Tuesday Was Super, But Not So Much For Democrats

Dear George,

The Ohio primary was titillating for the Republicans, but pretty bland for the Democrats. Katja and I never fail to vote, so we did so again this time. But, even though we were there at a prime time, we only saw one other voter at the usually bustling polling place. The state’s overall turnout was a meager 25%, and I’ll bet it was still lower for Democratic voters. Even if irrelevant, we were happy to give our expression of electoral support to Barack Obama, as well as to our U.S. Senator, Sherrod Brown, who was also running unopposed in the primary. The only contested national Democratic race of any consequence on our ballot was to decide on the candidate to run for the U.S. House seat for our district. That seat is currently occupied by a popular long-time Republican politician from the city’s West Side. I guess the Democrats decided they had no chance against the incumbent since the two party nominees were both unknowns who have never held political office. One had previously lost a couple of elections for a state office and was strongly Pro-Life. He didn’t enthuse us much. The second, who was unemployed and hadn’t completed college, said he was running because he was fed up from years and years of writing complaints to the White House and not getting anything back but form letters. I suggested to Katja that we grit our teeth and go with the Pro-Life guy which is what we did. There were three or four contested judicial races, but, despite our good intentions, we always fail to get informed about the judges. As usual, I just sort of guessed, though Katja told me afterward I’d made a big mistake on one of them.

The authorities reportedly made it a little easier to switch party affiliations in Ohio’s primary this year. Supposedly the pollworkers were instructed to issue challenges only if they had personal information that voters belonged to the other party. It would have been more interesting and fun to vote in the Republican primary, but I was scared to lie and thought it unethical anyway. The Obama campaign put all of its resources in Ohio into defeating Romney, but not a penny against Santorum. I guess they would much rather run against Santorum than Romney in November. If I had voted in the Republican primary, I don’t think I could have brought myself to vote for Santorum, even if it were helping Obama. And Gingrich is even more offensive. I guess I would have voted for Ron Paul. He’s the most entertaining, and I actually find myself agreeing with something he says every once in a while.

I wrote down my predictions on Tuesday morning when I started working on this blog post: Romney, 39%; Santorum, 35%; Gingrich, 15%; Paul, 11%. I was a little over-optimistic about Romney and Paul – the final results were: Romney, 38%; Santorum, 37%; Gingrich, 14%; Paul, 9%; Perry and Huntsman, 1% each. Romney did best in Ohio’s big cities and their suburbs (e.g., Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, etc.). Santorum swept Ohio’s small towns and rural areas, a big chunk of the state. It was a narrow numerical victory for Romney, who’d been behind by two digits a couple of weeks beforehand, but less than impressive, given that he spent four times as much as all his other opponents combined. In our district’s House race the Pro-life guy beat the angry letter-writing guy, 50.5% to 49.5%, testimony to voters’ great acumen. In the other Cincinnati area district a four-time female Republican House incumbent was upset by a first-time candidate, allegedly because the Republican faithful were offended when she kissed Barack Obama on the cheek before his State of the Union address. In the House Democratic primary in that same district a well-known candidate was upset by a nominee that no Democratic party official had ever met or heard of, who had spent zero money on the campaign, had not responded to any newspaper requests for information, had never given an interview, and who had no known platform. The paper called him “the mystery candidate.” Apparently the Democrats are leaning, not only to candidates with no political experience, but to candidates with no public identity whatsoever. In the meantime, the Republicans have been counting on their partisan legislative redistricting of the state to give a huge advantage to Republican candidates and, in some cases, to pit incumbent Democratic congresspersons against one another in the primary. They’re undoubtedly cheering since their redistricting succeeded in getting rid of Dennis Kucinich, one of the U.S. House’s most vocal anti-war liberals. I guess the upshot of all this is that the four Republican presidential contenders will all remain in the race, continuing to pick one another apart, and damaging the chances of whoever winds up as the survivor for the general election. Ohio will be very important again in November. Our various relatives on the East and West coasts remain very nervous about the Buckeye State. I don’t blame them. It’s a strange, mysterious place.

Love,

Dave

G-mail Comments

-JML (3-8): I was really rooting for Santorum. Oh well.

Snow Lives

A jolly snowman in Clifton’s Burnet Woods, Cincinnati (Feb. 2010)

Dear George,

This has been Cincinnati’s least wintry winter since 1919. We’ve only gotten 4 inches of snow so far, about ten inches less than normal for this time of year (and about fifty inches less than my home town of Menominee). We didn’t get our first real storm of the season till almost New Years. It started as rain, then turned to snow and sleet, and, with temperatures dropping well below freezing, our sidewalks wound up as slick as glass. I couldn’t take the dogs out the back door because I couldn’t stand up on the driveway, so we went out via the front porch and walked on the grass. It was hazardous and unpleasant, though it brought back many memories. Growing up in Michigan’s U.P., snow was a major part of our lives from November to late March every year. And snow was a substantially different experience in childhood and adolescence than in decades that followed. What strikes me is how one’s changing experiences of snow reflect the larger dramatic changes that occur over one’s life span. Here’s what comes to mind.

