Posted on November 18, 2007
As the Fighting Irish played the Duke Blue Devils, a constant drizzle of rain made for a long afternoon at the University of Notre Dame yesterday. It didn’t soak approximately eighty thousand spectators to the bone as much as it seeped into their collective mood. Football fans do not suffer sloppy playing in silence, and the stadium inhabitants moaned more than once in disbelief of the mediocre playing on the field.
There were personal penalties, sloppy passes, slipping and sliding on soaked grass, and miserable officiating to boot. One review of a play took almost four minutes. In addition, the concession stands ran out of coffee. And, of course, there was Mr. Orange Arms who really controls the whole thing. When he steps onto the field (He really does have orange arms), it means action must stop to coincide with the commercial interruptions that being on national television requires. Forget if the players are gaining momentum or if it’s a crucial moment. A word from our sponsors is more important.
But Earl and I toughed it out, as Notre Dame pride was definitely on the line. It was the last home game for the Irish and the team was in danger of ending the 2007 season without a win at home. The last time this happened was in 1933. In addition, the Blue Devils’ record is anything but stellar. That team has lost forty-one of its past forty-five games, so the unspoken assumption was that if Notre Dame lost to Duke the football program was definitely on life support.
In the end, however, Notre Dame won 28-7. The Indianapolis Star quoted Coach Charlie Weis as saying, “When there’s a win, the whole atmosphere at the whole university is different than when there’s a loss.” Under the circumstances, I forgive him for pointing out the obvious.
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Posted on November 17, 2007
Earl and I are off to the University of Notre Dame to watch the Fighting Irish take on Duke’s Blue Devils. I had vowed I wouldn’t go to another ND game this year, but circumstances changed my mind. Two of my Chicago friends are going to be there; so I’m willing to suffer four hours in the cold stadium to have dinner with them in a warm restaurant afterwards.
The thing is: My friends are rooting for Duke. So two of us will be happy at dinner. Given this season’s statistics, I suspect it will be my friends.
I hadn’t realized how much tradition there is to Notre Dame football until Earl got tickets to three of this season’s games. It’s not just about winning, although it’s all about winning. It’s also about tailgate rallies, packing the stadium, buying Irish memorabilia, eating hot dogs sponsored by various college organizations, and generally believing that the University of Notre Dame is God’s boot camp. If you survive it, you’re home free.
Of the three games Earl had tickets for, I’ve gone to one while Alex, Earl’s grandson, went to the other. Now I’m attending the third. But not because I’m a diehard fan. I want to see my girlfriends, and I really don’t care who wins. Sorry, Earl!
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Posted on November 16, 2007
Years ago — about twenty-five, I believe — I embarked on the study of Yoga. It was a time in my life fraught with children of all ages, and I needed something relaxing for myself two nights a week. So off I went to the local high school and spent a wonderful hour each time with Mrs. Hornberger, our instructor.
I learned there is a breathing facet to Yoga; and I found it difficult to master. “The breathing will come,” Mrs. Hornberger would say. “Just focus on the postures.” I did. But the breathing never came.
The children grew up and left home. I moved and joined a health club where I took swimming lessons. I had learned all the appropriate strokes as a child, but needed a refresher course. For instance, what was called the Australian Crawl in my younger day was now named the front crawl, but often referred to as freestyle swimming. No matter its name, there is a breathing component to it. One I still hadn’t mastered.
Then Earl and I moved to Michigan and gutted our bathrooms, which meant we needed a place to shower. We joined the local health club two years ago so that we wouldn’t be offensive in public, and I’ve been going there ever since. Today I do weight resistance training, swimming, and walking. In the first two of the three, breathing is as important as it was back in my Yoga days.
And the good news is, I’ve figured out how to do it. Basically, you exhale on the exertion and inhale on the rest portion of the exercise. It doesn’t matter whether you’re doing weight training or swimming. It’s the same rhythm. Of course, this is health club jargon to anybody who hasn’t been searching for the key to breathing. But I’ve been searching twenty-five years, and I only wish I knew where Mrs. Hornberger was now. She was right all along.
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Posted on November 15, 2007
Today is the official start of firearm deer hunting season in the State of Michigan. Having lived in big cities most of my life, I wasn’t aware of this propitious event until we moved to St. Joseph. However, we learned quickly that life as we know it on a day-to-day basis stops temporarily on November 15.
According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR), “nearly 600,000 deer hunters will take to the field for the opening day of the 2007 firearm deer hunting season.” I don’t know what the exact population for the state is; but if 600,000 of its inhabitants are out shooting deer, what does that do to the factories and offices they normally inhabit?
When we first moved here, Earl and I were involved in a rehab project where tradesmen were its lifeblood. We didn’t know that none of them showed up for work on November 15. Nobody deigned to tell us either, as it is just assumed around here that you’ll schedule your plumbing and electrical contractors accordingly around this date. It’s more sacred that Christmas.
