9.1.2022 – ask smoking or non

ask smoking or non
but wait, where does that seat us
after forty years

I was thinking about my Mom this past week.

Hard to believe that it was 9 years ago at the end of August, 2013, that she died.

It is almost more difficult to believe that she had lived the last 25 years of her life without my Dad.

Difficult to believe because in my mind, my Mom and my Dad were a couple, a couple together in my memory.

My family was lucky enough to have had a summer place on Lake Michigan.

This place played a large part in our family.

Yet when my Dad died, my Mom was ready to sell it.

To her, she told me, that was her place to be with Dad and without Dad …

This place on Lake Michigan was a cottage, or so we called it, that had to be winterized as well and prepped for summer early in the springtime.

I started going along with my Dad to close it as well as open it up so I could take over these chores.

I learned where the well was and how to turn off the pump and drain the pipes in the fall as well as prime the pump and fill the water tank in the spring.

At some point, I started taking a week off in the spring and I would stay out at the lake by myself and get the water turned on, the furnace going and do any painting or other small repairs that might be needed.

What I really did was make a pot of coffee in the morning and sat either by the water or if too cold (this would have been Michigan in May), next to the big picture windows looking out over the water and read all day.

One year in the middle of week, my Mom and Dad drove out from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where we lived to drop in on me.

There were also happy to have a cup of coffee and sit and look out over the water as we chatted about eveything and nothing.

Then my Dad suggested lunch.

I knew what that meant.

He wanted to go to local hamburg joint named Russ’.

It was bad English, but everyone called it ‘Russes’.

It had started in Holland, Michigan and we stopped there often when we were out that way and back in the 1980’s it was starting to expand and open locations in Grand Haven and Grand Rapids.

I knew my Dad wanted to order a hamburger they offered called the Big Dutchman.

Somewhere in Grand Haven there was a street sign near a school that said STOP – ALLOW CHILDREN TO CROSS.

Someone had taken a Russ’ bumper sticker and stuck it on the sign so that it read, STOP – ALLOW BIG DUTCHMAN TO CROSS.

My Dad would drive out of his way just to pass that sign and laugh and laugh.

It helps if you grew up Dutch and in West Michigan.

So off I went to Russes with my Mom and Dad.

And so the moment began.

Back in the 1980s, people smoked in public but it was popular if not required by law, that restaurants offer no smoking sections.

It didn’t matter if it was one big room, restaurants would say this side people can smoke and this side people can’t.

They all breathed the same air but there it was.

Russes tried to accommodate non smokers by building on new additions to their restaurants that would at least put smokers and non smokers in separated rooms.

My Mom liked non smoking.

My Dad liked service.

As we pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant, my Mom mentioned that she would prefer to sit in the non smoking section.

My Dad said that he had no problem with non smokers but that the location of the no smoking section at this location was down, back and around the corner from the kitchen.

“I will not sit back there.” my Dad said.

“Might as well as sit in Death Valley. No waitress goes back there.”

My Mom said that maybe things had changed and the non smoking section might have been moved to the front.

My Dad turned off the car and got out and said, “I am not sitting in Death Valley.”

Russes was the place to have lunch in Grand Haven and it was packed.

We had to wait for a bit and then the hostess called our name.

“HOFFMAN?”

From the name we were in the Dutch Club.

We walked up and the hostess asks, “Smoking or non?”

“Non smoking, please” my Mom answered.

The hostess grabbed three menus and asked to follow her.

My Mom and I walked off but my Dad held back and watched.

We walked down a long aisle between tables to the back of the dining room and turned right to go around the kitchen back to the no smoking section.

“Lorraine!”

“Lorraine!” my Dad YELLED.

We stopped and the hostess looked back.

My Dad was now running up the aisle and waving.

“Lorraine,” he said, at one of those moments where the entire restaurant went silent.

“I am 65 years old and I do not have to sit where I don’t want to sit. I will not sit back there.”

My Mom looked at him and then asked, “Where do you want to sit then?”

My Dad pointed at the first empty booth, still with some dirty dishes, and said, “Right there.”

My Mom looked at the hostess who was quick to say sure we could sit and sat my Dad did.

My Mom and I slid in the other side of the booth and the hostess removed the dirty dishes and handed out the menus.

My Dad picked up the menu and held it up high so he could read it through his bifocals.

I heard he say something about Death Valley then he said, “I think I’ll order a Big Dutchman.”

I bit my tongue to keep from saying something about stopping to allow Big Dutchman to sit where they want.