My mom Doris and I on the Green Bay shore (circa 1940)

When I was a little kid, snow was amazing and a source of endless adventures. We lived on the second floor of a two-story white frame house on Ogden Avenue in Menominee, just west of the Interstate Bridge, and my friend Sally F. lived with her parents on the first floor. When winter snowfalls came, our mothers would take Sally and I over to the Tourist Information Lodge a block away on Ogden Ave., and we’d sled down the steepest hill in the Twin Cities. When you’re four years old, the Tourist Lodge hill is like Mount Everest. Our moms would tow the sleds back up for us each time, but we were in sole charge on the way down. Once we started kindergarten Sally and I would hike the half-mile to Boswell School by ourselves each morning. In the winter we’d be bundled up in snowsuits, boots, mittens, and hats, and sludge our way through the snow and ice. Sally’s dad’s Boiler Works was midway in our journey along Ogden Ave., and we’d stop in to get warmed up by the potbelly stove in the front office. We thought winter was otherworldly.

Ice Shoves, Green Bay, Menominee, MI (postcard, circa 1910)

By our grade school years, snow had become a venue for more autonomous play. Our family had moved to a house on Sheridan Road, just across the street from Green Bay. and the neighborhood kids spent a lot of time outside without much parental supervision. Huge ice shoves would pile up along the bay shore, and we’d climb around on them. Our major activity, though, was snowball fights – or, more aptly, snowball wars. We soon developed rules not to put ice chunks in our snowballs and not to throw directly at one another’s heads. My friends and I would build a snow fort on the curb of Sheridan Road in front of our house, and a couple of older kids from down the block would make a competing fort on the opposite side. Then we’d spend hours building stockpiles of snowballs and lobbing them at one another, usually throwing them simultaneously to increase the probability of hitting an enemy. It was rare that anybody ever hit anybody. At Washington Grade School the teachers prohibited snowballs on the playground. Instead, once five or six inches of snow had fallen, somebody would bring a football to school, and we’d play tackle. One kid would run with the ball, and twenty or thirty other kids would chase him across the snow-covered cinder playground until somebody tackled him. Then the kid who made the tackle would get to run with the ball. I only tackled somebody once – Tommy H., who was the halfback on our grade school football team. Tommy had decided to just run right through me, but somehow he slipped and fell when he hit me. I was very excited then to run with the football myself, but I only got about fifteen feet before somebody brought me down.

Doris with Steve and I at River House (circa 1946)

My siblings Steve, Vicki, Peter on the frozen Menominee at River House (circa 1957)

After the war, when my dad came back from the Pacific, our family moved out of town to my grandfather’s house on the Menominee River, and we all grew up there. Living in the country, winter became a still more momentous part of our lives. The river would freeze over, and we’d make a snow slide for sledding or skiing off the river bank and a skating rink out on the ice. Each year our snowmen would get bigger and more ornate, decorated with top hats, pine cone eyes, carrot noses, and wool scarves. We’d throw snowballs at the trunks of the Norway Pines for target practice, but more often at one another, and we’d try to build igloos on the front lawn (though the ceilings always caved in). As we got older, Steven and I spent hours playing basketball on our snow-packed driveway, stretching an extension cord from inside the garage to a desk lamp tied to a maple tree so we’d have enough light to play after dark. Steve became so skilled he joined the high school varsity basketball team as a freshman. Our dad would tie a rope from our toboggan to the rear bumper of the car and pull us on a bumpy ride up and down Riverside Drive. Our road was so unpopulated that it was one of the last places for the county to plow, and we could always count on at least two snow days from school when we got a good storm.

Main St., Menominee, Michigan (postcard, circa 1913)

At 14 I began working at the family drugstore, and one of my winter duties was shoveling the sidewalk in front of and on the side of the store. With a heavy storm, it was a significant task, and I prided myself on getting up every speck of snow, following up with a broom after I’d finished shoveling. I started driving at 16, and we teenagers necessarily learned to adapt to snowy and icy roads throughout the winter months. I’d drive home from school on Stephenson Ave., and, once I was outside the city limits, I’d start hitting the brakes sharply on the icy road and spinning around in a circle, bouncing off one snowbank and then the other. On one icy night Bob A. and I drove my mom to the O’Hara’s in his car, and we slid off the road near Grant School, tipped over, and wound up with the car on its side in a ditch, all piled on top of one another.

