Last time this year

Since I plan to be out of town for a couple days, I'd better give you a holiday season update before the holidays are history.

On Saturday afternoon, we (my wife, younger son and I) are heading off to northwestern Wisconsin to visit my in-laws--her dad and sisters (3) and brothers (2 of 4). I'm not exactly sure when we're coming back--the best estimate now is during the day on Monday (the 1st), though that is subject to change depending on weather conditions.

Many of you don't get to drive in winter conditions or know how you prepare. For the last few days, I've been checking the weather forecast to see what the weather will likely be doing during our two-day trip about 175 miles away. On Friday, we received about two inches of snow here. It's supposed to be partly cloudy for the drive Saturday. But Sunday night and Monday (yeah, New Year's Eve) they are talking about 3 to 5 inches of the white stuff. Our destination's forecast is just saying "snow likely" for Sunday night and Monday, with no elaboration. Sounds a tad ominous. But Tuesday should be OK, if we decide to stay over. I think my wife wants to go back home Monday, tho.

Now it's true that my wife and I live a quiet, boring life. But they live an even more quiet, more boring life over there. I can't imagine how thrilling New Year's Eve will be over there--a sister-in-law is talking about a Methodist church function starting at 8 p.m. Wooo-hooo! On the other hand, most of my FIL's life is spent watching Catholic channels and farm channels on his satellite TV. So I'm planning to pack along my laptop and a few DVDs, including a few I got for Christmas. No internet at my father-in-law's place, but I'll be able to write for future posting. I can edit pictures, too. Thank God I got the laptop a couple years ago.

My older son's visit was nice, if quiet. We visited my mom one night. Went to church Sunday night and opened gifts Monday morning. He left Tuesday morning. Didn't have much of a chance to watch movies together, but I'm not surprised. We did see the restored version of the original "Little Shop of Horrors," at least, and he seemed to enjoy that. And he visited my younger son several times for some serious game-playing.

OK, I'm sure you're wondering what I got under the tree?

1. My older son gave me a copy of the expanded (three-disk) version of "The Seven Samurai," one of my favorite movies. He also got me the first volume of the "Samurai 7" anime series, which places the Seven Samurai story in a futuristic world but otherwise is supposed to be true to Kurosawa's plot. I haven't had much chance to see it yet, but it looks promising.

I'm relatively new to anime, but I am a long-time fan of samurai movies, especially those directed by Kurosawa. See? Now you learned something new about me.

2. My younger son gave me a copy of the original "Alfie" with Michael Caine. Surprised and pleased.

3. My wife got me a blue sweater and a winter knit hat and gloves set. One of those Thermalite fabrics from 3M. She also gave me a copy of "Sally of the Sawdust," a 1922 silent featuring W.C. Fields in one of his first roles. (OK, I found it and bought it and gave it to her to give to me.)

My wife got a DVD set from the first season of "Monk." She wasn't watching it when it first went on the air, but now it's one of her favorites. She got one of the James Bond DVD movie sets. (She loves watching James Bond films with me. Especially on a Saturday night.) She got a couple nature/documentary films, including "Microcosmos" and "Genesis." And she got "The Universe." That's a huge coffee table book with lots of pictures taken from the Hubble telescope and information about the cosmos. (She loves that kind of stuff, too.)

I've got something that apparently is still on the way, for wear later on Saturday night. If she is so inclined. Remember, she still dresses as if she is her mother. Or grandmother.

The two kids got various games and DVDs. I also got my older son a "Generation Nex" thing--it's a modern-day console that plays the original Nintendo games, which he still has. He suggested that, and I delivered.

I'm going to have to break it off about here to pack and get ready for our trip--including winter boots, in case the snow catches up with us. See you all next year. Enjoy New Year's. Hope yours will be as fun and exciting as mine will (likely) be dull and predictable.

Remember a story from way back, when I was in about fifth grade. A looooonggg time ago. In school. Gym class. We had a guy there named Sam. He was a bit of a wiseass. But a lovable wiseass--there was no meanness in what he did.

Anyway, it was the last day before the holiday break, and we were getting dressed to get back to our other classes. The gym teacher came in and said, "Sam, you're suspended for the rest of the year."

There was a hush throughout the room, and Sam stood there with his mouth open--until it dawned on him. Everybody had a good laugh about it. This time, the gym teacher put something over on him, for once.

Unnh! A tribute to the king of soul!

We all have to die someday, Christmas Day included. (As a side note, this Christmas was the 60th anniversary of W.C. Fields' death. You know how I feel about him, I trust.)

When I got up on Christmas morning and got online to check the news, I found out that James Brown had died. Wow. He was just 72 or so, and he was still performing. Had just taken part in a toy giveaway in Atlanta and was preparing for a New Year's Eve show in New York. The news reports say he was detected with pneumonia, was taken to a hospital and died a few hours later.

Now don't think that I feel James Brown was a tremendously admirable man. He had his problems with drugs and guns and spousal abuse. He saw time inside a prison late in life after a high-speed chase. But if you ever read about his early years, you'll realize that he wasn't given a lot of advantages when he was young.

Lord knows he wasn't perfect. But what a gifted performer! Unnh! (That's the grunt you heard often during his performances.)

I had heard about James Brown when I was in high school--about the time he came out with his "Live at the Apollo" albums (which I picked up on over 35 years later). Some kids in our school knew his music pretty well, but only a few. I was raised in a Milwaukee suburb, for which the term "lily white" fits accurately. (I have to laugh--today, living in the woods of the Upper Peninsula, I see many more black people than I ever did as a kid.)

My personal discovery of James Brown started maybe 10 years ago. I had gotten to know a little about him over the years, of course, but gravitated towards the classic blues singers.

My first James Brown CD was the "Star Time" compilation from the early '90s. By now I had heard what an electric performer he was. (Years earlier, when I was in high school, my mom had seen him performing "Please, Please, Please" on TV and was absolutely aghast. I wasn't home that night, unfortunately.)

The breakthrough came when I purchased his "Live at the Apollo" CD, recorded in 1962. (I'm listening to it as I'm writing this.) That told me everything I needed to know about James Brown. It was incredible, the power he had in his voice and the effect he had on his audience. "Lost Someone" made chills go down my spine. A long medley ending with "Please, Please, Please."

The effect on his audience ... incredible, and not at all artificial. Maybe only Elvis, when he was in his prime, had that kind of power on stage. That album was ranked #24 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. It's worth looking for.

Later, I found a different "Live at the Apollo" album, from about 1966, and I was even more convinced after hearing "Prisoner of Love" and an 11-minute version of "It's a Man's Man's Man's World." Incredible performances. Re-released in the last few years as a two-CD set. Another excellent investment in your music library. Unnh!

For some time I had heard about his incredible performance at the TAMI Show in 1964. Two years or so ago, I found a DVD of the TAMI Show, which featured many of the top pop music stars from that time. The Rolling Stones closed the show. James Brown was the act just before the Stones.

The audio is only fair, and the resolution of the black-and-white kinescope is, frankly, poor. That takes nothing away from his performance. He did "Prisoner of Love." He closed with "Night Train" as he did incredibly fast dance steps. In between he did "Please, Please, Please."

That's when I finally got to see what had grossed out my mom so much. There he was, collapsing to his knees, holding the microphone, screaming Please, please, please, don't go. Ohhhh, I love you so!

After a while, his backup singers come up to him, covered his shoulders with a cape and led this obviously despondent creature (overcome with heartbreak, of course) off the stage ... only to have him break away and return to the microphone for another chorus of his heartbreak.

This happened three or four times. If you have never seen it, you can't imagine how worked up the audience got. I mean, these are teenage girls, and they were moved. I mean moved. They were in it. Unnh!

And that's just the kind of reaction you heard--in quality audio--on those "Live at the Apollo" CDs. A showstopping performer. You could only pity the poor act--such as the Rolling Stones at the TAMI Show--who had to try to follow that!

James Brown--and his music--went through a lot of phases, but my favorite James Brown is the same as my favorite Elvis: The young version, the extremely virile one, the one who held the audience in the palm of his hand with excitement echoing everywhere.

