Izzy Lyon Keeps Giving:

Saturday marks the 30^th anniversary of the creation of the Izzy Lyon Coats for Kids charity that he set up for the poverty-stricken kids in Borneo. A backstage meeting with a young girl named Mahia after a sold-out show had a powerful effect on Izzy. Izzy Lyon was Mahia’s idol and she had travelled from Borneo to America as part of a Make-a-Miracle Foundation sponsored event. She remarked (through her translator) that she was very cold (it was January in the Windy City) and Izzy sprang into action.

Growing up on Chicago’s southside, Izzy was no stranger to snowy and cold winters. He created the Izzy Lyon Coats for Kids to send over ten thousand coats every year to children in Borneo. When told that Borneo rarely reaches temperatures below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, brave Izzy refused to back down. In fact, in addition to coats, the charity also sends scarves, mittens, and snow boots to the confused children of this island whose name in Sanskrit is “Kalimantan,” which roughly translates to "burning weather."

See, Izzy, even though you’re not here, you keep making this world a better place!

Great News for Our Vegan Friends!

So, I was at the Christmas party down at the VFW, which wasn’t until several weeks after Christmas, because we had to wait for Mark to get out of the hospital (he slipped a disc when he fell off his snowmobile. Don’t get old, folks.) Anyways, the topic of the Vegan hunters came up and people in the spirit of the season came up with some good ideas. Remember how we couldn’t figure out what Vegan hunters did with the animal meat so they didn’t just waste it?

Here's a few ideas that we came up with:

1.     Save money on pet food. Obvious, right?  A good size buck could probably feed a Pit bull for months.

2.     Donate it to a soup kitchen or food pantry. Talk about a win-win! Starving people eat and you don’t waste meat. Just imagine the looks on those hungry faces when they get to throw down on some fresh shot muskrat soup! This is probably the most in being in the holiday spirit.

3.     Use the meat to bait your traps. Again, so obvious. Of course, this is only going to work with smaller animals. Unless you’ve got thousands of traps, you’re not going to be able to utilize an entire elk or Kodiak. Now, it was pointed out by Dave (he’s got a brain on him) that you’d now need to find a use for the meat from the rabbits or minks or whatever you trap. Kind of an endless loop. No one said solving this problem would be easy. 

Again, thanks to the gang at the VFW for a really solid party and good suggestions. Happy New Year, everyone!

Another Year of No Izzy Gone

I don’t want to end this year on a downer, but when that calendar rolls around and I think that we had another year without Izzy, it gives me a touch of the blues (or melancholia to those in the Midwest) let me tell you. But here’s the thing that makes me chug another glass of holiday cheer: a new year, new chances, new opportunities. Also, thanks to this blog, I’m reaching even more people than I ever could with the Izzy Fan Club Newsletter, because that only went to certain addresses. Everyone can read this!

As a bonus, I’m hoping that next year I’ll get to see a pre-release (is that real?) of a documentary that I was involved with. Once it gets its post-pre-release that might get even more people involved in the search. Okay, I feel a little better. Happy New Year, Izzy Faithful!

New Mapping Technology May Reveal Izzy’s Flight Path!

So, my cousin Marge was showing me that you can make maps on your computer from the internet. It’s incredible! She showed me that we could make a map specifically centered on Soldier Field the night of Izzy’s disappearance. Now, I do like the handsy feel of my wall map and thumbtacks and string. I’m not going to lie. But this is the “modern” age and you can’t always fight it.

I know it’s a longshot because so much time has passed, but it might be time to revisit that fateful night and try to piece together what happened! Time to embrace the future!

Possible Florida Izzy Sighting Part 4:

Okay, so remember how Greg was in the hospital after he got hit by a car after he was chasing his so-called friend who has info on Izzy and stole his (our) money? Well, something really fishy is going on! I called the hospital he was at, to make sure he got my care package, and they said they had no one by that name there! What the H-E-CK is going on? Greg hasn’t responded to me since the last time we spoke, and I’m really worried about the guy!

HASH TAG WhereGreggy?

Training Dogs to Smell

Okay, so, as a tenured prof at the Spinstitution for Signery Arts that is teaching a new crop of kids how to do a proper Izzy search, I was thinking about those sniffing bloodhounds that can track criminals. When I was just a little scrapper, I thought that these dogs were trained to sniff out bad guys. Like shooters and robbers gave off some kind of badness smell. I know it sounds goofy, but I was just a kid!

So, now I know that you actually need a piece of clothing or something from the perp and the dogs sniff for that. So, it got me thinking. What would be the signature Izzy Lyon smells that dogs might get trained to track?

I came up with a few:

1.     Izzy hair products. As everyone knows, Izzy had a lot of pride in his beautiful hightop fade. It was only natural that he released his own line of styling products from The Helicopter Ultimate Lift Hair Spray to the Izzy Spritz Foam. We know that Izzy was a man of integrity and would not endorse a product he didn’t believe in, so it just makes sense that he would smell like it.

2.     New car smell. Izzy loved the smell of new cars. The only problem I see with this one is that the bloodhounds might just run to car dealerships.

3.     Meat. Izzy’s partnership with Meatshire Farm is the stuff of Legend. He turned his passion for encased cured meats into an opportunity to introduce kielbasa and thuringer to kids from outside the meat belt. The added benefit of this is that the dogs would go nuts for sausages and probably run twice as fast.

 Just a start. What do you think?

 HASH TAG IzzySmells!

More Vegan Mind Blowage

I was out at the VFW for race night. (It’s a weird thing where you bet on fake horse races, and they roll dice and stuff. I don’t know. It’s a good change from Bunko, but whatever.) Joyce and I where talking about the Vegans again and Chuck and Dave brought up a point that totally went by my brain the first time I was puzzling out the whole vegan affliction…What do they do with they’re meat when they’re hunting?!?!?!?

Is your brain buzzing and crackling too? Yeah, I know. This ain’t like catch-and-realize fishing where you throw the fish back into the creek let me tell you. You don’t just unshoot a doe and send it back into the woods! I guess they could still mount the head and antlers (and whole body if you got room in your house). But what about all that meat? Do they just leave it there to rot? What a waste!

I tell you what, if I ever came down with the vegan disease, I might just give up hunting! Food for thought.