Back in the Saddle

Yesterday my team curled in the Senior Bonspiel at the Bowling Green Curling Club in Ohio. It's a good club and a fun place to be. We went 1-1, finishing fifth. I skipped the second game and we got some breaks and the boys played good in front of me. We won it, 10-5.

It's the first game I've played skip in around 7 years. I don't mind saying I was intimidated by the prospect. I threw last rocks almost all the time for around twenty years, but you need a different mentality for being skip. You have to want it, you have to want to throw the rocks which generally mean the most to the outcome of a curling match. 

But as I said, we caught a couple breaks and the boys played well in front of me. I did manage to shoot a tight port to punch out a stone to score four. We still had time to play, but I knew with that four spot we would win.

It felt good. Yes, the shot, but being skip again really made my day. I appreciate the guys letting me. I've said many times that curling is a great game, but it's the people who are the best.

It's All Right to be Sentimental

I don't mean this to be at all melancholy, although it certainly is sentimental and perhaps a bit wistful.

When they were toddlers I can remember my kids rushing to the living room window to wave bye to me whenever I went somewhere. In my mind's eye I can actually see each of them in that front window, waving frantically as little tykes do.

Yesterday coming home from Newark Ohio as my oldest son was on his way to work, he slowed down on his exit from the local freeway to allow me to quickly catch up so that we might wave at each other as our trails separated. Last September as I turned out of the parking lot of the diner where my second son and I had had breakfast in Stamford, Connecticut, as I began my journey back to Detroit, I saw him watching my car as I left. We shared a wave.

Not quite the little blond and redheaded boys of 40 years ago. But still a treat for a Dad.

Time Zones

As I spoke of yesterday, me son Charlie and I watched live wrestling. It turns out that the show was in Perth, in Western Australia. It was late afternoon there as it was early morning here.

We don't often think about how big this world can be. He we were, my son and I, in the early morning hours of a Saturday in the eastern United States, and there they were in the dying embers of Sunday. As the Sun was literally rising here it was setting there. They were closer to Monday while we had only left Friday six hours behind us.

Maybe it isn't that big a deal. But it seems so to me. It's an interesting feeling, almost like awe. We ought to feel more of that in life.

Ringside Seats

What do you do at 5 O'clock in the morning in central Ohio on a late February Saturday morning? Why, watch pay per view wresting live...from Australia.

Yep, that's just what me and me son Charlie are doing. It's tomorrow afternoon in the land down under, because of the International Date Line or something like that. I believe Australia is 19 hours ahead of us, so while it's today here it's tomorrow there. Mind blowing.

Charlie bought a pizza, which is cooking in the oven right now. As we eat that means I'll get to ask, for the first time in my life, "Is this delivery?"

Get it?

Anyway, there are worse ways to spend Saturday mornings. I know. I've experienced them.

He'll Help Anybody

We Catholics know that when you can't find something you pray to St. Anthony for help. I did that just yesterday in fact and promptly found what I had misplaced. It truly works.

Several years ago one my aunts, a sister of me Mom's (that's typical of how someone becomes your aunt) lost something important. Mom's side of the family is overwhelmingly Protestant whereas Mom converted to Catholicism after she married me Pops. That's important to know only because you won't appreciate the story otherwise.

Mom suggested her sister pray to St. Anthony. In fact my aunt's exact prayer was, "St. Anthony, I don't know you but my sister does. Please help me find what I'm looking for." Lo and behold, she found it in the next few minutes.

Few things are more powerful than sincere prayer, eh? It knows no denomination.

Serendipity, Maybe

I try to stay on top of the oil changes in my vans. It's only common sense, of course, and why burn out a motor even in an old yet otherwise good vehicle for the want of staying on top of the fluids?

Yet how many of us are ever actually smack dab right on time when seeing to the chore? We'll be within a few miles typically, right? While I knew that my newer old van needed service somewhere in 214,000 mile bracket I wasn't sure of the precise mileage when that would be. As I pulled into the oil change place I frequent I was at 214,444 miles. And I was exactly at the recommended change spot.

