November 1, 2022

DID YOU MISS IT?

November, Scott Ksander Topic: Tech Toys for the Holidays & Other Relevan Computer Topics (Zoom) (Slides)

October, Dr. Ann Sommer, Clinical Assistant Professor, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Purdue. Topic: Dealing with Hearing Issues (Slides) (Zoom)

September, 2022 PURA Annual Kickoff. Jeremy Slater, Vice President of Capital Projects and Facilities for the Purdue Research Foundation (Zoom)

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PURA Business

November PURA Monthly Meeting:
Tech Toys for the Holidays & Other Computer Topics
Jerry’s Jottings:
Monthly In-person Luncheons Resume, and Feature
Purdue Trivia Contests
United Way Campaigns In Progress
Can You Help Reach Out to Other Retirees?
Get Involved in PURA

Events/Calendars
Upcoming PURA Events
November Campus/Community Calendar Highlights
Purdue Academic/Holiday Schedule

Features

Tech Bytes: Purdue License Plate Recognition
Introducing connect.purdue.edu:
Update Your Email Address, Choose Your
Purdue Communications Preferences
Jo Thomas: Confessions of a Book Addict,
Author Robert Dugoni
Reminder: Daylight Savings Time Ends Nov. 6
Nancy Grenard: Indiana Persimmons
Sara Jane Coffman: Do You Remember When?
Reminder: Election Day is Tuesday, November 8
Curt Snyder: Indiana Paw Paws

Zoom Connection Information for PURA Meetings

November PURA Monthly Meeting:
The Annual “Tech Toys and Other Relevant Computer Topics” Presentation

Join PURA on November 7, 2022, at 12:30 p.m. ET for Scott Ksander’s annual update on computing issues and “tech toys” for the holidays. Technology is all around us. Most of us find it tough to keep up with what’s new, and even tougher how to work with all of it. This program will highlight “Tech Toys” (that includes your phone) and how to understand and use these technological wonders. Christmas is coming, so let’s see what you might want this year.

Scott Ksander is a self-described “Computer Geek”. His passion for computing and technology started as the result of a 5th grade science project and has continued ever since. He received a degree in Computer Science from Purdue University in 1974. He started his professional career that same year in software development and operating system security at Control Data Corporation. In 1984, he joined ETA Systems as Program Manager for the development of the ETA -10 “supercomputer”. In 1987, he returned to Purdue as Associate Director of the Computing Center. Scott was named Executive Director for IT Networks/Security and Chief Security Officer for Purdue in 2006. He retired in 2015, but continues his IT adventures with PURA.

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Jerry’s Jottings

Fall has arrived for sure! The leaves are falling from the trees just as quickly as they started to turn to their beautiful fall colors. In my neighborhood the green grass is now covered with golden brown leaves. I am having a tough time accepting the fact that November is just a couple of weeks away.

On September 19, 329 shots were administered on a walk-in basis, and on September 23, 232 shots were administered via drive thru at 2550, the old State Farm building. Our third flu shot event on October 19 will have occurred by the time you read this. If you missed our flu shot events you are encouraged to visit a local pharmacy, or your health care provider to get your shot.

Monthly first Monday luncheon events resumed in October. Please consider joining us on November 7 at the VFW for our next monthly luncheon meeting. Lunch will be available beginning at 11:45 AM for $10 per person. Program begins at 12:30 PM. Back by popular demand is our own Scott Ksander with Tech Toys and Other Relevant Computer Topics. Please note the change in the start of lunch availability from 11:30 to 11:45 AM.

A new feature at the monthly luncheon event is the chance for those present to win a prize for answering a Purdue Trivia question. The first correct or closest answer submitted wins the prize. At the October luncheon Program Committee Chair Bob Ritchie posed the question, when did Purdue first hold classes? Most of us assumed the answer was 1869, but the correct answer is September 16, 1874. Congratulations to Marilyn Yoder, the winner of the insulated Purdue cup at the October luncheon.

