1.22.2026 – say yes, we will be

say yes, we will be
appreciative, or say no
we will remember

The Haiku is based on a quote from the leader of the free world [sic] speaking to the World Economic Forum, an international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland.

According to Wikipedia, the forum’s stated mission is “improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas.”

Leaders from across the world meet once a year in a conference organized by the World Economic Forum to talk about what might be done to improve the state of the world.

This feller currently in office gave a speech and Bret Stephens, an opinion columnist for the New York Times was there to hear it.

Mr. Stephens, a conservative of the pre-trump era, discussed the speech in a back-and-forth article with liberal opinion columnist, Frank Bruni.

Is this meeting of world leaders, coming together to discuss improving the state of the world, Mr. Stephens writes:

And then there was Trump’s speech, for which I was in the audience. It was like a geopolitical version of a Mafia shakedown. “You can say yes and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no and we will remember.” That was Trump’s message to Denmark on the subject of ceding Greenland. It was like watching a scene from “The Sopranos.”

He also terrified. Going into the speech, I was almost sure that what he really wanted was to gain some control of Greenland’s mineral resources. Leaving the speech, I was absolutely sure he means to take the whole island, and that his negotiating tactic will be to tie Danish cession of the territory to America’s continued participation in NATO.

Mr. Stephens is younger than I am.

He referenced the TV Mafia show, The Soprano’s.

I had another thought from another Mafia movie.

And the line that came to my mind, as this feller stood in front of this meeting of world leaders, coming together to discuss improving the state of the world, was this feller was making the rest of the world … an offer they couldn’t refuse.

I like to tell the story of my first day in kindergarten at Grand Rapids Crestview Elementary class.

Another kid, and this was 60 years ago, I clearly remember it, came up to me in the play area of the classroom, introduced himself and then to establish the pecking order, slugged me in the ear.

This, I said to myself at age five, is upper education?

I didn’t know it at the time, but that is exactly what it was.

I was skinny, always about 20lbs under weight for a kid my age and wore glasses.

That was the fall of 1965.

For the next 11 years of public education, I waited everyday for someone to slug me in the head.

Sometimes I deserved it as I had a mouth but most of the time is was because someone could.

Not that they were always bigger than me but that they had that outlook.

They could slug me so they did.

My first weeks of junior high were absolute terror as this one little kid figured out he could slug me in the head and I wouldn’t retaliate.

Never found out why, but this kid was transferred to another class and the daily confrontations went away until the next year when another little kid found it he could hit me with impunity.

I had read by then, Roughing It, Mark Twain’s book on life in the Great American West after the Civil War and Mr. Twain wrote about shootings in Virginia City, Nevada, that:

The reason why there was so much slaughtering done, was, that in a new mining district the rough element predominates, and. a person is not respected until he has ‘‘killed his man.’’ That was the very expression used.

If an unknown individual arrived, they did not inquire if he was capable, honest, industrious, but— had he killed his man? If he had not, he gravitated to his natural and proper position, that of a man of small consequence; if he had, the cordiality of his reception was graduated according to the number of his dead. It was tedious work struggling up to a position of influence with bloodless hands; but when a man came with the blood of half a dozen men on his soul, his worth was recognized at once and his acquaintance sought.

Boy Howdy but I knew exactly what he was writing about.

In Grand Rapids Public Schools you were respected by the number of kids you slugged … or could slug.

Sad to say I have to admit I was not above this and I looked for my kid to slug but the ridiculousness getting slugged by me just added to the pathos of the moment.

Since getting slugged didn’t kill you, I was there as a mark for lots of other students who needed someone to slug.

It was what it was.

I tried to learn to keep my head down.

The only tool these guys had was a hammer and if I stood out, I would get hammered down.

Of course being me, I had a very hard time trying to stay quiet.

Then I got to Grand Rapids Creston High School.

It had three stories.

The bottom floor had the offices, some classrooms and the print shop, the metal shop and the wood shop.

Most of the other classes were on the 2nd and 3rd floor.

Not wanting to get into other discussions on life, but it didn’t take long to see a general sifting of the population.

The bullies in my life pretty much stayed on the first floor.