That'll never happen again. It surely never happened before either.

High School Reunions

One day back in 2003, me Pops, me self, and me son Charlie sat at the office in the Shop, drinking coffee. Hey, it was a well deserved break. We'd been working hard that day.

Anyway, for whatever reason me Pops was staring up at the calendar on the wall. He observed, "Man, time flies. I have my fiftieth high school reunion coming up."

Curious myself about mine after that I did some quick math and said, "Yeah, really. Looks like my twenty-fifth is next year." 

As a little smarmy smile grew on his face, me son Charlie remarked, "I'm coming up on my second."

Touche, boy. Touche.

4-0-1

Remember last Tuesday? I don't remember a lot about it either, but I do recall writing this blog where I wondered out loud whether a tie constituted a continuing winning streak. The general consensus, and that being the two people who actually responded directly to my question, was that it counted as an unbroken streak without a loss. I could legitimately go on wearing what I had worn for the streak. So I donned my 'lucky' Sheamus hoodie again last night.

We won 11-7 in a game which was not as close as the score.

Four wins, no losses, one tie in our last five games. I guess Sheamus returns again next Monday. The question is, do I wash the hoodie? You can wash out the luck, you know...

Post dated Cloyce

We have had a lot of interesting individuals come through our Shop door over the years. Some, you had trouble getting money out of them. Not all of those guys were out to con you, though.

One fella in particular, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, has been on open account for better than forty years now. He's slow to pay but he always, eventually, pays. He's a genuinely good guy too. I think he's just undisciplined, kinda the way a kid is undisciplined. The kid means well yet doesn't quite understand how things should work.

A habit of Cloyce's has been to bring a check to pay his bill but then post date it. "Can you hold this for a week, Bill?" he would ask me Pops on presentation of a scrap of at that point worthless paper. And Dad would hold it, knowing that it would be good sometime within the next three weeks.

He's done that to me too. I deal with it because I know Cloyce means well, and also because I genuinely like him. As I say, it's not unfair to say he's almost confusedly childlike in his approach to life. There's a part of me which finds that quaint, or even endearing.

Still, getting paid is why we work. Back in September Cloyce came in and gave me a post dated check, asking me to hold it for a few days. I said yes but added, "You know, Cloyce, paying me today with a check I can't cash today really isn't paying me today." Cloyce nodded, and I could almost see that light bulb above his head trying to brighten beyond dim.

Cloyce stopped by the old barn last week to pay his current bill. He wrote out a check. "Look, Marty, I dated it today," he showed me.

"Great, Cloyce, thanks," I replied.

He then asked, "Can you hold it until Friday?"

Cue the sad trombone. Yes, I can hold it until Friday. I actually wonder whether that's his way of making himself pay me, to know in his own mind that a check is out there that he has to, some day, honor. Whatever the reason, I'll surely have my money later this week.

Music Critic

I occasionally sing, generally softly, when I'm driving. A song will pop into my head and I'll sing along with it.

With me brother Patrick in tow as I went to Mass yesterday I half sang, half hummed King of the Road.

A minute later and it was Flowers on the Wall.

After that, as I was just starting Hank Williams Jr.'s Family Tradition Patrick blurted out, "Keep your day job."

All right, maybe my voice gets old. And at least I know where I stand with him.

Mom at 90

Mom would have been 90 today. I'm still not sure whether I've actually come to grips with it or not. It's been almost a year and a half, September 22, 2022, since she passed.

I'm heading out to the cemetery before work to say a few prayers. It reminds me of a cold winter Sunday a few years back where she wanted to stop and see Dad. After a few minutes of quiet contemplation she said out loud, "I love you, Bill, but I have to go. It's cold!"

I'm sure he understood. I'll come back by when its warmer myself Mom.