One other thing about James Brown: He had a VERY tight band. The arrangements had to be done precisely, and his musicians--the instrumentalists and the singers--were spot-on in their performances. They had to be. Their boss would fine them if they missed a cue. Unnh!

So now James Brown has moved on. Here's wishing him well and that he has a happier life the next time around. He make a lot of his fans happy, that's for sure. And that includes me.

A sticky situation for Christmas

have to be somewhat short. We are wrapping gifts in the other room. Trying to, rather.

My wife and I were about a third of the way through the task, which we began after getting home from the Christmas Eve church service, when, suddenly, our roll of Scotch tape (the green type) suddenly ran out. When you're wrapping Christmas presents and you're only a third of the way done when the tape runs out, that makes your whole life pass in front of your eyes. "Well, get that big new roll from downstairs," I said with bravado, knowing full well that there was no big new roll downstairs.

Oh, what to do, what to do? Do any of you have some slightly used tape we can borrow? No questions asked.

Oh wait. My wife was rummaging around and found a roll of the Scotch clear tape (the red type) downstairs. It's old, but it's still mostly sticky, and at this point (9 p.m. on Christmas Eve) our standards are not terribly high.

We've got the kids' stuff wrapped. I think she's wrapping a thing or two she got for me, and I've got a few things for her that need to be wrapped.

Wrapping gifts is not one of my specialties. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate myself as a 2, if that. I know how to fold paper, but not good at estimating how much is needed, and my taping leaves much to be desired. I know that. We all have things we do well in life. Wrapping Christmas gifts is not one of mine.

On top of that, I've got worries about the gifts I got for the kids--whether I favored one more than the other. Because I did. You see, Phil (the older son) is on his own in the Detroit area, lives by himself, has a pretty good job and buys himself stuff all the time. Dave lives in town here, and he has to live more frugally. So I skew things his way. I admit it. But I feel I need to do something to sort of even things out. I'm trying to decide.

We will wind up with a white Christmas, after all. We received about three inches of very wet snow on Dec. 22, and it's going to survive till the 25th at least. Temperatures are a little below freezing, but it's not going to get super cold here for at least another week. The cold air will stay in Canada. And they're welcome to keep it.

Phil got here on Thursday night--he arrived just as I was walking out the door to a basketball game out of town, and he was in bed by the time I got back. We put the paper together on Friday--just watched something on TV that night. The highlight of Saturday was all of us going down to visit my mom. We had a nice visit. We got back home in time for a late pizza at one of the restaurants in town. It was supposed to be at the Happy I--but you know what happened there.

Tomorrow's plans--after the gift unwrapping and untaping--are uncertain. We may drive down to visit my mom again. Not sure. As I was clearing off the ice and snow from my car this morning (didn't drive it at all Friday), one of the windshield wipers came off, and part of the bracket on the blade broke. So I may be reduced to running around to the gas station/convenience stores that are open on Christmas day in search of a windshield wiper.

My life is crazy, I know.

Anyway, I've been taking a bit of a break from the blog during this hyperhectic season, but I wanted to wish all of you a happy holiday season, and I hope you get what you want and need and deserve.

Because we all deserve to be happy, but not all of us are. And gifts can't bring happiness. Only being with those we love makes us happy. Seeing them happy makes us happy. I wish and pray that I could give that happiness to all of you who needs that gift, that divine right. To those who may fit that description, my prayer is that you will find that happiness in time for the next holiday season. Beyond the right door is a wonderful future, and I hope you all find that door very soon.

(What? We're out of tape again???) Sorry. Gotta go.

A new holiday classic

We get plenty of news releases at our office. Here is one that arrived this morning that just screams out to be shared with all of you. I'd be surprised if the various "news of the weird" sites don't pick up on it. It's a new holiday classic.

It's in the holiday "spirit," too, as you will see. Just one more example of what holiday-related stress can lead to.

The names have been removed to protect the guilty:

Troopers from the Negaunee Post of the Michigan State Police responded to (address) to assist the Ishpeming Township Fire Department at the scene of a structure fire at 7:15 a.m. The homeowner was being combative with firefighters. During the investigation, troopers determined that there had been a domestic dispute between the homeowner and his girlfriend. That dispute led to the homeowner cutting up the Christmas tree with a chainsaw while inside the house and destroying other Christmas decorations. The tree and decorations were stuffed into the wood stove located inside the house, causing a fire that completely destroyed it. Troopers continue to investigate the events leading up to the fire. Criminal charges have not been determined at this time. No one was injured as a result of the fire. However, the homeowner was treated at Bell Memorial Hospital for injuries received during the domestic dispute. Alcohol was a factor in this incident.

Three comments:

1. You could see that last line coming a mile away, couldn't you?

2. How hard was it for the troopers writing the news release not to crack up while they were doing so?

3. You can't make this stuff up. Stranger than fiction.

A green Christmas

OK, gang, you know where I live, right? Which part of the U.S.?

Sure you do. You've seen it enough from the photos I post here. It's the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

And what kind of weather are we famous for in the winter months? Here's a reminder: looking out my front door last March ...

Wow! Looks like I had a lot of work ahead of me.

And let me remind you of a high school football game I covered this past October ...

I still remember that awful drive home, through the storm.

So now that we're closing in on Christmas Day, I bet you're wondering how white of a Christmas we will be having. After all, here's The Weather Channel map that depicts our odds on having a white Christmas. ...

But it's ain't necessarily so.

Since that mid-October storm (which, by the way, mostly passed west of us), we have had hardly any snow. Temperatures have warmed this month after a frigid (but snow-challenged) November. Today, the sun was out, and temperatures were about 40. Same thing is forecast for tomorrow.

But it didn't melt our snow. Because, as you will see from this photo of the local golf course last week ...

... there's hardly any snow out there to melt.

The only snow around are in the remnants of snowpiles that were plowed up when we got a few inches in November, or else in areas that are very shaded from the sun. There's been an inch here or there since then. But the bottom line is that my back yard looks like the shoulder of the road here ...


The local municipal ski hill, which relies on natural snow, currently looks like this ...

The tourism/resort-type ski hill nearby does make its own snow, and lucky for them. Otherwise, their slopes would look like this. It's this way in Europe, too. There's so little snow in the Alps that some World Cup skiing events have been canceled.

We were getting a gloppy mix of rain, snow and freezing drizzle when I was out getting these pictures, and the sand truck passed by while I was at the ski hill.


It has been cold enough that the lakes are starting to freeze up. For instance, tonight and tomorrow night, our lows will be about 20F (-7C). Ice is forming ...

But ice-fishing is still a long way off--you need at least three inches of ice simply to walk on the surface safely. That's a long ways off.

Speaking of icy ponds ... I drove down to visit my mom last week. On the trip to her house, I saw these mallard ducks in a pond near a rural intersection ...

What? These ducks are just going to bob along passively, allowing themselves to get frozen in ice? How dumb are they?

My wife laughed. You see, these ducks are always on this pond. Every single time. In exactly the same position. And if you take one of them and cook it for supper ... you're going to wind up with a lot of melted plastic.

No wonder they didn't fly away when I got close to them.

Saturday afternoon disaster

A disaster struck my town early Saturday afternoon. No people were killed or injured, fortunately, and the environmental and economic impacts are minor.

But it's a disaster all the same. It was a fire at our area's best pizza restaurant. A bad fire. Bottom line is, we won't be able to enjoy pizzas there for quite some time to come. That qualifies as a disaster in my books.

It started about 1 p.m., and soon the fire trucks were screaming past our house. To the east, a thick cloud of smoke was rising. I went to the office, grabbed my camera bag and then headed for where all the lights were flashing and the main highway was blocked off.

It's called the Happy Italian's Roma Cafe (usually abbreviated to "the Happy I"). When I arrived, here's how it looked, complete with flames on the roof (on the left) ...


It apparently started in the kitchen area--we don't have the official word on the cause yet. Here's the view from another angle, with firemen on the roof ...


The main action was on the backside of the building--down the alley from the last shot. Here's what was happening there ...

