gabbygeezer

Goodbye, My Friend

2012-02-09T08:48:00.002-06:00

“Enjoy it while you can, because the Gazette, at least in the form you are holding, is doomed. The end may be a few years off, but it is inevitable.”

I wrote those lines, the opening words in an opinion piece published by the Kalamazoo Gazette, in the summer of 2009. Reading a daily newspaper has been part of my life for more than 60 years. Monday, my newspaper delivery tube was empty. Gazette management had taken the first big step toward the demise of the newspaper. It no longer will be delivered to homes seven days a week, as it has been for decades.

Like a tough, old bird diagnosed with terminal cancer, the Gazette is not dying without a struggle. A top exec of the corporation, which also owns seven other papers in Michigan, has issued numerous glowing statements assuring subscribers that the “new order” of things is vastly superior to the familiar system that put a copy of the newspaper into my hands every day.

We now can have only Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday editions delivered to our homes—at a higher cost than we were paying to receive seven days of deliveries. To compensate for the cost increase, we can view the Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday editions on the Internet. Those “papers,” however, do not include special advertising sections. You can buy daily papers that include the special sections at selected sales outlets. Why anyone would want to do that is mysterious.

Content changes have been made to lure subscribers into being happy about this bewildering new arrangement. The comics section has been increased. Whoopee! All editions have expanded in this area by about a third. I’m a selective comics fan—I love some and ignore others. All the new ones fall into my “ignore” category. No longer to be found are those favorites of fully mature adults—Rex Morgan, MD and Mary Worth. What is a Geezer to do? Fortunately, Prince Valiant has been retained in the Sunday edition, but this provides little solace.

The comics changes were made by management after they apparently ignored a fairly recent survey of readers. The majority wanted to keep panels such as Rex and Mary. The majority didn’t want those crappy extra panels now foisted upon us. Is the new stuff cheaper?

Subscribers now get several pages of business news from the Wall Street Journal (I like). They also get more local sports news (I’m not interested). They get a very strange opinion page (who cares?). They can get, on the Internet, an improved “Mlive” that is supposed to cover regional news much better (Well, it’s a tad better, but still inadequate).

I’m a fan of Internet news. As one, I’ve thoroughly checked out the web editions of the Gazette. Readers can navigate around in them fairly easily, but they are harder to read than the familiar paper versions, and doing the crossword is well neigh impossible. I also get a new “instant news” bulletin in my e-mailbox. I’m trying to be charitable, but is seems to be closer to worthless than worthwhile.

All this strays from the bottom line. Following a nationwide trend, the Gazette is disestablishing itself through a reversal of how it, and many daily papers, evolved. The Gazette was established in 1834 as a weekly paper. Weekly papers in growing markets most often took a first step upward by publishing two days a week (usually Tuesday and Thursday). Later they went to Monday through Saturday editions. Finally, they added Sunday to become full-service newspapers.

The only change in the backward spirals appears to be a retreat to a Sunday edition, with no weekday products. Thus, major “paper papers” once again are becoming weeklies in many places. The once-proud daily Christian Science Monitor devolved into a weekly months ago. Eventually, it and others traveling in the same direction will join the Gazette in extinction.

Who cares? Well, all of us should. The national and international news we get on television and the internet largely is generated by newspaper reporters. Locally, except for a very few radio and television reports, all the news initially is reported by newspaper people.

Democratic governments depend on the free-flow of information, and responsible analysis of what it means. Dictatorships thrive by strangling the press. To me, the demise of “paper papers” is a serious matter. My 2009 article summed it up this way:

“When newspapers are gone, who will cover the local school board meeting? Who will cut through secrecy and give us the facts when a city council action smells funny? Who will expose incompetence or extravagance in government? Who will write thoughtful analyses of the meaning of events? Who will document the little things—the births, deaths, anniversaries, and business happenings—that collectively become the history of our Nation?

We don’t know, and that is frightening.”

Look Out, Here Comes Tony!

2012-02-02T11:32:00.001-06:00

The death of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno produced a sports trivia story that brought back a memory of another gridiron hero and his relationship with Paterno.

The news story, in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, described a small chapter in Packers history new to me. It seems Paterno almost was hired as the Packers head coach in 1970. A dozen years earlier, I met one of the men who tried hard to make it happen.

A gentle man . . . most of the time.

Tony Canadeo was an outstanding halfback for the Packers, 1941-52, with a year off for military service. He was the first Packers runner to gain 1,000 yards in a season (1949), and is one of only five Green Bay players to have their jersey number retired. Canadeo was voted into the pro football hall of fame in 1974. After his playing days ended, he was a popular TV announcer. He also served on the Packers’ executive committee, which makes the big decisions for the team.

In 1958, because of my first professional job as editor of the weekly paper in De Pere, Wisconsin, I got an invitation to attend a banquet at St. Norbert College. The college is in De Pere, which is only five miles from Green Bay. Although I didn’t have time to attend all the St. Norbert football games, I ran stories and photos provided by their public relations director. That year, the Green Knights were undefeated, and my contact said the banquet was a special reward for the players, coaches, and media supporters. The Press-Gazette sports editor also was invited in appreciation of the paper’s coverage of the team. Tony Canadeo was to be the banquet speaker.

The PR man said I should come an hour early to a cocktail party hosted by the college president for Canadeo, the Press-Gazette man, and me. Wow! Every sports fan in the state knew who Tony Canadeo was, and as a 21-year-old novice small-time newsman I was awed at the prospect of conversing with the great man, a college president, and the leading sports journalist in the area. It turned out to be an even more intimate gathering. The Press-Gazette editor bowed out because of a last-minute emergency.

You never know what to expect from a sports star. A good share of them can be pompous asses. Others, including some of the most skilled athletes, are regular guys and gals. Tony Canadeo turned out to be one of the latter. He quickly made me feel comfortable at the little party. There didn’t seem to be a bit of super-ego in the man. Far from the tough guy I half-expected, Canadeo was soft-spoken and polite. Ever since that meeting I’ve described him as a good-natured gentleman in discussions of the personalities of sports super stars.

