well, son, I’ll tell you life ain’t been no crystal stair it’s had tacks in it
Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair. It’s had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor— Bare.
But all the time I’se been a-climbin’ on, And reachin’ landin’s, And turnin’ corners, And sometimes goin’ in the dark Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back. Don’t you set down on the steps ’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard. Don’t you fall now— For I’se still goin’, honey, I’se still climbin’, And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
“Mother to Son” from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes (University of Missouri Press, 2002).
Three generations: Mary Hendrickson - Lorraine Hendrickson Hoffman – Mary Hoffman
I think this photo is of a Labor Day walk from our families house on the North End of Grand Rapids to my Grandma Hoffman’s house over on Coit Street near the old Creston Branch Library.
On the left is my Grandma Hendrickson and on the right is my older sister, Mary.
That’s Mom in the middle.
Her life wasn’t what Mr. Hughes wrote about when describing his Mother’s life but there were tacks aplenty in Mom’s life and I was lot of them.
I was a goofy 8th-child in a family of 11.
I could have chosen to keep my mouth shut, fly under the radar and mostly likely would not have been noticed too much … but where’s the fun in that?
At least from my point of view.
So I worked to stand out.
Not that I had too.
Even with 11 kids, Mom could make you feel special.
At some point in my elementary school career I made a clay pot which I proudly presented to my Mom on Mother’s Day and she loved it and put it, for a while, in a place of pride on the kitchen counter.
Was I proud!
So I proud that I never noticed that over time, other pots and gifts replaced my pinch pot.
With 11 kids, these types of gifts accumulated and Mom had a special shelf in one of the kitchen cupboards where she safely stored them all.
But deep down I knew mine was her favorite.
I know that because year’s later, when one of my brother’s returned from college having picked up the habit of smoking, Mom put MY pot in his room to use for a ashtray.
I puzzled about that for a little bit.
But when I realized none of those other pots never ever made it out of her cupboard, I knew mine must have meant something special to her to want to share it with my brother.
there was a star danced and under that was he born … Happy Birthday El!
Adapted from the line: “There was a star danced, and under that was I born.” from Much Ado About Nothing (Act 2, Scene 1) by William Shakespeare.
Ellington Hoffman at The Lincoln Theater, Columbus, Ohio, 2024
Back in 2001 we got a call that there was another baby for us.
Lots of decisions had to made, not least of which was a new name and I got to work.
Our last son to date had been born in 1997, the 50th anniversary year of the Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball.
That baby was supposed to be a girl so my wife didn’t care about a boys name and agreed that in the event the baby was boy, which wasn’t supposed to, we would go with that for a name.
When a boy showed up, my wife called from the hospital and said, “Well … Jackie Robinson Hoffman is here.”
With that in mind, I thought I would be really cool to name the next boy after the last black major league player before the rules were changed.
Had to go back to 1889 to find Moses Fleetwood Walker and what a great name it was.
That Mr. Walker had also played baseball for the University of Michigan was also a point in the names favor and I offered up Moses Fleetwood Walker Hoffman.
To be safe, I decided I better come up with a second name and by chance I had just watched Jazz, a 10 episode document on the history of Jazz by Ken Burns.
Now those who have read this blog know that me and Mr. Burns do not get along but I do appreciate some things he did along the way though I question the body of his work.
To that point I will say that I feel that fate rewarded Mr. Burns by having him produce the bulk of his work in 4×3 format in the era JUST BEFORE HD 16×9 TVs were available but I digress.
I have always liked music of all kinds and by chance I had come across the music of Edward Kennedy Ellington, AKA Duke, at an early age and loved it.
Watching the Ken Burns series, I made sure to catch the episode about Duke Ellington and I was pleased that Mr. Burns did himself proud by finishing the episode with the words …
Edward Kennedy Ellington … considered by many …the greatest of all American composers, died on May 24, 1974.
Did you catch it?
Read it out loud and see if you notice anything almost perfect about that sentence.
Did you catch it?
So Duke Ellington was on my mind when we heard about the new baby and it came to me that Ellington would make a fine first name.
For a middle name, I thought that using my Father-in-Law’s first name would round out the very fine name of Ellington Bernard Hoffman.
That his initials would be E. B. and a homage to E.B. White was also a point in the names favor.