In that shot, the firefighters were retreating down the ladder because the flames were getting too close. That's where the kitchen is. Rather, was.

They set up again a little further away and climbed up again. Because they're firemen, and that's what they do. Here's the scene a few minutes later ...


And here is one of the firemen, with foam/water falling down all around him as he kept his nozzle pointed through a window at the fire in the kitchen ...


The firemen were mostly finished in about two hours. The roof never fell, but there was a lot of fire damage in the kitchen area and extensive smoke damage throughout the place.

And the bottom line is that when my older son gets up here late this week--he's arriving on Thursday--we're going to have to find another place to go for pizza.

Unread magazines

To be perfectly honest, I've been feeling a little depressed while visiting here lately. Down.

It isn't those much-discussed ads, which don't bother me in the least. It's a number: the number next to "blog alerts," which has been rising nearly as rapidly as the national debt recently.

What apparently has happened is that I've been subscribing to lots of interesting blogs. It's like magazine subscriptions. Before long, the magazines pile up unread. I have my favorites, like you do, but you're all interesting people--your life adventures, your unique version of daily life, your dreams and photos and adventures and frustrations and joys. And the jokes. I find them all interesting.

So I feel bad that I haven't been able to keep up. My life has just been very rushed lately. I recently skimmed through a bunch and simply cleared some that I didn't even look at. Hated to do it. But ... what else could I do?

Just this past Monday, I realized one big reason behind my mood: I haven't had a Saturday to myself since early November, what with several weeks of high school football playoffs, then an all-day wrestling tournament and an all-day volleyball tournament (last Saturday). I had one "normal" Saturday--the last one in November. But that was the day after that 11-hour drive back home from Detroit, so I don't think that counts.

A "normal" Saturday involves working about three hours in the morning, writing up what I can of the Friday stuff, and then having the afternoon and evening to spend with my wife and son. This Saturday, I would be able to do that--except that she's working at the call center all day. Maybe David will want to do something.

It's just the manic rush of events during the manic run-up to the holidays. This week, I had events to cover on four nights: I covered wrestling on Monday, basketball Tuesday, will have volleyball tonight (Thursday) and more basketball Friday. But I've decided to take a pass on Friday. My wife needs to do some Christmas shopping out of town (the nearest Wally World, 50 miles away). I've been telling myself that I have to cut back.

(About this past Monday: I also had a volleyball match and a city council meeting to cover that night, and they were all going on at the same time as the wrestling. Something had to give. But I enjoy wrestling a little more than volleyball and a lot more than meetings.)

On Wednesday, I did something I haven't done for a long time--I took the day off to visit my mom. I dropped my wife off at work and got back home in time to pick her up when her shift was over. It wasn't easy; I had to hustle.

My mom and I went to Hardee's for lunch (and to get her out of the nursing home). After taking her back, I tried to find some stuff at Wally World. David had given me a list of things that might be a good Christmas gift for him. They didn't have a single one! I batted .000. Thank goodness for the internet!

I did find some pants for myself and a multi-card reader for the office. I already had a multi-card reader at the office, but it only reads three or four types of memory cards. If they bring in Compact Flash or SD cards, I'm fine. But in just the last few days, people have brought in photos on MemoryStick and XD cards; I couldn't do a thing with them.

My home computer--bought last spring--has slots where the cards can be inserted. But my office computer was built back when computers were operated by steam and had belts and pulleys. And for carriage returns, you had to slap the thing back with your right hand.)

(OK, I was kidding about the manual carriage return. Seriously, though, how many of you started typing on manual typewriters? Remember?)

In fact, my office computer does have USB ports. While it was born as a Windows 98 machine, it has been upgraded to Windows XP. and it has 512 megs of RAM, with which I run programs like Word and Pagemaker and Photoshop 7, often all at once. So why does it run soooo sloooooowlllllyyyyy? Does it have something to do with its mighty 1.2 GHz processor?

(By now I hope you got the message that I'm pissed about having the oldest, slowest computer in the office. And my CRT monitor has the worst contrast, too. Everyone else has nice, thin, contrasty flatscreens, like I do at home. Just thought I'd mention that, while I'm at it.)

(End of computer vent)

So I got the memory card, and then I went home. I wrote part of this last night, and then I did other stuff. So I'm posting this now, and then I'll try to make headway on the backed-up blogs tonight.

I also discovered yesterday that I hadn't taken any photos with my own camera since the trip to Detroit. So I got a few shots yesterday, and I'll try to get more today, to show you how far advanced winter is around here.

Quick update on other stuff: My wife is working six days this week at the call center, for the Christmas rush. But the contract ends next Wednesday, and she'll get some time off after that. It's been very busy this week, she says.

Phil, my son who lives in Detroit, will be visiting here next week for the holidays. According to the calendar, he'll be arriving in about a week.

I understand that Christmas is on the way, too.

The game of the name

Obsessions come in many forms, in many guises. Lately, a few sports topics have been getting a lot of my attention. And since I haven't written about sports for long time (outside of the stuff I cover as part of my job), I'll fill you in.

Topic 1: The first one, getting just a little attention, is the Ashes series now under way in Australia. That's the storied rivalry between the England and Australia cricket teams. England "won back the Ashes" (won their series of test matches against Australia) in the summer of 2005 in England.

But this series is in Australia (the summer of '06-07), and things aren't going nearly as well for them. Australia won the first two test matches and only has to win one of the remaining three matches to "win back the Ashes." (Remember that a draw--where neither team wins a match--is common in cricket.)

The U.S. population just topped 300 million. Among all those who aren't of foreign birth, only about 14 know (or care) anything about cricket. I am one of them. So I won't take your time trying to explain why it's called "the Ashes" or why draws are possible or why England and Australia have been battling ferociously for a teeny, tiny trophy (that you can hold between your thumb and forefinger) since the late 19th century.

But I will tell you that Squilla--yes, our own Squilla here on efx2--made a bet with Fundy over last year's Ashes series, while she was living in Australia and Fundy was in England. They each bet on their own country.

But Fate (with a capital F) intervened. Squilla moved (physically) from Australia to England (and Fundy) as the Ashes series was being played, and for some reason Fundy seemed to lose track of their bet. They were so taken with each other, you know. (Everybody say "Awwwwwwww!" It's that kind of sweet story.)

I don't know if they made another Ashes bet. From what I can see on her page, they have an Ashes series being played on the pool table, and Fundy seems to have a commanding lead. He's heading for a nine-wicket win. (Won't explain that, either. It's a big win.)

Topic 2: My fantasy football team. It's called the Howlin' Wolfs, after that great blues singer who influenced so many rockers during the '50s and '60s. (The Rolling Stones got Howlin' Wolf his only TV appearance in 1965.)

These Wolfs of mine are howlin', too. Last Sunday, they finished their regular season with a 13-0 record. Perfection. You don't see that too often. My team is highlighted by LaDainian Tomlinson of the San Diego Chargers, who is having a monster year, and the Chicago Bears defense, which has been as good as their offense has been bad lately.

The fantasy regular season is over, and the playoffs start this weekend. Three more games, in an elimination format. Will the Wolfs finish the job? I hope so. I won a little money for finishing in first place, and the post-season title is worth another prize. Just in time for Christmas. (In fact, just in time for New Year's.)

It's my third year in the league. The first year, I did so bad that I renamed my team the Bunny Rabbits halfway through the season--complete with wiggling noses and floppy gray ears on their pink helmets. That was cruel, but they were bad. My second year attention got diverted after my mom got hurt--most of my free time was spent with her, and the team was badly neglected. But the third year apparently is the charm.

Topic 3: My baseball game. This is fantasy, too, but it's more imaginary. It's a computer game, where teams (that live only on my hard drive) form and evolve over time. I've been deeply into that lately and just completed the second year of the league's history.

The players are all imaginary with computer-given names, and I renamed the teams on the major league level for U.P. cities and (mostly) critters you see in the Northwoods. For instance, my team is the Iron River Ravens. Their big rival is the Crystal Falls Crows. And there are Wolves and Moose and Whitetails and Cougars and Coyotes and so forth.