In 1970, according to a story made public only after his death in 2003, Canadeo proved he could drop the calm demeanor and work up a rage with the best of them.

The Packers’ executive committee had fired the coach after a poor season. When George Allen, their first choice as a replacement, declined the job, the committee interviewed several others and narrowed the choices to successful University of Missouri coach Dan Devine and Paterno, who was building an outstanding record at Penn State.

Paterno had turned down the coaching job with the Pittsburgh Steelers the previous year, but the Packers offered a combination coach-general manager situation. Paterno apparently liked the idea of that kind of control. Two reputable people later said Paterno would have taken the Packers job if it was offered, and one public statement he made indicated he was very interested.

The recent Press-Gazette story says Canadeo and another member of the executive committee strongly favored Paterno because the Penn State coach reminded them of Vince Lombardi, the iconic Packers coach. Paterno and Lombardi both grew up in Brooklyn and were Catholics of Italian descent. They knew each other dating to the 1940s when they were rival high school coaches. In the 1960s, Lombardi often consulted Paterno about the abilities of college players.

Despite the Lombardi connection, Canadeo and his associate did not prevail. The committee voted 5-2 to hire Devine.

When Canadeo heard the news, he became livid, the story goes. As he left home for the next day’s executive committee meeting, he was so distraught he smashed through the garage door when he backed his car out into the driveway. A daughter had used the car earlier and left the door up when she came home. As Canadeo stormed out of the house, he didn’t notice and he hit the garage door opener button, closing the door just before he drove through it.

Devine compiled a dismal record at Green Bay. Paterno became the top winning coach in college football history. Perhaps the Packers’ executive board members should have listened to their old halfback who could destroy garage doors with a single mighty burst.

The Poor Die Young

2012-01-25T13:00:00.000-06:00

The political posturing and debating engulfing the land is touching on just about everything but the continuing slaughter of young Americans and our allies in Afghanistan.

I make note of Afghanistan war deaths because this blog honors those from my home state of Michigan who give their lives. A lot more are not being honored. Lives are being sacrificed at the rate or more than one per day. Why is there no national outrage about this horrible waste? At best, our politicians, except for maverick Republican candidate Ron Paul who stands no chance of being elected, are content to let the pointless conflict continue for two more years.

Throughout our recent military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, a few small voices have pointed out that the affluent and best educated among us are sending the poor and least educated off to die. Several of those voices, which didn’t get much of a hearing, suggested we should restore the draft that was ended after the conclusion of the Vietnam War. The reasoning is that, in a democracy, important sacrifices should be shared by all.

One counter argument, insensitive as it may be, is members of our all-volunteer forces knew what they were getting into when they signed up. They agreed to put their lives on the line; therefore we have little reason to be overly concerned when they are killed. I have heard such awful statements made by otherwise seemingly caring and thoughtful people.

I also have heard claims that our forces constitute a cross-section of the American public because reserves and National Guard units have been called to active duty frequently during the wars in the Middle East. The call-ups are a fact. That they resulted in a cross-section of society being involved in the conflicts is not. Several analyses of the death counts support the idea of an unfair assignment of risk.

Nine years ago, when the Iraq War was young, a newspaper consultant in Texas studied backgrounds of more than 300 U.S. soldiers who died in the conflict. The dead were 39 percent more likely that our total population to live in counties with less than 100,000 people. They were 16 percent more likely to have lived in a county with below-average levels of college graduates and 16 percent more likely to live in counties with below-average incomes.

The dead soldiers who came from large cities were disproportionately Hispanic or African-American. Very few came from prosperous urban areas—high-tech centers such as San Jose, Seattle, Austin, or Dallas. Those who died largely grew up in cities with declining older manufacturing economies or in rural regions, places with low levels of technology and innovation and high levels of unemployment.

The consultant who conducted the study concluded: “This may be America’s war, but it is being fought by only a part of America.”

A much larger study (of 3,100 deaths) in 2007 conducted for the Associated Press showed that almost half the American war fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan were young people from small towns and rural areas where employment opportunities were limited. The half came from towns with populations under 25,000 and 20 percent of them had a hometown where less than 5,000 people lived.

The study report said, “Many of the hometowns of the war dead aren’t just small in population, they’re poor.” Nearly three-quarters of those killed in Iraq came from towns where the per capita income was below the national average.”

With Iraq behind us and warfare in Afghanistan allegedly winding down, would current statistics show the same results? Probably. Here are the hometowns of the ten service members killed in Afghanistan last week:

Crystal Lake, Illinois; Centerville, Iowa; Colonia, New Jersey; Palatka, Florida; Ferndale, Washington; Willis, Texas; Glendale, Arizona; Norwood, Massachusetts; Wilder, Idaho; Pahrump, Nevada.

The Geezer believes if the draft had been in effect we never would have launched the second Iraq invasion and would have ended our participation in Afghanistan hostilities years ago. Without a draft, it has been too easy for our highly educated, affluent politicians to send less educated, poor young men and women into combat. And the rest of us failed miserably to force common sense upon our leaders because those sent forth to risk death really weren’t “our kids.”

The draft was ended in the aftermath of an extremely unpopular war. That action has produced several, probably unintended, negative consequences. Was ending the draft a colossal mistake?

Oh, Brother!

2012-01-19T17:09:00.000-06:00

Reading the latest Sigma Nu national magazine, I learned that Eli Manning and I are fraternity brothers. That should have taken some of the sting out of what he did to my beloved Green Bay Packers on Sunday.

But it didn't.

Go, Niners!

Kicking a Statistic Around

2012-01-19T07:13:00.000-06:00

Politicians of various stripes and their backers delight in kicking each other around. They’ve become so accomplished at mud slinging and twisting facts one would think they spend some time practicing. Perhaps they do.