Generation Gap

One of these days I want to visit Philadelphia. It's common knowledge that there's all kinds of important historical stuff there, the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall and such. Me son Charlie wants to go with me when I go. He's a big fan of Sylvester Stallone's Rocky and would love to show me the sites in Philly where many of the iconic scenes in the movies were filmed. 

I would like to see them too. My only problem is that every time, and I mean every single time, someone mentions Rocky all I hear is, "Again? But that trick NEVER works!"

Thank you, thank you, I'm here until Tuesday.

Ash Wednesday

Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. It's easy for me to say, but the other two issues of note this February 14 - Valentine's Day and the opening of baseball spring training - pale next to that. It's time to ready ourselves to become better people.

No matter how good we already are, there's always room for improvement. I don't think we should beat ourselves up, but we must never forget the value of self review nor the lessons of regret. This is the time to think all that out. 

Read good books and articles. Reflect on what you should and should not have done, honestly and perhaps a little brutally, despite what I just said. See God in everyone you meet. Just maybe that will help them to see God in you.

Curling Dilemma

I did not wear my usual curling sweatshirt four weeks ago, but, rather, one based on the wrestler Sheamus from World Wrestling Entertainment. It features a Gaelic cross on the front (Sheamus is Irish) and the word 'laoch' which means 'warrior' in Irish, on the back. I curled great as did the team and we won. So I wore it the next week.

And we won. So I wore it a third time.

And we won. So I wore it last night.

We tied.

I don't know what to do now. Does a non-loss count as keeping a streak alive? 

The Game

I watched the game yesterday. What? No, not football, golf. The Phoenix Open. It's the golf tournament which, after the Masters, I most look forward to.

It's famous for its stadium hole. The organizers surround the sixteenth hole with a triple deck grandstand that seats 20,000. It has private suites too.

The tournament simply feels electric, even over television. There's less raw energy at the Masters. Of course, I think the Masters folks prefer that, being genteel and all.

Yes, I fully realize there was another game yesterday. But I didn't watch it. I believe that anticipating new commercials against a background of manufactured violence is little more than a neurosis.

The Speck

There are those who wish to belittle the importance of humanity as 'a speck on a speck on a speck (on a speck)'. In short, in a vast, expanding universe, we're tiny, unimportant nothings.

I never found this a convincing argument. For starters, it actually encourages us to not take the entirety of the universe seriously. Alien worlds, alien lives? Speck on specks on specks (on specks) too. Each as tiny and unimportant as us. Take that, SETI.

Even in earthly terms, size isn't the keystone. A Giant Redwood is a magnificent tree. But it isn't human. It isn't self aware. It isn't able to consider its place in creation. It also far overshadows we mere humans. Yet it's asinine to argue that a tree is superior to a person, or a person unimportant merely because the tree is larger. 

In short, size, mass and relative geography aren't the end all be all. Moral value and moral virtue are not in them. They're just there. But individual human beings? We're aware that we're here. And we can do something about that.

Can't Win For Losing

Yesterday I spoke about a long day up North. As I passed a Shell station in Mackinaw City right at the tip of the mitt I saw gas for $3.07 a gallon. Too much, I know, but a good price for that area and these times. Yet as it was in the wee hours the station was closed. I vowed to stop by as I returned. 

Of course, by the time I made my stops in da U.P. it was I clear I wouldn't get back that far without more petrol. Thinking about that relatively inexpensive fuel, I bought a meager $10 at $3.24 when around 40 miles from Mackinaw. You know, enough to get across the bridge for the cheaper cost. 

You know where this is going, don't you?

Crossing the Mighty Mac in great anticipation, I soon made my exit by that same gas station from earlier, where its gas was then $3.28. I could have filled up completely and saved four cents a gallon.

It figures. 

Green February

This has been an abnormally warm Michigan winter so far, something which doesn't bother me at all. It's supposed to be 62 in Detroit today. Still, I understand the affect that might have on things like, oh, nature. How good or bad that is is surely a subject of debate.

