9.9.2024 – the Lions simply

the Lions simply
refuse to fold – the Lions …
they simply refuse

From the article, What we learned in NFL Week 1: in the New York Times.

Under the heading, Detroit still as gritty as ever.

The Lions backed up their wild-card victory over the Rams back in January with a 26-20 overtime win Sunday night. This was a terrific opener between two teams that figure to be players in the NFC playoff race later this season and another reminder of what makes Dan Campbell’s team so tough to play: The Lions simply refuse to fold.

I have been following the Detroit Lions as long as I can remember.

And as long as I can remember no one – NO ONE – has ever used the words The Lions simply refuse to fold in a story about their game day performance.

This is the team that snatched defeat from the the jaws of victory more times than I can count.

This is the team that produced a high light film of GREAT FIRST DOWNS in LIONS HISTORY … and there weren’t many of them.

Forgive me, but I got to repeat it one more time.

The Lions simply refuse to fold.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE …

No one I know would have enjoyed that win more and few people have waited longer to hear the words The Lions simply refuse to fold than my friend since kindergarten, Richard Derby.

Richard left us earlier this year and there aren’t a lot of people who have known me in this life longer than he did.

He was in my kindergarten class at Crestview Elementary in Grand Rapids, Michigan and he sat next to me in the very last class I took at Grand Rapids Junior College before I left town.

It’s a bit silly, I know, to worry about sports teams but I feel pretty good that I know Richard’s view on the things that really count so I am comfortable to say that Richard would have enjoyed the game last night.

He would have enjoyed it a lot and felt bad for Matt Stafford at the same time.

I just want to say that when David Montgomery went into the end zone to win the game, I thought of my friend Richard.

Haven’t talked to you in years but miss knowing you were around buddy.

As the feller said of George Gershwin when he died, “I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.”

9.8.2024 – I kinda feel bad

I kinda feel bad
I kinda feel good there are
other fans who feel worse

The last time the University of Michigan football team lost a game was back in 2022.

Until yesterday.

They lost and lost badly to the University of Texas at Austin.

The lost so badly that I felt bad – not bad bad, but downish in a goofy for what it’s all about way, bad.

Back when I was in college one of my roommates was from Ann Arbor and his folks would invite us over to their house for lunch and watch the game on Saturdays when Michigan had an away game.

After a game that saw Michigan lose to Illinois, my roommate’s Mom looked out the window and said that now she wouldn’t be able to read the Sunday Morning papers because they would all, somehow, work the score of the game into any story.

She also said she wasn’t looking forward to church as she knew their Pastor would work the score into his sermon.

She hated losing.

She wasn’t particularly fond of people who ‘lost games’ for Michigan.

I remember watching a game at their house once and Michigan was lining up for a field goal attempt and I said, “I wonder what Bryan Virgil is doing now?”

Mr. Virgil had had a fairly good multi year career for Michigan as a placekicker, except for having a game winning attempt against Notre Dame blocked back in 1979.

There were those who point out that a Notre Dame player jumped up on someone’s back to block the kick (a move that resulted in a new rule the next year) and there were those who claimed Mr. Virgil took too long to get the kick off.

When I wondered out loud what Mr. Virgil was now doing, my roommate’s Mom fired back, “I don’t know, but what ever it is, he is taking 5 steps to do it.”

When Michigan lost yesterday I thought of my roommates Mom.

I thought I don’t want to watch any more football today.

I don’t want to read the papers tomorrow.

And I know that in Church, even here in the low country of South Carolina, where the Pastor is actually a Michigan Fan (a west Michigan native), I will most likely hear about the game from the pulpit.

I puttered around most of the rest of Saturday afternoon.

My wife and I went out to investigate a new used bookstore we had heard about and picked up 4 novels from the Four-for-a-Dollar bin.

We call these beach books as I am reluctant to bring my devices to the beach.

Also I find it refreshing for my eyes to read a printed novel from time to time.

Back home, being Saturday and my day in the kitchen, still feeling a bit blue, I got the out tools and ingredients for the evening hamburgers and fries.

I then turned on the TV.

And I heard, “It’s a stunning loss for Notre Dame and a stunning victory for NIU!”

And I smiled.

I laughed out loud.

I felt good.

Sure Michigan lost to a top 5 team.

But ND was a top 5 team and lost.

Lost to a team from the Mid American Conference.

Not a slam on NIU , just saying.

I felt good that there were football fans who felt worse than I did.

I felt good that Michigan’s loss was not THE college football story for this weekend.

Then for a second, I felt bad.

I felt bad that I felt good that other fans felt worse than I did.

Than I remembered I was thinking about Notre Dame.

And I didn’t feel that bad at all.

Gotta got get ready for church.

9.7.2024 – quae volumus et

quae volumus et
credimus libenter – we …
believe what we want

Quae volumus, et credimus libenter.

The things we want we are also quick to believe.