For the last several years, our pols appear to have been warming up for the big 2012 campaigns by kicking a statistic around. A great many have been putting the boots to the National Unemployment Rate.

A while back, Democrats claimed unemployment was much higher than the indicator showed, and thus painted an unrealistic picture of the horrible economic conditions created by George W. Bush. A bit later, the blame game diminished in effectiveness as a tactic, but Democrats kept blasting away with the same theme to support the idea that we need more stimulus money and government job creation to pull out of our economic funk.

Republicans now are singing the same song—the monthly unemployment statistical reports are grossly understated—but for a different reason. The contention is that President Obama is falsely claiming economic achievements based on the unemployment indicator dropping slowly over the past few months. They are saying exactly what the Democrats have been claiming—discouraged job seekers are leaving the labor force in large numbers, and thus skewing the indicator.

Usually, the Geezer would pass all this off as typical political posturing unworthy of serious attention. However, a recent editorial in The Washington Times raised my ire. The headline read: “Obama Cooks the Unemployment Books.”

The last line in the opinion piece says a calculation posted on a web site, “ . . . exposes what the government statistics are intended to do: Get Barack re-elected.”

From start to finish, the editorial was an unwarranted insult to civil servants who work to provide useful statistics to policy makers and the American people, especially those employed by the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of course, it also insulted Obama, but there is nothing particularly noteworthy about the Times doing that.

I worked with civil service statisticians for many years. It is hard to envision any group of people more dedicated to getting things right. They are especially diligent about trying to develop controls to minimize or eliminate bias from any source.

Even if President Obama was unethical enough to try to influence the work of the Census and Labor Statistics people, he certainly is not dumb enough to try. Any high-level politician attempting to “cook the books” in this arena would touch off a storm of protest he or she could not survive.

The National Unemployment Rate, a product of the Current Population Survey, is derived from statistics collected by the Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is based on a sophisticated, carefully designed sampling of households throughout the U.S. It does not count every unemployed or employed person. Thus, it is inappropriate to claim the rate is either right or wrong. The questions should be: “Does the rate reasonably portray the situation in the nation? Is it comparable to rates for previous months and previous years, and thus useful in showing trends?

No indicator based on sampling is perfect. Government employees have been calculating unemployment rates since the 1890s. From time-to-time they have sought to improve the accuracy of the rates by changing sampling methods or adjusting underlying assumptions when there is a consensus that newer assumptions are more valid. Thus, looking at rates for different time periods easily can result in “apples and oranges” comparisons.

For example, it would be folly to try to make a precise comparison between the current 8.5 percent unemployment rate and the 21.7 percent rate in 1934. For one thing, before 1948 the data included people aged 14 and up; since then only those 16 and older are included. However, the historical data have some value as long as the survey framework is generally the same. Any reasonable person would conclude that employment conditions were pretty awful in 1934. Exactly how awful compared to today’s conditions we cannot tell.

Reasonable people also could see that conditions were very good in 1952 when the rate was 3 percent. Certainly those of us who lived back then know times were much better than they are now. Again, however, the two rates are not strictly comparable. The Bureau of Labor Statistics made a major reform in the calculation system in 1994. There have been minor adjustments since, but no big change. Matching our present 8.5 rate with the 4.6 percent calculated for 2006 before the Great Recession started thus is very close to an “apples to apples” comparison.

The Times editorial writer casts aside the work of civil service statisticians and analysts over many years and cites statistics from an obscure web site claiming the “true” unemployment rate currently is 11.4 percent. Oh? There is no such thing as a statistically derived “true” unemployment rate for the United States.

Saying any numerical value is better than the one the government provides is irrelevant when considering the important reasons an indicator was developed in the first place. We should be interested in a rate that gives a decent portrayal of the unemployment situation and is the best available indicator of trends. The Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics give us useful numbers. The Washington Times does not.

The Geezer has deep sympathy for anyone struggling to find satisfactory employment and strongly supports efforts by both business and government to create new jobs. An 8.5 unemployment rate is not good any way you look at it. But directly or indirectly bashing those who work diligently to bring us the best rate data they can assemble does no one a service.

They Pack 'Em In

2012-01-13T15:31:00.002-06:00

Perhaps still basking in the glory of last years' Super Bowl title, the Green Bay Packers seem to be moving slightly upscale. While preparing for Sunday’s playoff game, management announced that volunteers who show up with their shovels to clear the snow away from seating areas will be paid $10 per hour rather than the customary $8.

Not Plush

Lambeau Field is a very nice stadium, but in some cases tradition continues to trump luxury. The team spent several hundred million dollars on improvements in 1998. Knowing that, one of my golfing buddies, a Raiders fan, was amazed to learn that most of the Packers faithful are assigned bleacher-type plank seats. Only relatively small areas of the stadium are equipped with comfortable individual seats with arm rests and backs, such as those found throughout most big-time sports venues.

My friend observed that it might get pretty crowded at Lambeau when the weather dictated wearing heavy coats over multi-layers of clothing. “What happens if they all sit down at once?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “They never have.”

When I attended the first game at Lambeau Field in 1957, the uncomfortable seats didn't matter to me. I went solo. Because of the unused ticket for the seat next to me, I had plenty of room.

For the second game I attended, I had a date with a pretty little Dutch gal. That was nothing unusual. At the time, the biggest section in the Green Bay phone book started with V. The bench seating was just great for snuggling up in the cold weather. It didn't help, though. She ditched me a week or so later for a local baseball star.

You can be sure of one thing on Sunday. Every seat in Lambeau Field, in a luxury box or on a plank, will be filled. They always are.

No, it's not me. Just a typical geezer warming up for the playoffs.