I entered the world of Latin and Physics and such and found refuge on the 2nd and 3rd floors.

I felt like I had arrived.

Or, I felt like I had escaped.

But that first year at Creston, my sophomore year, all the students had to take what was called ‘American Life‘ which was the new way to teach history.

This class was still on the first floor.

And as you had to take and pass the class, there was a certain element of students who were still taking this class in their senior year.

One day walking down the hall, two other students who had made my life what it was in junior high school were standing outside the classroom.

One of them was taking American Life for the 3rd, maybe the 4th time and the other was standing there with him to commiserate over the situation.

I looked down and tried to walk past them into the classroom and not be noticed and at the last minute the one kid who wasn’t in my class gave the door a shove so that it smacked into my shoulder hard, bounced me off the other side of the doorway and knocked my books my hand.

Before I could stop myself I looked him in the eye and called him an obscenity.

Then I stooped and gathered my books and got into class and sat down.

The teacher walked in and as class started the other kid slowly came in, glaring at me.

He came up behind me and stooped down and whispered in my ear, “He is going to kick your ass.”

I shrugged, been there done that.

And I waited.

When the class came to an end, I got my stuff together and went to door.

I looked out, looked left and right.

Just out the door was the back stairs to the upper floors and I ran for it.

And that was where it ended.

I don’t know what happened, most likely they just forgot, but I never got my ass kicked.

That stays in my mind as my last real clash with the jungle, with the world of the first floor.

Those feelings of dread and doom slowly went away from being a part of daily life.

That is …

Until now.

Bullies in high places.

The first floor is ruling the jungle once more.

And of late in these posts, I keep coming back to this.

Someone I know who defends the feller in office said that he supports him, “because he fights my battles for me.”

Gee whiz, what kind of battles did you need fighting?

Picking on Greenland?

To be a world leader in history, I guess that feller has to ‘kill his man.’

So everybody said, so everybody believed, and so they will always say and believe.

For myself, I like Greenland just as it is and there has to be a 2nd floor around here somewhere.

1.7.2026 – if not enjoying

if not enjoying
a volume, put it down and
move on to the next

Don’t force it: If you’re not enjoying a volume, put it down and move on to the next. “I am a huge advocate for not finishing a book,” says Menzies. “If you don’t like a book, no one’s judging you. You’re not failing.”

In a reading rut? How to get back into reading for fun by Madeleine Aggeler

Ms. Aggler is quoting a Morgan Menzies, who is a literary curator and social media influencer.

I am not sure exactly what a literary curator and social media influencer is or does but there you are.

Ms. Aggler closes with Make it fun Finally, make sure you’re having a good time.

And again quotes literary curator and social media influencer Menzies who says, “Reading is something that should bring you joy. There’s a lot you can gain from it.”

Make it fun?

Far be it from me to differ or question a literary curator and social media influencer, but how does one MAKE something FUN for someone else.

I recall a passage in the biography of Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes, Jr., where the author states:

The men who came to the Holmes house to tea, to dinner — Emerson, Dr. James Freeman Clarke, Mr. Lowell, Mr. Appleton — never read a book because it was the thing to do. They read with passionate interest and with passionate interest discussed what they had read.

Passionate interest.

I put it to you that if you are passionately interested in something, reading about it, be it fishing, football or how coffee was brought to the US Army on France in World War 2 (and a history of the US ARMY Coffee Service in WW2 is fascinating), will be FUN.

I started reading right off.

I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t passionately interested in EVERYTHING and I wanted to read everything.

My parents bought the 1st and 2nd grade readers (real Dick and Jane books) when I was in kindergarten.

When I got to 1st grade, I asked the teacher, what else you got?

I remember in 8th grade I had to take a reading comprehension test and got called into the hall to be asked if I cheated as I scored higher on the test than mathematically anyone should have been able to score.

I will say that early on I also learned to start a book and say NOPE.

Sometimes it’s the opening language.

Sometimes the story doesn’t make it to the land of suspension of disbelief.

Sometimes it’s factual. I recently picked up a new book on the Nuremburg Trials after WW2 ( a book maybe prompted by the recent film) and on page two the author pointed out that the United States would be represented by Chief Justice Robert Jackson.