The full form of the saying in Caesar is Quae volumus et credimus libenter, et quae sentimus ipsi, reliquos sentire speramus, “The things we want, we are also quick to believe, and what we ourselves perceive, we hope that others feel too.”

So wrote Julius Ceasar in his book, Commentaries on the Civil War.

According to Wikipedia, Commentarii de Bello Civili (Commentaries on the Civil War), or Bellum Civile, is an account written by Julius Caesar of his war against Gnaeus Pompeius and the Roman Senate. It consists of three books covering the events of 49–48 BC, from shortly before Caesar’s invasion of Italy to Pompey’s defeat at the Battle of Pharsalus and flight to Egypt.

50 years or so before Christ plus the 2024 years since.

Almost 2100 years ago.

The things we want we are also quick to believe.

Either Julius Caesar would have fit right in today.

Or our current system of elections would have fit right in, 2100 years ago.

Here is the full except:

Proxima nocte centuriones Marsi duo ex castris Curionis cum manipularibus suis xxil ad AttiumVarum perfugiunt. Hi, sive vere quam habuerantopinionem ad eum perferunt, sive etiam auribus Variserviunt (nam, quae volumus, et credimus libenteret, quae sentimus ipsi, reliquos sentire speramus), confirmant quidem certe totius exercitus animosalienos esse a Curione maximeque opus esse in con-spectum exercitus venire et colloquendi dare facultatem. Qua opinione adductus Varus postero diemane legiones ex castris educit. Facit idem Curio,atque una valle non magna interiecta suas uterquecopias instruit.

In English:

On the following night two Marsic centurions from Curio’s camp, with twenty-two of their men, desert to Attius Varus. Whether they convey to him the opinion that they really held, or whether they only flatter his ears for what we desire we gladly believe, and what we ourselves feel we hope that others feel too at any rate they assure him that the hearts of the whole army are estranged from Curio, and that it is highly necessary that he should come within sight of the army and afford an opportunity of conference. Varus, influenced by this judgment, leads his legions out of camp early the next day. Curio does the same, and each draws up his forces with only one small valley between them.

As you can see, in the Loeb Classic Edition of 1917, it comes out as:

for what we desire we gladly believe, and what we ourselves feel we hope that others feel too …

quae volumus, et credimus libenteret, quae sentimus ipsi, reliquos sentire speramus …

For what we desire we gladly believe.

I don’t want to point to just one candidate in this current election cycle but those words, for what we desire we gladly believe, helps me understand his his following.

9.6.2024 – boring more than mad …

boring more than mad …
show me a sane person and
I’ll cure him for you

In his book, Jung: Man and Myth (Macmillan Pub Co, 1981), Vincent Brome writes:

“It was the explosive person who said one day to his wife, ‘If I get another perfectly normal adult malingering as a sick patient I’ll have him certified!’ And to George Beckwith, his American friend, ‘I’m sometimes driven to the conclusion that boring people need treatment more urgently than mad people.’ Witty on some occasions, he commented to one of his assistants, ‘Show me a sane person and I’ll cure him for you.’”

I am reminded of something Mr. Churchill said along the lines of “There are two types of people in this world. Those who are billed to death. And those who are bored to death.

9.5.2024 – ignore these limits

ignore these limits
thrilling fact that night owls have
been vindicated

From the article, Forget the 5am starts! Night owls like me possess the real secret of success by Arwa Mahdawi in the article where Ms. Mahdawi writes:

Research led by academics at Imperial College London studied data on more than 26,000 people and found that “self-declared ‘night owls’ generally tend to have higher cognitive scores”. And we are talking quite a lot higher. “Evening types … scored about 13.5% higher than morning types in one group and 7.5% higher than morning types in another group”, according to a write-up of the study.

Experts have urged caution in interpreting the findings, saying, for instance, that there are “important limitations”. Still, I think we can ignore these limitations for now and focus on the thrilling fact that night owls have finally been vindicated.

I have never ever been a morning person.

I have never ever been called a morning person.

Sadly, most of my life has been designed to begin with an early morning start.

Larry McMurtry’s thoughts on Captain Woodrow Call and getting up in the morning in the book Lonesome Dove might describe me.

Mr. McMurtry writes: To Call’s regret he had never been able to come awake easily. His joints felt like they were filled with glue, and it was an irritation to see Augustus sitting on the black kettle looking as fresh as if he’d slept all night, when in fact he had probably played poker till one or two o’clock. Getting up early and feeling awake was the one skill he had never truly perfected — he got up, of course, but it never felt natural.

Now I can’t stay up.

I miss those dark hours for reading.

Late late at night when no one else was up or around.

That’s when it seemed like my brain really kicked in.

Growing up in a family with 10 brothers and sisters.

College with 4 guys sharing a 450 square feet of apartment.

Seven kids in my family.

Late late at night when no one else was up or around.

So there is research that shows us folks who liked being up at night have higher cognitive scores that those morning folks.

I didn’t need any research.

It was something I already knew.

If those morning folks had been smarter, they would have been up late at night.