A Fearless Forecast

2012-01-11T09:10:00.002-06:00

The Geezer is getting a bit tired of reading and hearing about election politics, and the silly season has barely worked up a head of steam. It seems everybody with a keyboard, mouth, or touch pad has issued some sort of forecast. So, here is mine:

I think Mitt Romney’s solid win (39.4 percent in a large field) in yesterday’s New Hampshire primary ensured he will be the Republican nominee for president.

Ron Paul finished second in New Hampshire with 22.8 percent. No one else came close. I think Paul’s supporters, a strange mix of libertarians, young Republicans, and independents who learn rightward, eventually will decide to push Paul’s views by convincing him to set up a new third party, or run as a Libertarian.

I think Paul’s third party candidacy will siphon off enough votes to do Romney in this November in a close election, just as Ralph Nader’s candidacy did Al Gore in not long ago. Thus, Barack Obama will win reelection in 2012.

I think the Democrats will gain a majority in the Senate, but they will not take enough seats for a House majority. We will be in for another four years of frustrating stalemate in Washington.

Stop by at the end of November, and we will review this set of opinions to see if the Geezer’s views have become reality.

In Grateful Memory

2012-01-10T06:40:00.000-06:00

Tech. Sgt. Matthew Schwartz (U.S. Air Force), 34, Traverse City, Michigan. Killed by a roadside bomb in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, January 5, 2012.

Another Merry Birthday

2012-01-05T06:39:00.000-06:00

This topic is revisited annually. Why? Well, it happens every year, and as long as it keeps happening all is well with the Geezer.

New Years Day is my birthday. “Ah,” say many of those who first learn of this, “your parents were lucky.”

Those who make this type of observation usually envision front-page news stories and tons of presents showered by various businesses seeking some free advertising on the mother and father of the first child born every year. Even medical folks get into the act. Parents of the first child born at one of the major area hospitals this year got extra diapers and gift cards good at a local restaurant and movie theater from the hospital staff.

Note the hairline resemblance

It didn’t work that way for my parents. I didn’t appear until about 7 p.m. on Jan. 1. A half-dozen babies were born earlier on New Years Day that year in my hometown. The prizes and gifts were long gone when I arrived.

Sympathizers then sometimes remark that at least my coming gave old Dad another income tax exemption. That didn’t work, either. At the time, toward the end of the Great Depression, Dad didn’t earn enough to have any income tax liability.

The timing of my birth was not only financially disappointing; it ended a family tradition that might have provided the Klade clan some measure of fame. My father, Fred J. Klade, was born on Christmas Day, 1891, in Wausau, WI. His father, Fred C. Klade, was born on Christmas Day, 1855, in Germany. We don’t know the birth date of my great-grandfather or previous male ancestors. Had I appeared as “scheduled,” it would definitely have been three Christmas boys in a row, with a slim possibility of four or more. My mother said I was too stubborn to conform to the family pattern.

In tough times, a holiday season birthday can be a distinct disadvantage. A good number of my father’s Christmas presents were labeled “Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday.” The gift givers cut their costs in half, but Dad’s gift-receiving pleasure suffered equally, although he never complained. In better economic times, there apparently is no problem. I have yet to receive a single gift or card in honor of both Christmas and my birthday.

The lasting advantage of my “1/1” birth date is that friends find it very easy to remember, and good things happen because they do. This year was no exception. Once again, my birthday celebration started with congratulations via e-mail from Jake Jirschele, a high school pal I haven’t seen for some 50 years. After many years of mystery as to how Jake knew my birth date, he admitted remembering it from a conversation in a bar in 1955! (see the Jan. 6, 2011 post, “The Consistent Mystery Every New Years Day,” in the archives).

Shortly after reading Jake’s annual message, the Geezer was treated to a telephone call that began with a “Happy Birthday to you” song accompanied by some giggles and chuckles. The song leader was Jim Shea, another chum from long ago who I haven’t seen for many years. He recalled visiting our house on Christmases past to partake of some “shaum tort,” a special dessert whipped up (literally) by my Mom in honor of Dad’s birthday. Jim remembered both of the notable Klade birthdays, and quite a few other events from years gone by. His call was among the many things that made my 2012 birthday something special.

I also finally cashed in with a special first-day gift from a business. Denny’s restaurants e-mailed a coupon good for a free birthday breakfast. Nothing pleases me more than an occasional escape from healthy fare in favor or a good old American breakfast featuring lots of fried, high-calorie stuff. Denny’s does that sort of meal well.

Soon after beautiful wife Sandy and I settled into a booth at Denny’s a gray haired couple somewhat older than me (and that’s pretty old!) sat down in an adjacent booth. The man exchanged a hearty “Happy New Year” greeting with the waitress. The two chatted pleasantly throughout their meal. I noticed the waitress bringing a plate of pancakes to their table.

As I was checking out, the elderly couple stood close to me waiting their turn. They were all smiles and exchanged pleasantries with everybody in the area. Sandy waited nearby while I made a restroom stop after I settled our bill. The couple had gone when I returned. “I heard what their bill was,” Sandy said when we were in our car. “They paid $4.24 for two breakfasts. The cashier confirmed the statement with the man. I heard the old gent say he had two pancakes, and the lady had one. They had nothing else but water.”

We’re guessing of course, but we both got the impression that the elderly couple was starting their new year treating each other to a restaurant meal they could barely afford. They did it with dignity and good cheer. Just seeing them made our morning more pleasant. They reminded us that material wealth is not necessary to create a celebration

May 2012 will be a happy year for you, full of the little pleasures that really matter.

Recent Results

2012-01-02T13:25:00.000-06:00

Green Bay Packers junior varsity 45, Detroit Lions 41. (Aw shucks, I just couldn't resist)

An Artistic Character

2011-12-29T11:54:00.003-06:00

‘Tis a small world, indeed. After reading an Internet article by Frank Paynter, I decided to play a long shot. Paynter had contributed several articles plus occasional comments to “Time Goes By,” a blog I follow regularly that is mostly of interest to mature adults. I knew he lived somewhere in Wisconsin, but that’s all I knew about him.