My Mom looked at me and I looked at my Mom.

She caught my glance shrugged with her eyes and held back a laugh as well.

My Mom was known for her hospitality.

My Mom was known for her laugh.

My Mom was known for her smile.

Once in Church when the Pastor was preaching about spiritual gifts and the fact that some folks had certain gifts and said something along the lines of the gift to always be smiling and happy in the way that if you SAT next to that person, you began to smile and feel happy.

Then the Pastor paused and said if you want to know HOW to do this .. go sit next to Mrs. Hoffman … and FIND OUT HOW SHES DOES IT!

My Mom sat across from Dad at Russes.

“Oh Bob,” she said.

They had been married 40 years.

My parents and sister Lisa at the lake with a cup of tea

7.30.2022 – acting normal is

acting normal is
crazy enough be average
we think that is good

I grew up in West Michigan.

I grew up in West Michigan because most of my ancestors immigrated from the Netherlands to West Michigan in the 1870’s.

One branch of the family came over from England in 1842 which is where my Civil War Soldier Great Great Grandfather came from but the rest were wearing wooden shoes and saying Hoe is het met je? while farming in Ottawa County.

Climb up my family tree and you meet Hofman’s, Hendrickson’s, Van Noord’s, De Young’s, Pell’s and other such folks.

That isn’t a typo for Hofman.

See, my Grandfather thought Hofman looked a little lopsided so added an extra ‘f’ to the name.

If you check that Ellis Island registry, you have to search for Hofman.

According to family lore, on Grandpa’s first day of school, the teacher called the role and when he came to Roloef Hofman (son of Kope … or was it Koop Hofman), the teacher said from now on I am going to call you Robert.

Robert liked that so much, changing the last name must have made sense as well.

Grandpa like his new first name so much, he also chose a middle name, an American idea as this is not a Dutch custom.

And he became Robert Karl.

Karl with a k.

To round it all off, he named his son, Robert.

My Grandma’s name was Pauline.

Pauline De Young.

Their son got her name in the middle.

Robert Paul Hoffman to be exact.

My Dad.

My Dad liked Robert Paul so much he named his son, Paul Robert.

But he liked his father’s name so much he named his third son, Robert Karl Hoffman.

My older brother Bobby.

To this, American’s added the fashionable title of Junior or Jr. to my brother’s name and he went down in history as Robert Hoffman, Jr.

Though to be correct, as we liked to point out, he should have been known as Robert K. Hoffman II.

Readers of this blog will remember that my name, Michael, was taken out of the box and tried out on my brother Tim for 2 or 3 days before my Dad decided that the new baby was NOT a Mike and filled out the birth certificate with the name Tim.

I was born 4 years later and got the slightly used name of Michael.

My Dad and Mom have to get a bit of grace on this as they did have to choose names for 8 boys along with 3 girls.

11 sets of names might present a challenge to some folks.

I might have seen it as a opportunity (if you know my kids names).

But my folks came through with some good, average names.

And it all started with being Dutch.

I recently came across the New York Times article, The Country That Wants to ‘Be Average’ vs. Jeff Bezos and His $500 Million Yacht By David Segal (July 29, 2022).

The article tells the story how a multi billionaire had a multi million dollar boat built in a shipyard separated from the sea by an old bridge in Rotterdam.

To get the boat out, the billionaire asked the city if he could have the old bridge taken down.

Not to worry, the old bridge would be put back, just the way it was, and the billionaire would pay for it all so no harm no foul.

But the Dutch said nope, nothing doing.

Mr. Segal writes:

“The Dutch like to say, ‘Acting normal is crazy enough,’” said Ellen Verkoelen, a City Council member and Rotterdam leader of the 50Plus Party, which works on behalf of pensioners. “And we think that rich people are not acting normal. Here in Holland, we don’t believe that everybody can be rich the way people do in America, where the sky is the limit. We think ‘Be average.’ That’s good enough.”

Acting normal is crazy enough.

Boy, Howdy ain’t that the truth.

Be average.

That’s good enough.

7.17.2022 – July Seventeenth

July Seventeenth
has been my birthday since
the day I was born

I was born 62 years ago today.

Hard to believe that I have made through 62 years, but I have always accepted that my guardian angels rack up a lot of overtime.

Like that moment I talk about when, standing behind a parked van waiting to cross a street, I didn’t bother to look and started walking out into the street.

My brain gave the command to start but for some reason my legs refused to move.

It was as if, I felt at the time, someone had a hold of my coat and I was frozen for a second.

