1.29.2024 – Campbell’s aggression

Campbell’s aggression
is fun … breaks with the norms .. but
pragmatism struck

Campbell’s aggression is fun. It breaks with the norms. It’s because of that aggression – because of the fourth-down decision-making; because of his belief in Goff – that the Lions found themselves in the NFC title game to begin with. Still, it’s tough to square Campbell’s decision to kick a field goal at the end of the first half rather than push for a touchdown with his refusal to kick field goals in the second half. Pragmatism struck Campbell when there was a chance to take a three-score lead into the break, only for the swashbuckler to return in the second half.

From Miscues, bad luck and ladybugs: how the Lions blew their best chance at a Super Bowl by Oliver Connolly.

This article was slugged: Detroit had a 24-7 lead at half-time of the NFC Championship Game, and still lost. But they should have no regrets about the aggression that took them that far.

Pragmatism struck.

As Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, “thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.“

Near the end of the movie, The Madness of King George, there is an incredible bit of acting within acting when the King, with the help of some courtiers, is reading aloud from Big Bill’s play King Lear.

They finish the bit in one of the mostest bestest renditions of the scene where Cordelia wakes up the King with a kiss that has have ever been put on film.

All the participants are so moved that no one speaks until someone breaks in with, “Is that the end your Majesty?”

To which George III responds with some angst, “Oh, good Lord, no. Cordeli is hanged, and the shock of it kills the king. So they all die.”

The King looks around then yells in frustration trying to make sense of it all, “It’s a tragedy.”

That was the game last between the Detroit Lions and the San Francisco 49ers.

A tragedy as in the meaning of the genre of the theatre!

The dictionary defines this type of tragedy as “a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character.“

If that doesn’t define that game, no other single word will.

If that doesn’t define the continued ongoing existence of the Detroit Lions Professional Football Club, no other single word will.

So close.

What might have been.

Oh Fortuna!

I can hear the greek chorus.

Let me tell you, it had to happen this way.

All the breaks had to break the wrong way.

The Lions had to get the early lead.

They had to be able to wedge the door open to let us peak through.

Let us peak through and say … NOPE!

That is not who the Lions are.

Losing that game, and the way it was lost, that is who the Lions are.

As for me?

How does I feel after watching it?

After waiting for this moment for 30 years?

And knowing this may be the last time they will get this close in my lifetime?

Wouldn’t have it any other way.

I am a Lions fan.

Don’t look for me to cry.

My head is high.

I am a Lion’s fan!

As King Lear said:

“Pray do not mock me, I am a very foolish, fond old man.

You do me wrong to take me out of the grave.

Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears do scald like molten lead.”

Have to play my part.

It’s a tragedy you see.

1.28.2024 – a cleat, an anchor

a cleat, an anchor
fasten, secure, clamp …
hang on to something

I like to sit on the Calhoun Street Dock on the May River at the foot of the bluff that gives Bluffton, South Carolina its name.

The fact that Calhoun Street is named for John C. Calhoun is for another time and another day.

The Calhoun Street dock is a tidal dock and it floats on the water and goes up and down with the 8 feet of ocean tide that reaches this far up the May River.

Anyone can tie their boat up the dock and leave the boat there while they boat owners enjoy beautiful downtown Bluffton.

Boats can be left tied up for three hours which is all anyone needs to enjoy beautiful downtown Bluffton.

The dock is lined with deck cleats.

We sit on the dock and watch boaters tie up to the dock.

There are the weekend boat owners or maybe those who have found themselves driving a boat that weekend, who slowly maneuver closer and closer to the dock and then have some jump over with a rope and pull the boat in.

Those folks take ropes from the bow and the stern and wind the ropes around and around the cleats until there is a great wad of rope wrapped around the cleat and the boat is made fast.

And the boat owners hopes it is secure.

Then there are those boat owners who come in fast, back down at the last moment, swing the bow away and drop the boat right next to the dock at a dead stop.