I would also like to congratulate Norm Long, 2020-2021 PURA President and Jeff Holland, another Purdue Extension retiree, who were inducted into the National 4-H Hall of Fame on Friday, October 7 in Washington DC. They were among sixteen selected this year from the United States and only the sixth and seventh to be selected from Indiana since the Hall of Fame began in 2000.

The annual Purdue United Way (West Lafayette campus) fund drive is well underway and as of October 7, over $127,000 towards our $175,000 goal, or almost 73%, has already been pledged or contributed. In 2021 retirees contributed over $188,00 to the Purdue United Way campaign. Thank you to all who generously support this important community agency in Greater Lafayette, or in your own community.

We need your help in reaching out to fellow retirees (especially recent retirees) to encourage them to become actively involved in PURA. The Nominating Committee chair, Bill Bennett would welcome suggested candidates for PURA leadership for 2023-2024, and beyond, from the membership. We also ask that you verify with other retirees that they are receiving PURA emails. If they are not and wish to, please let us know at pura@purdue.edu.

To help recruit new PURA committee volunteers, I plan to feature a different committee in my notes each month. This month I would like to feature and give special recognition to the PURA Hospitality Committee. They welcome attendees and keep us organized at our monthly luncheons, provide hospitality at the Kickoff Luncheon, and are critical to making sure that our flu shot clinics run smoothly. Linda Hawkins chairs this committee.

And finally, how about those Boilermakers? The football team’s record is 5 and 2, and has won several close ones over the past few weeks. Go Boilers! Let’s finish the season on a roll!

Thanks,

Jerry Day
PURA President

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PURA Tech Bytes
By Scott Ksander

License Plate Recognition (LPR)

License Plate Recognition technology began in the late 1970s in England to patrol the A1 road and the Dartford Tunnel. Today this technology is widely used by law enforcement worldwide, toll road collections, and parking enforcement. Purdue West Lafayette also uses this system for parking enforcement in addition to the traditional physical permit. This is an option available to retirees but not required at this time.

Advantages of using the LPR system are:

You may link up to 5 vehicles (including motorcycles) to a single permit. Of the linked vehicles, however, only one may be parked on campus at any time.
You don’t need a physical permit in your car when parking anywhere on campus EXCEPT for entry and exit at the two gated garages on Grant Street and Harrison Street.

While the LPR technology on the West Lafayette campus has some advantages, there are also some technical challenges to use the online Parking Portal. First, you need to know your Career Account ID. If you don’t remember your Career Account ID, the easiest way to locate it is to look up your own entry in the Purdue Directory (https://www.purdue.edu/directory/). Your entry will show a field labelled “Alias”. That is your Career Account ID.

Next you will need your Career Account password. If you have never set or don’t remember that password, contact the ITaP Customer Service Center (CSC) for assistance:

By Phone: 765-494-4000 (44000 when dialing from a campus phone)
By Email: itap@purdue.edu
Self-help Knowledge Base: http://www.purdue.edu/goldanswers

Finally, you will need to set up your Career Account with two-factor authentication known as BoilerKey. More information about BoilerKey can be found at https://www.purdue.edu/apps/account/BoilerKey/. The CSC can also assist you with this setup. Note that this is a different system from the email multifactor authentication that Purdue email users set up earlier this year.

BoilerKey uses either a smartphone app known as Duo or a physical token to provide the additional information for login. BoilerKey is the standard authentication mechanism for WL campus web services. For now, this is the only area where most retirees would use BoilerKey.

After you have BoilerKey set up, you can register your license plates at the Parking Portal. Instructions for this process can be found at: https://www.purdue.edu/parking/faq/License%20Plate%20Recognition.html

You can also visit Parking Facilities in person at 709 Ahlers Drive, West Lafayette, IN, between 7:30 a.m. ET and 4:30 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday.

