What is it like to live with someone, to be married to someone, for 65 years? I don't know, but I know a couple of people who do. Their five children, three of their grandchildren, all four greatgrandchildren, and six spouses-in-law converged in a central location near the Ohio River this weekend to celebrate Mom and Dad's years together. I think they had a good time.
The ride to southern Indiana from central Ohio was a breeze. We started encountering relatives as soon as we got out of the car and pretty much took over the hotel Friday and Saturday nights. My sister Jeanie Beanie Golly Gee did a fabulous job of coordinating everything, so we had the run of the meeting rooms, which came in handy when it came time to eat, drink, talk, meet the newest members of the clan, play cards, and watch football.
Friday night Mom and Dad brought out a big box of games they have held onto forever and wanted to get rid of. Any takers? Someone found the Pit deck (copyright 1919, printed 1947), a card game based on the Chicago grain market that we used to play as kids. A game of Pit started tentatively, but it is easily learned, and the newbies quickly got the hang of it. Maybe it comes naturally to us Midwesterners. Hours of raucous fun ensued. "Pit open...corner!" You had to be there.
When we weren't doing the abovementioned eating, talking, etc., we were piling into two or three vans and going on excursions in beautiful downtown Jeffersonville and Louisville. To Schimpff's Confectionary, for example, where we took the nickel tour and learned more than we thought it possible to know about the nineteenth-century art and science of making candy from scratch. Hint: temperature is everything. The modest smalltown storefront is quite a place. The back room filled with old candymaking implements, packaging, vending machines, advertising, and other memorabilia provided an interesting history of American candy culture.
It was a nice day in the old river town, so we took a short walk down to the water, past the chic shops, the bars and restaurants, and the floodwall straddling Spring Street. I guess going places together is just an opportunity to have a conversation with my brother-in-law Barney Gee Golly about both of our daughters' moving out on their own, or where the economy may or may not be headed, with my brother Rock Golly about his ski trip to Utah with his son last February, or his most recent motorcycle acquisition.
By now it's time for lunch, so we piled into vans again and found a place up the road that would accommodate most tastes and not take all day. We've got more places to go and baseball bats to caress.
That's right, the Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum is just across the river on Main Street in a very cool art and theater district. If you have even a passing interest in baseball, it's worth seeing how they make the bats from a billet cut from an ash or maple trunk, shape it with one of hundreds of forms placed on a lathe, brand it, and finish it. I didn't have time to get in the batting cage, but my nephews Todd and Greg did, and it's probably just as well, since I don't think I could have hit the machine's pitching.
Everything in greater Louisville seems to be only a few minutes away, so we were back at the hotel in plenty of time for a workout and a change of clothes before dinner at Buckhead's Grill on the riverfront. With 20 people sitting at one long table, you can't really talk to everybody, so by the luck of the draw I got to talk to my nephew Greg Gosh Golly and his wife Christine while they fed their one-year-old Jonathan. We always seem to have a lot to say to each other: summer travels, our place up north, their place in Canada, the relative strengths of schedule in the NCAC and the MIAA, and the sad fact that the Yeomen and the Flying Dutchmen both lost all their nonconference games.
I was also in a position to observe from across the table my nephew Sam Gee Golly's three well-bred daughters - beauties of 7, 10, and 13 - conduct themselves like young ladies, each with her own distinct, witty, vibrant character. These occasions are instant validation for any parent, especially the daughters-in-law, and it was fun seeing Sam and Kayleen relax and bask in the reflected light.
The drive home on Sunday was equally uneventful, except we came a different way, up I-65 to Indianapolis, then east on I-70 instead of down I-71, but western swingstate is just as flat and boring and southern swingstate, so six of one, half-dozen of the other. It gave Gven and me a chance to rehash the weekend briefly, what was new or different from other reunions, and think about when and where the next one will be. It felt good to get home, put things away, eat a meal in the dining room, read the paper, watch the ballgame, and split some wood.