Well folks, it was Associate Justice Robert Jackson in Nuremburg and Chief Justice Harlon Fiske Stone stayed happily in Washington during the trial and that was as far as I got into the book.

So it was with some wonder when back in sixth grade I got my report card from Grand Rapids Crestview Elementary school.

The report cards at that time had three rows for marks.

Above expectation was row one.

Satisfactory was row two.

Unsatisfactory was row three.

We just used the short hand of saying did we get row 1 or row 2 or the dreaded row 3.

My Mom came home from Parent / Teacher conferences and handed me my card from Mr. Vanderwheel.

Behavior and all that was pretty much row three but the classroom work, English, Social Studies and Math were all Row 1 and Row 2.

At the bottom was one heading that was circled in red.

Reading.

I got a third row.

Mom let me look at at for a bit.

Then she said, “Mr. Vanderwheel says you spend most of the day with you nose in a book.”

I held out the card with my face one big question mark,

“But,” she said, “You have yet to turn in any book reports.”

Book reports?

We had to turn in two book reports a marking period.

One pagers with title, author, short synopsis and what you learned.

Well, what did that I have to do with reading I wanted to know.

It wasn’t my first time my lack of devotion to just-do-the-work and my outlook on education came into conflict.

All a book report, a REQUIRED Book report, did was rob my reading of all passion and made it work and took all the fun out it.

By this time I had read Tom Sawyer and when Tom whitewashes the fence and Mr. Twain wrote, ” … he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do,” I knew exactly what Mr. Twain was saying.

If the point was reading, what more did Mr. Vanderwheel want?

I mean, boy howdy.

From then on, once a month, I would grab the first book I found in the library, get a piece of paper and as fast I could, write the title, author, a paragraph about what the book looked like it might be about and what I liked about it.

Meet George Washington by Joan Heilbroner – this book was about George Washington and the many things he learned while growing up in Virginia and building his home at Mount Vernon that helped him as he fought in the Revolutionary war and was the 1st President. My favorite part was when he took his army in boats across the river to attack the Hessians at Trenton and Princeton. It is a good book and we should all read it.

I got 1st rows in reading.

There was something to be learned from this and I learned a lot in school but often the lessons I learned weren’t in any lesson planner.

9.22.2025 – in the middle way

in the middle way
only fight to recover what
has been lost and found

East Coker, V (last section):

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”

From Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), (Harcourt, Brace & Company: New York, 1943) by T. S. Eliot (1888-1965).

I was out walking today in the low country South Carolina town of Bluffton.

Bluffton is part of the reason that this part of South Carolina is showing the fastest growth of almost anywhere in the United States.

Its a small town that back in 1990 had less than 900 people and now has over 40,000.

Things are coming to town like stoplights and roundabouts and sidewalks.

All things going modern and very fast.

Yet, as I walked down the sidewalk I noticed the east west straight line path of the sidewalk took a big loop that was out of line.

See, someone on the town planning commission noticed that make a nice, straight sidewalk, the city would have to take down a long leaf pine tree.

There are two types of pine trees that grow in the low country.

The lob lolly pine, the lumbermans delight, is fast-growing, especially in its first 50 years. Because of this, it’s heavily used in timber and pulpwood plantations where trees are typically harvested at 25–35 years old.

The long leaf pine can is much slower to mature. In its “grass stage,” it may stay low to the ground for up to 5–7 years, putting energy into its root system before shooting upward.

These trees can stick around for 250 to 300 years and some have been documented to have lived 400 years.

In an age when you can’t fight city hall, someone decided this tree which was here before we were and will most likely be here when we are gone, was worth making the effort to make a loop in a stretch of sidewalk.

For some reason, I found comfort in this.

For some reason, I found confidence that there is something here worth the fight.

Maybe we will lose again and again and again.

For us, there is only the trying.

The rest is not our business.

The trees will last longer than we do.

8.23.2025 – the greatest moment

the greatest moment
in sports history and I …
was there to see it

I am NOT the world’s biggest sports fan.

I know there are those who might argue that, and to those I respond that if anyone think’s that I am a big sports fan … has never met a big sports fan.