Via e-mail, I asked Frank if there was any chance he was related to Richard Paynter, a close friend of ours in the early 1970s. The reply: “Yup. He's my uncle.”

That brought back a flood of memories. Richard Paynter and I made small talk during work breaks at the Forest Products Lab in Madison, WI, over a four-year period. He was an artist and I was an editor at the U.S. Forest Service research facility on the edge of the University of Wisconsin campus. I transferred to the Boise National Forest in a career move, worked in the West for most of the next 22 years, and retired in Utah. As far as I knew, Richard stayed in Madison. We exchanged season’s greetings for years, but eventually the cards stopped coming.

Richard Paynter ranks high on the list of true characters my wife and I encountered over the years. Even his appearance was unique. He was born with only a small part of one forearm. He had several little miniature “fingers” near the elbow joint, which many people might have tried to cover with a shirt sleeve. He not only did not do that, he used the little digits. To light his cigarettes, he would cradle an open matchbook between them and his upper arm and tear off and strike a match with his normal fingers. Suggestions that a lighter might be easier to use were ignored.

When we were moving to Madison and needed a place to temporarily store some household goods, Richard offered space in his garage. One of our items was a small antique safe. One strong person could pick it up, but it wasn’t easy. While unloading our stuff, I took a break to prepare myself for the task of moving the little iron monster. Richard lifted it off the trailer with his one complete arm and asked, “Where should I put this?”

Richard was a multi-talented artist. He produced four-color illustrations for the Laboratory’s annual report, the design for a beautiful carved wood door for a new conference room, and hundreds of illustrations for publications, some modernistic representations and some realistic depictions of research equipment and lab employees at work. He also designed many exhibits, both static and portable.

Some of Richard’s best personal art creations had nothing to do with the designs he developed so skillfully at his workplace. He produced fanciful penciled portrait-like works with a few touches of color in key places. I have never seen that style used by another artist.

An annual highlight on the Madison art scene was an outdoor exhibition in the broad area surrounding the state Capitol. Richard showed his works there for the first two years I knew him. He once said his total sales were in the $2,000 to $3,000 range each year. That was very nice extra-curricular money. We were at the same pay level at the Forest Products Lab, which was about $10,000 per year. The next year, Richard refused to participate in the Capitol show.

After some prodding, he revealed that two exhibit visitors the previous year had made disparaging comments about several of his works. He said something like, “I’m not going to waste my time catering to idiots who don’t know a damn thing about real art.”

Richard’s distain for his few critics was more than balanced by his affinity for any new acquaintance he thought might be a good person to get to know better. Whenever he met anyone he liked, he parted with directions and an invitation: “Come on over to our place Friday night. We’re having a party.”

He did not keep track of the invitations. There was a party at Paynter’s every Friday night, so that always worked out. But what would happen if all the regulars and everybody Richard invited during the week showed up? Well, I attended one Friday night gathering where the guests stood elbow-to-elbow throughout the living room, kitchen, and a closed-in porch, the only large rooms on the first floor of the Paynter home.

If a first-time guest had the audacity to ask if there were refreshments, Richard pointed across the park area adjacent to his backyard. The most conspicuous structure in that direction was a liquor store. I’m not sure if Richard ventured to the store for any of his own refreshments, or if he just extracted a share from what the guests brought. At any rate, he always refreshed himself rather thoroughly. That produced a Friday night tradition. At almost every party I attended, Richard passed out around midnight. Several able-bodied guests carried him upstairs to bed and the party went right on without the host.

Two works of art by Richard Paynter occupy places of honor in the living room section of our home. One shows a little girl modeled after one of his daughters gazing through a screened panel. We didn’t have a lot of cash to buy art in the 1970s, but beautiful wife Sandy loved that work so much she scraped up $125 to pay Richard for it. Sandy earned the money working as a nanny for neighborhood kids. When I tried to suggest a price reduction, Richard’s stony countenance told me that was not going to happen. It was clear that he did not haggle over prices for his art.

Our other piece is a larger work Richard said was “Susy,” a young woman about to sample an egg. I knew the real-life Susy quite well, and I think she was the perfect choice as a model for that work.

"Susy" graces our living room

“Susy” was one of a dozen or so Paynter works displayed at a one-man show at Ripon College. Most of them had been sold by the time we saw her at the Paynter home after the show. Sandy loved the work. Richard told me the price was $900. I was shocked. We couldn’t come close to affording that, so despite knowing it wouldn’t do any good I pleaded for relief. None came. He said all the Ripon works were priced at $900, and that was that. We went home empty handed.

Shortly before we left Madison, Richard appeared at our house. He said he had come to deliver a going away present. He went out to his car, came back carrying “Susy,” and presented the framed work to Sandy.

The Niftiest Gift

2011-12-21T10:12:00.000-06:00

The Geezer hopes you’ve been successful this holiday season if you’ve chosen to participate in the annual quest for the elusive “perfect gift”—something desirable, unexpected, and lasting. Thanks to some special people, I get to enjoy such a gift year after year.

Our "Holiday Express"

To my complete surprise, for my seventh Christmas my parents, who could ill-afford it, gave me an American Flyer model train complete with a few building replicas and a faux tunnel. The little train provided many hours of joy.

As with most toys, the train set fell into disuse as I grew up and became interested in other pursuits. It was packed away in the attic of the family home. Before my mother died, she made sure I got the train. It stayed with us in storage for nearly 25 years. We gave the train to son Lee, but he had no place to use or store it.

Three years ago, to get ready for our move to Michigan we shipped everything we could to Lee (he now had a large house), including the train set and other items we were storing for him. We couldn’t get into our new house until after Christmas, so we stayed at Lee’s home and planned holiday celebrations with him and his fiancée Karen.