But how to decide?
We called in the other six kids and explained the situation and I gave them the two names and explained about the names and then, we let them vote.
I think the vote was 4-2 and you know how it turned out.
After 24 years, I cannot imagine any other name.
To close, Duke Ellington was once asked how he got his start and he replied:
My story is a very simple story. You know, it’s like, once upon a time, a very pretty lady and a very handsome gentleman met, fell in love and got married. And God blessed them with this wonderful baby boy. And they held him in the palm of their hand, and nurtured him and spoiled him until he was about seven, eight years old. And then he put, they put his feet on the ground, and the minute they put his feet on the ground, he ran out the front door, out across the front lawn, out across the street. Anyway, the minute he got on the other side of the street, somebody said, “Hey Edward , up this way.” And the, the boy was me incidentally. And he got to the next corner, and somebody says, “Hey Edward , right. Go up there and turn left. You can’t miss it.” And it’s been going on there ever since. That’s the story, that’s my biography.
Hey Ellington, up this way, go up!
Go up and turn left.
You can’t miss it and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.
we are such stuff as dreams are made on, little life is rounded with sleep
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
Tempest (Act IV, Scene 1) by William Shakespeare.
Or for further thoughts on a new born grand daughter …
But among the reeds and rushes A baby girl was found Her eyes as clear as centuries Her silky hair was brown
Never been lonely Never been lied to Never had to scuffle in fear Nothing denied to Born at the instant The church bells chime And the whole world whispering Born at the right time
From Born at the Right Time by Paul Simon.
For myself, a teeny, tiny little girl, less than a few days old, hadn’t known her for more than a few hours … and I cannot imagine a life without her being in it.
what gets me going what wakes me up and alert trigger frustration
Anyone who reads these posts will know that I do not like getting up in the morning.
Of late it isn’t the getting up anymore that gets me.
I live in the low country of South Carolina where I found that I am sensitive to the spring pollen that coats the landscape for months down here and after a night of being vertical in bed, trying to sleep, it is with some relief that I get up in the morning so my sinuses will drain and I can breathe.
This morning, up early to breathe, I got to think’in.
My Dad was always bringing home odd things.
He was a dentist and he filled his waiting room with good magazines like Smithsonian, The New Yorker and American Heritage along with the usual waiting room magazines.
Famously one of us kids once left a copy of Mad Magazine in the waiting room once while waiting for Dad for something.
The next day Dad’s patients ripped out all the subscription blanks and one old guy telling Dad, it was the best magazine he had ever read.
In off hours Dad would page though these magazines and these odd ads would catch his eye and he would tear out these odd offers and send off checks and later come home with these odd things.
In my desk drawer I have a little telescope that is also a microscope which I always thought was some little toy thing until I used The Google and found that it was a MULTIFUNKTIONALE KLEINOPTIK EMOSKOP or a combined telescope, magnifier and microscope made by Seibert-Wetzlar, one of the finest optical manufactures in history.
I had to read the Google page to learn how to use it.
But where Dad found it and bought it, I have no idea.
Dad loved bird calls and had a drawer full.
One was the little red spool with a turn key that when turned, made different squeaking squawking noises which were supposed to call birds.
Not sure it worked but he carried one every where.
One time Dad came up with a skull.
Not just any skull mind you.
But a completely prepared medical training skull.
The jaw was spring loaded and on one side of the face the top layer of bone was removed to reveal what was below and on the other the surface bone was in place, but sections were hinged so they could lifted to show what was underneath.
The skull cap could be removed and all arteries, veins and nerve connections were marked out.
Why?
Why did Dad order this and bring it home?
I mean who looks through a magazine, there was no online shopping, and sees an ad for a prepared human skull and says, “I want that” or “My wife would love that”?
The skull didn’t sit out on the table or shelf like a lot of his stuff, but we would get it out to amaze our friends or to bring to school for show and tell.
You never knew what Dad might bring home.
There was this time I was watching TV with my brothers and Dad came in through the front door of the house, not the back door off the garage.
He noticed Mom was upstairs.
He left the door open, walked over and uplugged the TV in front of us and took it away to his car.
Dad came back in struggling to carry a much bigger TV, which he put in place and reconnected and turned on.
He looked at us and said, “Don’t say anything” and went back out the front door.