I had a long day on the road yesterday, leaving at 1 AM and getting home a touch before 6 PM. In fact, I was in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, stopping by me Hessel haunt for a few minutes as I was too close not to. There's next to no snow; my driveway was as clear as in June. Even the inside of the house wasn't particularly cold. 

There were signs for a 'Snowfest' today through Sunday, but I can't see where there'll be must festing.

I'm certain the snowmobilers haven't had much to do. I could see ice fishermen out on the lake despite there being standing water along the shore. I assume they know what they're doing but it didn't seem safe to me. They were way out there: a half mile or better if I were to hazard a guess.

Driving home during the day, I saw many farmer's fields in the northern and central Lower Peninsula going green already. The sight was odd, especially as there were occasional snowbanks in the shade. I do wonder what effect that has on their planning. But I'm not enough of a farmer to know.

Ah well. It is what it is.

Urban Sightseeing

I have lived in the Woodbridge district of Detroit for well nigh on 63 years now.  It's a nice place to live. I enjoy my morning walks here.

I can't tell you how many nearby houses I would love to get a look inside. The styles of architecture (don't ask what the specific styles are called; I only know that different houses look different) are fascinating. There are squarish brick structures and clapboard homes, and thin ones and wide ones and ones with turrets. One wonders what imagination developed some of the sizes and variations on homes found in the old neighborhood. 

That thought this morning jogged my memory into the times, three I believe, where me Grandpa Joe and I went exploring old houses. He'd see an older and clearly abandoned home and half bark, "C'mon, boy" to me and we'd go check it out. I doubt me Mom would have approved.

It was keen though to see the insides and how they were laid out. Then, too, you could tell what rooms and shelves and whatnot had been cobbled in, that were not part of how the original interior had been set up. But I think the keenest thing was being in there with me Grandpa Joe, him just being a bit of a kid himself with a kid in tow.

I think he was a bit of a kid, honestly. And I mean that in a kind way. Yeah, he was ornery and demanding and gruff and arbitrary. But he was fascinated with the world around him. What was where, what was what, that sort of thing. Creation, if I may risk going way out on a limb, interested the man. That made for a few quiet and calm adventures between me and him as the days went on.

 

Joe's Tell

I told you about me Grandmaw Hutchins, about Grandmaw's Tell? Well, if you done forgot you might remind yourself here: Grandmaw's Tell

Me Grandpa Joe, he had a tell too, just of a different kind for a different purpose.

We'd be sitting in the old barn, the Shop, drinking coffee during a break. I miss those times. But anyway, Joe would reach a point where he'd go quiet, contemplating. As the gears in his head moved faster and he began sidling up to the idea percolating in his mind, he'd draw his cup to his lips and take a sip. Then he'd right off take a second, deeper sip. His eyes began to light, that upcoming project dancing in their background. A third draw would be a deep drink, while the with the fourth he'd turn that cup nearly upside down and drain what was left of the contents. Coffee break was over. We'd be off on whatever project or adventure he had determined we would tackle next. Quite often, it was adventures none of the rest of us cared to participate in. But we did, cause he paid us. And sometimes they were pretty cool.

Joe's Tell. Sip, sip more heartily, drink deep, then drain the coffee cup. Now, I loved that old and miss him all the time, but that tell I don't miss. Well, mostly. Because as I say some of those tasks were quite the romp.

The Voice

It happened again last night at curling. I had an old friend come up to say, "I heard that laugh, and I immediately thought, Marty's here!" Yes, with the exclamation point.

Remember last week? I had virtually the same thing happen, as I wrote here . While it's good to be known for something, I have to admit stuff like this makes a guy just a bit self conscious and vaguely paranoid. 'Someone told a joke, and I laughed. Was it that laugh?' 

