?`s and ANNEswers

Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Fishing for Words

Posted on August 29, 2007

Writers and fisher people really have a lot in common. If you love to write or you love to fish, you need to make time from the daily grind to do so, as neither is an integral part of a usual routine. Both also require concentration on the task at hand, and both require patience.

I realized this comparison when Earl and I returned for the second time to Wollaston Lake Lodge, an exquisite retreat in the wilderness of northern Saskatchewan known primarily for the pike, walleye, trout, and grayling caught there. But who knows. Someday it might be known for the novel I worked on there.

Wollaston Lake Lodge has every amenity a fancy resort has: a five star chef, lovely rustic accommodations, a masseuse, and pristine natural beauty unspoiled by billboards or trash along a road. In fact, there are no paved roads. There is no television, no telephones to speak of, and no wireless Internet connection. It’s a real opportunity to disconnect from the plugged in, turned on, hot wired life we create for ourselves at home. At the same time, it isn’t exactly roughing it, as the staff makes one feel pampered. Gourmet meals are served daily; your cabin is cleaned and your laundry is also done daily. The guests are cared for so well that fishing or writing become the primary task at hand. All else fades.

Earl fishes every day, but I opt for the day on-day off approach. On those off days, I am usually the only guest in camp who isn’t in a boat with a guide looking for the “Big One.” So there’s an added measure of solitude that encourages writing. Which is why I lug my computer half way across Canada.

I’ve gone to many writing conferences where all the attendees were committed to their own works in progress, but I can honestly say I am equally inspired by being surrounded by fisher people who leave me alone to commune not only with nature but also my own creative spirit.

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CURMUDGEON MONDAY – Muscle Bound

Posted on August 27, 2007

NOTE: I’m starting a new column here called “Curmudgeon Monday.” It’s my one chance each week to gripe about something that bugs me.

“Have you seen my ex lately?” writer Lisa Best asked as the lead sentence to an article about Canadian bodybuilder Todd Payette. Payette has been invited to represent his country in the Mr. Universe contest in London this coming October.

Ms. Best proceeded to explain why she and Payette were no longer married before really getting into the meat (If you’ll excuse the expression) of the matter in paragraph three. From there, most of the article is devoted to describing how Payette got hooked on his sport, how he was invited to compete in the Olympics of bodybuilding, and how Jack LaLanne, an early television guru on fitness, influenced him.

But the last paragraph turns personal again, with Ms. Best describing Payette’s current fiancйe as one who “loves egg whites and cottage cheese and supports him in his Speedos,” things the author has already alluded at the front end as being some of the reasons their marriage failed.

The thing is Best’s injecting her personal relationship into the article distracts the attention from Payette and his endeavors. From the first sentence, the reader wonders if writer and subject are on cordial speaking terms, how long ago they divorced, etc. It’s a subtle mental distraction, and I give Best the benefit of the doubt that it was intentional. Nevertheless, the article would have stood better on its own merit, had it begun with paragraph three and ended without any reference to a fiancйe.

I’m not picking on Best in particular, but I am using this article as an example of journalists of all stripes who interview a particular person or describe a particular event and then inject some self-serving comment about their experience in the matter. Another cloying example occurred during last week’s Bears-Colts football game, where the three announcers spent most of the time discussing their opinion of football player Michael Vick’s recent guilty plea for participating in illegal dog fighting, rather than calling the game at hand.

I don’t want to know about a writer’s personal relationship or an announcer’s opinion unless it is truly relevant to the topic. Knowing that Best was once married to Payette or that the three announcers — whose names I never caught — thought Vick would get the longest sentence of those who pleaded guilty didn’t enhance my knowledge of either bodybuilding or football. And it really didn’t say much for the journalists involved either.

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Gone Fishin’

Posted on August 17, 2007

Back August 27, 2007.

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www.gethuman.com

Posted on August 15, 2007

Paul English is my new hero. He is the software engineer who founded www.gethuman.com, which has now been trademarked as the gethuman™ movement. Originally, English created his site to publicize how to reach a human on the telephone at many of the country’s largest businesses. For instance, if you want to get past the automated gatekeeper at the Saturn Automobile Company, you press 3 instead of 0. For Toyota, you press 6. Knowing these little tips helps reduce the time and frustration involved in consumer/corporate communication.

But English and his group of associates haven’t stopped there. They’ve actually created standards for good telephone communication and assigned grades to five hundred companies based on those standards. Out of the entire group, only ten companies — one percent of the five hundred involved — received an “A” rating, because they forego automated telephone systems altogether. This means when you call their corporate telephone numbers you get a human being immediately. These companies are Hertz, Commerce Bank, Dillard’s Department Stores, Land’s End, L.L. Bean, Nordstrom’s, Comfort Inn, Day’s Inn, Hyatt Corporation, and Walt Disney World.