We had a new big TV and we didn’t say anything.
Dad came back after parking his car in the garage and sat down as if nothing had happened and enjoyed his new TV and didn’t say anything.
No one would have noticed but the next morning my baby brother Al looked at the TV for bit then found Mom and asked, “How do you turn the new TV on?”
You never knew what Dad might bring home.
He would have loved Amazon.
So why am I telling you all this.
I was thinking about that skull.
From this skull, I learned where the sinuses are in my head.
On bad pollen days down here in the low country, I could take a sharpie pen and outline on my face where it hurts and in my mind, I can see that skull, and I am outlining my sinuses.
Under my eyes, right under my cheek bones and above my eyes in my forehead, right under my eyebrows.
I get out of bed in the morning, and in my mind I can see my sinuses in my face tip as if I was tipping a sand glass, and feel the pollen drain away and air start to seep through.
So I get up.
I get up though I don’t want to, so I can breathe.
That is not to say, I wake up.
That takes some doing.
It takes coffee and a lot of coffee.
Since getting a new coffee maker with a bigger pot, I am back to 4 or 5 mugs of coffee, not sipped, but poured into my body.
And it takes my morning reading which takes less time than it did as I now gloss over any headline with the current president’s name in it.
After The Google News, the Guardian and the New York Times, I am starting to feel awake and more alert.
Time for the games and I start with the New York Times Connections.
It is 16 random words that you have to fit into 4 groups of 4 words over something they have in common in four guesses.
How the words are connected are rated into 4 categories.
The yellow grouping is easy.
The green grouping is less easy.
The blue grouping is hard.
And the purple grouping rarely makes any sense and you assemble these words because they are the only ones left.
I find that when I finish with Connections I am pretty much awake and alert.
I was thinking about this this morning after playing Connections as I was very much awake.
I had been thinking that this game had to be stimulating and really got my brain working.
I had been thinking that this game got me to think and to wake up.
This morning it hit.
All 16 words started with T.
I used up all my guesses quickly.
I lost and lost fast.
The answers were revealed and I read them over saying OH COME ON again and again.
hearing history sounds of summer times long past … was another time
Years and years ago, my Dad took us kids on a spring trip and we traveled south.
When I was 9, my brother Paul got married and moved to the suburbs of Washington DC so our usual spring trip destination was to see Paul and his family and visit Washington.
But one year, my brother took a short-term posting to California and my Dad said we were going south.
This was a small group of just me and my sister Lisa and my little brothers Pete, Steve and Al.
It was a trip marked by breakfasts in the pre-Egg-McMuffin era at little local diners with us kids saying, I am not eating those grits.
We went to Shiloh Battlefield and the Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky and stopped at Mammoth Cave.
It was in an odd little gift shop near Mammoth Cave that my mom found The Gong.
The gong was the ugliest wind chime ever made with two hollow mishappen brass cylinders suspended on either side of a lump of iron the size of a golf ball.
It had an Alexander Calderesque quality to it and it gave off the deepest, loudest … GONG SOUNDS you ever heard.
The chime was hung from the ceiling in the kitchen of the cottage where my family spent our summers.
Lucky for us, it took a near hurricane to get it to move at all so we rarely heard it.
It rang more often when the grand kids would reach out from the stairs and take a swing at it to make it GONG.
But when there were storms, we knew it.
And that is where I am today.
I inherited the chime and it has traveled with my family and hung from porches and balconies all the Atlanta area and now, here in South Carolina.
Last night, the county schools were closed down here due to a forecast of ‘HIGH WINDS’ and storms.
As I sat by the window this morning with my morning coffee, I could hear the wind and, from time to time, a soft gong.
The sound echoed in my head to my heart.
Closing my eyes I was back 40 years ago.
On the shore of Lake Michigan.
I was hearing the sound of my family history.
The sound of summer times long past.
Boy Howdy but it was another time.
(You cannot see it, but the chime hung back in the upper left corner just in front of the side of the stairs – those stairs, by the way, were completely open on the bottom with a 20 foot drop to the basement, with no rails and open on one side and spaced vertical poles on the other – that you could reach through and push the chime – parents worried for lots of crawling babies but so far as I remember only my little brother Al every fell through)
No Haiku For You 