Then a car went zooming past inches in front of me.

A car I had never seen coming.

I had never bothered to peek around the corner of that van.

Had my legs worked, I would have been a greasy spot on Lyon Street with no one to blame but myself.

I don’t go all Maradona-hand of God here but something, someone held me back.

BUT I DIGRESS.

I know the story of the day of birth.

I know it because it was told so often.

Not sure why, but in a family of 11 kids, it was my birthday that got talked about.

It was a Sunday in July and earlier that weekend, my Mom felt good enough to decide to have a big Sunday dinner.

Even with me on the way at any minute and seven kids already there, she also invited my Uncle Bud’s family to come over as well.

It was so exciting that I decided I wanted to show up but before my Mom and Dad went off to Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, my Mom called my Aunt Marion and told to her please still to come over after church that morning and could she get dinner on the table?

So it was that a little bit later that afternoon my Dad came home to see all his kids and guests around the Sunday Dinner table and announced, “It’s a boy!”

Many is the time my Aunt Marion would sit with me in our kitchen and point down the back hallway and say, ‘I can still see your Dad coming in, one hand raised in kind of a salute, saying, it’s a boy!’

My four brothers, now with a clear majority, cheered.

My three sisters, hoping for a fifty-fifty split all cried.

At least that is the story that was told as long as I can remember.

As for name, Mike, that had been picked out for years.

When my brother Tim had been born in 1956, he had been named Mike for a couple days.

Family history has it that when my Dad went down to fill out the paper work, he had one more look at the new baby and said, “Nope, he’s not a Mike.” and filled out the birth certificate for Timothy John Hoffman.

‘We will save Mike for the next one,’ Dad told Mom.

What Mom was thinking about ‘the next one’ at that moment has not been recorded.

And the next one was a girl, my sister Lisa.

But four years later, I showed up on that Sunday and my Dad took one look and said, ‘That’s a Mike.’

Since that day I have learned that there is something to that.

Think about it and I am sure there is in your life ‘a Mike.’

When folks tell me they chose the name Mike for a new baby, I shake my head and say, ‘You’ll be sorry.’

Mike Mike Mike, there is just something about the name and what can I say as it seems to be more of a label for what’s in the jar rather than just a name on the jar.

So July 17, 1960, to quote, Mr. Dickens’, I am born.

Born to cheers and tears and a used first name that would not have fit with anyone else in my family.

What a long strange trip it’s been … so far.

Mr. Dickens’ writes in his book David Copperfield:

In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighbourhood who had taken a lively interest in me several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born towards the small hours on a Friday night.

I will have to look up what being born on a Sunday at Noon means.

I have been a lot of things in life, but I can’t call unlucky one of them.

I hope I am smart enough to both enjoy the sunshine of God’s benevolence in my life as well as smart enough to not question my good fortune.

Because, you see George, I really have had a wonderful life.

The grands

BEAT THAT!

6.22.2022 – they did not value

they did not value
resources, communities
historic nature

Today’s haiku is adapted from a quote from US Representative Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico when she made a statement about the US Forest Service and that they made multiple miscalculations, used inaccurate models and underestimated how dry conditions were in the south-west, causing a planned burn to reduce the threat of wildfires to explode into the largest blaze in New Mexico’s recorded history.

Representative Fernández said, “These are complex issues. Starting a prescribed burn in an area where there are homes and watersheds and communities should be something that you take incredibly seriously because those are high value assets. They did not value the resources, the communities, the historic nature of these communities and so they went forward allowing more risk than they should have.”

She was speaking about forest management.

You could easily think she was talking about any number of things in the news right now.

When talking about right now I must be talking about rights.

Right to vote.

Right to have your vote counted.

Curious how right and right are the some word.

The online Merriam-Webster defines the words like this:

>Something to which one has a just claim.

>Conforming to facts or truth.

>Being in accordance with what is just, good, or proper.

>Qualities (such as adherence to duty or obedience to lawful authority) that together constitute the ideal of moral propriety or merit moral approval.

My thought this morning was to write about how difficult it has been of late to construct a daily haiku and write some commentary in a light hearted way when I am feeling anything but lighthearted.

I saw this quote of Representative Fernández’s and thought how easy it would be to use the words in a commentary on how so many decisions and actions are being taken today without any consideration to the value the resources, the communities, the historic nature of these communities and so they went forward allowing more risk than they should have.

Then by chance I hit that word right.

Seems there has been a major disconnect on the importance of this word.

Right.

Rights.

Right rights.

