1.4.2023 – The Elfstedentocht

The Elfstedentocht
nonmaterial losses
commemorated

These scenes were so iconic, so Dutch, that I felt a bit bereaved, when I moved to the Netherlands more than 20 years ago, to realize that the world they showed was gone — and that thanks to climate change, it wouldn’t be coming back. Even the Elfstedentocht, the skating race through the 11 historic cities of Friesland that is one of the country’s most beloved national traditions and has been held 15 times since 1909, was passing from memory. The ice has to reach a certain thickness for it to be safely held, and the ice no longer reaches that thickness. What I found, in place of the sparkling white winters of the old paintings, was month after month of tepid drizzle.

How can such nonmaterial losses be commemorated? As long as we are unable to see them as losses, we can keep refusing to see what has caused them and keep hoping that they still, someday, might be reversed. The Elfstedentocht is like a relative whose small plane went missing a few years ago and whose loved ones still hope that he could, one day, stumble into town. They all know he’s dead, of course. But it feels too cruel to be the first to say it — too painful to erect a gravestone without so much as a corpse.

From the Guest Opinion piece, Waiting for Snow in the Netherlands, by Benjamin Moser, the author of “The Upside-Down World: Meetings With the Dutch Masters.”

Sure.

I just wanted to use the word, Elfstedentocht.

Aside from that I am forming a theory that every generation feels like they just missed out on something because of when they born and also because of how old they are getting, they are starting to lose out on something as well.

That I even typed this statement out reminds of the story that Secretary of State John Hay (a man who made a career out of having been Abraham Lincoln’s 2nd personal secretary) once said to Theodore Roosevelt, “There is one thing I admire about you, Theodore, it‘s your original discovery of the Ten Commandments.”

Anyway, so I regret that I missed out on what I never had and I regret what I perceive is being lost.

Welcome to the old age club I guess.

The old ways are changing.

And Mr. Churchill did say, “To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.”*

2024 will be a year of changes.

People will disagree on what should be changed.

People will disagree on why things should be changed.

People will disagree on whether or not the changes are good or bad.

People all agree 2024 will be a year of changes.

I am prepared to regret what I missed out on that I never had and to regret what I perceive is being lost.

Because I will remember the line before Mr. Churchill said, “To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.“

Before Mr. Churchill said, “To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often,” he said this.

“There is nothing wrong in change, if it is in the right direction.”

*The quote was traced by Jonah Triebwasser to The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill, by James C. Humes, but no further. It appears to be part of an exchange in the House of Commons with Philip Snowden when Churchill defended his first budget in 1924, cf. “Ephesian” [Bechover Roberts], Winston Churchill, second edition, p. 288.

1.3.2023 – so always have hope

so always have hope
it can be hard to find hope
but always have it …

Kate Kellaway, a feature writer and deputy theatre critic for the Observer, interviewed the author, Michael Rosen and published it under the headline, “Michael Rosen: ‘My daughter once called me an “optimistic nihilist.”

That headline caught my eye so I read the interview even though I had never heard of Mr. Rosem.

Ms. Kellaway asks, “In The Big Dreaming, you have three catchphrases – “happiness right now”, “safe path home” and “have hope”. Why this trio?”

Mr. Rosen responded with: Happiness is worth striving for but the problem is, the more you strive for it, the less you get it. You have, somehow, to happen upon it in a light way. And about the safe path back home… one thing I learned in rehab is that, at the end of the day, you have to help yourself.

Ms. Kellaway asks, “And hope?”

Mr. Rosen responded with: “You can’t go to the next minute if you don’t have hope. My daughter once said: “Dad, you’re an optimistic nihilist.” I said: “What’s that?” And she said: “Well, you don’t believe in anything divine but you’re optimistic about life.” And I said: “Yes, it’s not much fun to be pessimistic about it.” So always have hope. It can be hard to find. But always have it.”

Happiness right now.

Safe path home.

Have hope.

It’s not much fun to be pessimistic about it.

So always have hope.

It can be hard to find.

But always have it.

Not bad to start the New Year.

Though ….

Yet …

I am reminded of how the movie, PATTON, ends with a voiceover of George C. Scott reading something General George S. Patton wrote.

“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”

I can say always have hope.

But whispering in my ear a warning is the voice of Morgan Freeman saying, “Hope is a dangerous thing. Drive a man insane. It’s got no place here.”

You buys your ticket and you takes your chance I guess.

Take a walk on the wild side.

Always have hope.

1.2.2023 – thank you Fielding Yost!

thank you Fielding Yost!
for that one … looking down from …
football Valhalla

I grew up in a Michigan Football family.

My text messaging has been blowing up the last few hours just with texts from family let alone friends.

But I did NOT grow up in a Bob Ufer family.

There were two radio stations that broadcast Michigan football when I was growing up.

In the beginning there were a lot more as there was no Michigan radio network and every little two bit radio station in Michigan that could afford a telephone hookup sent there local guy to broadcast the game.

I can remember when the Michigan Press Box would be covered with Radio Station call sign banners.

One of those stations was always the University of Michigan station, WUOM (WVGR in Grand Rapids where we lived) and deep calm voice of Tom Hemingway.

