mystery of trees and water and all living things borrowing time
Salt Marsh on Pinckney Island, SC at Sunset, Nov 28, 2025
They used to say we’re living on borrowed time but even when young I wondered who loaned it to us? In 1948 one grandpa died stretched tight in a misty oxygen tent, his four sons gathered, his papery hand grasping mine. Only a week before, we were fishing. Now the four sons have all run out of borrowed time while I’m alive wondering whom I owe for this indisputable gift of existence. Of course time is running out. It always has been a creek heading east, the freight of water with its surprising heaviness following the slant of the land, its destiny. What is lovelier than a creek or riverine thicket? Say it is an unknown benefactor who gave us birds and Mozart, the mystery of trees and water and all living things borrowing time. Would I still love the creek if I lasted forever?
Debtor by Jim Harrison as published in Songs of Unreason (Copper Canyon Press; 2011).
What is lovelier than a creek or riverine thicket? Say it is an unknown benefactor who gave us birds and Mozart, the mystery of trees and water and all living things borrowing time.
Walking on Pinckney Island, the day after Thanksgiving at stopped at this spot, looking west, where I have stopped hundreds of times.
I have stopped hundreds of times but I have never stopped time other than by capturing a moment using the phone on my camera.
Back it the day, it might have been called a still shot, I guess from the painters, still life.
Nothing about this picture is really still.
The tide is moving the water out at 6 knots.
The Sun is spinning away at 1,000 miles per hour.
The earth tips 1 degree north of south each day depending on the season.
The clouds and marsh grass move with the wind.
Everything is in motion.
All by accident.
No Artificial intelligence.
No photoshop.
Say it is an unknown benefactor who gave us birds and Mozart, the mystery of trees and water and all living things borrowing time.
I might have captured the moment but the time is borrowed.
hail victors valiant raise next generation right sing to the colors
I am pretty sure that I have related the story of the night I got a phone call from my brother Paul that opened without a hello or greeting, but the words, I AM INCENSED.
This was kinda startling for two reasons.
One was that my brother Paul, so far as I know, never called anyone in his life.
And, Two, my brother Paul, so far as I know, had never been incensed about anything in his life.
Paul had just paged through the latest Michigan Today Alumni Magazine and found an article that recognized some family that had 6 siblings who had all earned degrees from the University of Michigan.
This was not right, Paul, declared and he called me and he told I had to do something about it.
So I got in touch with the Alumni Association and let them know that the Hoffman Family had a little bit more history to recognize.
Started with Grandpa Robert Karl Hoffman, the 1st Hofman born in the US and the 1st to change his last name to Hoffman, he was the 1st one to graduate from Michigan with a DDS in 1911.
Then our Dad, Robert Paul Hoffman, who graduated with a DDS in 1942.
Then the siblings.
Paul, Jack, Mary, Janet, Tim, Lisa, Me, Steve and Al graduated from Michigan stretching out over the 1960s. 70s and 80s.
Growing up, I knew there was only one college for me and I was so focused on accomplishing graduating from Michigan that when I finally DID graduate, I was at a bit of loss of what to do next and maybe still am.
My roommates knew the story of me getting into Michigan and they all agreed that the school changed the rules so it would never happen again.
And there were more graduates to come.
The spouses of Paul, Janet, Lisa and Al who graduated from Michigan.
Then the nieces and nephews of the 4th Generation who graduated from Michigan.
A couple of editions later, the Alumni Magazine ran an article that stated simply, they didn’t know what they were getting into when they recognized that family with 6 graduate siblings.
They didn’t know what they were getting into as they heard from so many other families, who I guess, were incensed.
The heard from several families also with 6 sibling graduates.
The heard from several families with 7 sibling graduates.
The heard from a couple of families with 8 sibling graduates.
But they only heard from 1 family, the Hoffman Family of Grand Rapids, with 9 sibling graduates.
If we act like we own it, at least we are acting honestly.
Work is starting on that 5th generation.
Me and grandson Ian – it’s his 1st time for the game with that team … class of 2047?
If you been to a game in Ann Arbor and listened to the crowd sing The Yellow and Blue with the band you know that 95% of the crowd knows one word, HAIL!.
We had a family tradition of singing The Yellow and Blue at family gatherings if the mood was right and by unspoken agreement, we would all drop out and let Dad sing the HAIL by himself.
With that memory in mind:
Sing to the colors that float in the light; Hurrah for the Yellow and Blue! Yellow the stars as they ride through the night And reel in a rollicking crew; Yellow the field where ripens the grain And yellow the moon on the harvest wain; -Hail! Hail to the colors that float in the light Hurrah for the Yellow and Blue!
Win or lose today, Hurrah for the Yellow and Blue!
naw, he said, now what would I want to remember … a thing like that for?
In 1966, George Plimpton wrote a book titled Paper Lion as an inside view of pro football by going through the pre-season with the Detroit Lions.