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Introducing: CONNECT.PURDUE.EDU
Update Your Email Address, Choose Your Purdue Communications Preferences

A new self-service portal sponsored by Purdue For Life provides a new and more efficient way for you to check/update your email address to help ensure you receive the PURA News e-newsletter and other PURA communications. This will replace sending those corrections to PURA.

Additionally, you may update other personal information (such as home and alternative address—handy for snowbirds), review your giving history and choose your Purdue communications preferences.

At some point soon—though not yet fully functional—this portal will also include a new retiree directory where you may look up and contact other retirees whose email addresses you may not know. When it’s available, we’ll have an update in a future PURA News newsletter.

You’ll find the portal at: https://www.connect.purdue.edu. Below is the rundown on the new portal; log in today and verify your contact information so you don’t miss any retiree news!

How To Log Into The Purdue Connect Portal

https://www.connect.purdue.edu
Home Page

Click on the Log in button to begin.

When you create your account, your user ID in this portal will be the email address Purdue for Life has as your “preferred email.” You’ll need to create a password. (If you happen to know your numeric UDO Constituent ID, it will also be valid as the user ID. But note, this is NOT connected to Boilerkey and career account—those WON’T work.)

Since you may not know your “preferred email”, assistance is available from the Purdue For Life help desk, via email at purduecommunity@purdueforlife.org, or by phone at (800) 319-2199.

After logging in, you’ll see these messages in the bottom half of the screen.

If you elect to update your contact information, a new screen will be displayed. You may select any of the tabs above the words About You to update personal information and your email address.

Choosing your communication preferences

After you’ve reviewed your personal information and made any changes necessary, click on the Communication Preferences item from the top menu: From this menu item you may choose which communications from Purdue—including PURA—you wish to receive.

Typically you'll receive communications from Purdue based on your affiliations--what college/department you graduated from, areas to which you have donated, retiree status, etc.. You'll receive those unless you "Opt-Out," which you can do. But maybe you are interested in what's going on in the Cancer Center or College of Agriculture even though you don't already have an affiliation. Then you can "Opt-In" and begin to receive them.

You’ll next see this introduction and the list of Purdue groups that may want to communicate with you. Scroll down to see the full list.

Click on the arrow at the left of a line to expand that item, as shown here for Retiree Communications. The buttons on the right allow you to select “Opt In” or “Opt Out.” So, "Opt In" to help ensure you receive PURA communications!

When you’re done, log out by clicking the round user icon at the top right corner of the screen:

As you’re exploring this portal, if you have questions or need help contact the Purdue For Life help desk, via email at purduecommunity@purdueforlife.org, or by phone, (800) 319-2199.

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Confessions of a Book Addict

By Jo Thomas

If you like gritty, terrifying espionage Robert Dugoni is worth a look. Dugoni is a lawyer and many of his novels reflect that. Recently he has published a trilogy featuring as his hero Charles Jenkins. In reality, Jenkins was his law-school roommate whom he told he would one day make famous.

Book 1—The Seven Sisters
Seven Russian women were indoctrinated at birth to admire American Democracy and hate the Russian regime. Placed in jobs with powerful men they took and sent useful information to U.S. intelligence. They were called the Seven Sisters. None knew the other six existed. This worked for years until three were killed.

Charles Jenkins briefly worked as a CIA agent. He quit to grow vegetables because he didn’t like their policies. A former acquaintance from that time arrived, explained the Seven Sisters and asked that Charlie visit Russia to find what happened. Posing as a businessman he discovered things and the Soviets discovered Charlie. A woman who tried to help him, lost her life.

Book 2—The Eighth Sister
Back home he learned the woman had not died. She was being held in one of Russia’s terrible prisons. Charles liked to repay his debts so he was off on an impossible mission.

Book 3—The Silent Sisters
Ol’ Charlie was a slow learner so he headed out to find if the remaining sisters were dead or hiding.

Dugoni has also authored the Tracy Crosswhite series featuring a Policewoman. It has sold more than seven million copies worldwide. He also has a good sense of humor and often drops a funny remark into a tense situation.