“Winter in Milwaukee” (Milwaukee County Historical Society, mid-1950’s)

I went off to college in 1955, then had my first coop job in the winter of 1957 in Madison, Wisconsin. I visited friends in Milwaukee, where I met Katja who was also working there. I fell in love right away, and the Wisconsin snow took on a dreamy aura. On our first evening out together we went on a long walk in downtown Milwaukee, eating popcorn and looking off the bridge at the Milwaukee River. The snow had begun falling, making the scene still more picturesque, and it was the most romantic moment of my young life to date. At the end of our coop job assignments in early March, Katja came home with me to visit Menominee. It was still snowy and cold, and we walked across the frozen Menominee River to Pig Island, looking with wonder through the ice at the objects on the sand below, including a comatose mud puppy.

Dave, J, Winston in our side yard on Whitfield Ave. (circa 1976)

Then years whisked by, and we were in Cincinnati with a family of our own. We moved from the suburbs to Clifton when our son J was three or four. Being a dad, I got to relive all of those childhood experiences of winter and snow again, but now as a parent caring for, assisting, and playing with his child. It remained a lot of fun, but now from the opposite side. Cincinnati is a city of hills, ideal for sledding in the wintertime. We, with other neighborhood families, would make regular treks to Mt. Storm Park, one of the highest points in the city, and sled down the hill for 200 yards or so. J would ride down, and I’d pull him and the sled back up, just as my mother had done for me thirty years before. We bought our house on Ludlow Avenue in Clifton around 1976, and there we began a tradition of making increasingly bigger snowmen every year to decorate our side yard.

Our House, Ludlow & Whitfield, Feb. 2010

J grew up, went off to college, partnered with K, did med school together, and now they have their own lovely family in New Orleans. My winter routine has changed once again. I walk the sheepdogs a lot, sometimes a hazardous venture on the slick ice, but I don’t go sledding, snowshoeing, or build snowmen. I’ll throw a snowball at the stop sign every now and then, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had an actual snowball fight. My connections to the world of snow are more contemplative and aesthetic. Once there’s a good snowfall, I usually trek over to Burnet Woods with my camera and take photographs of the snow-covered forest. I guess I’m reaching an age where it’s becoming more comfortable to relax by the fireside. But I do owe the world of snow a long, constantly changing history of experiences.

Love,

Dave

Super Tuesday Meditations*

Dear George,

Ohio’s Super Tuesday primary is nearly here, and we’re overflowing with excitement. In most election years the Ohio results are irrelevant because the nominees have been already decided by March, but this year the Republicans have such a lineup of outstanding candidates that their race remains wide open. Ohio is regarded as a swing state, and it’s always close and unpredictable. It’s sort of a schizophrenic state, with big cities and small towns, rusty industrial centers and millions of acres of farmland, pockets of great wealth and regions of dire poverty. The northern industrial part of the state is solidly Democratic while southwestern Ohioans vote predominantly Republican. Pundits never know which way it’s going to tip.

Affluent Warner County, just north of Cincinnati, is a good example of Super-Republican territory. House Speaker John Boehner’s district is right next door, and it’s home to one of the most vocal Tea Party contingents in the region. We go there a lot. My dentist and dermatologist are located near the community of East Chester, as are the metro area’s largest antique malls and cineplexes, best amusement park and county fair, and a world-class pro tennis tournament. East Chester and its surroundings were all cornfields when we moved to Cincinnati, but suburban sprawl has gobbled it up. Everybody seems to be very white, with neatly combed hair and preppy clothes. The whole place is spiffy and clean.

Warner County has dominated the local news this week, and you can tell that it’s G.OI.P territory. One headline story in yesterday’s Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the Lagoons of East Chester, an expensive townhouse and apartment complex, is now requiring all of its dog-owning residents to register with its in-house dog poop DNA testing program. Current Lagoons dog residents are grandfathered in, but owners of any new Lagoons dogs will be required to pay $50 for a DNA sample from the animal’s saliva. Then, if a dog poop is found on the complex’s grounds, it will be sent to a scientific DNA-testing lab in Knoxville, and, when identified, the dog and its owners will be fined $200. Since individual dogs poop several times a day, fines for a repeat offender will mount up rapidly. The manager of the apartment complex explained out that this is not a profit-making enterprise, since the $200 will be used to pay the costs of the DNA testing. He is enthusiastic because this new program will not just be put into place in East Chester, but will soon be extended to other company-owned properties in Ohio, Colorado, and the Carolinas. It’s unusual for Republicans to recognize the usefulness of hard science, but the policy is certainly in line with moral family values of cleanliness and godliness.