The first thing that came to mind when I got up Christmas morning was that famous line, “What to my wondering eyes did appear.” The little train was running on its old track around the base of Lee’s tree! Lee had taken the train set to a local expert for rejuvenation, bought a new transformer, and set the track up for the first run in 64 years. Karen and beautiful wife Sandy did a great job of keeping the project a secret until the Christmas unveiling.

Now, seeing the “Holiday Express” chug around the track once again is my special gift every Christmas. Here’s wishing you equal enjoyment this holiday season. And may you receive many special gifts throughout the New Year.

Mitten Mutterings

2011-12-15T06:28:00.000-06:00

The Geezer’s native and adopted states survived a bit of a tiff this week when they decided to shake and make up. It is unknown whether hands were protected by mittens during the shake.

Mitten or chopper?

The brouhaha began when Wisconsin’s travel bureau ran ads depicting the state as a mitten to promote winter vacations. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation promptly skewered its Wisconsin counterpart with some semi-harsh comments about “trying to steal our identity.” Lower Michigan long has been known as “The Mitten” for its resemblance on maps to that item of apparel.

There has been no known violence, but charges and counter charges flew between Badgers and Michiganders. Wisconsin was accused of stealing this year’s Rose Bowl bid after its university football team pulled off a nail-biting win over Michigan State. Wisconsinites with what they thought were long memories said many years ago Michigan stole the whole Upper Peninsula from its natural position as part of Wisconsin. The prize was control of valuable timber supplies and mineral deposits.

The Geezer has thoroughly analyzed the data and arrived at several conclusions:

Travel Wisconsin’s mitten analogy was absurd. Any kid who grew up in the frigid northern areas of either state knows the mitten image concocted by the Badger promoters far more resembles a “chopper.” Choppers were made from deerskin and were worn over mittens. They were ideal for making snowballs without getting the inner cloth hand-covering wet, thus avoiding reprimands from moms who disliked mitten-drying duties.

Wisconsin footballers indeed may have “stolen” a trip to Pasadena for the roses, but it only evened things up. Michigan State stole the first game between the teams with an improbable desperation pass in the final seconds. Even Steven, I say.

Michigan hardly can be accused of stealing the Upper Peninsula. It became a state first, and thus in true American tradition was entitled to grab any land it could get its mitts on (pun intended). The peninsula was an economic prize, but social integration has been a problem. The Geezer believes most Yuppers are closet Packers fans to this day.

All is well now. The rival travel agencies joined forces to urge residents of both states to stop the squabbling and donate mittens to warm the hands of kids who need them. No mention was made of choppers, although they probably would be accepted. Reports from involved charities say the joint campaign is a big success.

However, trying to show the Upper Peninsula as a little mitten in the campaign’s publicity does not work well. That part of the logo looks more like a sick fish with a large dorsal fin. Are we headed for a new controversy involving ice fishing?

Get the Real Deal

2011-12-08T14:27:00.005-06:00

Some folks continue to assume that real Christmas trees are removed from forested areas, thus doing damage to the natural environment. That simply is not true today. It probably seldom was true in recent history.

Back when I worked on the staff of the Boise National Forest, our District Rangers issued a few permits for local residents to cut one tree about this time of year. The charge usually was a dollar. With the permit came instructions about where to harvest the tree so the forest would be improved in the long run. Our Idaho City Ranger District was the only one to have a big program.

Near Idaho City several large burned areas had been reforested with ponderosa pines native to the sites. Tree plantings can have a high percentage of failure in that part of the country if seedlings are mishandled or low rainfall prevails during the first few growing seasons when the little trees struggle to get established. To counteract climate problems, foresters directed seedlings be planted quite close together, assuming there was a pretty good chance nature would thin the stands.

Growing conditions at the Idaho City sites apparently were well above average. As the trees got to be three to eight feet tall, they severely crowded each other and growth was slowed. So for a number of years the Idaho City foresters tagged trees for removal and invited the public out to select and cut a family Christmas tree. Remaining trees grew more vigorously, the families had a ball, and taxpayer dollars were conserved because there was no need to hire crews to thin the stands.

The Idaho City program ended the year after I left for another job. Idaho City had a population of only 80, and thus most people had to travel some distance, usually from Boise, to get to the cutting sites. Despite that, the public response to the annual invitation for a family Christmas tree outing had been so good there simply was no further need to thin the plantations. That was several decades ago, and I’ve not heard of any large-scale Christmas tree cutting in a National Forest or other forested area since then.

Lee and Karen with their selection at Peterson's nursery

Today, trees come from some 15,000 farms spread through all 50 states. Michigan, where we cut our tree every year, ranks third among tree-growing states behind Oregon and North Carolina. We are told the growers plant three trees for every one removed. Our experience supports that. When we cut our tree at Peterson’s Riverview Nursery each year, we must be careful not to step on the new little seedlings as we move our prize to a loading area.

Peterson’s is no rinky-dink operation. Trailers pulled by tractors deliver customers to large cutting areas and return them and their trees to a processing site near the office. Crews there put your tree in a shaking machine to remove foreign matter. They drill holes in the base to help you with mounting and also facilitate moisture movement into the tree after you have it in a stand at home. Workers will trim branches to your specifications. Then another machine ties the branches to form a neat bundle, and the men carry your tree to your vehicle.

It sounds like a big operation, and in some respects it is (this year Peterson’s shipped more than 6,000 wreaths in what is just one part of the business). However, like most tree nurseries, this is no huge corporation run by overpaid executives who never dirty their hands with production work. Jerry and Anne Peterson started the business 18 years ago. They and son Josh, now a co-owner, work in the fields and production and sales areas year round. The firm has six to 25 employees, depending on the season.

Every time we’ve gone to buy a tree we had an opportunity to chit-chat a bit with Jerry, Anne, and Josh. They are local people. Their nursery is only a few miles from our home in the same county. It is nice to know payroll dollars and profits are returned to our area.