Zelda came by the house to touch base after taking care of the animals while we were gone. She was tired, and I was happy to see her and hear about recent changes at the store. She works hard. The renovation at the Lane Avenue HPB is complete at last, but there are seven pallets of books that have no shelf space. Another day, another bit of problem solving for...Zelda Golly, Shiftleader!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
frosty!
1. The condition of my back yard this morning, hardy plants and nonhardy alike, which I neglected to bring into the cellar last night as I had intended. Now we'll see how those six pots of spider lilies on the patio handle last nights temperature.
2. The reception I get when I talk to people at the Old North Church. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's that hardy, smalltown, central swingstate character of the good souls and solid citizens who comprise the congregation. No, it's probably me.
3. The back room, aka the Sven den, of our domicile, when I got home from a committee meeting last night. I won't say it was cold, but I chose not to settle into a comfortable chair to read a book, but went upstairs instead and fell asleep on the folded-up futon in our guest room, aka the Gven den.
4. The reaction of a former student when I contacted her about a workshop for the practice that I thought she was interested in. Maybe it's me. Maybe it has something to do with her complicated life, work changes, family obligations, and the normal strains of maintaining balance in life. No, it's probably me.
5. The mugs of Guinness at Claddagh, where an extremely small group of warm, friendly people met this week for a committee meeting and managed to move through an agenda, make a few decisions regarding the upcoming church calendar, and share the kind of personal information that might explain where each of us is coming from in our actions and attitudes toward the business at hand.
2. The reception I get when I talk to people at the Old North Church. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's that hardy, smalltown, central swingstate character of the good souls and solid citizens who comprise the congregation. No, it's probably me.
3. The back room, aka the Sven den, of our domicile, when I got home from a committee meeting last night. I won't say it was cold, but I chose not to settle into a comfortable chair to read a book, but went upstairs instead and fell asleep on the folded-up futon in our guest room, aka the Gven den.
4. The reaction of a former student when I contacted her about a workshop for the practice that I thought she was interested in. Maybe it's me. Maybe it has something to do with her complicated life, work changes, family obligations, and the normal strains of maintaining balance in life. No, it's probably me.
5. The mugs of Guinness at Claddagh, where an extremely small group of warm, friendly people met this week for a committee meeting and managed to move through an agenda, make a few decisions regarding the upcoming church calendar, and share the kind of personal information that might explain where each of us is coming from in our actions and attitudes toward the business at hand.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
It's pledge drive time again
Don't you just love this time of year? A slight nip in the air, low humidity, football Friday nights, football Saturday afternoon, football all day Sunday, sunlight on an angle that illuminates everything from the side, the brilliant foliage, and desperate pleas for funds from every direction.
I met my friend Petro at Starbuck's last night for our annual stewardship conversation, culminating in my writing a number on a sheet of paper and discreetly folding it into an envelope. He drank cappuccino, perhaps because of the likeness of its color to the cloak worn by the Capuchins, an austere order of Franciscan missionaries and preachers. I drank green tea. We had a pleasant yet earnest conversation, which I always enjoy, and we understand each other pretty well. An hour later I drove to the rec center in my gray Ranger, and Petro drove home in his new used dark green Jaguar.
This morning, Dan and Maggie and the gang down at the WCBE Fort Hays studio are back at it on the radio trying to talk their loyal listeners into ponying up with a check or credit card. Everyone hates the pledge drive, as they freely acknowledge, but for the price of a cup of coffee, you can keep the transmitter running and the unique programming on the air, etc., etc. When I've heard enough, I switch to WOSU, where they're doing the same thing in slightly more sophisticated language, and when I've heard enough, I switch to Smoove Jazz WJZA and try to ignore the commercials.
Shortly I will receive an enthusiastic letter from the two colleges from which I actually graduated (the other ones don't bother), reminding me that the current generation of students can finance their education only with my help. As a somewhat loyal alumnus, I will enclose a small check in the enclosed postage-paid envelope. Oddly enough, coffee is not involved.