Sure I like Michigan sports but regular readers will know that its a family thing going back over 100 years so I come by it honestly.

Sure I have a lot of Michigan emblazoned stuff, but most of it was gifts so again, I come by it honestly.

Yes, I did just order myself a M Football Jersey for this year’s #42 but then this year, Michigan player wearing #42 happens to be named Jalen Hoffman so I can get a personalized jersey without ordering a personalized jersey so I come by it honestly.

The CEO of the company I used to work for was fond of saying, “33% of Americans love sports. 100% of American’s who love sports think EVERYONE loves sports.

I can agree with that.

I can also agree with the great sportswriter (and stepson of EB White) Roger Angell when he wrote …

“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look — I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable.

Almost.

What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring — caring deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives.

And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved.

Naïveté — the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball — seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

With that in mind, I have witnessed a couple of great moments in sports.

Along with my good friend, Doug, I witnessesed what was billed as a double header between The Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers at Comiskey Park back in 1979.

The 2nd game of the double header was never played as between games a riot took place when 8,000 fans rushed the field to take part in what was called Disco Demolition.

It might not have been sports but it has gone down in history as the world’s WORST sports promotion of all time.

And I was there.

Also with Doug, I witnessed Anthony Carter score a touchdown to beat Indiana with no time on the clock in Michigan Stadium.

Also in Michigan Stadium, I saw Desmond Howard fly 20 yards horizontally over the field for a touchdown to beat Notre Dame and win the Heisman Trophy.

I saw Willie Horton hit a pinch hit home run to beat Texas and give Mark Fidrych another win in Tiger Stadium.

But the greatest moment in sports I ever saw happened in the gym at Crestview Elementary School in Grand Rapids, Michigan when I was in 4th grade.

Grand Rapids Crestview Elementary –
The Gym was the two story structure on the Left – That round cornered room was ‘my’ library – the doorway to the right of the library led to a flight of stairs down to my safety corner where Crestview students exchanged pleasantries with the kids on the Blessed Sacrament Bus which, I as the safety did nothing to suppress.

Back then, we didn’t have Phys Ed or a regular gym class but every other week or so, a Gym Teacher assigned to our school would show up and we would change into out gym shoes that hung on the back of our chairs, and file down to the gym for some directed physical activity.

(BTW to this day it is ingrained in me to ‘respect the hardwood’ and I cringe when I see people in street shoes out on a court but I digress.)

Aside from that, we would go the gym when our teacher needed a break or when she sensed we had a lot of pent up energy, like before Christmas when emotions ran high.

Without the Gym Teacher, it was up to our regular teacher to come up with something easy to do in the gym.

And the easiest thing to do in the gym was to get out a bunch of those big red rubber four square balls … and play dodge ball.

My 4th grade class met the usual demographics for 4th grade.

It was around 30 kids, half girls and half boys with some big kids and lots of little kids.

There were always a few kids who were born late in the year and started late and were ahead of the rest of us physically.

And then there was Cookie.

Cookie was the nicest kid, always had a big smile and a laugh.

He was just … big.

And he loved to play dodgeball.

When it came to dodgeball, he didn’t see the rest of us as kids but as targets.

Cookie didn’t just play dodgeball with us.

He played with us, playing dodgeball.

Ever see those videos of dogs herding sheep or maybe better, jackals circling a herd of water buffalo?

We would get to the gym and our teacher would go into the storage closet and toss out those rubber balls.

You remember those red rubber balls, don’t you?

The were red.

The were rubber.

And the surface was roughed up so you could get a grip on one.

The rough surface also had a way of grabbing onto you if thrown hard enough, and taking most of the skin off wherever it hit.

With the balls out on the gym floor, our teacher would get out of the way and Cookie would take over.

Cookie was such a master at this game that when word went out that the 4th grade and Cookie were playing dodgeball in the gym, other teachers realized they needed to go to the office for something and leave their classrooms to stand in the gym doorway and watch.

There would be a mad rush to start as we tried to survive.

The girls would usually pick up a ball and toss it at another girl to get out quickly.

I not too proud to admit, the boys would do the same thing.

But to get out quickly just delayed the inevitable since when who ever got you out, got out, you were back in.