There are minor leagues, too, and I mostly used the randomly given computer names for them. Not all of them. I have one minor league based in Canada, and I tried to come up with some especially good names for a few of them (keeping in mind that I love puns). The town that I visited 52 weeks ago today is called Clifford. They're in the league as the Clifford Big Red Dogs. But the Canadian name I'm proudest of is the Regina Monologues.

The Ravens were cellar-dwellers in their first year. They rallied to just slightly above .500 in year two, but they didn't hit for power, and their bullpen was bad. A leaky pen, you might say--wins kept leaking away. I'm hoping for improvement in their third year, but they seem to have traded away one of their top hitters, and their closer (who was pretty good) retired. So lots of uncertainties cloud the Ravens' future as we enter year three.

But you can help me with the league's future. Yes you can!

You can help me by coming up with some funny/bizarre new team names. The only condition is that they must be real cities (not necessarily big cities) in the U.S. or Canada. OK, we can fit England in, too. And Australia, if some of you live there. The team nickname is up to you and your fertile imagination. Risque names are especially encouraged.

I know many of you have great creativity. So exercise your wit and give me some suggestions.

Hey, if I get enough good names, maybe I'll rename one of the minor leagues as the Efx2 Baseball League. A league season, playoffs and everything! Now how cool would that be?

An anniversary took place on Saturday. I noticed it late, on Sunday ... because many of you have been marking your own one-year observances here, too.

Here's how I started out over here--my first efx2 post:

A quick howdy Ironic, isn't it? That on the day I discover ModBlog has risen from the dead, Frankenstein-like, I go off to find a new blog home. Yes, still another ModBlog refugee. I'm not bailing on MB. Not yet anyway. I'll be posting to MB, but I'll also be writing here, too. Whatever I write, you know it will be wordy. Full of words. Some good. Some bad. Some interesting. Others not. All by me. That's what I wanted my MB space to be. That's how it was. But with all the outages lately, I feel like it's time to put many of my blogging eggs--perhaps most of them--into another basket. So that's what this is about.

And it went on another two paragraphs and ended with me observing that I had a few other things I needed to do that night before bed. But the die was cast. It was the process of moving one foot from the dock to the boat: The other one inevitably must follow. By midway through January, I was posting over here almost exclusively. Naturally, MB's increasingly erratic nature encouraged this transition.

But so did the people, the fellow refugees I found over here, some of whom I had met over there, and others who became new friends. The community I feared I was losing with MB's death throes, I found alive and well and blogging like crazy over here. It was very happy news. It's damn hard for me to make good friends, and I didn't really want to have to start the process over again. Luckily, I didn't have to.

I don't write as much as I want. Work and other pursuits have this tendency to eat up the available time. Sometimes when I have the inspiration, I don't have the time. The opposite is often true, too.

This week marks another one-year anniversary, too. It was the week I went off to visit S, while she was living in Ontario. I was there three nights. That was the last time I've seen S--she's back with her husband now--and so I'm feeling a little sad and nostalgic right now. Yeah, I miss her. I'd really love to see her again, even if it's just to sit and talk or share a meal together. We still write each other regularly, and I sometimes send her some of the pictures I've taken. But after being together ... just trading words does leave a little to be desired.

One more thing. When I started my efx2 blog, just as Modblog briefly sprang back to life, I took advantage of the opportunity to make a backup of my Modblog files. Alas, that before my trip to Ontario, so it didn't include the story of my visit to S (posted only to MB). I wish I had that, if only to read it again to refresh my memory. Not to be.

Since then, more things have happened--some good, some bad. Life continues. Who knows what's coming down the road? I sure don't.

But it's nice to have you guys along for the ride. You help keep me sane and help me cope with things that sometimes get the better of me. And that's what I try to do at your places ... share in your joys and sorrows, offer a piece of advice when I can come up with one. Enjoy your jokes. Help you vent ... or exult.

That's my job. That's what I do.

Name of the game: TV or not TV?

I know that very few of you have covered a major football game from the sidelines--or even covered one at all--so I'm going to share part of my experience at the state high school finals last Friday with you.

Loyal readers already know about some of my sideline experiences during regular season games (where you can go as close to the sidelines as you dare), and during the playoffs at the dome in Marquette (where you have to stay behind the yellow line, well from the sidelines). At Ford Field and the state finals, you add one more factor: live TV.

The game was televised around Michigan. Unlike every other game, where there is just a TV cameraman here or there and a few still photographers, TV changes the game around. TV time-outs, for one thing. And the process of presenting the game to all those fans who have the game on at home.

One special accommodation made to TV is that they can stand INSIDE the sacred yellow line. There is another line, maybe two feet closer than the yellow, where they are allowed to roam. That's because ... well, they're TV. They're special!

And there's a bunch of other things. This year, I thought I would document some of them.

The first thing is cords. They're a fact of life at a game like this. There are cords all over. After a play, I always have to make notes in my notebook about what happened. The TV crews don't. They're moving on to their next position. So you often have to step over moving cords or play jumprope while trying to write. Here's a typical camera crew:

You see a guy with the camera, a guy holding a sound dish and a guy holding coils and coils of cord. Besides all the other cord lying all over the place.

You can also see the sacred yellow line and the white line inside it. Looks like three feet closer, now that I see it again.

Of course, there is also a sideline reporter, who gives her (it's nearly always a she) live report on what is happening around the team bench. Here's one in action, near our team:

FWIW, I don't have any problem with that. I'm doing my job along the sideline, and she is doing hers. With her entourage. It would be nice to have an entourage someday. Or an assistant or go-for of some kind, who can run to my camera bag when my camera shows the weak battery icon.

You are now about to see my own feet, on the yellow line. As long as you stay on this side of the yellow line, everyone is happy. Step over and die.


During halftime, I took a close-up of the turf ...

It's called FieldTurf, and it resembles real grass much more closely than other kinds of phony grass (such as in Marquette). The little plastic blades are maybe a half inch long.

Now, when you're watching a sporting event on TV, here is a shot you may see from time to time (taken from the replay screen) ...


Ever wonder how they get those shots? This next picture may explain ...


However, of all the strange and bizarre sights I see along the sidelines at the state finals, this one is by far the strangest ...


It's a sideline camera on a motorized dolly that roams back and forth during the game, blocking spectators' view and getting in the way of everyone else.

Talk about an entourage! This one has five, including the cord handlers--it eats electricity from the outlets along the field, and a couple guys walk alongside to keep the cords from tangling.

This thing roams back and forth during the game (as it is doing here), following the action. Get out of my way! It even has a horn to warn those who are trying to do their job to move over or die. The horn sounds like it would belong on a moped--sort of thin and high-pitched.

It's fun to cover the state finals. Sort of. But when all is said and done, the days of roaming along the sideline outdoors, in fall, in natural weather, on a natural grass field, are much more enjoyable to me.

Well, the season is finally over. I only have to wait nine months until I can do this again ...


Ahh! That's more like it!

Back home again

Hi. I'm back from my big long trip to the state football finals. I've mostly caught up with blog alerts, so I'll write a few words here.

Our team lost 34-13. This was the third consecutive year they reached the state finals in Detroit--but also the third consecutive year they wound up as state runnersup. They should have a strong team again next year, so who knows? I may well be down there again next Thanksgiving.

Amazingly, for a drive that long at this time of year, I didn't have to deal with snow. I didn't even see one flake in about 1,100 total miles of driving! My younger son, David, went with me, but my wife stayed at home due to her new job. We visited my son on Thanksgiving Day and went to a nice buffet-style dinner north of town. I called my wife during the day, and she got to talk to everyone. I also called my mom. Maybe I mentioned that before.

The game started at 9 a.m. Central Time on Friday. I left Detroit (downtown) at 1:30 and got back home about midnight Friday night. Saturday was spent taking care of this and that at home, shopping and bonding again with my wife. We both needed to do some bonding.