The letters from environmental, human rights, civil liberties, public health, political advocacy, and other interest groups will continue to arrive at my desk, the difference being that they don't wait for the fall pledge season. Deciding whom to support is an exercise in values clarification as well as money management and, yes, identity politics. What can I afford? Who do I most want to support? Who needs my money the most? Who can be trusted to use it prudently on my behalf? What am I doing, really, in distributing my 'wealth'?
Ha! You call this wealth? Well, yeah, compared to most of the world, I'm rolling in it. Not saving much, yet managing to salt away a little here, a little there, paying the bills mostly, certainly not living large but rarely missing a meal, and indulging in the odd luxury here and there. While I'm not set for life or anywhere year prepared for retirement (whatever that is), I feel like I have enough money coming in to - are you ready? - redistribute a tiny bit.
Uh oh, I think I just uttered a hot-button word. Isn't it un-Amerikan to "redistribute" wealth? That's contrary to the 'Darwinian' (Spencerian) struggle of each against all for a bigger piece of the pie, which as some of our would-be leaders tell us, will actually "grow the pie" - an unfortunate turn of phrase. As Justice Holmes said, "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." So I guess we all choose where and how much to redistribute.
I met my friend Petro at Starbuck's last night for our annual stewardship conversation, culminating in my writing a number on a sheet of paper and discreetly folding it into an envelope. He drank cappuccino, perhaps because of the likeness of its color to the cloak worn by the Capuchins, an austere order of Franciscan missionaries and preachers. I drank green tea. We had a pleasant yet earnest conversation, which I always enjoy, and we understand each other pretty well. An hour later I drove to the rec center in my gray Ranger, and Petro drove home in his new used dark green Jaguar.
This morning, Dan and Maggie and the gang down at the WCBE Fort Hays studio are back at it on the radio trying to talk their loyal listeners into ponying up with a check or credit card. Everyone hates the pledge drive, as they freely acknowledge, but for the price of a cup of coffee, you can keep the transmitter running and the unique programming on the air, etc., etc. When I've heard enough, I switch to WOSU, where they're doing the same thing in slightly more sophisticated language, and when I've heard enough, I switch to Smoove Jazz WJZA and try to ignore the commercials.
Shortly I will receive an enthusiastic letter from the two colleges from which I actually graduated (the other ones don't bother), reminding me that the current generation of students can finance their education only with my help. As a somewhat loyal alumnus, I will enclose a small check in the enclosed postage-paid envelope. Oddly enough, coffee is not involved.
The letters from environmental, human rights, civil liberties, public health, political advocacy, and other interest groups will continue to arrive at my desk, the difference being that they don't wait for the fall pledge season. Deciding whom to support is an exercise in values clarification as well as money management and, yes, identity politics. What can I afford? Who do I most want to support? Who needs my money the most? Who can be trusted to use it prudently on my behalf? What am I doing, really, in distributing my 'wealth'?
Ha! You call this wealth? Well, yeah, compared to most of the world, I'm rolling in it. Not saving much, yet managing to salt away a little here, a little there, paying the bills mostly, certainly not living large but rarely missing a meal, and indulging in the odd luxury here and there. While I'm not set for life or anywhere year prepared for retirement (whatever that is), I feel like I have enough money coming in to - are you ready? - redistribute a tiny bit.
Uh oh, I think I just uttered a hot-button word. Isn't it un-Amerikan to "redistribute" wealth? That's contrary to the 'Darwinian' (Spencerian) struggle of each against all for a bigger piece of the pie, which as some of our would-be leaders tell us, will actually "grow the pie" - an unfortunate turn of phrase. As Justice Holmes said, "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." So I guess we all choose where and how much to redistribute.