Guns are even more important to Warner County’s agenda than dog poops. The Tea Party crowd is particularly worried that Obama is going to try to take away their assault rifles. Ohio gun sales doubled after President Obama’s election and have been climbing ever since. Ohio Republican state legislators enacted the most lenient gun laws in the nation, allowing for concealed handguns in bars and, if pending legislation is passed, in museums, college classrooms, sports stadiums, and churches and synagogues. Last Tuesday in nearby St. Brevard a resident named Rocky Grogan was irritated when neighborhood children were playing basketball in a driveway near his house. Grogan threatened to “put a bullet through” one child’s head and sic his dogs on the rest. When the children failed to disband, Grogan got his gun and started shooting at them. The police charged him with terrorist threats, among other things. I’m not sure why terrorism was invoked, but perhaps the prosecutor decided it would easier to get a St. Brevard jury to reach a guilty verdict for terrorism than for shooting one’s gun at noisy children.

Everyone should all keep a close eye on Ohio this coming week. Right now Rick Santorum is leading Mitt Romney by eleven percentage points. That makes sense since Santorum believes that human rights come directly from God and that gay marriage would result in bestiality. But the situation is still pretty volatile. I think it all depends on who comes up with the most extreme and craziest views in the next few days. Thus, it’s too soon to count out Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich (or maybe even Perry, Cain, or Bachmann as write-in candidates).

Love,

Dave

Sources: Cincinnati Enquirer news stories at www.cincinnati.com (2-29-12)

*Pseudonyms used in this story.

CINTI. Mains

Dear George,

As a fledging photographer, I’ve been trying to decide on my specialty. It’s difficult because there are endless possibilities, but I think I’ve finally narrowed it down: i.e., Cincinnati water and gas mains. The reasons are pretty compelling. First of all, water and gas mains are practically everywhere – a lot more common and accessible, for example, than strawberries, children on bicycles, or red-winged blackbirds. Second, mains are so mysterious. They are portals to a hidden underground world that we never see. Every day Cincinnati pumps 135 million gallons of water through 3000 miles of water pipes below our sidewalks and streets. I have no idea how you’d open a water main, have never seen anybody do so, and can’t imagine why they’d want to in the first place. Third, as the photos below attest, there’s an astonishing variety. You’d think all the mains be standardized, at least on the same block, but each one seems to have a unique design. Fourth, while water mains weren’t designed with aesthetics in mind, they are definitely aesthetically pleasing. They look like ancient artifacts, rusty and corroded. They must have been installed when the city’s infrastructure was put in place, and the originals are still there even when they’re embedded in sections of brand new sidewalk. Many are spray painted so that low-flying airplanes can take aerial photos of their location and engineers can draw maps. (That may sound made up, but a water company guy told me that.) Here’s a sampling of some of the water and gas mains within a few blocks of our house in Clifton. Just a mere tip of the iceberg.

Love,

Dave

Humpty Dumpty Week

Dear George,

They always talk about retirement as the “Golden Years. I’m beginning to understand why. My level of stress has dropped to practically nothing. My health is fine. We have no pressing money woes. I have lots of freedom to do whatever I want, and most of what I do is pleasing. We have darling grandchildren to ooh and aah about. All in all, I’d have to say that life has gotten pretty smooth and shiny.

This past week, though, has been a bleep on the radar. Suddenly, nearly all the pleasant pieces of my life collapsed all at once. Sort of like Humpty Dumpty, falling off the wall. The opthamologist had warned me that I’d be needed cataract surgery soon, but I didn’t believe him until my closeup vision got too blurry to read the morning newspaper. Then I developed a pain in my right heel which turned into a severe limp and eliminated taking the dogs around the neighborhood, hiking in the forest, walking to and from my office, and, worst of all, having to skip line dancing for two weeks in a row. If all that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve been displaced from my office while the painters and movers do their thing, so I’ve been barred from my home away from home. That’s practically my entire life gone down the tubes: doggies, reading, line dancing, office, hikes, etc.

Just as I was thinking that nothing else could go wrong, I reached for something on my desk at home and managed to knock over a full cup of coffee on my computer keyboard. I leaped up, grabbed a roll of paper towels from the hallway cupboard, and started soaking up liquid. I lifted the keyboard up, held it on end, and watched a couple of teaspoons of hot coffee slowly drain out onto the desk. I called one of my computer expert friends, and she advised me to use a blow dryer on it, then let it dry out for 24 hours. I followed the instructions to a T, but no luck. Fourteen keys did still work, but that’s not enough. I can’t tell you how horrendous it is to not have a computer for three days. My blog work was totally halted. I couldn’t send or reply to e-mails. No Google or Yahoo searches, no Wikipedia, no e-Bay, no checking the movie schedule, basically nothing. I just shut the machine down, then got entirely frazzled about what to do next. I can’t even remember what I used to do before we got a home computer. We rushed to the Apple Store as soon as it opened on Monday morning, and, for what suddenly seemed a bargain price of $50, they remedied my technological catastrophe.