So last night, she and I cuddled up on the couch and watched a movie--"Big Bad Mama," from 1974, featuring Angie Dickinson. Let's see: Think of it as Bonnie and Clyde, except our protagonists are a mother (Angie) and her two daughters. Throw in William Shatner and plenty of sex and nudity. And it wasn't based on historical events. Anyway, my wife enjoyed it VERY much. After that we went upstairs to bed--and had a great time ... and both slept very well. I like Saturday nights like that.

This morning, it was back to the office and the keyboard. In the afternoon, I sat to watch some football, she sat next to me, wrapped a quilt around us, put her head on my shoulder and soon was sleeping. Normal Sunday afternoon.

Weather was nice and mild all last week, but the cold weather will be back in a few days. We're getting rain first, and then temperatures will be back down in the 20s late in the week. Winter sports will start as soon as December does: I've got a wrestling tournament on Saturday, and the boys basketball season starts a week from Tuesday. Time marches on.

Anyway, I got some photos from my trip that I'll post later. A few from the game (my experiences) and some shots of Comerica Park, located next to Ford Field, the site of the football game. If you like tigers, you'll want to see them. (Once I get them posted.)

Half past Thanksgiving

Over on the left there, WomanOfFeathers2 sent me a graphic of a pilgrim woman with a pumpkin pie. Many thanks, WOF2! That may be as close to a pumpkin pie as I get today. It's Thanksgiving on the road for the third straight year.

I am writing this from my son's apartment in a north Detroit suburb. We're watching the Lions and Dolphins battling against each other. By this time tomorrow, my state finals game will be over, and we'll be probably be back on I-75, for the long drive home.

The trip down there was interesting. We left at 8 a.m. Wednesday, and all was fine until about 1 p.m., when we were nearing St. Ignace and the Mackinac Bridge, which connects Michigan's two peninsulas.

Now usually when I make a late fall trip to Detroit or thereabouts, the weather is cloudy and gray and even snowy (especially south of the bridge). Not this time. The sun was out. The low angle sun of fall. I was getting some of that through the side window. Also, the sun was being reflected off the waters of Lake Michigan, and I was getting that through the side window.

The bottom line: tons of glare for the driver to deal with. It burned my eyes, and gave me a headache. But we got to the bridge, and I took a photo of it ...


"The bridge" is the Mackinac Bridge, which is about five miles long and was built in 1957. Until then, you got from one peninsula to the other via ferry, over waters that can get pretty choppy.

We stopped for lunch just south of the bridge, where I took some Tylenols and tried to rest my eyes. But the burning feeling never really went away until after the sun set. We eventually got to the motel (in Flint) and stayed there Wednesday night. It's a Red Roof Inn. (Yeah, we go first class.) By the way, the motel says it has internet access. And they do. But it's the kind of internet access where you have to send your credit card info to T-Mobile. No thank you!

On Thanksgiving morning, we drove down to my older son's place, and that brings you up to date. Of course, as soon as we arrived, both sons got to doing what they like to do: videogames ...

That's David seated and Phil looking over his shoulder. I sent a copy of this photo home to Mom, and I'll call her in a little while.

It's getting close to halftime, and Phil's going out during the break in the action to get something at McDonald's. I've got my doubts that he'll find one open, but he says the one he's going to is open 24 hours. We'll see. Later this afternoon, we're going to a place where a Thanksgiving dinner is being served. So maybe I'll get some pumpkin pie after all.

That's it for now. Once I get home, I'll have tons of writing (and unwinding) to do, so I won't be able to complete the story until early next week.

Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. To you Canadians, sorry this is over a month late. By the way, we're not crossing over to Windsor, Ontario, today. Too much hassle, says my son, what with customs and all. And the exchange rate is not favorable to the American dollar, which is a lot weaker than it was just a few years ago. Well, we all know why.

Turkey on the road

had been looking forward to a traditional Thanksgiving this week. Sleep late. Watch some football. Enjoy a big, tasty meal. Enjoy time with the family and maybe visit my mom. Relax and enjoy taking it easy for once.

Well, I'll get to see some football, anyway.

Last Saturday, the football team I cover won its state semifinal game, so on Wednesday morning, I'll be leaving for the 520-mile drive to Detroit and the state finals at Ford Field. It's the third straight Thanksgiving I'll be spending away from home.

Yes, it's getting old. After 2004 and '05, I was really looking forward to a quiet Turkey Day. Especially with my mom in the nursing home--I wanted to spend part of the day with her.

As of mid October, our team didn't seem likely to go very far in the playoffs. But lo and behold, they came together and now have four straight playoff wins including victories over two teams that had been undefeated. Their seasons ended. Ours goes on.

This time my wife is staying home, due to her new job. But my younger son is leaning towards coming along. After all, his big brother lives down there, and we'll spend a lot of time with him on Thanksgiving--no doubt his video games will get a workout. In the last two years, we marked the big day by crossing over to Canada (Windsor), where the stores and restaurants are open on the U.S. Thanksgiving. (It's just an ordinary Thursday over there--Canada's Thanksgiving is on a Monday in October.)

The game kicks at 9 a.m. (our time; 10 a.m. in Detroit) on Friday. After it ends and I get a few interviews, it's back on the road for the 11-hour drive home. At least the weather is forecast to be nice. We're supposed to be in the low 50s this week (!!!), and they're forecasting the mid 50s down there.

Temperatures have been close to normal lately--and since October was so cold, that's nice. We haven't seen any significant snow since that storm in mid October. The only snow around now is in shaded areas, and even that may be gone after it warms up.

I really wanted to stay home this year. You know I did. But ... oh well! A few weeks back, I realized that I could well be spending still another Turkey Day far from home, so I've had time to resign myself to it.

At least I'll take my camera along, so I'll look for some unusual sights along the way. You could predict that, right?

***

I've got a few other things to write about, but my wife said she wanted to watch something with me tonight, and I've got something like 34 (at the moment) blog alerts I need to catch up with. She's still upstairs on the big computer, so ...

One is that we (my wife and I) have a big project ahead of us--clearing out my mom's house. She hasn't lived there for 14 months now, and the neighbor (a good friend of my mom) wants to buy it so her daughter and son-in-law can move in.

When I visited my mom last week, I brought up the topic, and she said it would be OK. "Like keeping it in the family," she said. (The last time I brought up the idea of selling the house, she got all emotional, and a serious discussion wasn't possible. Now she knows that she can't move back home.)

My mom and dad moved into the house about 1977, and while it isn't a big house, they have a lot of stuff in there that we have to dispose of one way or another, plus lots of stuff to simply sort through. Anybody out there interested in an organ? A John Deere riding mower? A mechanic's tool set? A pool table? Those are among the larger items there. None of which we can use or even have space for. FYI, my dad died in 1994.

This is, of course, something I have no experience with. And with work the way it is for me during fall and winter, we won't be able to spend a lot of time there (50 miles from our home) until next spring. I told the neighbor they wouldn't be able to take over the house until next summer at the earliest. She said that's OK.

The other thing is that I've fallen in love. Really.

It happened last Saturday, after the game. We had gone to the Target store in Marquette to look for some blouses and socks and other stuff for my wife. I went to the entertainment department as usual. And there it was.

I'm planning to get a new digital camera, and I've made up a short list of candidates. At the store, there was the top candidate. The first time I've had a chance to see it in person. While it didn't have a film card, there were batteries inside, so I was able to play with it a little. Nice.

It's a Canon Powershot S3 IS. A small digital with a big zoom. Make no mistake: I'd absolutely love to get a digital SLR. But they simply cost too much for me. I have to set my sights a little lower. I've been reading a lot of reviews of cameras, and the Canon is one of the final candidates.

But since that model came out about a year or so ago, I'm suspecting that a new version of the camera will come out this spring. So, for the time being, I'm going to wait. I'll be taking more looks at the Sony and Panasonic/Lumix models, too. There's a little time before I make the decision.

As long as I can remember, I've used Minolta cameras. Even way back when I got my first film SLR. The cameras I use now (both the work camera and my own camera) are Minoltas. Then Minolta merged with Konica, and it was rebranded "Konica Minolta." And earlier this year, much to my shock, Konica Minolta announced it was getting out of the camera business entirely. So I feel totally absolved of any brand loyalty.