They step over to the dock and take the bow line and with a quick slick twist of their hand, drop a ring of rope around the cleat in such a way that when pulled tight, the rope locks itself over and under the cleat.

Not only is the boat secure, but with another flick of the wrist, the loop comes undone and the rope is free of the cleat.

And the boat owner knows it is secure.

I have watched this 100 times.

I have practiced this (at home with a make shift cleat) 100 times.

I still can’t get it.

And I guess you get it or you don’t.

I have studied United States History most of my life.

At one point the plan was to teach the wonderful history of this country that thought maybe they were different than the rest of the world.

When all other governments came crashing, smashing down, the United States of America and its Constitution, THE OLDEST continuously in user written Constitution in the World today, was an anchor, something to hang on to, something to secure the hope of the world.

There was such promise in the history of the United States.

A promise for a future.

You either get it or you don’t.

Now I am not so sure.

There sure seems to be a threat to all we held dear and cared for.

It also seems that if there are any folks who can do anything about these threats, they are busy renting rooms in the front of hotel that is on fire in the back.

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

So says the Bible in the Book of Psalms.

I would like an anchor.

I would like something in these times to hand on to.

Paul (or maybe not Paul) wrote about God’s promises in his letter to the Hebrews, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

Once more, you either get it or you don’t.

Faith in the United States and a hope.

Faith in God and much more than a hope.

1.27.2024 – when there is nothing

when there is nothing
nothing to read, nothing new
headline changes, same news

Since forever my Saturday mornings, for as long as I have had Saturday mornings (there was a too long period in my life where I worked weekends and Saturday mornings were more like any other morning just more so) I start my day with coffee and newspapers.

Back, back, back in the day, that meant going downtown in Grand Rapids, Michigan where I grew up to Elliott’s New Stand, next to the bus station, where the out-of-town newspapers came in by bus and went on sale.

I would grab a New York Times, a Chicago Tribune and then whatever other city sounded exotic at the moment.

The Detroit Free Press was already waiting as we had a paper boy, A PAPER BOY, deliver the Freep to our doorstep every morning.

Maybe that’s why I cannot get excited much about door dash and get grub and uber eats.

What is new about that?

We used to get daily home delivery of a newspaper that had been printed 300 miles away.

Try to do that in your social media era world!

Now my Saturday starts with my tablet and newspapers from around the world and a large Café au lait.

I fill my favorite biggest coffee mug half full of almond milk (lactose … gee whiz) and microwave it for 45 seconds (oh brother I know – but then I recall a story of a Chef who somehow got the ‘hint of mint’ in a salad and shocked the world when he revealed it was crushed altoids – find me a way to create my own minty dust and I’ll use it, the chef said) and then fill the mug with fresh perked Cafe Bustolo coffee.

Presto Chango – Café au lait!

Yes, I said perked as I got a new percolator for Christmas!

Today I clicked on and scrolled through the online front page of three or four newspapers and didn’t click on a single story.

All the headlines in all the newspapers were the same.

And they have been the same for the past week if not weeks.

Nothing new.

Nothing new to read.

Same, same, same, what a shame, shame, shame.

The only story that looked mildly interesting was ‘A wolf killed the EU president’s precious pony” but the headline was too crafted for me to believe it meant what it said and that the article would end up just being one more ad to sell me a time share.

Gaza.

Middle East.

Trump.

Border.

Weather.

Maybe that’s it.

The news has become just like the weather in that everyone talks about these things, Gaza, Middle East, Trump, Border and the weather … but no one does anything about it.

Well, the Lions play for the championship of the National Football Conference of the National Football League tomorrow.

On that topic I could offer 2,197 links to articles explaining how the Lions will win.

Or I could offer 3,197 links to articles explaining why the Lions will lose.

And I could offer 12,197 links to articles explaining how to bet the game and how to manage the odds, the over-under, the plus-minus as well as how to bet if it rains.