"And you do have a distinct voice," my buddy Nick tells me. Yeah, distinct. I've been told I have a future with the Cartoon Network. Seriously. Right on TV, on a baseball pregame show: Tiger Pregame

Oh, I'm not going to stop. If it's that much a part of my personality, that ingrained after all these years, I probably couldn't if I wanted to. And it is good to be remembered. It leaves me interested for what may happen next Monday.

The Insurrection Thing

I should not do this, I should not write about the upcoming Supreme Court case dealing with whether former President Donald Trump can be withheld from the ballot for being an insurrectionist. It's a morass of little more than deep anger and resentment on the part of virtually every player in the game, right, left, and center, bringing out the very worst in politics all the way around. Indeed, the whole thing makes the argument for smaller government all the more obvious. But it is what it is, and it ain't gonna go away.

The crux of the issue is whether state officials have the right to keep candidates off the ballot on their own authority. I don't know all the details as each state runs its own election show, but that's the general idea. In the case of Colorado and Maine, they are using the anti-insurrection clause of one of the Civil War amendments to the Constitution to keep Trump out of their respective state primaries. You can read the exact wording here The 14th Amendment if you like. Section 3 is the critical part, and it is pretty clear: if you violate your oath to the the United States by inciting or aiding insurrection or insurrectionists, you are ineligible to hold further office within it. The question then becomes one of interpretation. What exactly is an insurrection, and who makes that call?

Did Trump call for an insurrection against the United States? He definitely called for protest. He certainly should have accepted things as they were and stepped aside graciously, even with a MacArthurish 'I shall return'. He didn't. Yet even Snopes refused to label anything he said or did as a call for insurrection, opining that the President's words that day were open to subjective interpretation while not actual calls to revolt. I'm not getting into all the ifs ands and wherefores of that. To be blunt, I don't trust the mainstream media (who clearly despise the former President) his staunchest supporters (who love him far too deeply) nor the humble opposition (who themselves have an obvious agenda). I don't trust what any faction says, and I wonder how many of my fellow Americans think similarly. I think we can all agree, though, that what happened January 6, 2021 should not have happened. 

All that said, I'm hesitant to call it an insurrection. Mass stupidity, to be sure, a protest gone seriously awry, yet it wasn't by any stretch of the imagination as violent as what was seen in Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle (where some folks actually declared themselves independent, you might recall) among other hot spots in the summer of 2020. What happened 1/6/21 petered out quickly and, in context, rather peacefully. The transfer of power in the United States government was never in real peril, thanks to Mike Pence and cooler, saner heads. The Capitol wasn't burned down like the police precinct in Minnesota or the businesses in Kenosha. The attempts at insurrection in those and other places (which can clearly be called insurrection) were far more dangerous to our body politic.

Are Colorado and Maine playing politics? I believe so, yes. I think their best response would be to allow Trump on the ballot, to rise above the fray. They need to ask, are they helping, or hurting? Are they actually standing for good law or themselves fanning the flames? I really don't doubt that it's the latter. But however you slice it, with an unclear idea of whether a revolt (or attempt at revolt) actually took place, and with supercharged backers supporting a popular candidate who seems unable to choose his words wisely, well, it's better to stay above that. If you make Trump a martyr you're doing him more good than your own cause, such as it might be. And any interfering by a sitting government with a political party choosing its representatives is questionable in itself, and dangerous to the democracy you claim to defend. It's speaking with a forked tongue.

I hope the Supreme Court orders them to allow the former President on their ballots. I think it's the safest and sanest direction to follow. Besides, Taylor Swift is going to decide the upcoming election anyway.

Bumper Cars

Grandpa Joe once had an old Packard that he really liked. He also had an older brother whom he was close to, and one day the car and the brother came together in what even Joe admitted was a funny story.

His older brother was Uncle Bill. Joe thought enough of him that he named his first son, me Pops, after him. Uncle Bill was as quiet and reflective as Joe was loud and abrasive. But if you told Uncle Bill to do something you'd better mean it, because he would do it.