The Michigan DNR also predicts that the “number of deer expected to be harvested during the 2007 hunting season is anticipated to be similar to last year’s estimated harvest of 450,000.”
All I can think of is that there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of towns and cities in the United States whose population doesn’t approximate 600,000 or even 450,000. The whole thing is pretty daunting to a city girl.
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Posted on November 12, 2007
If ever you want to see your own community through fresh eyes, invite a couple friends who don’t live there to spend the day. You’ll come away with a renewed appreciation of what your locale offers.
That’s what happened to Earl and me today. Bob and Karen, friends from Chicago, came to visit. We started with brunch at our house and then branched out to visit the new condo development where Earl and I have purchased our next home. After that we drove into downtown St. Joseph to visit trendy antique stores and trendier accessory shops. Then we walked to the end of the lighthouse pier (Karen in heels) that is the city’s most identifiable landmark before having dinner in another local landmark, Schu’s Retaurant on the bluff that over looks Lake Michigan.
These are places Earl and I had begun to take for granted. We visit them regularly, but had probably forgotten they are some of the reasons we moved here originally. Without knowing it, both Bob and Karen reminded us of the seductive small-town charm that is St. Joe. We have completely bought into the culture, but there is one thing that grates sometimes. No matter how long we live here we will always be outsiders to the locals. Newcomers at best.
They should have heard us today extolling the merits of life here in St. Joe.
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Posted on November 11, 2007
A couple blogs ago I quoted English poet John Keats who said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” Let me add, it can also be a profound irritant.
Case in point: For Earl’s seventieth birthday I commissioned a woodworker to build a beautiful clock, one that would hang on our wall and chime every fifteen minutes as well as on the hour. It was not a commission the woodworker took lightly. He investigated various clock mechanisms that would eventually rest inside his hand-crafted cabinet, and we went back and forth about the final visual look of the piece.
A couple months passed and the woodworker called to say the clock was done. When could he come and hang it for us? We quickly chose a date and his contribution to Earl’s gift was complete. Little did I know that was just the beginning for me.
This clock is the old-fashioned type; not one of those you plug into an electric socket for a digital read-out or one you infuse with a battery for the same result. No, it had to be wound with regularity. But I am of the age where my first watch was like that, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I was wrong.
There are a lot more issues in a wall clock than in a wristwatch. First, in this kind of clock, there is a pendulum that swings left to right and back again. The swing of the pendulum represents the tick of the clock. And, for the clock to keep perfect time, the swing must be aligned half to the left and half to the right in exact measures. Sometimes it swings longer to one side that the other, which causes the clock to stop altogether. Then you have to perform something akin to surgery to get the tick even.
There is also a knob on the pendulum that regulates the speed at which it swings. If the knob is too high, the clock’s tick is fast, causing it to gain time; if it’s too low, the clock loses times. So you have to find what I call the “sweet spot,” right in the middle where the tick is split in half and speed of the pendulum is the same as the speed of time. It’s quite a challenge, one that I probably wouldn’t have taken on had I known in advance.
It’s taken months of study with this clock to learn its personality. There were weeks when I charted how I moved the knob to acquire perfecting time. There were also weeks when I had to perform more than one remedial surgery on the tick. But in the end the clock and I have become friends. It behaves for the most part, and I know what to do when it doesn’t. Which prompts me to conclude that this thing of beauty is indeed a joy forever. If it outlives me, however, someone else will have to experience the learning curve to agree.
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Posted on November 10, 2007
I’m always tearing interesting things from newspapers and magazines as I read them, and here is a sampling of what last night’s foraging found.
A small magazine that reviews new books had an even smaller ad on page seventeen for Fresh Yarn: The online salon for personal essays. I am a great devotee of the personal essay, but would probably never have found this site had I not spent the evening reading by the fire. This afternoon my visit to Fresh Yarn (www.freshyarn.com) rewarded me with a possible new source for my own work. But it all started with the printed word.
Next, a two-page spread about the “fastest, easiest weight loss ever” caught my eye. Now “ever” represents big territory. So does any promise of “unparalled loss of body weight” without counting calories, reducing one’s food intake, or purchasing dietetic prepackaged meals. Of course there was a web site to be directed to, and of course I visited it. Each page on the site blared in hot pink and white lettering “Order Now!” But I scrolled over those words trying to find the ingredients in the product, how it works, why it works; you know, the fine print you get when you order a prescription. There was none. I tossed the two-page spread in the trash and won’t glorify it here by listing the web site.
