Four Baggers and Foreclosures

That "Open 24 Hours" sign, attached high above the restaurant, under the now naked Perkins oval, will always mean Perkins to me. You may have to squint to see it. The same "Open 24 Hours" sentiment rapidly disappeared over the last two decades. Washed away from rounds of re-branding and makeovers, as well mismanagement, and the labor shortages it indirectly leads to. Face it, the graveyard shift takes a special breed, regardless of the occupation being performed. I'll forever be proud of how I represented the graveyard shift, for well over 20 years of combined service. But this is about the former Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, located on 16th Avenue, in Rochester, Minnesota. Despite obvious renovations over time, this was an original corporate Perkins build, back in 1964. (Albeit a rather small one.) As Perkins expanded throughout the midwest, a restaurant in Rochester makes immediate sense. You've got all the travelers coming into town for the Mayo Clini...

For either my birfday, or Valentines Day, or a late X-Mess present, I don’t remember, Laura got me a package of three Minnesota Twins programs. One from each of the years 1961, 1962 and 1964. For now, we’ll start with 1961, the Twins first season in Minnesota. Not the team yearbooks for those years (I’d still like to get copies of those), these are the programs issued at the ballpark, for the fans to score that day’s game. I don’t see many people keeping score anymore, but in the 1960’s it was still a very popular thing to do. I also don’t know how many times a season that new programs were issued in the early 1960’s (these days it’s monthly), so I’m needing more clues to narrow the time of this issue down.  Pregame Warmups Upon opening her gift and seeing these old programs, my first thought after: “Wow, that is really cool!” was “I know exactly what I want to write about this...” Hopefully, I can track down the exact game this program was sold at. If you were a collector lookin...