The only way to the sidelines and safety was to let Cookie get you and get it over with.

Cookie playing dodgeball was art in motion.

He could throw and throw hard.

He could catch.

And he could dodge anything.

He once set his sites on me so I stood behind a friend of mine for safety.

Cookie flexed his fingers as he threw and that ball spun and curved in flight right around my friend and smacked me in the face.

Like I said, Cookie was the nicest kid.

He took it easy on the girls.

There was an unspoked agreement and the girls could run at Cookie and throw a ball at him which he would catch and the girl could go safely to the sidelines.

If I would stand up straight in the middle of the gym floor, Cookie would have mercy and finish me off with a nice easy throw that if it hit me on a bare arm, would leave a mark only for a day or two and I could walk off.

But show detemination?

Show courage?

Make an effort to get Cookie out?

And you were doomed.

Unless you had a plan.

For a long time, the third-baseman-playing-close-to-close-the-cone theory made popular by Graig Nettles of the New York Yankees stuck in my mind.

I thought about dodgeball late at night and I had figured that if I ran in close to Cookie and closed the cone, I would decrease the amount of time the ball had to pick up speed, and maybe I would have a reasonable chance to catch the ball and put Cookie out.

It might have worked for Graig Nettles but I doubt it and it didn’t work for me.

Let me tell you though, if Graig Nettles had been with us in that gym and been hit with a Cookie fastball, he would have given up on the idea, like I did.

All the time the game was going on, balls flying, kids flying, kids screaming, Cookie waded through the battle with his big smile on his and slowly but surely, knocked everyone in class out, every time we played.

Understand, Cookie played without malice but with a joy for the game and the fact that he played dodgeball so well.

Then came the day.

As I remember it for the sake of this story, it was a gray rainy Michigan day which meant no recess and our teacher went to the office to reserve the gym for our class.

When she came she announced no outside recess and to change into our gym shoes.

“Let’s play …”, and she paused, “dodgeball.”

The room took on the feeling of an NFL locker room for a team about to play the ’85 Chicago Bears.

We all changed into our gym shoes in silence while Cookie smiled his smile.

As always there were a couple of boys who were up for the game.

Walking down the hall to the Gym, Cal and Sylvester and Edward and some others would be trash talking Cookie.

“Today’s the day, Cookie!”

“You going down, Cook!” … and other such phrases.

Years later when people complained about the Fab Five Michigan Basketball team and their trash talking, I told folks, they hadn’t heard anything like my 4th grade class.

Tension and excitement built up down that long walk to the gym.

Once inside the gym, we scattered but there is no place to hide on a gym floor.

I can hear the sound those bouncing red rubber balls made when our Teacher tossed them out onto the gym floor.

She looked around, counted one … two … three and blew her whistle.

And the game was on.

Get Cookie early was the strategy, when the early melee was starting, filled with confusion.

But even if someone did get a chance to get a throw at Cookie, he would catch any ball like an all pro wide reviver.

Cookie was so quick and he got one of two of balls early and started picking us off, one by one.

Within five minutes, half the class was the sidelines.

As the sidelines crowd grew, so did the ohhhsssssss and ahhhhhs like what you hear at the 4th of July fireworks as one kid after another was blasted out of the game.

There would be an occasional burst of action when someone who had managed to get other kids out, got out themselves and those kids had to get back in the game.

Soon it was down to 6 kids then 5 then 4 and then all that was left was Cookie, Cal and little Stevie.

Stevie was one of those kids who always had a smile on his face no matter what.

Stevie was quiet but always gave 100% no matter what the class was doing and he was always up for any game in the gym.

Now Stevie and Cal faced off with Cookie

Luck was with them and they had all the rubber balls and Cal and Stevie were able to work Cookie into a corner.

Cal motioned to Stevie and they both approached Cookie at the same time along opposite walls with a ball ready to throw.

Great strategy!

I can still see Cal staring straight ahead at Cookie while he gestured to Stevie to move in along the other wall.

They got to within 20 feet when Cal nodded at Stevie and they both threw as hard as the could at Cookie at the same time.

Cookie jumped to one side and caught Cal’s throw one handed.