I’ll save you the trouble of reading all that.

The Lions will win.

Betcha a quarter!

1.26.2024 – fog, little cat feet

fog, little cat feet
sits looking over harbor
on silent haunches

From Fog in Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg (Henry Holt and Company, 1916).

I will bet you one dollar you knew this poem.

I will double that bet and guess you knew it was Mr. Sandburg.

I will double that bet and guess that its the only poem by Mr. Sandburg you know.

Maybe a safe bet, but if there are two things I hope from all this is that most folks know this poem and that it is by this poet and for today, and you know what, that is enough!

So let us go on out to the kitchen and grab ourselves a beer to celebrate if I won or do the same thing if I lost.

Fog as published in Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg (Henry Holt and Company, 1916).

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

By the way with a 60 degree swing in the temperature since last weekend and with the ocean still at about 55 degrees, we gots ourselves a FOG warning here in the Low Country / Coastal Empire.

That’s what they call it down here.

1.25.2024 – briefest moments can

briefest moments can
have explosive power that
overwhelm the times

Back to Jim Harrison, but then I am driving to work so Mr. Harrison is much on my mind when I sit down at me desk.

In the sometimes painful book True North (Grove Press, 2005), Mr. Harrison writes:

The easily perceptible linear thread through our lives causes a basic misunderstanding when we tend to give the same weight to years, months, and days.

The briefest moments can have an explosive power that overwhelms the time around them including what preceded them.

It occurred to me that my own point of view was unique on earth but this was not a comforting idea. Wherever I stood and looked I was the only one there.

The easily perceptible linear thread I thought was very good especially on a warm humid morning in January in the Low Country of South Carolina.

I drove the east towards the ocean into a thick fog bank that reduced my world to about 10 feet in front of me and 10 feet behind.

Nothing was easily perceptible.

Everything was hidden, even the great Atlantic Ocean that covers 20 percent of the earth’s surface.

I got to work and parked in the quiet of a gray, wet morning in January in a summer resort town.

Quiet.

But there was this sound in the background as I walked the path to my office.

I couldn’t place it.

I figured out that through some freak of acoustics in the fog, I could hear the ocean.

Couldn’t see it, but I could hear it.

Moments that can change lives can cause a basic misunderstanding when we tend to give the same weight to years, months, and days.

Our own point of view is unique on earth.

Wherever you stand and look, you are the only one there.

But keep in mind this.

In one of Anthony Bourdain (if there was ever a literary complimentary combination like that of bacon with eggs it would be Bourdain and Harrison) shows, Mr. Bourdain spent the day with taggers, those folks who decorate subway cars in New York City.

These fellers described how they would paint a car in a certain pattern and then sit in a certain location with their buddies, a place were their point of view was unique on earth, and wait for hours and hours for that specific car with that specific pattern to come by.

Sometimes, when a train with car showed up, it would be going the wrong way and the pattern would be on the side away from that their point of view was unique on earth.

The briefest moments can have an explosive power that overwhelms the time around them including what preceded them.

And sometimes, those moments are facing the wrong way.

The truly goofy part of my illustration of the taggers is that THEY KNOW they missed the moment as they say the other side of the car.

How many moments, explosive moments, come and go, never revealed.

Can you march to a different drummer when you don’t hear the drum?

Lots of thoughts for a foggy morning.

To be honest, I just liked the painting Mr. Harrison did with his words.

I continued down the beach past the path to my tourist cabin toward the estuary of the Sucker River a mile or two distant. The moon’s sheen on the water followed me as I walked for reasons not clear to me. It occurred to me that my own point of view was unique on earth but this was not a comforting idea. Wherever I stood and looked I was the only one there. The few sounds of the village diminished, and I mostly heard my feet in the damp sand, and then a loon call ahead in the estuarine area. To the left far out in Lake Superior the lights of a freighter made their slow passage to the west. I heard a coyote out on a forested promontory called Lonesome Point and single dog.