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In Indiana, Daylight Savings Time ends on Sunday, November 6, at 2:00 a.m. ET.

Turn your clocks back 1 hour and
enjoy the extra hour’s sleep!

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Indiana Persimmons
By PURA member Nancy Grenard

Diospyros virginiana is the scientific name for the native persimmons that grow in the Midwest. The Latin name translates as “food of the gods.”

I first tasted persimmon pudding in the early 60s and was pretty much unimpressed. The pudding texture is like a firm pumpkin pie. The color is brown, but not as dark as brownies. The pudding is most often baked in a 13” X 9” pan. I’m not sure what I was expecting—most around the Thanksgiving table were excited about the dessert—so perhaps my expectations were lofty and I was expecting something closer to either “pumpkin spice” or chewy brownies. Those “in the know” encouraged me to drown the square of pudding with milk which was strange to someone who doesn’t even put milk on my oatmeal. It was quite soupy and disappointing. I did eat it though; I was taught to not leave food nor to insult the cook.

Leftovers were pushed my way and I took them home. The next morning, I cut a small serving to eat with my morning coffee. I skipped the milk—both in my coffee and on the pudding. I took a couple of bites and was hooked! I soon had two more full-sized servings.

Leftovers were pushed my way and I took them home. The next morning, I cut a small serving to eat with my morning coffee. I skipped the milk—both in my coffee and on the pudding. I took a couple of bites and was hooked! I soon had two more full-sized servings.

Years later, I mentioned persimmons to my husband, Brad, and he told me he detested them. His father had tricked him into tasting an unripe persimmon picked directly from the tree. While it doesn’t require a frost to ripen the fruit, it does take a long season for the persimmons to fully ripen. Before they are ripe, persimmons are quite astringent and will immediately cause a strong pucker. It’s kind of like trying to eat a cotton ball soaked in vinegar. Persimmons fall to the ground when they are fully ripe. Persimmons should never be picked, nor should they be shaken from branches; they naturally fall when they’re ripe.

On one of our trips to southern Indiana in the fall, Brad and I found three very tall persimmon trees in front of the lodge at McCormick’s Creek State Park. I convinced Brad to taste one of the ripe persimmons that had fallen to the ground. He loved the sweet pulp. McCormick’s Creek S.P. became a favorite stopping point on our trips to Brown County in early November.

Brad Grenard, (Nancy’s husband pictured here admiring their persimmon trees, who also worked at Purdue) and I lived in northeastern Warren County and had room to plant trees. About 1985, we ordered 300 persimmon seedlings from the Indiana tree nursery in hopes of having our own persimmon crop. While in a meeting with Greg McKinney from data processing (the department called ADPC, later MI), I mentioned the trees and that we had a lot of planting to do. Greg said that he liked persimmon pudding and that he’d help us out by taking a few off our hands. He had the perfect place to plant them down by his creek where the soil was fertile and stayed moist. I don’t remember how many, but I probably gave him about 10 seedings in soil in a coffee can. Our soil had a lot of clay that got rock hard in dry years. While Greg soon had trees that were thriving and even began to produce persimmons, our efforts seemed a failure. Even though we were disappointed, we were glad that we had increased the number of persimmon trees in the area. We continued to enjoy the fresh persimmons every November on our trips to Brown County, and eating persimmon fudge and persimmon ice cream in Nashville, IN.

In 2002, I was home in October on medical leave. I was walking to the mailbox one afternoon, the light was perfect, and as I looked out over the field, I saw an amazing sight. It was a persimmon tree loaded with persimmons! I don’t know how we had overlooked the tree over the years, and don’t know if that was the first year it bore fruit or not. It was not real close to the driveway and Brad had let that area grow up in grasses for wildlife habitat. We actually had nine trees in a cluster in that area, but only one was bearing fruit. We didn’t remember planting persimmon seedlings there, but we did recall throwing some persimmon seeds in that direction after one of our stops at McCormick’s Creek S.P. As the years passed, three more of the trees bore fruit.

