9.26/2025 – could help symptoms of

could help symptoms of
functional dyspepsia
excessive fullness

Writing for the New York Times column, ASK: We Put it to The Experts, to the question, ” … is ginger really effective at soothing various stomach ailments?”, Ms. Melinda Wenner Moyer writes:

There is little research on how ginger may help with more acute cases of nausea, such as those from stomach bugs, hangovers or motion sickness. And little is known about ginger’s effectiveness with other stomach ailments like indigestion or irritable bowel syndrome.

One small study from 2023 did conclude, however, that it could help with symptoms of functional dyspepsia, a type of chronic indigestion. Participants reported improved heartburn, upper abdominal pain and burning, and excessive fullness after eating.

I can only say that Ms. Moyer is not from Michigan nor is she dutch or she would have heard Vernor’s (AKA Dutch Alka Seltzer) and included it in her column on whether or not ginger helps in cases of excessive fullness after eating.

I do have to ask, what is excessive fullness after eating?

Excessive fullness?

Only in America.

Long a staple in my family’s medical arsenal when I was growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, it was a remedy I introduced my kids to as well.

For the winter vomiting or stomach flu or after big meals, ‘a small glass of Vernor’s please’ was the prescription.

For a long time, Vernor’s, like Cheerwine here in South Carolina where I now live, was only available in Michigan and for a long time only in the Detroit area.

My Dad remember driving to Detroit with his Dad so this must have in the 1920s and 30s, and stopping at the Vernor’s plant on Woodward Drive.

At that time, the company maintained a soda fountain in the front lobby of their building and my Grandfather enjoyed stopping for a ‘Boston Cooler’ which was a float with Vernor’s and Vanilla Ice Cream.

The recipe for a Boston Cooler is one of those IYKYK things.

I once found myself on the “entertainment” committee of a company I worked for and was asked for a different way to celebrate birthday day (where once a month all birthdays were celebrated) and I suggested making Boston Coolers.

I interject, but HOW do people get on these ‘entertainment’ committees? In my case it was punishment because the email request had gone out for volunteers to be on the committee and as I walked around the company, if I found a computer at an empty desk where the owner had forgot to close out their computer, I used their email to volunteer that person for the committee. Had I been satisfied with one or two, I might have got away with it but after about the 10th time, I got caught and I was told I was now on the committee forever. And a memo went out reminding folks to log out of their computer if they left their desk. But I digress.

The Boston Cooler idea was adopted but the person in charge of getting the supplies was clueless and came back with Canadian Dry Ginger Ale and then got snippy when I got snippy.

They were awful by the way.

Vernor’s once produced a commercial with Detroit’s own Mystery Novel Man of Letters, Elmore Leonard playing himself.

He sat at his typewriter, typing out a typical Elmore Leonard descriptive scene.

Next to the typewrite on the table is an empty glass and a can of Vernors.

He narrates in his mind has he types and it goes something like this …

“They sat at the table. He looked at her. She reached over and poured a glass of Vernor’s. He reached and drank. It tasted like ….”

And Leonard stops.

He can’t think how to describe it …

He takes the can, opens it, pours, drinks, looks off to the side and thinks ….

Then he sets the glass down and types, “It tasted like Vernor’s.”

Then the tagline came up in text over the picture “… It’s what we drink around here.”

To this day my kids love to introduce new users to Vernor’s.

They open a bottle, pour out a glass and slide it over to the newbie and we all laugh and laugh as the newbie experiences their first ‘Vernor’s Wheeze’ as the pungent ginger bubbles go up the newbie’s nose.

When planning Thanksgiving Dinners, my kids all know to make sure Vernor’s is on hand.

I am happy to say that global trading and container shipping and what not has made Vernor’s readily available here in the southland.

Ms. Moyer goes on to write:

Although ginger in any form is generally considered to be safe, Dr. Crichton said, people who take medications including blood thinners, immunosuppressants and blood pressure or diabetes drugs should check with a doctor before consuming ginger regularly. Although serious side effects are rare, people may find that they burp more after consuming it.

Burp after a slug of Vernor’s?

