wind and the corn and
the rain and the sun talk things
over together

I heard yesterday that my cousin Denny had died.

Like a lot of cousins, we had been close growing up but as our families grew up and we transitioned from being the cousins to being the Aunts and Uncles, we lost touch.

That doesn’t change the feeling of loss though when news like this arrives.

Denny’s Mom was my Aunt Marion and she was my Dad’s older sister.

They grew up on Coit St. down where the street angled off from Plainfield Ave.

The grew up going to Berean Baptist Church and Creston High School.

After World War 2, they both started families and lived on the north end and their kids went to Berean Baptist Church and Creston High School.

We saw each at Church and at school and we lived just blocks apart.

The Hoffman’s and Glerum’s grew up together,

All of my Glerum cousins were older than I was and they were like a second set of older brothers and sisters.

As I drove my older brothers and sisters batty with my batty behavior I am not sure what my cousins thought of me but I always thought it was pretty cool that we had cousins so close.

Denny was the same age as my older brothers and fit right in.

He would show up at almost anytime and join in whatever was going on at our house.

If a ballgame was on tv, he would sit and watch and talk.

If a ballgame was going on in the front yard, he would join in and play.

Unlike the Hoffman’s though, Denny also embraced hunting and fishing and when he got older, bought both a truck AND a motorcycle.

All aspects of life that made my cousin Denny seem to be at a level of cool I could never hope to attain.

There was a time in our lives when Denny would stop off at our house to grab and take me off where ever he was going.

A couple of times Denny took me fishing but quickly figured that me and fishing wasn’t going to happen.

He had the presence of mind to never offer to talk me hunting.

He was brave and a nice guy to be sure, but the thought being around me with a gun in my hands … well, lets say that is something that hasn’t happened to this day.

But we would go visit his classroom at school and he would put me to work sorting papers or books or something.

One night (NIGHT MIND YOU) he stopped by as his neighbor who had an apple orchard had told him that he could help himself to all the ‘drops’ (ripe apples that had fallen off the trees) he wanted and Denny brought me along, in the dark, in the rain, to pick up apples.

A bit crazy but boy was I proud when I came home with a bushel of fresh apples for my Mom.

Another time he grabbed me and he drove out to the house he was having a built on his property out near Cedar Springs.

He was having hard wood floors installed and they had just been stained and he wanted to see how they looked.

The floors looked fine to me but Denny crawled over the floor on his knees, in stocking feet, saying no no no as he did not like how dark they looked.

Then there was the time when he showed up with his new motorcycle and handed me a helmet and I went off for my one and only motorcycle ride.

You just never knew what might happen.

I heard yesterday that my cousin Denny had died.

I have thought about Denny since then.

I thought about all the things he did with me and my family.

I thought about his hunting and fishing.

I thought about his farm, what we called ‘Dennys land’.

I thought about he lived his life.

He was a big part of my life.

This world will be a lesser place without him in it.

There was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.

And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.

The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.

The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a spot of red is on its shoulder
And I never heard its name in my life.

Some of the ears are bursting.
A white juice works inside.
Cornsilk creeps in the end and dangles in the wind.
Always — I never knew it any other way—
The wind and the corn talk things over together.
And the rain and the corn and the sun and the corn
Talk things over together.

Over the road is the farmhouse.
The siding is white and a green blind is slung loose.
It will not be fixed till the corn is husked.
The farmer and his wife talk things over together.

Laughing Corn from Cornhuskers by Carl Sandburg as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.

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).

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.

So what if it became an ashtray.

She was just trying to spread the happiness.

That is a great way to describe Mom.

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.

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.

Happy birthday!

Love.

Dad.