Hoops
Partly due to nature and partly to nurture, every year about this time I get the itch to shoot baskets. Not necessarily to play basketball, as in a game, on a team, full court and all that, but mainly to handle the ball, feel the bounce, elevate to lay it in off the glass, be there for the rebound, get in a rhythm and move with it.
If there is a basketball gene, I have it, and about half the men in my family have it. My Dad played ball in high school, in college, and in the army, and he taught me the basics from an early age.
If it's also true that it takes seven years of training and conditioning to become an athlete, then I probably became a roundball player by the time I was 14 or 15. Dad didn't waste any time initiating me into handling the ball, dribbling, shooting, passing, but it was only when we moved to Detroit in 1960 that I played like all the time. So my body and mind came of age out on the driveway by the hoop, either with my friends or by myself.
All through school I hung out with jocks, birds of a feather and all that, and eventually got two degrees in phys ed. Some things just stay with you, and there is no way this guy will ever not be that kid. Genes and jones and a who knows who.
I was reminded of this the other day at the end of a long day at work. I needed an outlet so I grabbed the ball that just happened to be in the truck and spent a few minutes shooting at the hoop in the parking lot. My knees and shoulders and heart and lungs limited the time I could keep it going, but I need to go that more often. As long as I heed the warnings and limits of knees and shoulders and heart and lungs, I think they will gradually come around.
I can justify this insanity because "it's good for me." Yeah, that's the ticket, it's just a fitness thing. It has nothing to do with being 12 again and transported into sport heaven.
If there is a basketball gene, I have it, and about half the men in my family have it. My Dad played ball in high school, in college, and in the army, and he taught me the basics from an early age.
If it's also true that it takes seven years of training and conditioning to become an athlete, then I probably became a roundball player by the time I was 14 or 15. Dad didn't waste any time initiating me into handling the ball, dribbling, shooting, passing, but it was only when we moved to Detroit in 1960 that I played like all the time. So my body and mind came of age out on the driveway by the hoop, either with my friends or by myself.
All through school I hung out with jocks, birds of a feather and all that, and eventually got two degrees in phys ed. Some things just stay with you, and there is no way this guy will ever not be that kid. Genes and jones and a who knows who.
I was reminded of this the other day at the end of a long day at work. I needed an outlet so I grabbed the ball that just happened to be in the truck and spent a few minutes shooting at the hoop in the parking lot. My knees and shoulders and heart and lungs limited the time I could keep it going, but I need to go that more often. As long as I heed the warnings and limits of knees and shoulders and heart and lungs, I think they will gradually come around.
I can justify this insanity because "it's good for me." Yeah, that's the ticket, it's just a fitness thing. It has nothing to do with being 12 again and transported into sport heaven.
Monday, October 13, 2008
I can't tell you
I can't tell you what a good time I had on my day off Friday. I'd like to share the details and describe what we did, but really, I just can't tell you.
I will say that Gven and I went on a nice little day-trip, but I can't tell you where we went. I had already scheduled the day off to start a nice, long fall weekend, and it just happened to work out that I needed to drop something off to meet a deadline, hence the short trip out of town.
Don't you hate it when you know ahead of time that something has to be finished, but you still end up scrambling at the last minute to complete the final touches? I hate that. The added tension doesn't do anything for my peace of mind or the thought-out, polished quality of the final product that was due on a certain date that I can't tell you about. In the end, alas, it is what it is, and I will have to live with it.
So we got in the car and delivered the unnamed item at the appointed mysterious place, and lo and behold, we had some time to kill. It was a beautiful sunny October day to walk around the little anonymous Swingstate town, so we took our time finding a place to eat lunch. This is something Gven and I have worked hard to perfect in our 32-year relationship - taking our time finding a place to eat.
The restaurant where we ended up had changed significantly since I was last there a few years ago, with an expanded menu, improved service, more seating space, and - to our great surprise - an actual bar, something I never thought I would see in this small town, which shall no nameless. Lunch was delicious. Have you ever had a smoked salmon BLT? Mwah!