Now life is again on the upswing. I expect to hear from the cataract surgeon soon and get my eye surgery scheduled. My foot is nearly back to normal, and I bought a pair of $111 running shoes to pamper it even more. I plan to return to line dancing next week and to resume all my other normal walking activities. The dogs will be happier and less barky. The painter finished my new office, my work computer is hooked up, and I’m in the process of unpacking endless boxes of stuff. I guess that having everything fall apart at once makes you appreciate things much more when they return to normal. They couldn’t get Humpty together again, but, fortunately, that’s the difference between an egg and a human being.

Love,

Dave

G-mail Comments

-Phyllis S-S (2-25): Dave, A bad, bad week - so glad it's better..... pss

-Jennifer M (2-24): I didn't know about the surgery! When?

-DCL to JM (2-24): Not scheduled yet. I’m eager to get it done.

-Terry O-S (2-24): Hi David - Just one of my periodic fan notes about how much I enjoy your blog. The picture of your Dad, my Dad and Pat Steffke in their uniforms ( I don't think I had previously realized that you and, I think, Peter were also in the picture) in the front yard at the River House is one of my life long favorites. I recall that for several years after the war all of them were determined to get into their uniforms for the Memorial Day events. I'm glad that your Humpty-Dumpty period is winding down and you can return to your deserved blissful retirement routine. Best. Terry

Keeping An Eye On The Sky

An artist’s representation of a UFO seen over Cincinnati

Dear George,

I was excited to learn that one of the world’s largest UFO research centers (which I’ll refer to by the acronym UFORC) has recently relocated from the Rocky Mountains to Cincinnati. While prospective presidential nominees are busy talking about jobs, energy, bank bailouts, etc., it seems to me that visitors from outer space should be given a lot more priority. Newt Gingrich has announced his plans to colonize the moon, but he hasn’t said a word about UFOs. We Cincinnatians are still feeling civic pride from obtaining the Creationism Museum down the river (which features the true Biblical account of evolution), so becoming a UFO center cements our position at the forefront. With over 3,000 members in 39 countries, UFORC has 800 trained investigators who receive reports of about 600 UFO sightings per month, and their data-base contains scientific records of over 33,000 cases.

According to a current UFO website, California has the highest frequency of UFO sightings in the U.S. and Ohio ranks second. That makes sense. With much of the population ingesting medical marijuana and/or magic mushrooms, Californians have a heightened sensitivity to extraordinary objects in the skies. Though Ohioans have less access to mind-altering drugs, Southwest Ohio is the home to thousands of zealous Tea-Partiers, Christian evangelists, anti-abortionists, and Ku Klux Klanners. All of these God-fearing people are attuned to the alien forces that threaten our country’s very existence.

It’s only appropriate that Cincinnati is now the UFO Capitol of the World. The government's Project Blue Book, established after the Second World War to investigate flying saucers, was based for decades at nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Many UFO afficionados have longed believed that the base's Hangar 18 contains the wreckage, including recovered alien bodies, from the famous UFO crash near Roswell, NM, in 1947. Because we are in America’s heartland and consequently of particular interest to alien visitors, Cincinnati and Hamilton County have been a hot spot for UFO sightings for decades. Here are a few actual examples from the UFORC data-base for Greater Cincinnati over the past two years:

Pair of UFOs. My wife and I were in our pool talking and facing east. I looked up and saw what I first thought was a commercial aircraft, though it was flying too slow and too low. There were no wings or tail section, and it didn’t make a sound. Then it vanished. I looked to my right and here comes another one. It was like the first one was towing the second one. I know that airplanes don’t fly that low or that close to each other. I would like to talk to someone about this. (Hamilton County, July 29, 2011)

Red-Orange Sphere. My fiancée and I were at a local sports pub last night, having a smoke with two other people on the back deck. My boyfriend looked up and said, “What the heck is that up there?” All four of us looked up, and there was an enormous glowing red-orange sphere moving slowly and silently in the sky. It was simply enormous, and it moved very, very slowly, changed direction, and then just hung in the sky. It definitely didn’t have the feel of anything man-made or terrestrial, and it gave us all a really weird feeling in the pit of our stomachs. (Hamilton County, Sept. 3, 2011)

Football-Shaped. I was sitting in the living room engrossed in an online chat with my brother when I saw piercing white and red lights out of the corner of my eye. It was a football-like shaped UFO about the size of a car with a very thin lip around the edge that had the lights on it. I would say it was about 150 feet above the house. Then a second UFO just like it suddenly appeared where the first was seconds before. My heart was racing, I guess from adrenaline, and I called my aunt and mom who live less than 2 miles from here. (Cheviot, Hamilton County, Aug. 8, 2011)