***

My wife must have gotten mixed up with the solitaire game again. She finally came down, and we watched an episode of Stargate SG-1. No time for a movie with her new, earlier bedtime.

Now: time to start working down those blog alerts.

There and back again

Hi, folks. It's been another crazy week.

Last Saturday, we went to the Superior Dome in Marquette for the regional football championship game. The team that I cover won again, so they will be returning to Marquette this Saturday for the state semifinals.

Just thought I'd show you a shot or two I took inside the dome. (It was night when we got up there--this week's game is during the day.)

As you see, it is made of wood. It fact, it's the world's largest wooden dome (For more about the Superior Dome and a look at the exterior, look at its Wikipedia entry.)



The acoustics inside are weird. I've been to track meets there, and sometimes you can be about 30 feet from the starter's pistol and it sounds very distant. Then, you can be on the other side of the floor, and the gun makes you jump. Here's another shot.



One thing I don't enjoy about covering football games at the dome is the arena staff, who must be from the law enforcement academy or something. They keep all us news photographers about 12 feet from the sidelines--behind a broken white line. But I'm trying both to take notes on the action and get pictures at the same time, and it sure makes it difficult--especially since light from a flash disperses over distance.

For example, this shot was taken during a crucial fourth down play in last Saturday's game. Here's how I got to see it ...

Great seats, eh, buddy? Maybe I should take along a helmet, shirt and shoulder pads next time.

Now ... this Saturday's game is the state semifinals. If they win that one, they go on to the state finals, which would be played Thanksgiving Friday (Nov. 24) at 9 a.m. (our time) at Ford Field in Detroit. It would be the third consecutive Thanksgiving when I am far from home, covering the football finals. True, I'll get to visit my older son (in fact, I'd be staying with him), but just the same, I'd rather have Thanksgiving Day at home. For once.

I mean, been there, done that. I've gone down to the state finals several times. Contrary to what you may think, covering those games is just not as much fun as covering the regular season games, where you can be right on the sidelines, feel the wind, the rain and the snow, and you walk around on real green grass. Or mud. (But the mud is real, so that's OK.) Shirtsleeve weather for football is OK--if it's August or September.

I've got girls basketball district tournament games Wednesday night and (probably) Friday night and a meeting on Thursday. Fortunately, this one isn't as long as the football meeting.

One other MAJOR piece of GOOD news. My wife got a job.

She's starting at a call center that opened in town here just recently. She started training today. She'll be working just about full-time through the holidays. After that, it will slow down, but it's a national company with other big, national clients.

Jobs are very hard to find here. Small town, not much economic life. Rural area in the woods. Far from "civilization." Heck, there are 13,000 people in the entire county, and most are elderly. It's been an employer's market.

My wife had been out of work for about a year, after the motel where she worked closed due to the owner's illness. (She died over the summer, and the place is closed.) So we've been living on my paycheck ever since, and my job doesn't pay well. Plus, we had our health insurance cut back earlier this year, so I've got a lot of medical bills that need to be paid.

If she can hang on there, this will be a very good thing. We're going to have to scramble at times, especially since we just have one car, but where there's a will, etc. We both want to make it work, and that's the main thing.

Frozen memories defrosted

OK, folks, gather around. I want to tell you about one of the most memorable experiences of my life. A night I certainly will never forget. And if it ever happened to you, I'm sure you would never forget, either.

But first, since I am so considerate to you, my dear readers, I want to you do something. I want to get up from the computer for a few minutes and get yourself a cup of coffee. Or tea. Some hot chocolate would be especially appropriate. Or a nice hearty cup of soup. That would work well, too.

Just get up and get something nice and warm for your tummy. Right now. I'll wait here.

I mean it. Seriously. Get something warm for inside. You will be glad you did.

I can wait.

I'm still here.

Won't go away.

I mean it. You'll be glad I asked you to do this.

OK. Almost ready.

Everybody here?

OK, we can start.

This takes us back three years, almost to the day. It was the day of the district football championship game. I didn't have to drive far on this night--just across the county, about 18 or so miles. Piece of cake.

We had received about three inches of snow a few days earlier. Then it got a little warmer, and some of it melted. The snow had been plowed off the football field where the game would be played.

Then, late in the week, temperatures fell. With a thud. The field, with some patches of snow still on it, froze solid. The night of the game came. It hadn't gotten much above 20 F all day, and now the sun had set. Temperatures were going down, down, down.

By the time I arrived and took my first pictures, it was already about 15 F. That's -10 C.



They had stationed propane heaters along the sidelines--for both teams, not just the home side.

Some schools we have visited for cold-weather games apparently
could only scare up one heater to their name. ;) This time, both teams had them. But one was facing the wind. Home field advantage, you know.

From my story: "But they couldn’t do much for the guys on the field. Many of them play both offense and defense, so they never got a long break on the sidelines."

Regardless of the cold, the band took the field as usual before the game ...


And the fans didn't stay home ...


Then the action started. The officials and many of the players wore gloves. The backs, who had to keep control of the ball, went bare-handed.



During the game, I wanted to go over to the heaters to warm up my paws. But I had a hard time getting there. This photo will explain why.


Yes, it's tackle football. Imagine getting tackled on a frozen field with just a thin layer of brownish grass on it. And this is a playoff game, too! Many players suffered abrasions. "While the field was as hard as cement," I wrote, "it wasn’t that smooth."


Also, the scoreboard wasn't up to the challenge. From my story: "After much monkeying around and switching on and off repeatedly, school officials threw up their hands and relied on PA announcements on the down and distance and how much time remained."


When it got to halftime ... well, here's what I wrote in my column:

As for myself, I had been wearing fingerless gloves while covering football since the weather got cold, the better to write notes and manipulate camera controls. But that was in normal fall weather, not December conditions. The fingerless gloves allowed my fingers (above the knuckle) to get really cold during the first half. Frankly, they were getting numb. Finally it got to halftime, and I went to my car, started it, switched on the heater and relaxed. The little Mazda has a good heater and I warmed up my hands, my fingerless mitts and my normal gloves. Half-time ended, and I went back to the field, wearing the normal gloves. But when action resumed, I couldn’t find the fingerless gloves. I walked up and down the sideline, looking around. I walked back to the car and looked. No gloves. So the other gloves were used during the second half. (It turned out the fingerless gloves decided at halftime to hide on the floor of the car and stay warm for the rest of the game.)

Look, folks, it's a district championship game. Important! I need notes to write my story. I cursed my bad luck and slipped out of my gloves as the second half started, slipping my hands back into the gloves at every opportunity. My handwritten notes got harder to write (and, afterwards, read) as the second half wore on.

By the time the game ended, temperatures must have been in the low teens. But our team had won. The batteries in my flash unit had given up the ghost (I had cleverly left the fresh batteries at home), so, for the post-game celebrations and trophy presentation, I used my camera's pop-up flash.

But the kids were really happy ...




Finally, I could go back to the car, start it up, turn the heater up on high and drive home. Even so, I felt like a popsicle. My wife said my hands felt like popsicles. My fingers, especially, of course. The tip of the forefinger of my left hand was especially bad. Numb. I think it would have been getting close to frostbite if I had stayed out in the cold longer. It took a long time for them to warm up again and for the tingly feeling to go away. Finally, they did.

The game was played on the east side of the county. We live on the west side. The overnight low on the west side was -1 F. That's like -18 C.

Epilogue: Our team's season ended one week later, at the regional championship game. It was played out of town, about 60 miles away. It was just a little warmer, plus it was windy. They had a propane heater on their side of the field. We had nothing. We lost. End of season.

* * *

They're playing in the regional championship game again this weekend. But this time, it will be inside the dome in Marquette, where it will be shirtsleeve weather. Nobody's going to get cold.

We take to the streets

Rush, rush, rush. See last week's entry. It was a little easier last week, but not by much.

I thought our team would get eliminated from the football playoffs last Friday night. After all, they faced the team that beat them 28-0 in late September.

Final score: Our team 44, their team 12. And one of their touchdowns came in the last minute, against our reserves.