That’s part of the fun, isn’t it?

Ms. Moyer closes with:

That said, ginger has few side effects and is supported by some science, Dr. Forman said — it’s “a valuable arrow to keep in the therapeutic quiver.”

Vernor’s.

A valuable arrow to keep in the therapeutic quiver.

We knew that a long time ago.

It’s what we drink around here.

Here is another commercial from the series. (I can’t find the Elmore Leonard one 😦 ).

BTW: Petr Klima was famous as the Detroit Req Wings coaching staff snuck him out over/under the wire from behind the Iron Curtain back in the day.

8.24.2025 – any reader knows

any reader knows
unique delight of settling
down with a good book

When I was in college, most of my classes were in the field of history and came with extensive reading lists.

One in particular landed with a thump on the table when it was passed out by the Professor. (I think it was a class on Imperial Russian History and it listed War and Peace with the note YES – ALL OF IT).

I was always reading.

My roommates were in The School of Engineering and they had other forms of homework but I was always just reading.

One of my roommates finally said to me, “Are you reading for class … or for fun?”

“What’s the difference?“, I replied.

As long as I can remember, I have been a reader.

I have abibliophobia or the anxious feeling that I might run out of books or other things to read.

So it was with some interest that I read the New York Times article, “Fewer People Are Reading for Fun, Study Finds” by Maggie Astor who says that she, “… covers the intersection of health and politics, including the effects of public policies and of climate change.”

Ms. Astor writes, “Researchers from University College London and the University of Florida examined national data from 2003 to 2023 and found that the share of people who reported reading for pleasure on a given day fell to 16 percent in 2023 from a peak of 28 percent in 2004 — a drop of about 40 percent. It declined around 3 percent each year over those two decades.

There is evidence that reading for pleasure has been declining since the 1940s, the researchers said, but they called the size of the latest decrease “surprising,” given that the study defined reading broadly, encompassing books, magazines and newspapers in print, electronic or audio form.”

Lets do some diagnostics here.

From Gutenberg to the invention of the radio … there was reading.

Then came TV.

Then came the World Wide Web.

Then came hand held phones.

And there is evidence that reading for pleasure has been declining since the 1940s.

Well knock me over with a feather!

Who pays for these studies?

99% of green freeway information signage has a green background?

99% of orange highway cones are orange?

I gotta get one of these research grants.

Still, as Ms. Astor opens her article, any reader knows the unique delight of settling down with a good book.

Here is the point.

Any READER.

Any reader or anyone, really, can tell you, not everyone is a reader.

Who might turn out to be a reader can’t be determined at birth or by DNA or by any test known to mankind.

In the picture below is me and my brother Tim, probably about 1964.

We both have books open on our laps.

We had the same parents, grew up in the same home but for some reason, I was a reader and Tim was not.

I went on to career in books and news and Tim went on to a be a very successful engineer.

As for the family gene pool, many of my brothers and sisters won the Math Award given to the best Math Student at Creston High School.

Me?

Someday I plan to get a book about Trigonometry and find out what that was all about.

I have worked in Bookstores and Libraries for a good part of my life.

Over those years I formed the opinion that about 10 to 15% of the American public could be classed as readers.

That matches up with where the ‘Scientific Data’ says we are now.

I had no scientific evidence to back that up, it was just a personal feeling I came up with over the years.

Still I am happy to report that a new bookstore opened up here the low country of South Carolina.

Newspaper coverage of the opening started with the line, “In the era of Amazon and e-books, who would have imagined that a brick-and-mortar, ink-on-paper bookstore would open on Hilton Head Island in summer 2025?”

Emily [the new owner/operater] said she was inspired by online discussions of third spaces, which means a place other than home or work and school that people can go to spend time such as cafes, libraries or community centers. “I also felt the need for, being someone who is in the younger generation living in the area, I felt that we had a lack of spaces to hang out or to socialize that’s not a restaurant or a bar or the beach,” Emily said.

Happy to say we were there yesterday and enjoyed the atmosphere and hope for their future.

Any reader knows the unique delight of settling down with a good book.

I can’t tell you when I started reading because I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t.