Flaming. At about 7:25 p.m. my son and I were traveling on Kilby Road in Cleves when we witnessed what appeared to be a flaming plane slowly descending. As we approached the object, it appeared to consist of a square base that rose into a pyramid shaped structure. Several other passing cars also slowed to view the object. Upon closer observation, it ws not engulfed in flame, but projected white, gold, and red flashing “shimmering” lights. The object did not appear to be an aircraft, did not emit sound, and was not shaped like any aerodynamic aircraft we are familiar with. Interesting, exciting, and disturbing. (Cleves, Hamilton County, Jan. 13, 2010)

The Grays. Three of my friends and I were flying a kite at night with a pen light when two discs from Orion’s Belt came dancing toward our kite, spun around it, then stopped and went right back to Orion’s Belt at the speed of light. Was I spooked? No. Because, I myself, have been subjected to the Grays since birth. I allowed them to read my mind as they allowed me to read theirs. Many encounters of the fourth kind. They have been watching and observing and changing DNA, replicating humanoid and other beings from other planets. They really want what’s best and want us to grow to understand. After many abductions, the men in black were everywhere till the Hubble scope was turned on me. I do know they will return. I will be ready…Will you? (Clermont County, May 23, 2010)

It seems like the only reasonable explanation of these extraordinary events is extraterrestial visitors from a faraway galaxy. So far they seem pretty benign and haven’t done destructive things. I think it’s to our credit that Cincinnati is a such a popular “tourist” destination, and I’m definitely going to walk the sheepdogs more often at night so we can keep an eye on the sky.

Love,

Dave

P.S. Since this is not a wholly serious account, I’ve used a pseudonym for the UFO research organization. If you reverse the five letters in the middle of the following web-site address (www.nofum.com), you can visit it and read about thousands of UFO sightings around the world.

Cleaning House, Shedding Identities

Packing up my office

Dear George,

The more I think about it, the more I’m struck by the similarities between retirement and getting divorced. Both typically involve the abrupt end of a significant long-term relationship. Like divorce, retirement can be amicable or contentious, forced or voluntary, liberating or destructive. But, whatever the details, the person is stripped of one of his or her most important adult identities and the social network and round of activities associated with it. As a consequence, one is likely to encounter a bunch of disorientation and distress.

In my own case, the impact of retirement has been softened somewhat by my keeping an office at the university. I “go to work” for at least a couple of hours most days of the week. Parts of my daily routine have remained much the same. I check my mailbox, make a cup of coffee, say hi to the secretary, read my e-mail, chat with colleagues, attend an occasional lecture, and do lots of writing at the computer. Thus I’m in a sort of twilight zone – formally retired, but not altogether.

I experienced a new retirement mini-crisis recently when the department head informed me that I’d need to change offices. I’ve never been any good at throwing things out, and I still have a ton of stuff in my office files. Because my new office won’t have as much storage space, there’s some pressure to consolidate my wares. I’ve been going through it all for a couple of weeks, manila folder by manila folder, struggling to weed things out. It’s a slow, almost agonizing process. I have endless yellowed lecture notes that I prepared over decades and which contain all the ideas that I strove to impart to students. While I’ll probably never do another lecture, there are literally thousands of hours and a lot of emotion invested in this material. It’s hard to simply chuck one’s teaching career. I have the same feelings for my files from unfinished research projects, drafts of manuscripts in progress, hundreds of Xeroxed journal articles, promotion review files, even Thank You notes from students. So far I’ve managed to rid myself of about twenty percent of this mountain of paper. Even if their functional value is next to zero, all these artifacts symbolize who I’ve been as a teacher, scholar, mentor, administrator, department member. Sending it all to the recycling bin seems so final and irreversible, like giving up a part of myself. If I were vacating my office permanently, I’d summon up the courage and cut my ties to all these past identities. Fortunately, I can hold off on that for the time being. The department secretary just smiled and shook her head when she looked at the thirty-eight boxes I’ve packed for my move. I sort of agree with her – it’s pretty silly -- but that’s my story.