This was the voice of my fall memories as my Dad would tune in the game and play it over his super HiFi sound system every Saturday.

Then in Ann Arbor there was WPAG with local hero, Bob Ufer who had a different style of broadcasting altogether.

The main Michigan commercial broadcast was over station CKLW in Windsor, Canada.

Some folks thought this was just crazy.

Until it was explained that Michigan’s Athletics’ Director Don Canham had picked CKLW BECAUSE it was outside the USA and not controlled by the FCC and had a broadcast wattage that let fans listen to Michigan football games .. in GUAM.

Yep, Canham was crazy.

Then in 1976, Michigan signed an agreement in WJR in Detroit, another huge station and announced that Bob Ufer would be the lead announcer.

My Dad couldn’t believe it.

The rule of thumb was that there were two games.

The game as it was played.

And the game as Ufer described it.

Ufer had an old air horn with a rubber bulb that he claimed he took of the jeep if General George Patton.

When Michigan scored a touchdown, he would honk the horn announcing another march down the field to victory just the way Patton scored those victories over those nazi’s in World War 2.

Truly the guy had to heard to be believed.

Here is one game.

The goofy thing is … I was there … and that is just how I remember it.

According to legend, Ufer was asked to speak at a banquet before one of the Rose Bowl Games.

Dandy Don Meredith was the scheduled main speaker and the organizers thought Ufer would be good to warm up the crowd before Don took the podium.

Ufer spoke and he spoke like Ufer.

Don got up, went to the podium and said, “How can I follow that guy?” and sat down.

ANYWAY, in reembrace of Ufe, who cares?

Who gives a damn?

I have never been so happy in all my life.

1.1.2023 – deracinated

deracinated
version of old lie, which she
carefully crafted

Starting off with a story I have already commented on but Sidney Blumenthal’s article, Nikki Haley’s comment on the US civil war was no gaffe, used the word ‘deracinated’ and I couldn’t let that go by.

Mr. Blumenthal writes: Though it was a stumble, it was not a mistake, but a message she has delivered for years and that has served her well until now. Her carefully crafted and closely memorized garble was a deracinated version of an old lie, which she had used before to attempt to mollify hostile camps in order to skid by.

Deracinated, by the way, is defined, “uprooted from one’s natural geographical, social, or cultural environment.”

When I read, “Her carefully crafted and closely memorized garble was a deracinated version of an old lie” I immediately called to mind Mr. Twain and his short story, The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg.

Mr. Twain writes, “There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.”

Ms. Haley isn’t in South Carolina any more.

Reading Mr. Blumenthal’s article helped me understand, all over again, what politics is all about in the south.

In a goofy way, I appreciate Mr. Trump because I had bought into the notion of a New South but what I took for new growth was really just band-aids and scabs.

It took Mr. Trump, for different reasons, to tear off the band-aid and rip away the scabs and so the old ways are still there.

12.31.2023 – wasn’t just football

wasn’t just football …
felt bigger than that – We were …
in it together

And it wasn’t just about football. It felt bigger than that — as if joining a massive crowd is novel and embarrassingly spiritual. We were in it together.

From the New York Times Guest Opinion piece, I Was Transformed by the Best Cult Ever: Michigan Football, (Dec. 31, 2023). By Jaime Lowe.

Ms. Lowe is the author of, most recently, “Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California’s Wildfires” and a Knight-Wallace fellow at Michigan.

I can write that you either get it or you don’t.

You are a part of this or you aren’t.

And I will admit, that you could read this story from the perspective of any college football teams and their alumni/fan following in America today.

… Just not on the front page of the New York Times.

Maybe on some fan blog.

Maybe on the school’s alumni website.

Maybe in the local newspaper from the home town of that college.

… Just not on the front page … of the New York Times.

Ms. Lowe writes:

I entered the Big House again and again, for the rest of the season. For seven home games, I understood more about why I gravitated to the stadium. Something clicked. My mood, upon entering, changed immediately. I was swept up in frenetic joy. It was as if we, the fans, were a superorganism.

Through football, my mental health shifted; I was happy for the first time in a long time. I found strangers who became friends; long-lost friends (die-hard Michigan fans) who re-emerged in my life; relatives and colleagues who were alumni cheering on my cheering from afar.

In 2021, the Stanford literature professor Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht wrote a book about crowds and stadiums as a ritual of intensity. He covered the idea that crowds can open humans up to experiences beyond ourselves.

Since Covid, these gatherings are more pronounced. I realize escape is a privilege, but for me the season pass was cheaper than one session of therapy.

I am now a person who knows that in 1939, a live wolverine in a cage was paraded around the field at halftime. I stormed the field after the win over Ohio State — our last home game — and woke up with a sprained toe, four bruises, no ability to talk because I had been screaming, a sunburn (it was 19 degrees that morning, so who knows how that happened) and a spiritual awakening.

So we stole some signs.

So we ignored the NCAA.

So what!

We get it.

Because at some point in our lives, we have stormed the field after the win over Ohio State.

Woke up with a sprained toe, four bruises.

No ability to talk because we had been screaming.

A sunburn (it was 19 degrees that morning, so who knows how that happened).

And a spiritual awakening.

We are in it, TOGETHER.

You can read all about here.

In the New York Times.