On Midwestern swing, Obama and aides search for the retail politics moment

ATKINSON, Ill. — Food is a staple of presidential road trips. Yes, there’s the eating. But there’s also the selection, the sharing, the location, the guest list. Food — greasy, rich, sweet or drippy — can be a presidential event.

As President Barack Obama made his way through a three-day, three-state presidential trip in the Midwest, pies, ice cream, popcorn, have all become featured items of the road. Obama’s dining companions have included military veterans at a café in Cannon Falls, Minn., and local business men, including owners of a wind power enterprise and a manure company, in Guttenberg, Iowa.

Obama stopped for pie Monday in the Minnesota town of Zumbrota, approaching the pie case at the Coffee Mill with the eye of a connoisseur and ordering slices of apple, pumpkin, and German chocolate pie and entire coconut cream pie. On Tuesday, the motorcade pulled up to DeWitt Dairy Treats in DeWitt, Iowa, ordering soft ice cream cones for his staff and one, vanilla, for himself.

He then glad-handed local residents attracted by the commotion, excusing himself at one point as the soft folds of ice cream began to melt and threatened to run down the cone to his hand— “gotta make sure I take a lick.”

These are the stops that are meant less to satisfy the president’s gastronomic needs than they are for the public’s consumption. Reporters, cameramen and photographers traveling with the president rush to record these moments, some of them spontaneous while other are planned though “unscheduled.”

For Obama’s top aides, these are precious moments to showcase the president’s retail politics skills — and to have them captured for a larger audience by his press entourage.

These little indulgences are not simply about food. The president visited a school in Maquoketa, Iowa, where the girls volleyball team was preparing for the fall season. He ducked into an antique and gift store in Le Claire, Iowa, to buy gifts for his two daughters. Then posed for a photo with the store’s owner and a photogenic, but initially non-compliant golden retriever with a stuffed animal in its mouth.

As the president left, a correspondent teased him about the Obama family dog. “Bo will know you’re being disloyal,” the reporter said.

“No, no,” Obama replied. “I was saying he was sort of like Bo. He just stood there and he wouldn’t sit.

mmlaktak.com | Blog | Crayon Iron-Ons for T-Shirts

Kids love to decorate shirts but fabric paints, glitter and other embellishments can be messy. They can have lots of fun decorating shirts without the mess, though, when they use broken crayons. An adult must be present to help out, but the kids will love the shirt designs they make, melting crayons onto the fabric.

Have kids gather up all their broken crayons – even the tiniest pieces. The crayons will then become the “paint” for the shirts. Separate the pieces into colors, if desired, or just make your design a mixture of many colors.

Kids can form the designs on the shirts by arranging groups of colors, and positioning them into shapes of their own choosing. Shapes can be geometric, animal outlines, tree or flower shapes, or any other choice.

After the crayons are in their proper positions, cover the design with wax paper. Make sure you have newspaper between the front and back of the shirt, so the color doesn’t bleed onto the back. Do the same for sleeves if designs will be done on the sleeves.

Use a hot iron on the waxed paper to melt the crayons. It’s best to press straight down on the iron rather than to use a back and forth motion to iron it. You’ll see that the crayon pieces are melting, and you’ll continue to iron until all pieces are completely melted.

When the shirt has cooled you can remove the waxed paper. Make absolutely positive that the crayon pieces have cooled, then begin to pick the hardened pieces off of the shirt. The crayon pieces will come off easily, but wear rubber gloves to prevent various colors from transferring to fingernails.

Make sure to go to Christian T shirt designs, christian t shirts, new Christian tees, Jesus tees, Jesus T shirts today!

Montgomery Ward & Co. Catalogue and Buyers' Guide 1895

Soaring

Good housekeeping

Kinesiology for occupational therapy

The good old days, a history of American morals and manners as seen through the Sears Roebuck catalog