Something I attribute to my parents having books all over our house.

My Dad was a Dentist and he subscribed to all sorts of magazines for his office waiting room, and he would bring those magazines home for us to look at before they ended up being read by his nervous patients.

One the magazines he subscribed to was Reader’s Digest so all those Reader’s Digest digested books books were all over the house.

Along with the digested books, Reader’s Digest published anthologies like America’s Best Sports Stories and Reader’s Digest True Crime: Tales of Murder & Mayhem and those were laying around the house as well.

At some point in my young life, I took down Reader’s Digest True Crime: Tales of Murder & Mayhem, it had a big read thumb print on the cover and read through it.

There were stories titled, A killer is Loose and Life and Death of a Twisted Genius.

Just right for a 10 year old.

I read them all but it was a story titled, The Trial that Rocked the Nation that stuck with me.

It was a 10 page article the told the story of the Scopes Trial in Dayton, TN.

I remember asking my Dad about it and he said, “The Monkey Trial!”

With that my lifelong admiration for Clarence Darrow was born.

I wanted to learn more about Mr. Darrow and snuck into the grown up section of my local library and took home the book, Clarence Darrow for the Defense by Irving Stone.

Lots and lots of great Darrow stuff in that book (including the case he took that was heard in a Grand Rapids, Michigan courtroom – A courtroom I was in several times for wedding receptions when the building was turned into the local art museum).*

But the story that RESONATED with me was an story told about the time Mr. Darrow’s father, Amirus Darrow (A man who took young Clarence along for midnight wagon rides to bring people along the underground railroad in Ohio), visited his son in Chicago.

The narrative by Mr. Stone picks up with:

Amirus Darrow had decided to spend a week in Kinsman visiting old friends. Clarence had slipped several greenbacks into his father’s pocket, and Jessie put up a lunch for her father-in-law for the train. Amirus ieft early in the morning, riding the streetcar downtown from 4219 Vincennes Avenue. When he found that he had a half-hour before train time he descended a flight of stairs into a basement secondhand bookstore.

At ten o’clock that night the bell rang at the Darrow home. Clarence opened the door to find his father glaze-eyed, hugging a huge bundle under each arm. Amirus had found so many books for which he had always yearned that he had not emerged from the bookshop until twelve hours later, his railroad and vacation money spent. He had come home to read his precious literary treasures, all desire to visit Kinsman gone. Seeing his father standing before him on the porch, his eyes dreamy and withdrawn and beautiful, the son realized that the older man had always missed his train because he had found something more interesting in a book than would be waiting for him at the end of a journey.

Boy Howdy, Yessir!

Did I read that maybe at the wrong time in my life?

Or maybe not.

I have to say that as a guiding star in my life, I always felt that I might find something more interesting in a book than would be waiting for me at the end of a journey.

Any reader knows the unique delight of settling down with a good book.

Me and my granddaughter on a lazy Sunday front porch reading afternoon

*(Gee whiz, but when will I get to the point … authors note)

8.17.2025 – swell letter from you

swell letter from you
snapshots and small packet of
Lake Michigan beach

In a letter my Dad wrote to his then girlfriend, later wife and later still, my Mom, on August 15, 1945, he opened with:

My Darling Lorraine,
Well, the war is finally over and now all we have to do is until the time comes when I can come home.

It was VJ Day.

Victory over Japan.

Dad was in Europe and Germany had surrendered that spring and the US Army in Europe was waiting to see if it would be needed in the war against Japan.

Dad had entered the army in the spring of 1942, spent the next 2 years in South Carolina and in 1944, was shipped over to England.

Since 1942, getting out of the army and home was first and foremost on his mind.

He would mention Cubs baseball games and that he was looking forward to going to a game when he got home.

He would mention Michigan football games and that he was looking forward to going to a game when he got home.

He would write about the food and mention that he was looking forward to my Mom’s cooking for him when he got home.

Homesick in a major sort of way.

Mom would send off packages of candies and nuts from his favorite stores.

And she sent pictures, snapshots she took and studio photographs she had taken.

Dad loved the photos and always mentioned them and always asked for more.