After lunch we took a short walk to see what else had changed in the neighborhood. There was a newish bookstore and a craft store/gallery with lots of eye-pleasing textures and a cute little natural food store. Eventually we found ourselves up by the library where our friend Pauline (not her real name) works, but Pauline wasn't working that day, so we couldn't surprise her by popping in. So we kept walking and decided to pop in at the place two blocks away where her husband Chris works, but he wasn't in either.
The drive home was uneventful, but with a little help from Starbuck's we had plenty to talk about, what with the above-mentioned endeavor that I'm not at liberty to discuss. Back at home, I still had some other, unrelated work at my desk, which I can't really talk about, except to say that once again deadlines loom and it couldn't be put off.
I got quite a bit of work done that night while Gven went to a movie with her friends, then we had a long tumultuous discussion about something I would rather not discuss. I did a little more work Saturday in the midst of regular weekend chores around the house, then a big chunk Sunday afternoon and evening.
Except for a little yard work, I spent the whole weekend finishing that project, but, as I'm sure you will understand, I can't tell you what it was. Finally, late Sunday night I attached the documents in question and sent the e-mail notifying the recipient that my part of the project was completed at last. What a relief that was! And it feels pretty good to get all this pent-up information off my chest.
I will say that Gven and I went on a nice little day-trip, but I can't tell you where we went. I had already scheduled the day off to start a nice, long fall weekend, and it just happened to work out that I needed to drop something off to meet a deadline, hence the short trip out of town.
Don't you hate it when you know ahead of time that something has to be finished, but you still end up scrambling at the last minute to complete the final touches? I hate that. The added tension doesn't do anything for my peace of mind or the thought-out, polished quality of the final product that was due on a certain date that I can't tell you about. In the end, alas, it is what it is, and I will have to live with it.
So we got in the car and delivered the unnamed item at the appointed mysterious place, and lo and behold, we had some time to kill. It was a beautiful sunny October day to walk around the little anonymous Swingstate town, so we took our time finding a place to eat lunch. This is something Gven and I have worked hard to perfect in our 32-year relationship - taking our time finding a place to eat.
The restaurant where we ended up had changed significantly since I was last there a few years ago, with an expanded menu, improved service, more seating space, and - to our great surprise - an actual bar, something I never thought I would see in this small town, which shall no nameless. Lunch was delicious. Have you ever had a smoked salmon BLT? Mwah!
After lunch we took a short walk to see what else had changed in the neighborhood. There was a newish bookstore and a craft store/gallery with lots of eye-pleasing textures and a cute little natural food store. Eventually we found ourselves up by the library where our friend Pauline (not her real name) works, but Pauline wasn't working that day, so we couldn't surprise her by popping in. So we kept walking and decided to pop in at the place two blocks away where her husband Chris works, but he wasn't in either.
The drive home was uneventful, but with a little help from Starbuck's we had plenty to talk about, what with the above-mentioned endeavor that I'm not at liberty to discuss. Back at home, I still had some other, unrelated work at my desk, which I can't really talk about, except to say that once again deadlines loom and it couldn't be put off.
I got quite a bit of work done that night while Gven went to a movie with her friends, then we had a long tumultuous discussion about something I would rather not discuss. I did a little more work Saturday in the midst of regular weekend chores around the house, then a big chunk Sunday afternoon and evening.
Except for a little yard work, I spent the whole weekend finishing that project, but, as I'm sure you will understand, I can't tell you what it was. Finally, late Sunday night I attached the documents in question and sent the e-mail notifying the recipient that my part of the project was completed at last. What a relief that was! And it feels pretty good to get all this pent-up information off my chest.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
identity/politics
Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage,
Dad was told by mother
You can't have one without the other.
Help me work out this nascent idea before it self-destructs. People decry the evils of so-called identity politics, but doesn't it go on all the time? And probably always has, on all segments of the ideological spectrum. But we're supposed to be arguing "the issues" instead of playing the race card or the gender card or some other card. [Cue pleasurable rush of righteous indignation.]