Persimmons require both male and female trees to produce fruit. We’d get a larger crop every other year. I froze 23 pints of pulp in the best year. Processing the pulp is a messy process. The fruit must be carefully cleaned and then run through a “cone sieve” which separates the four large flat seeds and the peel from the actual pulp.

I now buy frozen persimmon pulp from the Blooming Foods co-op in Bloomington each Fall. The price is a bit under $7 per frozen pint and each pint is enough for one 13” X 9” pan of pudding.

Persimmon wood is hard, dark, and beautifully grained. It was a popular wood for golf clubs in the early 2000s. It is also used to make beautiful furniture.

The flat seeds were drilled with a couple of holes and used by pioneers for buttons. The seeds are also used, according to folklore, to predict the kind of winter that will follow—depending on the shape of the white part of a sliced seed—the shape might be like a fork (mild winter), a spoon (lots of snow; will need to spoon/shovel it), or a knife (cold that will cut like a knife.)

Marshall, IN has a Persimmon Festival every year in September. It’s now in its 75th year. There is always a persimmon pudding contest. One of the winning recipes is included below.

You can find both persimmon ice cream and persimmon pudding at Miller’s Ice Cream shop in Nashville, Indiana. A 13” X 9” pan of pudding can be purchased for $27 for your family to enjoy. Persimmon fudge is also available at several fudge shops in town.

Those of you who worked in Freehafer Hall might have encountered ripe persimmons on the sidewalk each Fall just north of the front of the building. There were three persimmon trees there. Most people probably didn’t appreciate the messy “food of the gods” that got all over their shoes. Those trees no longer exist due to the new road in that area. There were other persimmon trees around campus; hopefully, some of them still exist and bear fruit. If so, their locations might be a closely guarded secret by those who enjoy the harvest.

If you can find native persimmon pulp, I hope you enjoy this recipe.

Persimmon Pudding Recipe

Marshall Persimmon Festival
2003 & 2004 -Repeat Winner

2 cups persimmon pulp
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs, beaten

1 tsp soda
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup cream (Half & Half)
1/2 stick butter

Mix well persimmon pulp, sugar and beaten eggs. Add soda to buttermilk, stir until foaming stops. Add to mixture. Sift flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon into mixture. Beat well. Add vanilla and cream. Blend into batter. Melt butter in a 9" X 13" pan. Pour into batter, leaving just enough to grease pan. Beat well. Bake in slow oven 325 degrees for 45 minutes or until set. Serve with whipped cream.

More information about persimmons can be found at Persimmons (uada.edu). Old-Fashioned Persimmon Recipes, a small cookbook, can be purchased from Catalog — Bear Wallow Books.

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Do You Remember When

By Sara Jane Coffman

When I heard that USC and UCLA were being added to the Big 10, I thought: “How can they do that? Shouldn’t the Big 10 have ten schools? I remember when the Big 10 had ten schools.”

That led me to thinking about other changes I’ve witnessed starting from my freshman year in 1966 to my retirement from The Center for Instructional Excellence (CIE) in 2014.

Here are some of my most fun (and fond) memories. See if you can identify with any of them . . .

Do you remember being called “Miss” and “Mr.” in some of your classes?

Do you remember when everybody had Saturday classes?

If you were a teaching assistant, do you remember trying to get in good with the scheduling deputy so you wouldn’t have to teach a 7:30 a.m. class? (I made brownies.)

Do you remember ever cutting class and then running into your professor immediately following that class in the Sweet Shop?

Do you remember the ice- skating rink at the “Rec Center”?

Do you remember the Victory Variety shows in the Hall of Music?

Do you remember Block P? At football games, freshmen sat in the end zone and were given large pieces of colored cardboard which we held up at various times, upon instruction. I’m assuming the pieces formed pictures or words. We never knew what – but I’m guessing they made sense to everybody else in the stands.