One day someone's car had slid off into a ditch, and Joe and Bill went with Grandpa's Packard to try to pull it out. They hooked up to the car, and Bill got in the driver's seat of the Packard because Joe thought he was better at things like pulling vehicles out of ditches. Uncle Bill revved the Packard up slowly, and gently tried to get into gear several times, with no luck moving the stuck car. Joe become more impatient by the second, until he finally yelled, "Hell, rip the bumper off her!"

"I knew right after I said it I'd said it to the wrong guy," Grandpa admitted years later, retelling the tale with a laugh.

Uncle Bill's face drew into a huge grin. He raced that engine and dropped it into gear. The car leapt forward powerfully, as a 12 cylinder Packard should. And he ripped the bumper clean off.

As Joe said years later, "What could I say? I told him to do it."

He never did say exactly how they got the car out of the ditch though. But that really isn't the point of the story anyway, is it?

Role Models

Everyone one of us is a role model, whether we want to be or not. What we say and do necessarily affects both those around us and in the world in general. There's simply no way past that.

You can argue that your life choices are yours to make, and in the strictest sense they most certainly are. Yet when you do something which is wrong, you're teaching by inference that it is in fact right. When the next person tries to do it their first defense is going to be, well, so-and-so did it, and he seems like an ok guy. The day will come when a given evil act is seen as good merely because other folks have seen you (and a great many others) do it.

It can work the other way too, of course. That's part of the reason we encourage morally good actions. What gets me is that people don't want to see it that other way. I think they're sides of a coin, so to speak. If good act promotes good things then bad acts will cause more bad. It's a pretty basic idea.

That's why we as a society cannot back away from calling what seem to be purely individual preferences good or bad. There's no such as living your life your own way without the price of causing others to emulate you. And you're responsible for that, whether it's leading astray or towards goodwill. It just ain't all about you. You are a role model. You must consider that in whatever you do.

The Wee Hours

Let's see what thoughts arise at 4:28 in the morning. What stream of consciousness may spring from the brain?

I just ate a Hershey bar. Milk chocolate: breakfast of champions? 

Barnaby Jones is on TV. You think Buddy Ebsen got so tired of playing Jed Clampett and country bumpkins that he figured to break the mold and become a private detective? He actually started out as a song and dance man, you know. It doesn't seem so.

We'll know soon if that oversized rat sees his shadow I suppose.

Ah, I quit. Yes, it's a slow news day Ron.

The Lions

I've had this internal debate since Monday morning over whether I want to talk about the Detroit Lions or not. I'm still not sure that I want the bother, even as I'm clearly bothering right now.

Was it a good season? Yes. Their best ever, as some assert? Absolutely not. Best seasons are championship seasons. The baseball Detroit Tigers had good seasons in 1950, 1961, 1987, 2006, and 2012. They had a solid shot at winning everything those years. But their best ever years were 1935, 1945, 1968, and 1984, when they won it all. The others are mere footnotes, or worse: shoulda woulda coulda years.

Detroit should be happy about their recently ended football season, and understandably. But at day's end, they fell short. That can never be a best ever.

Cloyce Adrift

There was once this good ol' boy, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who considered himself the neighborhood innovator. Some of his ideas, to be fair, were kind of clever. But most of the time all he did was jury rig. That's okay too so far as I'm concerned, if it's a decent enough adaptation.

Cloyce had an old Chevy Bel Air, I believe it was a '65, and it needed a wheel alignment. The old rattletrap drifted sharply to the left (this is not leading to a political joke I assure you) and really needed front end work. But ol' Cloyce didn't want to put that kind of money into the car. So he looked around in his garage for what was handy and found an old snow tire. He put it on the car on the left front.

That stopped the drift. His theory was that the snow tire, having deeper tread, made up for the amount of space which had been created by vehicular wear which led to the drift. Based on the results, I'm inclined to say he was right, as he drove with that winter tire for about six months before he got rid of the car.

It was a jury rig. But hey, it worked for him, and considering the types of cars I drive, who am I to argue?