What's wrong with those other people? You know who I'm talking about, the people I hate because they disagree with me. They keep diverting attention away from pressing questions of public policy and toward emotionally charged questions of race, gender, religion, age, ethnicity, nationalism, regionalism, or culture. You know, be very very afraid of X because X is black/female/Muslim/old/Hispanic/French/cosmopolitan/urban. Or be arrogantly dismissive of Y because Y is white/male/Protestant/young/Anglo/Redneck/provincial/country.
The assumption, of course, is that you should support the candidate who is like you. Hence the Palin phenomenon. Nominate the homecoming queen and use her as an attack dog (with lipstick). To echo the unfortunate comment by Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska, when out of party loyalty he voiced his support for Nixon's nomination of Judge Carswell for the Supreme Court because "The mediocre people of America deserve to be represented too." It's a way of making explicit the old axiom that we get the president we deserve. In this case, as in the last two elections, we're being asked to vote for people because they're not too smart.
But at least they're "like me" - or how I see myself. Unexceptional. Joe Six-pack. Main Street. Next-to-last in his class, but really likeable. Why not Sally Field? And there is nothing in this cycle that hasn't been done before, including the fact that these people will do anything to win, including lies, more lies, and damn lies. Lies about their own identity and policies, lies about their opponent's identity and policies, lies about the lies they told us yesterday or last year. But dontchaknow, at least they're against "greed and corruption on Wall Street."
The dilemma for voters becomes: who am us anyway? Given that identity and politics are inextricably intertwined, I still face the existential decision of whether to cast my puny, irrelevant, electronically mutable ballot on the basis of my race, my gender, my religion, my age, my ethnicity, my nationalism, my regionalism, or my culture. Which of my identities will pull the lever November 4? Or maybe I'll shape-shift into a completely rational life form who makes decisions for the benefit of all sentient beings who, by the way, all want the same things.
It would simplify matters is there was a 50-something white guy from the suburbs running for president, preferably a tree-hugging quasi-intellectual midwestern Scandinavian with an idiosyncratic brand of pragmatic mysticism. Is that too much to ask?
But I'm a realist. (That's a lie.) I'll just have to settle for the candidate who comes closest to representing me and my values. The maverick.
Friday, October 03, 2008
What I did on my fall vacation
Today is the first day of an extended, alternative, stingy way of using up a pile of vacation days my corporate benefactor has bestowed upon me this year. It's also the first day of the rest of your life, but you knew that. No carryover days allowed, say the suits upstairs, so use it or lose it, and it's time to make up in the fall for lost time in the summer.
Instead of indulging in three weeks at a time or a week at a time (times three) possibly sandwiched around one or more of the traditional end-of-year holidays, I have opted to string them out over the rest of the year, one day at a time, like a 12-step program - carpe diem, dude - in a series of 12 long weekends, beginning now.
This plan leaves a lot to chance, to whim, to the weather. Sure, I have projects to do, but where to begin? And do I want to use every hour checking things off my voluminous to-do list? Even if I had the discipline to go straight to those tasks, I think I'd prefer a second cup of coffee on the patio with the New York Times. Make that a French roast with chocolate milk, waiter, thank you.
Life is short. If you do a little math, you can find the date on the calendar that's the equivalent of your age, given a certain life expectancy, which is of course the great unknown, but let's say 84 just for fun. My Mom just turned 87, and I share many of her genetic traits, so I figure my chances are pretty good, ceteris paribus, which they're not. If 12 months = 84 years, then one month = seven years, a nice developmental subset a la Piaget, Erikson, Gardner, and my track coach, who said it takes seven years to make a person into a runner. Is that because it takes about seven years for the body to replace all its cells through normal growth and regeneration? And is that the physiological basis for Piaget's, et al, psychological theories about personality development, growth of the 'self', and multiple intelligence? But I digress, and I'm on vacation, so screw it, I'll digress if I feel like it.