American tree farmers like the Petersons collectively sell 30 million Christmas trees annually. The total has declined by about 3 million in the past 10 years. The chief reason is the growing popularity of artificial Christmas trees. No doubt some people have good reasons to buy the plastic trees, but enhancing the environment is not one of them. Following are several reasons why buying a natural tree is a good deal. Thanks to the Nature Conservancy for some of them:

1. Tree farming protects precious open space, keeping fairly large areas of land free from urban development.

2. More than 80 percent of artificial trees sold in the U.S. are manufactured in China. They are made from vinyl plastics based on petroleum that require large amounts of carbon-producing energy in their manufacture. Vinyl plastics are among the most difficult to recycle. When they can be, the reprocessing again requires large amounts of energy. Ships transporting the plastic trees across the Pacific burn big quantities of diesel fuel, emitting more air pollutants.

3. Natural trees, especially young, vigorous ones, purify the air we breathe by taking in carbon dioxide and giving off oxygen.

4. After use, natural trees are easily recycled as mulch using simple chipping equipment, and the mulch improves soils as it breaks down. About 4,000 communities in the U.S. have Christmas tree recycling programs.

5. Natural trees add a pleasant aroma to your home during the holidays. Plastic trees, of course, cannot do this.

6. Selecting your tree at a lot, or cutting one at a nursery if you prefer, is a lot more fun than picking up a boxed plastic model at Walmart. Son Lee and his fiancée Karen radiate pleasure with their find at Peterson’s nursery in the photo with this post. So can you when you find and bring home the real thing.

2011-12-03T14:21:00.003-06:00

In Grateful Memory

Staff Sgt. Vincent J. Bell (U.S. Marine Corps), 28, Detroit, Michigan. Killed during a combat operation in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, November 30, 2011.

Why Aren't We Getting It?

2011-12-01T14:23:00.004-06:00

World leaders are meeting once again to haggle over standards to control pollutants that make major contributions to climate change. The subject can be complex, and there are disagreements among scientists on certain points and between environmental and business advocates on major issues. Political considerations cloud the issues.

That said, it is possible to distill the information, add a measure of common sense, and describe the big picture in an understandable way. The following article, published by Richard Brewer on his web page, is the best concise explanation of the situation I have seen. Brewer is Professor Emeritus, Department of Biological Sciences, Western Michigan University.

* * * * * *

Ozone, Obama, and the Deregulation Doo Dah Parade

By Richard Brewer | Published: October 30, 2011

President Obama made two serious mistakes early this fall. First, he told the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw new, stronger, standards for ozone levels in the lower atmosphere that were intended to replace the standards held over from the Bush administration. Ozone (O₃) is an atmospheric pollutant dangerous to human health because it’s highly reactive in lung tissues. It’s involved in various respiratory diseases but evidently also in other sorts of human pathology; for example, it’s believed to contribute to the development of atherosclerosis. But ozone in the lower atmosphere also has many bad effects besides just our own health and life span. It damages plants, lowering photosynthesis and growth and is implicated in die-offs of forest trees.

Ozone is produced in the lower atmosphere by reactions between nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight. The nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds come mostly from power plants, various sorts of factories, automobiles, gasoline vapor, and chemical solvents.

There are interactions between ozone production and temperature and ozone effects and temperature, such that we get more ozone produced and stronger effects when temperatures are high. These are one of many kinds of interactions that may make global warming an even greater calamity than most of the early predictions claimed.

President Obama’s second mistake was his reason for turning down the new, science-based ozone recommendations. He said he wanted to reduce regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty. But tough regulations strictly enforced are what can make capitalism work. The last few years have shown us repeatedly how things go astray when politicians manage to weaken and thwart regulations. Weakened regulations together with the unwillingness of federal agencies to enforce existing regulations were the main causes of the financial fiasco of 2007-2009 and the recession that came with it.

Michigan has been on the deregulation bandwagon right along. In the DooDah parade of deregulation, it may even have been ahead of the bandwagon. We had a governor a few years ago whose slogan was “Less enforcement, more compliance.” Such a proposition if it were sincere would be fatuous, but considering everything, just calling it preposterous or ludicrous will probably have to serve.

President Obama seems to have accepted the argument of the extreme political right that there is a conflict between “the environment” and “the economy.” For most Americans, the right wing lost on that issue 30 or 40 years ago. Some corporations tell us if the nation doesn’t give them lax environmental rules they’ll take their jobs overseas. Since such corporations show little national loyalty, some have.

But the balance sheet we need to look at is the overall gain to our nation in terms of clean air and water, healthy citizens, healthy communities, and healthy ecosystems compared with the cost of meeting any given environmental standard. Time after time we’ve seen that the cost of meeting new standards turns out lower than the company’s forecast, that new jobs are created connected with the improved technology needed, and that the overall national cost/benefit ratio is heavily in favor of the tougher standards.

Anyone who’s been paying attention anytime these past 40 years knows that. Why doesn’t the President?

Santa Scores

2011-11-27T19:47:00.001-06:00

About ten years ago, beautiful wife Sandy came up with a surprise holiday gift—a large Green Bay Packers flag. Flagpoles weren’t allowed in yards in the planned community where we lived in Utah. I often flew Old Glory from a standard attached to the building adjacent to our garage door, which was in keeping with community rules.


What so proudly I once hailed.

The second flag posed a bit of a problem during football season. So we devised a sharing system that became an amusement for most (but not all) of our neighbors. A Bears fan down the street definitely was not amused. Neither was a Cowboys fan across the street, but he launched a counter attack by displaying his own team colors. The Bears fan merely seethed.

The sharing plan was simple. If the Packers won their weekly game, their flag was displayed soon after the contest ended. It flew until Wednesday, when it was displaced by the Stars and Stripes. The national flag stayed up until the Pack won again.