He came out with a follow up book in 1973 titled Mad Ducks and Bears that told the story of the years after 1966 through Plimpton’s friendship and interviews with Detroit Lions Alex Karras (The Mad Duck) and John Gordy (The Bear).
In Mad Ducks and Bears, Plimpton writes about what it was like for Karras and Gordy to play with Quarterback Booby Layne who both men acknowledged was a masterful football player but a pretty nasty guy otherwise.
Both men carried long grudges against Layne that lasted through their careers.
Plimpton relates this story told by Alex Karras, writing:
The two of them sat quietly, thinking back on those days. Finally Karras said, “You know something crazy? Bobby Layne was traded away by Detroit to the Pittsburgh Steelers. He ended up his career there. We played them one Sunday, and this play came up where he was chased out of the pocket and ran out of bounds. I was chasing him, really reaching for him, and when we got out of bounds I still went for him. I racked his ass. Back behind the bench somewhere. Knocked a water bucket over, I remember. I don’t know why I did it. It was crazy. We got a big penalty and I was chewed out plenty.”
“What about Layne?” I asked.
“I can remember him looking at me out of that crazy helmet he wore. ‘Hey, what did you do that for?’ he says. “I couldn’t have told him. No way.”
Later in the book, Plimpton recounts how he had the chance to meet Bobby Layne, spend some time with him and interview him.
Plimpton writes:
“Bobby,” I asked, “do you remember a game when you were playing for Pittsburgh in which you were run out of bounds, and Alex Karras came out of nowhere and really belted you one? They damn near threw him out of the game for it? A water bucket went over. It was way out of bounds. Do you remember that?”
Layne was silent for such a long time that I thought he had his mind on something else and had not heard the question.
“Naw,” he said finally. He reached for the door handle of the jeep.
“Naw, now what would I want to remember a thing like that for?”
Folks, the next time someone suggests that the Lions’ wear throwback uniforms, throwback to those great Lions’ teams, throwback to those great Lions’ games, throwback to those great Lions’ memories that we all say:
“Naw, now what would I want to remember a thing like that for?”
stuff in The kitchen … My kitchen, where treasure is … heart will be also
Got up this morning to make a pie and I got to thinking.
I was using my rolling pin that I have had for years and I posted a photo it on facebook with the question, “Name something in my kitchen that hasn’t been washed in 35 years.”
What did I mean actually by saying ‘my kitchen’?
Did anyone in literature every write a better sentence on kitchen’s than EB White did in Charlotte’s Web when he wrote, “The kitchen table was set for breakfast, and the room smelled of coffee, bacon, damp plaster, and wood smoke from the stove.”
And I thought about kitchen’s in time past for myself.
My Mom lived in the same house in Grand Rapids, Michigan for over 50 years.
I can still say the phone number that started 363 (or if you are really old, EM3 when the city used ‘exchanges’).
There was a kitchen that was the heart and soul of a family.
As there were 11 kids in our family, the kitchen was huge.
Had a island with a 4 electric burners AND a metal surfaced prep counter that by itself was a big as most kitchen islands today.
They was a butcher block ‘sandwich’ counter at one end of this vast wrap around counter that turned into a breakfast area with kitchen stools on one side and then the dining room table that you could land a plane on.
Mom’s kitchen was quirky.
Mom had wooden bread box and the side that opened had a hair trigger.
If it slipped when you opened it, or sometimes all on its on, that side would fall fast and smack the counter with a band like a gun shot and made everyone jump.
The oven, somehow, gave off a AM Radio signal.
If you were in the car and someone was listening to a ball game on the radio, when you pulled into the garage, the radio would start giving off this low buzz buzz buzz and you know something was in the overn.
In her later years when she got a little forgetful, I would often drive over to see her and hear that sound and know that I should go in to turn the oven off for her.
Not hard to visualize Mom on an almost daily basis (Wednesday was prayer meeting so to give my a break that was night we went to McDonalds. Back then we ate in the car and two of the older boys would walk to the window to place the order. They would come back with a tray of drinks and hand to Mom who would then take a sip and say Coke Coke Root beer and pass them out. My brother Pete and I got out this by ordering the Orange Drink.)
She would take a break from the never ending laundry and walk into the kitchen and start frying up pans and pans of pork chops or stir and giant kettle of spaghetti sauce or peel the 10lbs of potatoes she would need for the evening meal.
In one corner of the kitchen was a tall under the counter cabinet.
It was in there that Mom kept the 10 different kinds of cereal we demanded.
Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Sugar Crisp and Cap’n Crunch.
The Cap’n Crunch was for Dad who liked to sprinkle a handful on his vanilla ice cream.
Then over under the butcher block counter top was a giant two drawer cabinet known as the ‘cookie drawer’ where every kind of cracker, cookie and snack anyone ever heard of was kept.
As we were Dutch, there was always a box of Rusk.
