayette edition. Most of the work is targeted at homes built before 1935, city officials say. To see whether your home is included, click the map below to look up your address and check your neighborhood:

Oof, Ruoff. The old Deer Creek will charge $20 to park when the 2025 season of concerts starts, as reported by the Indianapolis Business Journal’s Dave Lindquist. Here are the details, via the IBJ: “$20 per vehicle is new parking policy at Ruoff Music Center.”
To those of a certain vintage, this comes via Clay Risen at the New York Times: “Alice Brock, whose eatery in western Massachusetts was immortalized as the place where ‘you can get anything you want’ in Arlo Guthrie’s 1967 antiwar song ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ died on Thursday in Wellfleet, Mass. — just a week before Thanksgiving, the holiday during which the rambling story at the center of the song takes place. She was 83.” Here’s the full obit: “Alice Brock, Restaurant Owner Made Famous by a Song, Dies at 83.” Hometown radio WBUR in Boston had this, too: “The real Alice of Arlo Guthrie’s ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ dies at 83.”

And for the real deal, if you have 18 minutes to spare …

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Based in Lafayette, Indiana