And he would mention how much he missed home.

Mom must have sensed this, I mean who couldn’t and she thought up things she could send.

Things that were small enough to send in the mail and still be meaningful to Dad.

Things that would say, I miss you too.

Things that would say, someday.

After remarking on the end of World War 2, Dad to turned to the last letter he got from Mom.

Dad wrote:

I received a swell letter from you dated the 6th of August which contained a couple of snapshots and a little packet of Lake Michigan Beach.

A little packet of Lake Michigan Beach.

Lake Michigan Beach.

A little packet of Lake Michigan Beach sand in a packet mailed to Europe at the end of World War 2.

Mom had recently had a beach day with her younger brother Carol and other friends and as nice a trip to the beach in August sounds, Mom’s thoughts were in Europe and she put some of the sand away to send to Dad.

Some thing that was small enough to send in the mail and still be meaningful to Dad.

Some thing that would say, I miss you too.

Some thing that would say, someday.

Dad wrote:

Maybe next year we can be there together.

He then wrote, I think it was the longest letter that I have ever received from you … and it was wonderful.

He was over in Germany.

Japan had surrendered.

The war was over.

And he had a little packet of Lake Michigan Beach.

And it was wonderful.

Lake Michigan Beach (1972) by Armond Merizon (My Dad’s favorite artist)

6.15.2025 – same routine goes on

same routine goes on
each day there is not much for
me to write about

No surprise that on Father’s Day I would be thinking about Dad and for inspiration, I turned to the letters he wrote home to his (then) girlfriend (now my Mom) during World War 2 when he was a Captain in the Army of the United States (not to be confused with the United States Army) serving as a Dentist in the Medical Detachment of the 12 Corps Headquarters unit.

It took a lot to impress my Dad.

In one letter, he opened with:

The same routine goes on by each day and so there is not much for me to write about. The weather stays the same, sometimes good and sometimes bad but never very warm.

The letter is from England and is dated June 12, 1944.

Almost exactly 81 years ago today.

Six days after D-Day.

Wikipedia states: The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day (after the military term), it is the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France, and the rest of Western Europe, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front.

Six days later, Dad is writing:

The same routine goes on by each day and so there is not much for me to write about.

Boy, Howdy! It took a lot to impress my Dad.

What did impress Dad?

What did he write about when not writing about being 20 miles away from the largest seaborne invasion in history?

We had a good dinner of Roast Pork, mashed potatoes, gravy, lettuce, carrots and peas and some good cake.

Dad always liked good cake.

Late in his life, Dad had a problem with diabetes and had to watch his sugar intake.

Once Mom baked a flat cake and after dinner, she asked Dad if he wanted a piece for dessert.

Dad said yes and I was standing in the kitchen so Mom told me to cut one of the pieces of cake in half for Dad.

I asked Dad which half he wanted and he said in a very sad and woe-is-me voice, “The one with the most frosting.”

I looked at the cake and took the knife and cut the piece of cake in half parallel to the cake pan so that his slice had ALL the frosting on top.

Mom shook her head but Dad said, “Good boy!”

After his dinner of Roast Pork, mashed potatoes, gravy, lettuce, carrots and peas and some good cake, sweets were still on Dad’s mind and he wrote:

I would like to have you send me some more of that candy from Steketees, you know what type I mean. It really goes good around here. Everybody likes it and when I get a box like that there is enough so that we can all enjoy it.

Steketee’s was one of the three big department stores (along with Wurzburg’s and Herpleshimer’s that didn’t survive the mall era) in Grand Rapids, Michigan and they were famous for their Candy and Nut counter.

All things considered, Dad had a good World War 2.

He was in the army for just under 3 years with about half of that time in Europe and for the most part was focused on getting out and coming home.

I point out that in all of Dad’s letters, starting in the summer of 1942, NOT ONCE does Dad even question that the Germans would be beaten and when that was done, he would go home.

As I said, Dad was in the 12th Corps which was in Patton’s Third Army.

If you have ever seen the movie Patton, that opening speech was addressed to the Third Army so in a way, it was addressed to my Dad.