I am reminded of Proverbs 21:3 (NIV) –

To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.

It was a long time ago but I had to take a class in school to learn how to drive a car.

It was a free class offered by the Grand Rapids Public Schools, all you had to do was sign up.

The only restriction was that you had to turn 16 years old, legal driving age, either before the class started or by the time it finished to sign up.

In the winter of 1976, for reasons I have never understood, my Dad was interested in my getting a drivers license.

At the same time he also took a life insurance policy out of me.

Maybe he thought it was a good investment.

It was January and my birthday was in July and I knew that I couldn’t sign up until then but he kept after me to sign up for drivers ed.

Maybe he just wanted to avoid another summer of having a kid in drivers ed instead of during the school year.

To make him happy I went into the office and asked for a registration card and filled it out and dropped it in the office inbox and forgot about it.

I can’t say I have had many you-could-knock-me-over-with-a-feather shocks in my life but a week later, this would have been January still, I was walking home from school in the snow with my buddies when my Dad pulled up next to us in his car, rolled down the window and said, “get in.”

This NEVER HAPPENED.

The first thing that went through my mind was to examine my conscience to figure out what I done wrong.

Truthfully, the list was so long I most likely didn’t know where to start.

My buddies all looked at me with that oh-are-you-in-trouble look and they all moved away from me to get away from any possible shrapnel.

Very slowly and tentatively I opened the car door and got in my Dad’s car.

My Dad’s car was one of the pleasures’ he allowed himself to indulge in.

My Dad had driven a Thunderbird convertible in the early 1960’s when there might not have been a more coveted car in America.

He updated that to the Buick Riviera, which in the late ’60s had POWER EVERYTHING.

From the Riviera, he got a 1976 two door navy blue Mercury Cougar.

It was this car I was now sitting in.

15 years old and I learned how to drive in this car

Sitting in the front seat and waiting to find out what I had done.

My stomach was doing all kinds of calisthenics and I kept my mouth shut.

My Dad drove pulled away from the curb and said, “We are going to the park so I can show you have to drive. School called and you have Driver’s Ed at 4 o’clock!”

HUhhhhhhhhhhhhhh whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

Talk about you-could-knock-me-over-with-a-feather!

We got to the nearby Riverside Park and I was put in the drivers seat of my Dad’s Cougar and on a snow covered park road, I got a quick lesson in how to start a car, put it in gear and drive.

While I drove, my Dad explained that School had called and said that due to a cancellation there was an opening in the Drivers Ed class that started that day.

As it happened, my card was sitting out on the desk and the school was calling to see if I was eligible for the class.

See, when I filled out the card, I put my birthday as being in July, 1976!

The current year.

The school was calling to check if was old enough.

In other words, had I been born in 1959 (when I had been born in 1960).

My Dad said that my Mom had taken the call and she looked at Dad and asked what to say.

“TELL THEM YES!,” my Dad said.

About an hour later, I was dropped off back at school and found the Drivers Ed class where the teacher had my card in his hand.

“You Hoffman?” he asked.

I said yes and the class started.

The teacher started talking to the class about driving and getting a drivers license.

“Let’s get this straight right now,” he said.

“A drivers license is a PRIVILEDGE not a RIGHT.“

“Privileges’ can be taken away.“

“Rights cannot.”

I have never forgot that.

Living in this country, we have so many rights.

Why do we forget what a privilege this is?

1.1.2022 – opportunities

opportunities
move on, never wanted to
was living MY dream

Robert Wayne Hendrickson (1933 – 2021)

Some years back when I worked at WZZM13 TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan, it was announced that the old Ottawa Hills High School Building, a building that currently was home to Iroquois Middle School, would be demolished.

At the morning news meeting, possible story lines about Ottawa Hills were brought up and I said that someone had to interview my Uncle Wayne.

The story was assigned to a very young Steve Patterson, now a national reporter with NBC News.

I got with Steve and called my Mom to get Uncle Wayne’s phone number and Uncle Wayne agreed to meet Steve at the old building for a walk through and interview.

My Uncle Wayne was known to the world as Robert Wayne Hendrickson.

(For some reason, my Mom’s family used that Southern tradition of family members using middle names within the family.)

Robert Wayne Hendrickson or Bob Hendrickson or Coach Hendrickson was Ottawa Hills High School.

While my Mom went to South High School in Grand Rapids, by the time her brothers started the 7th grade in school, the districts had changed and they went to Ottawa Hills.

While at Ottawa Hills, Uncle Wayne was an athletic wonder.