This list is dominated by high end department stores and hotel chains, while — surprise! surprise! — all the major TV and satellite companies made the “F” list. They include Comcast, DirecTV, Sirius, and Time Warner Cable. And, because these companies are not particularly user friendly when it comes to telephone communication, English ferreted out ways to reach a human. For DirecTV, for instance, when you call the 800 number and the automated voice answers, don’t say anything or press any button. This gets you in line to speak to a real live person. For Time Warner Cable, press “O” at each prompt and ignore the automated messages.

Unfortunately each company has its own quirks, so what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another. That’s why www.gethuman.com is so helpful and Paul English is my new best friend.

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Noodling

Posted on August 14, 2007

I’ve always tried to avoid the aquacisers, that group of older people who do their aerobic and strength training in the swimming pool five days a week at the health club. In fact, I usually time my own workout to be entering the women’s locker room as they are leaving, all showered and squeaky clean. But last week I decided to try aquacise for myself.

There were about ten of us, and we stood in a line that stretched the length of the pool with the instructor facing us. She handed out noodles, those long flexible foam poles that are the size of a small log. For the next forty-five minutes we walked and jumped from one end of the pool to the other, using our noodle in various ways to create resistance in the water. Some of us inadvertently used the noodle to swat others in the head too.

“Sit on your noodle,” the instructor yelled at one point, “and kick your feet in the air. Now do it backwards.” “Push the noodle through the water in front of you, then pull it back to your chest.” “Tighten those abs.”

As our group weaved back and forth, the force of all this kicking and arm waving tended to create waves and make us look like struggling surfers. Or confused dolphins. But I must admit it was fun. The only problem occurred when the class ended, and we all tried to get to the three showers at the same time. That’s when I remembered why I usually don’t work out at the same time as the aquacisers.

Now here I was, actually joining them and planning to come back next week. What might this say about the stage I’ve gotten to in life? I’m not sure, but as I waited my turn for the shower I noodled on it.

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Weeding

Posted on August 12, 2007

With this summer’s drought, weeds haven’t been a big problem. But since southwestern Michigan has received several inches of rain in the past week or so, they’ve begun to rear their ugly, unwanted leaves. So I’m rearing back. I spent about an hour today starting to get the weeds under control. It will take more than that, but it’s a beginning.

Truthfully, I like weeding. It answers some call in my soul. And it’s a good thing it does, as my yard man — the person who does most of the fertilizing, mowing, and trimming — hates weeding. He and I have the agreement that I’ll do it, if he does all the other stuff.

I have a routine for weeding. First, I grab my iPod, the better to entertain myself; next I grab my cap, the better to keep the sun from my eyes. Finally, I grab my gardening gloves. Armed with these accoutrements, I head for the garage to find a rose cone. Rose cones are light and hold a large amount of weeds. They are my container of choice for the task at hand.

Then, as I listen to “Les Miz,” which is what played on my iPod this afternoon, I slowly — and I stress “slowly” — walk around my yard to find a place to begin, my rose cone in tow. Today, I started with the shrub roses on the west side of the garage. From there I work myself around the house and then the trees that dot our property.

I try to make weeding a time to commune with my flowers and my trees, rather than a systematic effort to remove unwanted plants. I study the day lilies and the lamb’s ear and the astilbe. I watch to see what will bloom next as the season wears on. And I admire the results of the hours of hard work our yard man puts in. The weeding is really the least of it.

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Vignette

Posted on August 11, 2007

I pulled into the South Shore Health and Racquet Club this morning, intent on getting my daily dose of exercise out of the way as quickly as possible. As I climbed from my car, a cheery voice said, “Hi.”

I looked up to find three women standing by the car next to mine. I’d casually noticed them as I pulled in, but had no intention of socializing. But when someone addresses you, even with a casual “Hi,” it’s rude not to return the greeting. So I did. The woman who’d spoken initially walked toward me, holding a camera in her hand.

“We’re wondering if you would take a picture of the three of us,” she said. I looked from woman to woman to get a clue as to why they wanted a photo in the middle of the parking lot. They appeared to be a little older than I, all neatly coifed and smiling.

The woman continued: “We’re here for our fiftieth reunion at Benton Harbor High School. We all graduated together in 1957.” She asked my name, and I gave it. In return she introduced herself and the other two women. Between the reunion’s organized events, they’d come to play tennis, although only one of them had played regularly since graduation. She sported the tennis rackets on her arm. The other two were just along for the ride.