An old friend of mine named Gordon Olson once said he never doubted the business acumen of the Dutch as there were able to sell boxes of stale bread by calling it rusk.
Almost more than the contents of the cookie drawer, what I remember was how the Grand kids eyes would go big whenever they discover Grandma’s Cookies.
They would stand there and almost cry as it was so hard to make a choice of ‘just one’.
Come Thanksgiving Day, Mom and the kitchen when into high gear and enough food to last Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family in their little house in the big woods through the entire winter.
Pots and pans and baking sheets piled up.
Food piled up.
Plates and glasses piled up.
That, folks, was a kitchen!
I realized that there is a big difference between ‘the kitchen’ where you live and ‘my kitchen’ which means more, ‘What’ not ‘Where’.
In the short story, “The Man Who Gave Up His Name”, Jim Harrison writes that the man in question had “In the trunk there was one suitcase, one box of books, and one box of assorted cooking equipment he could not bear to part with in his urge to travel light.”
One box of assorted cooking equipment he could not bear to part with.
That, for me, up what I mean when I say, My Kitchen.
I am happy to say that my box of cooking equipment includes utensils from my Mom’s kitchen.
We have lived in a dozen different homes since getting married and the The Kitchen always changes.
But in that kitchen, I will spread out the one box of assorted cooking equipment I could not bear to part with and once again, I am in my kitchen.
I am reminded of the Bible verse at Matthew 6:21, that says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
For me, where my rolling pin in, there MY kitchen will be also.
but beating the team that you hate the most? That lasts the rest of your life
It’s also college football in a nutshell, and it’s worth keeping in mind as we enter Rivalry Week: In the end, what makes this sport so deliriously wonderful is this sort of irrational emotion, this primal and eternal bile. We have become accustomed, already, just in the second year of the 12-team Playoff, to gauging every week’s results by how they affect the ever-shifting CFP bracket picture, and we’re fully primed to do that again this week.
But the thing about those games is that, in the long term, what they mean for Playoff positioning will be the least interesting thing about them. What matters is beating those other guys’ brains in. What matters is getting to talk trash all year.
This would seem like an obvious thing to say — college football is about tradition and rivalries — but it is one that, because of college football’s wild changes over the past few years, needs to be repeated and, perhaps more than anything else, cherished.
But beating the team you hate the most? That lasts the rest of your life.
From the New York Time article, College Football Playoff bids are great. Making your rival miserable is still better by Will Leitch.
Of last year, Mr. Leitch wrote:
Maybe Ohio State beat Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame to win the national title last year. But it didn’t beat Michigan, which means a huge chunk of its glorious season was a complete and total failure. That is hilarious. It is also kind of wonderful — and one of the best reasons to love this deranged sport.
I was born and raised in a Michigan family.
My first big sports hero I remember was Michigan basketball start, Cazzie Russel.
And the first big sports memory was that Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1969 when Michigan beat an Ohio State team that hadn’t lost in 2 years.
I like to say that when I was a kid I was told that Woody Hayes was under my bed if I got out, he would grab me and take me off to Ohio.
Reading biographies as a kid I had to wrestle with the fact that General Grant, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers and James Thurber all were born in Ohio.
It didn’t make any sense.
Until I figured it out that none of them achieved much success until they LEFT Ohio.
Mr. Leitch quotes William Hazlitt called “On the Pleasure of Hating.”
Mr. Hazlitt once wrote, back in 1826:
Nature seems made of antipathies.
Without something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and action.
Pure good soon grows insipid, wants variety and spirit.
Pain is a bittersweet, which never surfeits.
Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust:
Hatred alone is immortal.
With that in mind, I am thankful this Thanksgiving for something so worthy of my hate.
I live in a seaside resort community that oddly enough has a large Ohio contingent.
Up the coast a bit in Charleston, SC, then even have a MEME of GBTO or Go Back to Ohio.
Its kind of goofy but when the concept arose back in the late 1970’s that timeshare vacations were invented, the fellers in charge took a map and estimated the furthest a father might drive their family and their research led them to focus their marketing efforts on the state of Ohio.
And it worked!
But as one local blogger put it … Tourism is the bread and butter of the lcoal economy, but Ohio’s arrival seems like adding five extra sticks of butter. Sure, we’re richer for it, but at what cost?
Anyway, what this means it that this is a great place to wear an M coaches cap.
And when I say coaches cap, I mean what is now called the ‘SKINNY M’ coaches cap.
It is great fun to walk the beaches and parks and hear from all sides folks yell out GO BLUE.
Especially … ESPECIALLY when there some of those OH IO people around.
You know them.
The group that needs two people to spell O H I O.
BTW, having worked in the world on Online News for 20 years, I was always happy to report that any story on Ohio State Football had twice as many reads as any other sports story.
There was the Ohio State Fan … and the person who read the story to them.
No Haiku For You 