According to the stories my brothers told me, in basketball, he could lay up with either the left or right hand and was pretty much unstoppable.

The story was that Michigan wanted him but in those days there weren’t athletic scholarships and beside, he wanted to get married, so he went to Hope College in Holland, Michigan.

After college, he got a job teaching and coaching at Ottawa Hills.

He would stay there until he was retired at age 60.

Uncle Wayne was quoted in the Grand Rapids Press, “Ottawa Hills was my life from age 13 to age 60, with the exception of my four years at Hope College. When I returned as a teacher, my old teachers helped me so much. They wanted me to start calling them by their first names but I was never able to do it. Before I was old enough to start school there in the seventh grade, I would watch the high school teams on the practice fields and want to be a part of that. What a great break for me to spend so much of my life at Ottawa Hills. I had opportunities to move on, but I never wanted to go. I was living my dream.”

The dream included winning two Michigan Class A State Championships in 67-68 and 68-69.

Each year, there was parade and celebration on the south end of Grand Rapids.

As the Coach was my Mom’s little brother, we went to see the parades from the vantage point of the front porch of the Coach’s house.

I was only 8 years old and after the 2nd parade, I figured these things happened every year.

We got to see the trophy’s up close.

I have never won a trophy in my life but that’s okay as any other trophy that I could have won PALED TO INSIGNFICANCE when compared to those trophies.

Also there with the trophies were the nets.

I have watched countless teams cut down basketball nets after big games.

Maybe of all sports traditions this one is the most special to me because of seeing those nets laying there.

Silent objects speaking volumes.

There were all sorts of stories of my Uncle as a Coach.

Those championship teams in the late 60’s were integrated teams.

I think that was unusual for the time, maybe inevitable but new.

Back in those days, BEFORE THE DUNK was made illegal, the story was that my Uncle Wayne’s team had a dunk DRILL in warm up.

His team would line and one by one they would dribble in and BA BOOM, BA BOOM, BA BOOM, they would dunk dunk dunk.

I was told that the backboards would be swaying and the crowd screaming.

And the other team watched.

Watched in disbelief.

Those games were over before they started.

My brother tells a story about a game against our high school on the North End, Creston (Ottawa was on the South End) and Uncle Wayne came off the bench, yelling at the refs.

My brother says, and as I remember it, this was in the OLD Creston High School Gym, where the basketball court was kinda wedged into a space surrounded by bleachers, my brother said the crowd just went crazy yelling at Uncle Wayne.

Uncle Wayne spins around and GLARES at the crowd.

And the crowd shut up.

Years later, Uncle Wayne happened to be at our house when we were watching a Piston’s game.

He stood there watching the end of the game and started coaching.

Never took his eyes off the screen but kept saying out loud how much time was left as the seconds ticked off on some click inside, he called all the plays, so it seems to me, and narrated how the Piston’s would win the game before it happened.

Uncle Wayne, to me, was bigger than life.

He was one of those guys who filled a room with his personality and physical presence.

I remember that I when I went to Creston, the Creston Basketball Coach, Jim Haskins, was my biology teacher.

Mr. Haskins told me once how the first time his team played Ottawa he watched that team run out on the floor and then their Coach came out and HE LOOKED SEVEN FEET TALL.

Mr. Haskins just stood there shaking his head.

Uncle Wayne knew it too.

He once said to me that, “Uncle Paul is the only one I know who makes me feel smaller.”

Uncle Paul, who also played basketball in the City League and at Hope, was 6′ 11″.

So Steve Patterson goes out on assignment to interview Bob Hendrickson.

Later that afternoon, Steve got back to the building and he sought me out.

“HOFFMAN,” says Steve.

“Your Uncle! …”

“Is a LEGEND!”

“Yes,” I said, “I know.”

Late on New Years Eve, 2021, I got email that, back in Grand Rapids, my Uncle Wayne has died.

I seem to say this often, but I say it because it is true, that in a era when experts mourn the lack of role models, I got more than my fair share.

My Father, my Grand Father, my Uncles; Wayne, Carol, Paul, Bud and Jim, my brothers; Paul, Jack, Bob, Tim, Pete, Steve and Al and even all my brothers in law.

I don’t know, maybe God knew something and made sure I had lots of help.

Love them all and proud of them all.

Proud to be a part of their family.

Proud of my Uncle Wayne.

Very very said to hear that my Uncle Wayne has died.

He was part of my life and part of what made my life.

Like Alistair Cooke when Duke Ellington died, “I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.”