The three of them squeezed together to fit in the camera’s viewfinder. I took my time, and managed not only one picture but two in hopes that at least one showed them all at their best. As they posed, I asked if they’d kept in touch since high school. Oh, yes, was the answer; every five years they get together.

My duties done, I went on my way, but I felt honored to be part of a fifty year celebration. My own fiftieth high school reunion is a mere four years off, and I honestly can’t say I’ve done a good job of keeping up with anybody from Mount St. Mary’s Academy. I’ll have to work hard between now and 2011 to be included in a group photo, even if it’s only one of three women laughing in a parking lot.

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La Leche League International

Posted on August 10, 2007

Rummaging in our office supplies closet yesterday, I came across a simple white mug with the outline of a woman cradling a baby drawn on one side and the inscription “Liga de la Lactancia Materna de Honduras” on the other. It held a variety of pens and pencils at the ready for whoever needed one, but as I looked I saw it filled only with memories.

I worked for La Leche League International for a short fifteen months and left in 1994. Yet, every now and then I find a remnant of that era hiding in my current life; and it reminds me that it was the most important job I ever held. My tenure was short, as I left when the internal politics took more of my time than the job for which I was hired.

Yet, whenever I find something from those days, I recall how committed the women who worked for La Leche League were, regardless of whether they were paid staff or volunteers. I remember Mary Lofton and Betty Crase and Judy Torgas and Rebecca Magalhaes even though I haven’t spoken with any of them in over a decade. I remember going to Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico on behalf of the organization to promote breastfeeding as a lifesaving intervention. I remember being honored to do so, since I hadn’t risen through the ranks of La Leche League and was considered by many to be an outsider.

It was a tumultuous time for the organization. Membership was flat, the administration was in flux, and the group was attempting to purchase a new home in the Chicago suburbs for its international headquarters. Finances and budgets were an added challenge. But it was exciting to be part of a group primarily composed of women who were convinced they could make a categorical difference in the world by promoting breastfeeding. The original seven founders started the organization at a time when even the word itself was not acceptable in print. That was fifty years ago this year. You cannot believe what they’ve done since.

The women in Honduras presented me with the white mug as a token of their friendship. I hardly spoke Spanish, but I tried to convey my appreciation. Yesterday, I removed the mug from its hiding place; in the future, I’ll keep it on my desk.

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Today in History

Posted on August 8, 2007

There’s a daily column in the local newspaper called “Today in History,” which lists things that happened on today’s date in other years. For instance, on August 4, 1944, Anne Frank and her family were discovered, after hiding in a garret for over two years. Sent to a concentration camp, fifteen-year-old Anne died about a month before it was liberated.

On August 5, 1957, “American Bandstand” made its network debut. As a teenager who was younger than Anne Frank, I remember exactly where I was at the time, and I watched Dick Clark for years after. And on today’s date in 1988, the Chicago Cubs were scheduled to play their first home game under lights, but rain forced its cancellation in the fourth inning.

I have no idea how The Associated Press, which syndicates “Today in History,” makes its selections, although I suspect choices must be memorable enough that readers’ can relate to the incidents and want to read the column regularly.

For the fun of it I went to Google® and checked to see what other events might also have occurred on August 8 in other years, and I found an almost endless list to choose from.

For instance, baseball legend Pete Rose began his five month prison term on this date in 1990, the temperature hit a high of 88 degrees in New York City on 8/8/88, and Brigadier General Efrain Rios Montt was deposed as the president of Guatemala. In 1960, the song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” hit number one on this date; today it’s mostly recognized as part of a commercial. In 1925, the Ku Klux Klan held it first national march in Washington, D.C., and the Queen of the Sandwich Islands visited New York City in 1860.

When I read the paper this evening, I’ll be curious to see if The Associated Press and I picked any of the same events, and I’m betting we haven’t. One thing is for sure, however. The AP probably won’t list the fact that Earl was born on this date, while I put this event at the top of the list.

Happy birthday, Earl.

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Simpson Mania

Posted on August 6, 2007

“The Simpsons” is one of the summer’s hot movies, not only from a ticket sales perspective but also from all the collateral marketing in fast food restaurants, on web sites, and in toy stores.

My knowledge of the phenomenon, however, is minimal. I’ve never seen the TV show and haven’t ventured to the movie yet. Knowing how I dislike sitting in a theater with other viewers who usually talk while they watch the screen, I probably won’t go at all.

But I am curious about the illustration at the top of this blog. Apparently, one can go to a web site and create a cartoon character in the style of the Simpson family. My son’s partner, Chris, was kind enough to send this along. If I made a guest appearance in the next movie — I’m betting on a sequel — this is what I’d look like.

Since I haven’t added any new photographs of me to this web site in ages, I’m adding my Simpson character. It’s really not a bad likeness.

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