Sol Astrachan 1929-2022

Sol Astrachan, long time business owner and resident of Kennett, Missouri, passed away this morning at his home in Kennett. Sol Astrachan was born in Poland in 1929, and later moved with his family to Russia. When he was nine his family immigrated to the United States. After a short stay in St. Louis, Mr. Astrachan went to Kennett, Missouri, where he has lived ever since. Mr. Astrachan served a term on the Kennett city council (1961-1963) and two terms as mayor (1963-1971) of Kennett. (Obituary)

Sol was a good friend to my father and a good (and courageous) mayor. Sol graduated from Kennett High School in 1947. Photo below of senior class. Sol was interviewed by Will Sarvis for the Missouri State Historical Society on October 28, 1998 at his home in Kennett.

 

Broseley, Missouri High School Senior Class (1943)


Broseley, Missouri High School Senior Class of 1943. My mom (not in this photo) would have been 18 in 1945. She had a sweater like the one the young man on the left is wearing. I had (and wore) it for a while. Major news events of 1943:

  • Allied forces take back North Africa
  • Italy Surrenders to Allied Forces
  • Dambuster Raids on German dams
  • Warsaw Jewish Ghetto Uprising
  • Due to shortages America sees it’s first rationing
  • The Glenn Miller Orchestra provided the most popular music of the time.
  • The Pentagon, considered to be the world’s largest office building is completed

Pleasant Hill School (Lineville, IA)

(Wikipedia) “The Pleasant Hill School, also known as the Little Red School House, is a historic building located north of Lineville in rural Wayne County, Iowa, United States. It was built in 1881 on land that had been purchased for educational purposes in 1873, and it housed a one-room school until 1958. The Grand River Independent School District donated the school building to the Wayne County Historical Society. They maintain it as it was when it served as a schoolhouse. The interior furnishings are authentic, if not original to the building. The school yard is maintained as a roadside park along U.S. 65. The building follows a rectangular plan that is three bays long and two bays wide. It is capped with a gable roof. A small entryway is located on the south side of the structure. The school building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.”

Took these photos one a road trip in 2013.

Grayson “The Professor” Boucher

(Wikipedia) “Grayson “The Professor” Scott Boucher (born June 10, 1984) is an American streetball player, actor, and former professional basketball player. He is most known for playing on the highly stylized, international AND1 Mixtape Tour; he has also appeared in several movies, most notably Ball Don’t Lie. Boucher is 5’10” and weighs 145 pounds (178 cm, 66 kg) and his jersey number is 12.”

I’ve watched a couple of his YouTube videos and was moved by this one:
This one is a bit more light-hearted:

According to his YouTube page, his videos have been viewed 1,168,739,158 times. If I’m reading that correctly, that’s one trillion, 168 billion, 739 million, 158 thousand. Assuming most of those are sponsored or have ads, how much is this guy worth? According to a website called Nailbuzz (as of March 2022), just north of $4 million.

The channel has over 7 million subscribers as of 2022 and has accumulated over 950 million views so far. It is able to get an average of 450,000 views per day from different sources. This should generate an estimated revenue of around $3,600 per day ($1.3 million a year) from the ads that appear on the videos.