Toledo War

Knowledge always begins with money doesn’t it? It’s like this—I go to the store and buy this knick or that knack, the proprietor hands me some coins with a bored look and hopes I skedaddle and voila a new quarter pops into my life! I collect ‘em—all those quarters with dudes on horseback and strange local boosterism and even Duke Ellington bless his soul. Now I looked at one of these quarters and lo and behold it told me of the pictured rocks on the shore of Lake Superior. So I went home and announced to my wife that we would be off vacationing in the wilds of the Upper Peninsula!

My wife is a tolerant lady and all, she married me didn’t she? Still she could not repress a yawn. “Where?” Finding a map, I showed her the thin line of land between Michigan and Canada and rhapsodically spoke of the beautiful shore—then I showed her the quarter.

That is one big quarter.

So we went to the old weird America. Where the small towns haven’t changed in 70 years and beaches on the lakes are surrounded by forests and waterfalls and people still sail the lakes where the Voyageurs paddled. And where war broke out—OK we were way north of the war—between Michigan and Ohio over their border. The infamous Toledo war which, unlike lesser wars, ended with zero casualties of any kind.

That how I like my wars! Bloodless—like chess games. See if you can solve these little war problems.