Cal was out.

Stevie’s throw missed.

Cookie stood up and smiled.

Stevie ran for the other two balls which he threw as he ran and Cookie dodged easily.

Now Cookie held one ball and all three other balls were behind him.

Stevie stood alone in the center of the gym.

And they stared at each other.

Then Cookie taunted Stevie and he rolled the other balls out, daring Stevie to make a move to get one.

Stevie didn’t move.

Cookie took a step or two closer and faked a throw.

Stevie didn’t flinch.

Then Cookie stared at Stevie, drew a bead, as they say, on him and fired off the single hardest throw in dodgeball history.

Faster than a bullet, it hit Stevie full in the chest with a loud red rubber ball WHUMP and knocked him off his feet into the air and back about 5 yards.

I want to say it knocked Stevie out of his shoes, into the air and he fell hard, flat on on his back and then slid about 20 feet on the polished hardwood.

No one made a sound.

Stevie laid there on the gym floor.

We first thought he was dead.

Little Stevie just laid there.

When the ball hit him, his whole body had kind of crumpled up, arms and legs, in a tangle and Stevie just laid there.

Stevie just laid there and there, against his chest, under his arms and legs … was the ball.

The gym was silent.

We looked and looked again.

Cookie looked and looked again and then looked down.

Yessir, Stevie had wrapped himself around the ball and landed on his back!

It had happened!

Little Stevie had caught the ball!

Cookie was out!

Cookie for a second stopped smiling then he nodded with appreciation at what had just happened and smiled.

Stevie got to his feet, his arms still wrapped around the ball like he was never going to let go and his face was one big smile.

The Gym exploded with that the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball.

It was the greatest thing in Sports I had ever seen and will ever see.

I will never forget it.

8.6.2025 – night sunrise daylight

night sunrise daylight
sunset nautical twilight
astronomical!

There are a lot things that someone who spent the first 50 years of their life in the Great Lakes state of Michigan has to adjust if they move south.

A lot of things, LET ME TELL YOU!

You do adjust.

I once went to a company breakfast, got a bowl, broke a biscuit in half and put it in the bowl, put some sausage patties on the biscuits, covered the sausage with scrambled eggs, added some grits on top of the eggs and covered it all with sausage gravy … and never thought nothing about it.

But I digress.

Something no one ever mentioned to me is what happens to twilight when you move south.

I now live in Bluffton, SC which is almost 1,000 miles south or 10 degrees of latitude (32°14′14″N to 42°57′48″N) south of Grand Rapids, where I grew up.

Look out the window and you see the orange sky of sunset.

Put on your shoes and go outside and by the time your get outside, its dark.

Using the wonderful calculator at https://suncalc.net/, I learned that in Grand Rapids, the difference between official SUNSET and NIGHT is 110 minutes while in Bluffton, due to curvature and angle of the earth, it is only 86 minutes.

This is defined using the wonderful delimiters of sunrise, sunset, daylight, night along with civil twilight, nautical twilight, astronomical twilight.

24 minutes may not seem like a lot but when it gets dark down here, someone hits a switch and it’s dark!

There is none of the lingering twilight that I remember as a kid growing up when the twilight went on forever.

Garrison Keillor once wrote (or said) that … “kids didn’t need a watch; they could tell time by the sun. Noon was when your shadow was shortest.”

I know what Mr. Keillor means.

Growing up I never wore a watch but always seemed to know what time it was.

Seems to me that the rule was to be inside “when the street lights came on” and with the lingering twilight of Western Michigan, we could be outside for a long time.

The City of Grand Rapids had a moment of wisdom somewhere in its history and the city officially adhered to what was the called the CITY SCHOOL/CITY PARK PLAN.

This plan called for large public parks to be built up around public schools so that neighborhoods got fields and playgrounds that the kids used for recess during the school year.

Schools weren’t surrounded by businesses or factories, but by a ball field and a black top and playground equipment and some woods if possible.

In our neighbor, the school was Crestview Elementary.

It was built during the baby boom expansion of the North End of Grand Rapids.

It was U shaped with the main entrance, which kids never used, at the outside top of the U and a blacktop connecting the two arms of the U.