Do you remember when there were no final exams? (They were eliminated during WWII.) I don’t remember that, but I do remember I was “lucky enough” to be here when they were reinstated in the mid-1960’s. I remember at my first
final, the guy sitting next to me took one look at the test, then threw up all over the floor.

I also remember the time I went to a final exam and met my professor exiting the building. I asked him why he wasn’t going to stay for the final. He then informed me that the final had been on the previous day.

If you lived in one of the women’s residence halls, do you remember having to dress up for sit-down dinners Wednesday nights and at noon on Sundays? That’s what we did in Earhart Hall. For all the other meals, we went through a cafeteria line. And if the server who dished up your plate didn’t like you, she gave you EXTRA mashed potatoes. It took me awhile to figure out why. She was helping us gain the ten pounds we were predicted to gain our freshman year.

Did you go to the Rose Bowl in 1967? I remember traveling on the “student” plane. When the pilot announced that we were flying over the Grand Canyon, everybody got up and ran to the left side of the plane. I thought we were going to tip over.

Then there was the excitement of cheering for the Smothers Brothers who rode in the Rose Bowl Parade. They’d just been to Purdue to do a show that fall, so we screamed, waved, and jumped up and down in our seats as their float passed by. And, of course, the game itself was exciting with Purdue beating USC by one point, 14-13.

Do you remember what it cost? In looking through my old Purdue memorabilia, I found a sheet called “Purdue University Student and Faculty Rose Bowl Tours Information.” The tour featured: round-trip air fare, hotel for five nights, bus to and from the Rose Bowl Parade, a reserved, grandstand seat at the Rose Parade, lunch on game day, all bus transportation (including tips), and breakfast each day at the hotel. The cost was a whopping $209.00.

(That was for a propeller flight. The faculty went by jet which was $20 more.)

Did you know that Purdue once had a requirement that students had to know how to swim in order to graduate? When I came to Purdue, I couldn’t swim, so they put me in a swimming class with other height-challenged, near-sighted girls. They gave us one-size-fits-all swimming suits that were way too big. When we got into the pool, the suits filled with water and we sank to the bottom.

At our first class, the instructors wanted us to simply walk from one end of the pool to the other. Without our glasses, we couldn’t see, so we were all over the place. I remember hearing the instructors calling to us over and over trying to let us know where the end of the pool was, but the room had high ceilings—and it echoed—so we had no idea which direction to go. Finally, they got in and led some of us out.

None of us ever did learn to swim. At the end of the course, the instructors recommended that the swimming requirement be dropped. (It was.)

I remember many wonderful theatre experiences. I had the good fortune to see James Earl Jones in a production of the play “Of Mice and Men” in the Experimental Theatre in 1967.

Another vivid theatre memory was opening night of the play “The Skin of Our Teeth” in Loeb Theatre. The stage was raked (built at an extreme angle). On her first entrance, the actress playing the part of the daughter ran onstage, jumped up onto the raked stage, and fell flat on her face. That was me. My co-star (and French professor), Sidney Pellissier, saved the day by helping me up and acting like it was planned.

Do you remember the exit to the old Grant Street Garage that was a tight, circular tower from the upper floors to the street? I have a friend who took his kids there on weekends. They had him drive to the top of the garage and then circle down as fast as he could, over and over and over.

Do you remember being able to park your car in the parking lots between Stewart Center and Heavilon Hall?

And, finally, do you remember when you could walk down the main floor of the Union all the way from one end to the other?

Now, THAT was really something.

Did you know that Purdue once had a requirement that students had to know how to swim in order to graduate? When I came to Purdue, I couldn’t swim, so they put me in a swimming class with other height-challenged, near-sighted girls. They gave us one-size-fits-all swimming suits that were way too big. When we got into the pool, the suits filled with water and we sank to the bottom.