Love,

Dave

Archive: Vic's Photos, #3

Family portrait at YMCA camp (circa 1949): Steve, Dave, Vic with Vicki, Doris, Peter

Dear George,

This file is the third cumulative archive of “Vic’s Photos” that have previously appeared in this blog’s righthand column. Past archives can be accessed by scrolling down to “Labels” in the righthand column and clicking on Archives. “Vic”, of course, is my dad, V.A.L. Jr., who was an excellent amateur photographer and who documented our family’s world from the late 30’s to the late 50’s and beyond. These photos have been changed every week since July 2009, and, because they don’t get automatically saved, I’ve decided to store the old ones here in groups. My brother Peter restored and shared with our family many of these images from Vic’s original negatives, and his project is the source of most of the photos contained here. The subjects pictured include my parents Doris and Vic; my brothers Steven and Peter, my sister Vicki, and myself; my grandfathers Guy Cramer and V.A.L. Sr.; and various family members and friends who will be identified as they appear. Lots of family memories.

Love,

Dave

PETER WITH HIS BIRTHDAY BIKE

Getting a new bike on one’s birthday was a major highlight of growing up in our family and home town. Here’s my brother Peter, around age 8 or 9, with his exciting new acquisition. Bikes gave us a lot of mobility, signaled becoming a big kid, linked us to packs of friends, and were a major source of enjoyment, pride, and exercise.

GUNFIGHTER STEVE

I don’t know about kids nowadays, but being lethal gunfighters was paramount in our Menominee childhood in the 1940’s and early 50’s. Here’s my brother Steve decked out in his full cowboy attire and engaged in a dangerous gunfight behind the sofa in the the living room at river house. Despite the hazards, he looks pretty relaxed.

WORLD WAR II VETS (circa 1947)

My dad and many of his friends served with great pride in World War II. Here’s Vic in his Navy uniform, Pat Steffke in his Army uniform, and Mike O’Hara in his Marine uniform. Also my brother Steve and my Boy Scout self. The adults kidded about the merits of the various branches of service, but it was clear that they all respected one another’s sacrifices. World War II shaped our entire generation, including families and kids, and fostered strong idealism about America’s role in rescuing the world from fascism.

VICKI AT THE MENOMINEE DRUG STORE

All of us took turns working at my grandfather’s drugstores. We spent most of our time at the Marinette drugstore which my dad was given from his dad. We would sweep the floors, shovel the sidewalks, re-stock shelves, help with inventory, ring up sales, and do whatever was needed to make ourselves useful. Occasionally we would also help out at the Menominee store on Electric Square which was owned and managed by my Uncle Kent. This is my sister Vicki at the Menominee store. She looks pretty young to be a clerk – it might be her first day.

DORIS AND STEVE AT THE CHICAGO ART MUSEUM

This is my mom Doris and my brother Steve at the Chicago Art Institute, probably about 1951. My parents would take us on a vacation trip to Chicago each year, and the Art Institute, along with the Museum of Science and Industry, was a standard stop on our tour. The Art Institute was only of modest interest to the children. They had a gallery of miniature rooms, each the size of a small cardboard box, which held interest, as did the exhibit of knights’ armor. Despite our childhood nonchalance, our family visits instilled a lifelong appreciation of art museums, so it turned out to be a good investment. This photo looks staged to me – I don’t think Steven was nearly as involved as he looks.

JEAN AND DORIS

This is my mom, Doris, and her best friend, Jean O’Hara. Jean and Mike and their kids, Terry, Michael Dennis, Kevin (Kiera), and Patrick Sean, lived on M-35 on the Green Bay shore, and our families spent a lot of time together at their house or at ours. The O’Hara’s were gracious entertainers, and they and our parents had wonderful times together. We kids, in the meantime, had a lot of fun swimming in Green Bay or in the Menominee River and engaging in mischief.

DAVE WITH GRANDPA GUY

My grandfather Guy Cramer lived in Omaha and moved to Menominee is his older years. He was an insurance executive and a veteran of the Spanish-American War. In the early 1940’s he built a summer cottage on the river which later was to become our family home. He regularly gave me metal toy soldiers, and I accumulated a grand collection. Guy died when I was 5. I have a positive memory of him as a loving, generous grandpa.

DORIS AND DAVE AT GREEN BAY

Our family spent a lot of time on the Green Bay shore just north of Menominee at friends’ homes. This is my mom and myself. One day at a young age I decided to walk out as far as I could in the water. I got up to my neck and then panicked, unable to move in any direction. I screamed and cried, and my mother who’d been sitting on the beach with friends ran out and rescued me. It made me appreciate how important it is to have a mom.

DORIS AND FRIENDS ON HORSEBACK

My mother enjoyed horseback riding in her youth, and she rode from time to time at a stable located near Highway 577 just outside of Menominee. I won’t swear to it, but my recollection of family stories is that she went out west to recuperate at a dude ranch right after I was born. This infantile trauma might account for why I get nervous about horses.

MOM AND SON ON THE LAWN

Many of my dad’s photos picture idyllic relationships of Doris with her children. This beer-drinking depiction of my mom and myself might be more true to life. The photo reflects my father’s sense of humor and probably his experimenting with different social themes and modalities.