Food is rarely far from the front of my mind, so when I stumbled on a full page of 50-calorie snacks I ripped it out. I also searched for a web site in the hope of finding fifty more such snacks. No such luck. Nevertheless, I am now armed with some great information to stave my between-meals hunger. I can have 2 Hershey’s® kisses or two cups of light microwave popcorn or six ounces of Bud Lite® or half a wedge of honeydew melon with a thin slice of ham. I trimmed the rough edges and taped the page on the door to my office that doubles as a bulletin board.
I understand that interest in newspapers and magazines is declining and that the generations who follow mine are more interested in obtaining information through high-tech means rather than through low-tech print media. Personally, I’m not adverse to new ways of communication, but that doesn’t mean we have to completely abandon the old ones. I’ll grant today’s passion for emails sent to one’s cell phone, but if you don’t study a newspaper or a magazine occasionally, you’re bound to miss something interesting.
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Posted on November 9, 2007
I took this photo a couple weeks ago as summer waned and autumn arrived. The geraniums still bloomed but with less zest than in the heat of the high season. The leaves on the trees were losing their ability to product chlorophyll, which keeps them green in summer. Once the chlorophyll is depleted the trees turn their brilliant colors. Scientists have determined what trees turn what colors, and I suppose it a valuable thing to know. I only know the cornucopia of color that brightens my back yard every fall is a wonderful sight.
This photo represents a certain point in time. Now, the geranium plant is gone, having succumbed in last week’s frost and fallen from its perch on the deck bench in recent severe winds. But the trees on the far bank have become brilliant red. Overhead we have moved to the grey time of year, but when the sun shines in late afternoon this scene moves me.
I think of the English poet John Keats who said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever; its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.” Having a photo of something you deem beautiful helps keep it alive. So today I share this photo of my back yard and, at the same time, revisit a poet who died almost two hundred years ago.
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Posted on November 6, 2007
I think Bill O’Reilly is one of the most arrogant men on television today, and this saddens me. I saw him in person a year or two ago at a local Economics Club function and was impressed with his humility and knowledge. Today, one of those attributes has definitely disappeared. In its place is an attitude of self-righteousness. Perhaps it’s due to his ratings.
O’Reilly is quite popular, what with his No Spin Zone aura on things, particularly things political. At the same time, he has become increasingly rude to his guests, particularly those who don’t share his opinion on any given subject. He interrupts, he opines, he chastises — rather than attempts serious debate. For this reason, I avoid his show.
Tonight, however, I watched about five minutes after my partner, Earl, suggested I hadn’t given O’Reilly a fair shake. I believe his comment was that I didn’t watch the commentator enough to have an informed opinion. That I hadn’t given O’Reilly a fair chance to express himself. So I gave five minutes.
The issue was illegal immigration, and the guest speaker was an attorney in favor of helping illegal immigrants. Now I don’t necessarily side with this point of view. But this attorney barely had a chance to speak before O’Reilly butted in, regaling her opinion as wrong, and overriding any comment she wanted to make. It wasn’t debate, which is the presentation of both sides of an issue with facts that are documentable and rhetoric that is persuasive but not abusive. Rather, it was tirade, which is berating and over-riding. And it was tirade on one side only. The guest speaker barely had a chance.
I don’t think I’ll give Bill O’Reilly another five minutes of my time. I realize we are on different sides of many issues, but that isn’t the reason why I’m tuning out. The real reason is that he’s out of control.
See more 10 Minutes in category Changing Scene, Things to Ponder
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Posted on November 2, 2007
I’ve taken piano five and a half years now, and every day there’s a revelation. Sometimes it comes in the form of listening to a piece of music and realizing I can decipher the rhythm pattern. Sometimes it comes because my fingers know what to do, and my brain isn’t working so hard telling them. Finally, sometimes it comes when I sit down to play those pieces I learned a year, maybe two years, ago and find they’re not half as difficult as they were back then. Always it’s amazing. And satisfying.
I wouldn’t say I’m particularly musical. Although I know the words to many songs, I’ve never really focused on the melodies. But piano is about the melody, the swing and sway, the forte and the pianissimo, the march and the waltz. I’ve learned that much in five and a half years.
When we bought this house, the previous owners left behind a tired, out-of-tune piano they didn’t want to pay to move. Which got me wondering that maybe it was left for a reason. Maybe I should challenge my brain to learn something new, something totally outside the realm of my comfort zone. So I had the piano tuned and hired a piano teacher. She and I are still together, although the old piano has bitten the dust. In its place I own a brand new Kawai grand piano, with the thinking that I should learn on the piano I will play the rest of my life. If I waited until I was worthy of such a pricey instrument, I would still be plinking out tunes on the tired dinosaur we inherited with the house. The one that went out of tune right after the piano tuner came. That didn’t seem to be the best way to grow musically.
I will never be a great pianist; I probably started too late in life to accomplish this particular goal. But it was never my goal anyway. Instead, I’ve gained a greater appreciation of all types of music in general, and I can play a tune or two. It feels good.
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