Ashley -- many thanks for your apology of Weds. afternoon and your very thoughtful followup of early Thursday. I accept your apologies fully and very gratefully. It was immediately clear to me that your "Address change conversions" posting of earlier on Weds. (the one you appear to have mistakenly sent to the WiMilwau list, rather than me personally) was only semi-serious in tone. But I suspect that several listers took your seemingly heavy-duty tirade at face value-- and were unaware that there was a large element of pretend (or mock) indignation in your posting. So I'm glad that you clarified this publicly. Prior to 1987, when I started working on a centennial history of a family oil processing firm that had been founded in Milwaukee in 1888 (and then moved to the Chicago area in 1894), I believe I had visited Milwaukee only twice in my life-- and very briefly each time. Before that, in the late 1960s, I was administering some rush historic preservation projects in Nebraska and upstate New York. At that time, I certainly knew a lot about what was happening in the Chicago area, where I had grown up-- but almost nothing about goings-on in Milwaukee. I thought that recently someone told me that there was some significant rioting in Milwaukee in the late 1960s-- and I wondered whether this might partly explain why I had noticed (about two years ago) so many vacant lots west of I-43 on Cherry and Galena streets-- an area that had already become densely populated by the early 1860s. But you've lived your entire life in Wisconsin-- and, if you say that this Milwaukee rioting was actually rather minor, I must certainly defer to your superior (and personal) knowledge about these things. Thanks again for your recent postings. And now back to the more interesting stuff-- history and genealogy. ........John (in Chicago)