So they go on. Next game is Saturday night, at the dome in Marquette. About 100 miles away.

Saturday, we got out of town to visit my mom. But we made plans to get back home by 7 p.m., so it was a little more rush-rush than usual. "I'm tired of rush-rush days," I told my wife. "And I'm even more tired of rush-rush weeks and rush-rush months."

OK, remember this wristband I wore last year? I showed it to you on MB last summer (back when MB was still alive).



After the "4" it says "Bush."

Every month up here, the Northwoods Peace Coalition holds a candlelight vigil on a Saturday night at a downtown corner. I had seen their signs earlier but always managed to forget about it until too late. This time, the final weekend before the election, I remembered.

There were about six people, including my wife and I. Here's what it was like. My wife is holding my candle--my hands were busy.



It was quiet and low key. One person had a sign that read "Peace now." But we were quiet--just stood along the street, talked quietly and held our candles. Some people waved as they drove past. Others honked the horn. We waved back.

It was in the mid 20s (a few degrees warmer than at the football game the night before). After a while I remembered that I had gloves in the car, so I got them, gave my wife my gloves and wore my fingerless gloves.

And that, really, was about it. We were there about a half hour, then the group broke up, and we headed for home to warm up. Watched a movie, then went to bed.

Tuesday, of course, is Election Day, and we're rock-solid voters. Every election we're there, no matter how seemingly trivial. The local Elks Club holds a "pancake day" on Election Day, so we'll get filled on pancakes and all the fixins. Then back to normal activities. I've got girls basketball that night, and then we'll turn on the TV and see what happens.

I've got my hopes. But then I had my hopes on Election Day 2004. The next day, I wore black.

Crossing my fingers.

Past presence

From what I can see here, everybody who celebrated Halloween/Samhain had a great time.

I don't do that. I don't do the costume thing or the visiting bars thing. For one thing, I was so wiped out last weekend that I was in no mood for anything. For another, I don't go to bars (once in a great while), and parties are foreign to me. I don't know. Not the party type.

Maybe I'm just so practical and serious about things that I can't be impractical and unserious once in a while. It's hard for me to be another person, to pretend. I guess I'm too far gone from childhood. It's been a while, you know.

Instead, I have been thinking of those who have gone on before me. That is part of Samhain, too--honoring their spirits and the lives they lived.

Where can I start? How about Nona? That's all I ever knew her by. She was my dad's aunt (I think), and we visited her when I was young and my family was "up north" to visit family. Just a little old Italian woman, always in a black dress, with a bun in her hair. She only spoke Italian, like my dad's side of the family. What I remember most is that I couldn't understand what she said--and that she always has pizzelles around. A lifelong love was born there--the thin Italian cookies, anise-flavored. We have a pizzelle iron now, and my wife makes them from time to time during winter. When I happily munch on one, my mind flashes back to Nona.

My mom has a different memory of Nona. She says she would always serve up some very potent Italian wine that would throw her sensibilities for a loop. Her side of the family is Danish and doesn't have the wine genes.

Then, there are my dad's mom and dad. Both, of course, are long gone. My grandpa had the whitest hair--like my dad did and like maybe I will have someday. He lived on a small farm and I remember it all very well. The machine shed. The chicken coops and barn. The fields around it--when we visited up north, my dad would often take us for a drive around the fields at night, with the brights on, looking for deer. "Shining" deer, I guess you could call it, although we just looked at them. The deer would just stare at us, with the retinas of their eyes glowing brightly.

I'd always make friends with his dogs. Shep was a collie. Rusty was an Irish setter. My grandpa had a little dog of his own, a rat terrier named Mickey. "Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, monkey," he'd say. "Ya-ya, Milwaukee," he'd also say. Where that came from, I wish I knew. My dad and mom lived on the farm after they got married, in a little house nearby, and that was where I lived after they brought me home from the hospital. But when my mom got pregnant again, they knew they couldn't stay, so my dad got a job in Milwaukee, about 225 miles away. It was about 1950, and there were plenty of jobs. Many, many people moved out of the U.P. in the post-war years in search of jobs. Eventually, we moved down there, too.

My grandma: She knew English, but had an accent. She had a squeaky voice. But she was very nice to us. Memories of sitting by the cast-iron stove. Their house didn't haver a phone for a long time. But they had electricity--even a TV! Indoor plumbing? That was years away. I pumped the pump many times, getting pails of water for indoors.

My mom's parents lived about a mile or two away. My grandpa was as tall as my grandma was short. He was a quiet man who worked for the railroad and smoked a pipe a lot. He is the one who I heard coughing downstairs at night when we would visit--that's where we usually stayed. My mom likes to tell the story of me and him when I was about one. He had gotten me a cookie, and I was enjoying it on the floor while he read his paper and smoked his pipe. When the cookie was gone, I'd pull on his pants leg. He'd look down at me. I raised up my hands at him, for him to pick me up. He did. Then I pointed towards the kitchen--more specifically, to the cookie jar. He carried me there, I'd reach down and get another cookie. He'd carry me back, and the whole cycle would start over.

My grandma was short and had the funniest kind of sneeze. It was like ah-AH-HAAAAH! They would come down to Milwaukee (the suburbs) to spend the worst of the winter months with us--winters aren't so hard in Milwaukee. It was there that she suffered her stroke, right around New Year's. She got to go back home in March but had another stroke within days and died. One of my first funerals. My grandpa died about two years later. The smoking caught up with him, you might say. You might also say he didn't really want to go on much longer without her.

The next one on the list is my dad. He died about 10 years ago. Cancer. I drove him and my mom about 100 miles for radiation and chemo a number of times. Really, it took just a few months before he was gone. He was a quiet man who had his frustrations with life and health--he worked at a factory and had back problems that they treated with an operation that didn't work as planned. Later, they stopped doing that operation.

He was also shy. Maybe that's something else I inherited. Especially when he was young--he met my mom when he offered her a ride--she didn't have a car and was walking to a girlfriend's place in town. He gave her rides regularly for several months before asking her out for the first time. They had to go through a lot of shit when they decided to get married. He was Catholic, and she was Lutheran, and mixed marriages back then were very rare. Damn religions messing up people's lives. The priest told his family that nobody should attend the wedding. And, being the obedient Catholics that they were, none of them did.

The last on this list is my brother. He was about 15 months younger than me. He loved cars and, later, motorcycles. It seemed that everything in life let him down. He entered the Army for a while and eventually was stationed in England, but it didn't work out. Then he got a job at Harley-Davidson's plant in Milwaukee--but that was at a time when Harley was going through a bad time (the AMF era) with bad cycles, and he said the other workers on the line did sloppy work on the machines they were working on. He was terribly disillusioned by that.

He was obviously depressed. He was the best man at our wedding and godfather for our oldest son. He eventually got a job at a service station/garage northwest of Milwaukee. I tried to get him to move up north, where we lived. He liked to fish, and my dad liked to fish. He also liked the open country. I tried. Maybe I should have tried harder. For on an October night, he must have had one too many disappointments. He got in his car behind the garage and had a few drinks and put some music on his eight-track. And then he attached a hose to the exhaust pipe, and ...

That's about 21 years ago now. Ever since then, I've known that I would be one of the last of my family. Once my mom passes on, it will be, well, just me. I have an uncle here and an aunt there. I have a few cousins who I see once in a great while. But really, there's just my mom and me and my wife and the two boys, who have both grown and moved out of home.

That's my world. That's my universe. Not at all overcrowded. Plenty of vacancy signs. Does that explain why I get lonely quite easily? You know, everyone else seems to have all kinds of family. My wife was one of eight, for instance. I was one of two. Now, one of one. Unique.

I don't mind being out of the ordinary. But not this way. Usually it doesn't bother me. I keep pretty busy with this and that. But once in a while ... I get to missing them.

Anyway ... that's part of the story of how I got from there to here. I have a lot of wonderful memories of the wonderful people who helped me along the way. There have been many good memories. And more to come! Who knows where this road will lead?