At the end of the speech, the Patton played by George C. Scott, closes with:

Now, there’s one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home, and you may thank God for it.

Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you, “What did you do in the great World War II?” — you won’t have to say, “Well, I shoveled shit in Louisiana.”

Well, Dad didn’t have to say that.

Nope.

He was in England eating Roast Pork, mashed potatoes, gravy, lettuce, carrots and peas and some good cake and thinking of candy from Steketee’s.

Captain R.P. Hoffman – Oct, 1944 (somewhere in France)

Click here to read the letter!

6.8.2025 – a remarkable

a remarkable
can-do knack recovering
from adversity

Growing up in a large family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, there was an unexpected benefit in being in the ‘2nd half’ in the kid line up.

I was 8th of 11 kids.

Up at that top half, most of my older brothers and sisters went off to college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

That meant that at least three times a year, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break, my Dad would take a day off to drive to Ann Arbor and pick up whoever was coming home for break.

What made it a benefit for us in the lower half of the family was that he would take a couple of out of school to make the trip with him and he would take us on into Detroit and see the sites.

Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum.

The Detroit Institute of Art.

The Detroit Historical Museum.

Lunch in Greek Town.

Maybe a drive over to Windsor, thru the Windsor the Tunnel on the way their and back over the Ambassador Bridge on the way back.

We often went to Chicago to visit family, but Detroit was our city, the family ball club (though I flirted with the White Sox for a few years (it was a Bill Veeck thing) and Dad was always a Cub fan), the family football team.

We knew what ‘being stuck in Lodge’ meant (before sound barriers made all freeways feel like driving down the Lodge even though no one was throwing bowling bowls off of sound barriers like might happen to you down in the Lodge).

We knew you could park on TOP of Cobo Arena.

We knew where to park to eat lunch in Greek town.

That was back in late 1960’s early 1970’s.

When I ended up in Ann Arbor, Detroit was now just a 40 minute trip away and my sister was living in downtown and I often found myself in the City.

Also when you are used to having to make a three hour trip to see a Detroit Tiger Baseball Game, that 40 minute trip from Ann Arbor was nothing and we went to a lot of ball games at stadium located at The Corner.

Detroit, La Ville de Troit, the Village on the Straits, has been through a lot since then.

Hard to believe now that it was once the 5th largest city in the United States with 2.5 million people living and working in the city.

Then white flight to the suburbs, the plug gets pulled on the Auto industry and a lot of other issues combined to leave Detroit standing … but empty.

Anthony Bourdain would say in his 2013 Parts Unknown Show that Detroit isn’t just a national treasure. It IS America. And wherever you may live, you wouldn’t be there—and wouldn’t be who you are in the same way—without Detroit.

Who will live in the Detroit of the future? There’s no question, is there, that Detroit will come back? In one form or another, a city this magnificent, this storied, this American cannot, will not ever disappear into the weeds. There are too few places this beautiful for it to be allowed to crumble like Ankor or Rome.

Someone will live in a smaller, tighter, no doubt hipper, much contracted new Detroit. But who will that be? Will it be the people who stuck it out here, who fought block-by-block to keep their city from burning, who struggled to defend their homes, keep up appearances as all around them their neighborhoods emptied.

What will Detroit look like in 20 years? Or 50? That’s not just a Detroit question. That’s an America question.

So imagine how I felt this morning when I logged into the New York Times on my tablet to their Travel Feature 36 Hours in … focused on Detroit (Click here).

The article states: But Detroit has a remarkable knack for recovering from adversity, each time rising phoenixlike with renewed creativity and an undaunted can-do spirit.

And points out: Last but not least, the city buzzes with excitement over the newfound success of the Lions, who have, much like the city, risen from down-and-out to greatness.

In a way I felt, Detroit was back.

The New York Times said so on the travel feature subtitled The one-stop resource for our travel guides, which tell you what to do when you’ve got 36 hours to get to know a city.

In 2025, it is recommended that to get to know the city of Detroit you should visit The Detroit Institute of Art, The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village and eat in Greek Town.

Oh and the new Gordie Howe Bridge would be opening soon and a quick visit to Windsor would be even easier.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?