At our first class, the instructors wanted us to simply walk from one end of the pool to the other. Without our glasses, we couldn’t see, so we were all over the place. I remember hearing the instructors calling to us over and over trying to let us know where the end of the pool was, but the room had high ceilings—and it echoed—so we had no idea which direction to go. Finally, they got in and led some of us out.

None of us ever did learn to swim. At the end of the course, the instructors recommended that the swimming requirement be dropped. (It was.)

I remember many wonderful theatre experiences. I had the good fortune to see James Earl Jones in a production of the play “Of Mice and Men” in the Experimental Theatre in 1967.

Another vivid theatre memory was opening night of the play “The Skin of Our Teeth” in Loeb Theatre. The stage was raked (built at an extreme angle). On her first entrance, the actress playing the part of the daughter ran onstage, jumped up onto the raked stage, and fell flat on her face. That was me. My co-star (and French professor), Sidney Pellissier, saved the day by helping me up and acting like it was planned.

Do you remember the exit to the old Grant Street Garage that was a tight, circular tower from the upper floors to the street? I have a friend who took his kids there on weekends. They had him drive to the top of the garage and then circle down as fast as he could, over and over and over.

Do you remember being able to park your car in the parking lots between Stewart Center and Heavilon Hall?

And, finally, do you remember when you could walk down the main floor of the Union all the way from one end to the other?

Now, THAT was really something.

——————————————————-
If you’d like to share some memories with Sally, her email address is sarajanecoffman2@outlook.com

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"The most important office, and the one which all of us can and should fill, is that of private citizen." Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1916, by President Woodrow Wilson, the first Jew to sit on the High Court.

“Justice Brandeis believed a democratic society depended on individual rights such as freedom of speech and the right to be let alone. But democracy also entailed responsibilities. ‘The most important political office is that of the private citizen,’ Brandeis wrote early in his career. Moreover,” says Phillipa Strum, Brandeis biographer, “Brandeis believed freedom of speech is inextricably linked to each citizen’s duty to participate in the democratic process — to debate the ideas of the day and make one’s voice known to policy makers, and to vote.”—source: Brandeis University web site, About tab.

Election day is Tuesday, November 8, 2022

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Another Native Indiana Fruit: the Paw Paw

Photos courtesy of PURA member Curt Snyder

Curt Snyder, gentleman farmer

A plate of paw paws—sometimes called “Indiana bananas”—compared to an actual banana (at the back of the plate. In the foreground, the center paw paw is sliced open to show the yellow pulp and large seeds). Above is a gallon of paw paw wine!

Per Wikipedia: Asimina triloba, the American papaw, pawpaw, paw paw, or paw-paw, among many regional names, is a small deciduous tree native to the eastern United States and Canada, producing a large, yellowish-green to brown fruit...Pawpaw fruits are the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States (not counting gourds, which are typically considered vegetables rather than fruit for culinary purposes, although in botany they are classified as fruit).

Pawpaw fruits are sweet, with a custard-like texture, and a flavor somewhat similar to banana, mango, and pineapple. They are commonly eaten raw, but are also used to make ice cream and baked desserts. The bark, leaves, and seeds contain the insecticidal neurotoxin annonacin.”

For more on paw paws:

Possum in the Pawpaw Tree: A Seasonal Guide to Midwestern Gardening, by PURA member B. Rosie Lerner and Beverly S. Netzhammer. Available from Purdue University Press. https://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/format/9781557530547

A recent story from The Atlantic magazine: “Why is the Most American Fruit So Hard to Buy?”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/10/pawpaw-fruit-taste-history/671646/

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Zoom Connection Information for PURA Meetings

The Zoom connection information for PURA monthly meetings is shown below. The link, Meeting ID, and password will be the SAME for all future normal monthly meetings.

Members who wish to join via phone call audio only will need the separate Passcode shown below. (The password/passcode for that method is different from the normal “computer connection” to Zoom.)

Join Zoom Meeting

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Meeting ID: 972 8539 8989
Passcode: BoilerUp

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