KATJA AND DAVE AT ANN ARBOR GRADUATION

By the mid-60’s my dad has stopped doing much photography, but he did take this picture of my Ph.D. graduation from Michigan in 1968 in Ann Arbor. I’d started my first real job two years earlier at the university in Cincinnati, and both Katja and I were relieved and pleased when I finished my traumatic dissertation task. I was so nervous when I walked up on the stage to get my diploma that a worker held me by the shoulders with two hands and pushed me in the correct direction, sort of like herding sheep.

CIRCUS PARADE

The circus came to Menominee every summer and set up at the Ogden Ave. circus grounds, a block or two west of the Interstate Bridge. Our family would get up at 5 a.m. to go over and watch the tents being erected. Just as in Dumbo, the elephants pulled on the ropes to set up the big tent. When it was all ready, they held a circus parade down Ogden Avenue with elephants, camels, clowns, and beautiful trapeze artists. The entire experience was magical.

RIVER HOUSE CONSTRUCTION

My grandfather, Guy Cramer, built a house on the river as a summer cottage in approximately 1941. The grand fireplace was constructed with stones hauled in from nearby fields. Our family moved there shortly after the war, initially with kerosene lamps, drinking water from a pump outside the front of the house, an outhouse next to the garage, and no telephone. Family friend John S. helped us keep a generator in the garage running which produced electricity. When a few more families moved out on the river, we got a party line telephone and felt more like a part of civilization.

MARS FAMILY

Vic and Ruth Mars were close friends of my parents, and we were friends with their kids Mary and Charlie. Each December the Mars invited the children in their social circle to their house on Christmas Eve. As night fell, the children hid behind the chairs and sofas in the living room, and, before you knew it, there was Santa himself, delivering presents under the tree to all assembled. It was amazing to the younger kids and remained exciting for the older, more cynical ones as well.

FLORENCE CALEY

The Caleys, Florence and Bill, were among my parents’ closest friends, and their kids, Bill Jr., Tom, and Bruce, were among our regular playmates. Florence was a former English teacher and a very kind, sensitive person with a good sense of humor. She served as my informal counselor on a couple of occasions during my rocky teen-age years.

FAMILY CIRCLE WITH V.A., OLGA, GUY

This 1940 family portrait includes (in the front row) my paternal grandmother Olga, my mother Doris, myself, my maternal grandfather Guy, my aunt Martha, and my paternal grandfather, V.A. Sr. In the back row, my uncle Karl, my dad Vic, and my uncle Kent. My grandmother Olga died when I was 3, and I have no memories of her from my childhood. She was very prominent in Republican politics in Wisconsin, serving as the state chairperson of the party. We grew up in a staunchly Republican household, though it didn’t rub off on all the children.

TODDLERS DAVE AND SALLY WITH DORIS, WINTER 1940

Here’s my first childhood friend Sally F. and I with my mother in about 1940. Menominee winters were cold, and we were bundled up. We lived a block away from the Michigan Tourist Information Lodge, which offered a steep hill for sledding. About two years after this photo was taken, Sally and I began kindergarten at Boswell School, a half mile away from our house, and we children would walk there together every day, even in the bitter weather of January and February.

DORIS, HELEN, AND BUCK

This is my mom with Katja’s parents, Helen and Buck, at Katja’s and my wedding. When we were married in Yellow Springs in August of 1960, our families drove there from Philadelphia and Menominee respectively. There was some tension because Katja’s folks were not enthusiastic about our marriage, and they expressed their doubts to my parents. Everybody did their best to maintain good behavior, and it all did come off in the end.

OUR SWEDISH COUSIN ANITA

This is Steven and myself with our cousin Anita from Sweden. Anita came for a year of study abroad at Marinette High School and lived with my Uncle Ralph and Aunt Martha at Pine Beach. She was several years older than I, and we thought she was very beautiful. Her English was very good, and she was a charming teenage girl. I still remember that it made me nervous to stand so close to her for this picture.

G-mail Comments

-Sue S-P (3-8): Dear David, Vicki steered me to your blog a few years ago and I loved it - then I lost it. I am so glad someone posted a link to it on "You know you're from Menominee when...." I have just looked a lot of the pics you posted. My mind is flying down memory lane so fast that I am dizzy. I have not seen a picture of Jean O'Hara in 50 years. You know the love I have always had for your family. Now I get to peek into the family album. Your letters to George are wonderful. No more to be said. I hope I get to see you this summer at Farm. Vicki swears she will be coming.

Love to you all,

Sue

-Phyllis S-S (2-13): I loved seeing these photos - personally, I think the little black (a beanie) you're wearing in the photo with your grandfather Cramer is adorable. Do you still have the soldiers he gave you? pss