The black top had a basketball court painted in thick yellow lines along with more yellow lines for hopscotch and four square.

Across the black top was our playground.

It was a square, surrounded by a chain link fence with gates at the bottom and on the right, if you had your back to the school.

It had a merry go round of heavy, thick rusted metal that screamed “get a cut, get tetanus” and it was on some sort of spindle that groaned and moaned as it spun over a concrete base with space just wide enough to stick your arm under and get it sliced off with no trouble if you weren’t careful.

Every once in a while, the mechanism got lubricated or something and with a couple of kids pushing, you could reach g forces that rivaled a NASA centrifuge and if you weren’t careful, you could let go and fly across the playground.

A few rides on the merry go ground and you were also ready to lose your lunch if you didn’t sit down for a while.

Across from the merry Go round were the blocks and barrels.

The blocks were big concrete blocks with letters about 3 feet wide on each side and must have weighed a ton each.

The were piled up for us to climb on and crawl over.

The barrels where sections of giant water pipe at least 4 feet in diameter as when we were in the lower grades, we could walk through them standing up.

Little kids walked through them.

Bigger kids ran and jumped to sit on top which was no easy feat as there was nothing to grab on top so you could go up and right over and right over and down head first.

The biggest kids and the dare devils would stand on the barrels and run and jump from barrel to barrel.

As I remember, there where five barrels in a line that was slightly curved and they were spaced further and further apart so you had to get your speed up to make that last jump as well as keep your footing on the very top of the barrel and since they weren’t lined up the chances of landing off center and losing your footing was very real.

Did I mention these barrels were also made of concrete?

Thank goodness for sneakers!

In the corner of the playground, opposite the merry go round was the monkey bars.

This was a scaffolding type arrangement of polished slippery pipe, in the circular shape of rocket and must have been about 20 feet high OR almost two stories!

You could climb and jump off or climb and hang down from the top INSIDE the monkey bars and drop.

Or you could climb and be pushed.

There was also a set of three sliders.

Two were about 10 feet high and then there was THE BIG SLIDER.

It also must have been about 20 feet high.

For a little kid, it was a vertical climb up a steel ladder to a 2 foot square platform with low rails.

It was better than any Cedar Point thrill ride and the threat of death was real!

There were teeter totters, horse swings and little kid swings.

All made made with heavy duty lumber and rusted metals with lots of sharp edges and splinters.

Across from this playground were the BIG SWINGS which were in there own chain link space and were supposed to be just for the upper elementary kids.

As I remember there was also an argument of morning recess vs afternoon recess and if the swings where reserved as BOY SWINGS or GIRL SWINGS.

Seems like no one ever knew, but you called if for your gender if you wanted to swing but for the most part swings were not much noticed but the big kids.

Past the playground was our field.

It had a pretty sad baseball diamond but it was huge expanse that went on forever.

It also had some steep hills were we would go sledding in Winter time but we couldn’t bring our sleds to school so me made slides on the hill that we slide in on in our snow boots.

Also in winter, the field was were we would have snow ball fights, usually the 6th grade boys against everyone else.

This was against the rules and every once in awhile participants would be marched off for a talk with the Principal but the snowball fights were always part winter recess.

It was as if the school and the Board of Education provided all this equipment and parkland to enougrage us to go out and get killed or at least maimed for life.

And here’s the thing.

I don’t remember one time when anyone was badly hurt or that an ambulance had to be called.

Today, schools would have an ambulance parked at the playground entrance.

Oh sure, the rumor flew around once that Timmy Sugiyama slipped jumping barrels and ‘CRACKED HIS HEAD OPEN’ and we came running to see.

I expected to see Timmy lying there with his skull cracked like an egg with his brain all over like a broke yolk but he was gone by the time I got there and Timmy later showed up with a big bandaid on his forehead and that was that.

This was during school mind you.

During the school day.

When school was out of it was summer time, this was out neighborhood park and often you would find your way to the park and just as often, friends from school would be there.

Back then kids didn’t need a watch; they could tell time by the sun. Noon was when your shadow was shortest.

And twilight was when you met your friends at the park.

Because in Michigan, twilight went on forever.