Where was I? Oh yes, assuming (and we know that's a big mistake) that I live to be 84, in this paradigm my family moved to Detroit in early February, I graduated from high school in the middle of March, got married at the end of April, had two kids about a week apart in mid-May, started grad school at the beginning of June, and started my present job at the end of July. By the end of this year, it will only be about September 7. It's still late summer.
Hey kids, let's all make our own graphic organizers, depicting your own fascinating life on the grid of a 12-month calendar. Or not. If I keep this up, I'll squander my vacation time on aimless graphic organizers, a regular busman's holiday.
I think I'll cut some firewood instead, and graphically organize the remains of a pear tree and parts of a maple. Then I'll carry some water from the rain barrel to the little redbud tree I just transplanted to be in better alignment with its brother and sister redbuds. After that I'll eat baked chicken with Gven and retire to the den to listen to Dylan's Time Out of Mind a couple of times. Why didn't I come across this CD ten years ago? Oh, I forgot, I was doing something else.
Instead of indulging in three weeks at a time or a week at a time (times three) possibly sandwiched around one or more of the traditional end-of-year holidays, I have opted to string them out over the rest of the year, one day at a time, like a 12-step program - carpe diem, dude - in a series of 12 long weekends, beginning now.
This plan leaves a lot to chance, to whim, to the weather. Sure, I have projects to do, but where to begin? And do I want to use every hour checking things off my voluminous to-do list? Even if I had the discipline to go straight to those tasks, I think I'd prefer a second cup of coffee on the patio with the New York Times. Make that a French roast with chocolate milk, waiter, thank you.
Life is short. If you do a little math, you can find the date on the calendar that's the equivalent of your age, given a certain life expectancy, which is of course the great unknown, but let's say 84 just for fun. My Mom just turned 87, and I share many of her genetic traits, so I figure my chances are pretty good, ceteris paribus, which they're not. If 12 months = 84 years, then one month = seven years, a nice developmental subset a la Piaget, Erikson, Gardner, and my track coach, who said it takes seven years to make a person into a runner. Is that because it takes about seven years for the body to replace all its cells through normal growth and regeneration? And is that the physiological basis for Piaget's, et al, psychological theories about personality development, growth of the 'self', and multiple intelligence? But I digress, and I'm on vacation, so screw it, I'll digress if I feel like it.
Where was I? Oh yes, assuming (and we know that's a big mistake) that I live to be 84, in this paradigm my family moved to Detroit in early February, I graduated from high school in the middle of March, got married at the end of April, had two kids about a week apart in mid-May, started grad school at the beginning of June, and started my present job at the end of July. By the end of this year, it will only be about September 7. It's still late summer.
Hey kids, let's all make our own graphic organizers, depicting your own fascinating life on the grid of a 12-month calendar. Or not. If I keep this up, I'll squander my vacation time on aimless graphic organizers, a regular busman's holiday.
I think I'll cut some firewood instead, and graphically organize the remains of a pear tree and parts of a maple. Then I'll carry some water from the rain barrel to the little redbud tree I just transplanted to be in better alignment with its brother and sister redbuds. After that I'll eat baked chicken with Gven and retire to the den to listen to Dylan's Time Out of Mind a couple of times. Why didn't I come across this CD ten years ago? Oh, I forgot, I was doing something else.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Turn the page
In the back of my pocket calendar, after the week-by-week pages, where manic listmakers pencil-in what they're doing every morning, afternoon, and night, there is a quarterly page-spread for every three months of the year, with just enough space to ink-in a rough account of one's practice times: 20 minutes of this, 40 minutes of that, and a big ugly X when I miss a day of something I would prefer to do regularly. Since I don't train for races or other formal competition, it's a way of tracking a few elements of a daily practice quantitatively. Call me OCD (or worse), I don't care.