The week that was

Oh, what a week! But now it's over. The skies are clearing. I can breath again. I even got caught up with most of the blog alerts I had to skip until now. Spent several hours on that last night.

What are the ingredients of a manic week? Let me count the ways.

1. Off-year election coverage plus candidate interviews nobody else wants to help with.

2. Meetings with coaches to prepare for all-U.P. football meetings

3. Routine meeting news coverage that didn't have a prayer of getting written up for this week's issue.

4. The day-long football meeting, which takes place about two hours from home. It's a day-long session/ordeal that I have to leave for at 6:30 a.m., and it just goes on and on and on. Of all the things I do on my job, I think that's the day I enjoy the very least. A long, tiring day.

Let's get this straight. Watching football is fun. Covering football is fun. Arguing about the merits of one player over another is terribly dull stuff.

5. A girls basketball game. Just one last week, fortunately.

6. A glimpse or two of the World Series. I got to see a few innings after my meetings and games.

7. Two football playoff games, one on Friday night and the other on Saturday afternoon.

8. Writing everything up. (Except for those meetings, which didn't have a prayer of getting in due to all the election preview stuff I wrote.)

9. It was even my turn to write the editorial. Just my lucky week, I guess.

On top of all that, we had a big storm moving in late in the week. They had forecast mainly wind--areas south and east of us got all the rain--and that's all we got. We only got about a half inch of snow Saturday morning; it melted during the day.

I visited my mom for a short time before the Friday game--it was about 15 miles from the nursing home. Got her some stuff she needed. Saturday's game was way up in the Keweenaw Peninsula, north of Houghton. Just windy, and no snow on the ground. I saw a few flakes while driving home. Left home Saturday at 9 a.m. and got back about 5:30.

Our teams went 1-1, losing Friday night (expected) and winning Saturday (expected, but it was a very close game). They advance to play on Friday, and that, I'm sure, will end their season. The other team is too good.

That means for the first time in three years, I don't have to worry about driving downstate for the football finals in Detroit--about a 520-mile trip each way. True, I get to see my son, but it's just such a rush-rush thing that there's no time for relaxing. He'll be up here over Christmas, anyway.

So one football team is left, and they should be done after this Friday. Girls basketball has two weeks to go. One team is bad and will be eliminated quickly. The other could win its district tournament, but it's a tough distric--they may not.

In short, life this week is less hectic and much less tense. There soon will be a short break before winter sports begin. What will I do then?

I don't know. Early last December, I made that long, long trip to Ontario to visit S for a couple days. She's back in Wisconsin now, of course, but she's with her husband again. I'd love to see her--even if just for dinner--but that probably won't happen. My other friend, K, is in Madison--haven't seen her since my wife and I visited to see those crazy cows last June.

I'm guessing right now that most likely I'll stay close to home. Maybe, if I get nice weather, I'll go on a photo trip--just go out and look for interesting photos. Haven't done that for a long time. Most of the photos I've posted recently were taken while on the way to some assignment or to see my mom.

Anyway, I'm still here. Life goes on.

One other update: My poor battered car should be fixed up early next week.

Godzilla crashes the birthday party

I have to be brief. This is the week from hell. Workwise, that is. Many things to do. Little time to do it. Plus, I have to be out of town for an all-day meeting Thursday. Not looking forward to it, but it's not an option ...

Anyway, I did take some time off over the weekend for my wife's birthday. She's 10 months younger than I am. So I figured some age-related birthday cards were appropriate.

But what to get? I was stumped until I saw this one. It features one of my favorite movie stars. A big guy in the movies. One who knows how to put his foot down.

So ... Here's the front of the card:



And when you open it up ...



Yes, she got a kick out of it.

We went off to get a birthday pizza with my son, and we had a good if quiet day. I've been wanting to take her for a real dinner (as in steak), but that has to wait until life gets less ridiculous.

I've got to run off to a school board meeting very soon, and dinner will be ready in minutes, so I'll stop here. This is the toughest week. Next week: not so bad. The week after: not bad at all! But this week ...

Wish me luck. I'll try to catch up on blog alerts once I get back--but will surely fall far behind again later in the week.

My snowy adventure

This little squirrel has been running around the circular drum in his cage just about full-time recently. There has been very little time to collect my thoughts and put some of them to paper. Or what passes for paper nowadays.

Let's see. The last time I wrote, I had just gotten back from a girls basketball game, during which somebody hit my car while it was parked along the street. On Friday morning, I went around for estimates: about $2,500. I've got comprehensive on my auto insurance policy, so it won't come out of pocket. Michigan is a "no-fault" state, anyway.

But it happened on Thursday night, and on Friday and Saturday, I had to cover two important football games out of town. With a major (and unusually early) snowstorm about to arrive. And with my car at less than peak condition. Oh well. I dressed very warm, got in the car and drove west.

The snow wasn't fallling too hard for the first half of the trip Friday. But then, as I got closer to Lake Superior, it got worse and heavier. But I got to town before sundown and immediately went to look at the football field. I arrived just as the crew was about to start clearing the gridiron with plows, with the snow blowing merrily all around ...



I went off to the Dairy Queen for some supper (seeing some fans who didn't believe I--or they--would make it). Then, back to the field. It was darker now, and here's what it looked like from where I parked ...

That's all snow in the air, folks.

The plows were still working ...


But there still were big piles of snow around the field ...

That's the visiting team's grandstand.

I went inside, and of all things, there was somebody cooking hamburgers outdoors, with several inches of snow on the top of his grill. Of course, this deserved a photo ...


And if you turned 90 degrees to your right, here is what you saw ...


Then the game started. It was snowing pretty hard during the first half ...


In the second half, the snow backed off for a while ...


The cheerleaders made it to the game. But more fans than this made the 100-mile trip--it was halftime, and some of them had gone off to visit
Burger Man and get some coffee.

Anyway, the girls were dressed for the occasion ...


The game ended, and our team suffered a rare loss. I did my interviews and then got in my car. After all, I had to get home so I could hit the road again Saturday morning.

But it was still snowing hard. There was very little traffic. That's a good thing and a bad thing. It was good in that I didn't have to worry about too many other drivers trying to cope (like I was) with their first snowy drive of winter. It's bad because not too many vehicles were on the road, laying tracks on the highway. And without tracks, the road is very hard to follow. All you folks in warmer climes don't know what you're missing.

I'm used to driving in conditions like this, having lived up here for so long, but it still makes my neck, shoulders and back stiff. It's quite a tense situation, you know? And I'm by myself. And it's a long, long, long trip home. And it's only October!!!!!!

Of course, no highway crews were out. In the 80-mile trip home, I did not see a single plow truck. Not even one. And I hasten to add that this is a drive through a very remote area, where cell phones are just dead weight in your pocket.

But I finally got home ... and the next morning, I had to hit the road again. David was coming with me, and we were going north, to the Copper Country.

Here's something else I wanted to tell you about the trip home. All the road signs were snowed over--snow was sticking to the surfaces, so they were impossible to read. If I hadn't been fairly familiar with the trip ... but I was.

Here is a traffic sign I saw on our trip north Saturday morning. Sure you can figure out what it is now, in daylight. But what if it had been in the middle of the night, with snow falling all around?


The snow had stopped by this time, and the only problem was slush on the road for a few miles. But the results of the storm were all around us. Here are a few snowy shots I took along the way ...



See the snow-covered autumn leaves?


That looks like a nice road to walk down.

This time no snow was falling, and the roads were clear. Remember those snowy football pictures I posted last time? Same two teams as before, but conditions were much different this time ...

In fact, the sun was out for most of the game. And our team won, which is always nice.

My little car survived both long trips without a problem. It's a good car. At least it's a good one for me.

So this is my first chance to tell you about it. Monday, after work, my wife wanted to watch a movie with me. Tuesday, we drove off to visit my mom. Tonight, I'm at home, watching the baseball playoffs. That's as ambitious as I want to get tonight.

Thursday, I've got girls basketball, but that's in town. Friday, I've got football, but it's in the neighboring town and the weather is supposed to behave.

After my adventure last Friday night (yes, Friday the 13th), I'll settle for that.