So the end of September means it's time to turn the page and enter the last quarter of the year, which at this point is a blank slate of days just waiting to be filled in with minutiae. The end of a quarter also is the ritually correct time to switch libations. What, you didn't know that? Summer is gin season, of course, and gin and tonic just doesn't taste as good when the weather turns cool. Just as spring was tequila time and winter just screams for vodka, fall is right for rum. So I'm penciling in a trip to the state store at Schrock Road and Cleveland Ave. for some Ron Rico gold this weekend, a fifth of which should easily last until Halloween.
It's also time to change hats. As of this morning, a baseball cap just isn't making it on a morning bike ride, and the chilly air requires the wool cap from the Czech Republic, absolutely the best all-time Christmas present from the 12-year-old Zelda and still a perfect fit on my large nordic head. I haven't yet swapped out the summer sport shirts for the winter turtlenecks, but it won't be long. Soon after that, cotton boxers will be put away until April, and thermal longjohns will take their place. Chamois shirts will migrate from the back of the closet to the front. Corduroy and wool pants will do likewise.
I shall solemnly hold off from touching the thermostat for as long as possible, but a lot of good that will do, since I'm not the only person inhabiting this, uh, house. But I have the capacity to fight corporate gas furnace fire with homegrown hardwood fire. That will require some routine maintenance on the stove in the den - a wire brush here, a little stove-black there, good as new - and a lot of splitting and stacking to ensure that there is dry wood come January. But that's the best seasonal ritual of all: the wood you cut yourself that warms two, three, maybe four times.
My knees are complaining about this change-of-season business, so I'll have to do something differently, and I'm not sure what that will be. Up the ibuprofen dosage? Wear an Ace bandage? I've already started going to bed earlier and sleeping more deeply under a quilt and a down comforter. I don't have a rugged sunburned look anymore, just a rugged windburned look, so I still somewhat recognize that guy in the mirror. Not that I'm vain about my appearance or anything.
So the end of September means it's time to turn the page and enter the last quarter of the year, which at this point is a blank slate of days just waiting to be filled in with minutiae. The end of a quarter also is the ritually correct time to switch libations. What, you didn't know that? Summer is gin season, of course, and gin and tonic just doesn't taste as good when the weather turns cool. Just as spring was tequila time and winter just screams for vodka, fall is right for rum. So I'm penciling in a trip to the state store at Schrock Road and Cleveland Ave. for some Ron Rico gold this weekend, a fifth of which should easily last until Halloween.
It's also time to change hats. As of this morning, a baseball cap just isn't making it on a morning bike ride, and the chilly air requires the wool cap from the Czech Republic, absolutely the best all-time Christmas present from the 12-year-old Zelda and still a perfect fit on my large nordic head. I haven't yet swapped out the summer sport shirts for the winter turtlenecks, but it won't be long. Soon after that, cotton boxers will be put away until April, and thermal longjohns will take their place. Chamois shirts will migrate from the back of the closet to the front. Corduroy and wool pants will do likewise.
I shall solemnly hold off from touching the thermostat for as long as possible, but a lot of good that will do, since I'm not the only person inhabiting this, uh, house. But I have the capacity to fight corporate gas furnace fire with homegrown hardwood fire. That will require some routine maintenance on the stove in the den - a wire brush here, a little stove-black there, good as new - and a lot of splitting and stacking to ensure that there is dry wood come January. But that's the best seasonal ritual of all: the wood you cut yourself that warms two, three, maybe four times.
My knees are complaining about this change-of-season business, so I'll have to do something differently, and I'm not sure what that will be. Up the ibuprofen dosage? Wear an Ace bandage? I've already started going to bed earlier and sleeping more deeply under a quilt and a down comforter. I don't have a rugged sunburned look anymore, just a rugged windburned look, so I still somewhat recognize that guy in the mirror. Not that I'm vain about my appearance or anything.
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