When we moved three years ago, our new place had a regulation flagpole installed by the previous owners in the lawn beside the house. There also was a standard beside the garage door, almost exactly like the one in Utah. No rotation problem here. But as one who fancies tradition, the Geezer continued to display the Packers banner in the old way—up after a win, down on Wednesday until the next win.

For almost two years, the rotation worked well. Toward the end of last year, however, it got a little old. The Packers ended the season with six consecutive victories. It became drudgery to take the banner down and reinstall it every week.

Prospects were even better for the team this season, so the Geezer devised a labor-saving strategy—leave the flag up until the Packers lost. The new plan seemed a stroke of genius as the Packers won 11 straight games.

This week, Sandy devised a new strategy for our annual holiday lighting display. Lights were strung most of the way around the garage. The design placed lights perilously close to the Packers flag. With any sort of breeze, the flapping banner threatened to destroy a key part of Sandy’s display. Something had to give. Guess what won out.

Ho, Ho, Ho . . . . Packers, you’re on your own now, you know.

2011-11-26T10:17:00.001-06:00

In Grateful Memory

Pvt. Jackie L. Diener II (U.S. Army), 20, Boyne City, Michigan. Killed by small arms fire in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, November 21, 2011.

A Great Day, Indeed

2011-11-24T06:19:00.001-06:00

Today is America’s best celebration. Thanksgiving truly is for everyone. It is not part of any specific religious tradition; it is for all to enjoy. For this one day, we can cast aside worries about the future and focus only on the good things that have happened in our past.

I am thankful that I was born in a prosperous nation and have lived a long and generally pleasant life with the freedom to chart my own course. Through good and bad times, many people have supported and guided me. I appreciate all of them, especially Sandy, my beautiful wife.

I am thankful that my family does not want for food, shelter, or love. Today we will be together. That is the best thing of all.

How Not to Run a Restaurant

2011-11-22T15:07:00.001-06:00

We drove seven miles to one of our favorite little restaurants, anticipating a tasty delight and a bargain.

The special of the day, advertised in the local shopping guide, was a tuna salad sandwich. We made our journey because of it. Previous experiences were that the sandwich, when designated the special, was very good and came with choices—soup, salad, or fries and sometimes combinations of two of the three, plus a bottomless drink.

The restaurant owner seated us, took our drink order, and announced as she walked away, “Oh, the special today is a taco salad.” We knew a taco salad concocted in that restaurant’s kitchen was anything but special.

“Isn’t today’s special tuna salad?” I asked. “No, they made a mistake. I don’t know how they got tuna salad into that ad,” said the restaurateur. I said that was very disappointing, because we had a hankering for tuna salad. I spoke slowly, giving the lady every opportunity to authorize the advertised special for us. She did not.

A bit later, our waitress appeared. I inquired about the tuna salad special. She laughed, and said, “Isn’t that the darndest thing?” Again, I described our affection for the sandwich, and added the fact that we had driven miles out of our way for it. The waitress seemed a little surprised when we asked for more time to study the menu.

We actually discussed walking out. Instead, we wasted some time perusing the menu believing there was a pretty good chance the waitress would reappear and offer us tuna salad sandwiches as advertised. She reappeared without any special deal. I ordered a tuna salad sandwich anyway, and said, “That’s what the special would be if it really was the special, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” said the waitress. That was almost correct; it cost 30 percent more than the price for specials, and included only one optional side dish. The drink was extra.

On the way home, beautiful wife Sandy and I decided it will take one helluva special offer to lure us back to that restaurant. I might even be forced to learn how to make tuna salad.

Taking Stock

2011-11-17T10:52:00.009-06:00

My favorite pro sports team, the Green Bay Packers, once again is gearing up to sell stock to the public. Nothing new about that. The club has held numerous sales of shares since the 1920s when it was organized as a nonprofit corporation with backing from several local business leaders.

In the early years, sales of shares kept the team alive, often just barely. Recent sales financed major improvements at Lambeau Field, allowing the Pack to pick up considerable extra revenue from home-game crowds and special events. That money has helped the franchise compete with those owned by billionaires in big cities.

Hanging on a wall of my office is one framed share of stock issued in 1997 by Green Bay Packers, Inc. I bought it for $200. It has proved to be a horrible or great investment, depending on how you view such things. The dollar value is zero. The value of the bragging rights is immense.

Not for profit; for bragging rights

Much has been written and said about Packers history since the big team representing the little city burst upon the national stage back in the 1960s. Championship years arrived just as color television came into millions of American homes and professional football emerged from the shadows of sports to become somewhat of a national mania.

I’m not an expert on Packers' lore, but I’ve read much of what has been written about club history, attended the first game in Lambeau Field in 1957 (we beat "da Bears" 21-17), and have followed the team’s fortunes more or less closely for nearly 65 years. Here are some of my favorite trivia, some factual, some based on rumor and questionable recollections. A few items correct erroneous statements by current news people, mostly television announcers:

Television talking heads frequently state the Packers are the “only professional sports franchise owned by the community.” Wikipedia makes the same statement. The statement is incorrect. I am one of 112,158 shareholders, living all over the world, who own the team. Obviously, all the owners do not live in Green Bay. This relatively unimportant error may be caused by confusion between team and home field ownership. The City of Green Bay, not the Packers, owns Lambeau Field, which has become somewhat famous in its own right.

Accounts of the dire financial straits faced often by the team in early days are not exaggerations. Perhaps the most desperate situation occurred when a section of the wooden grandstand in old City Stadium collapsed during a game. (at its largest, old City Stadium seated 25,000 when all stands were upright). The collapse caused many injuries. The Packers’ insurance company couldn’t handle the volume, went bankrupt, and thus defaulted on many claim payments. A stock issue raised enough money to pay the claims and save the franchise.

It often has been said that if the corporation was to be liquidated, an unlikely event, all proceeds would go to an American Legion Post in Green Bay, because the post bought a block of preferred stock many years ago that gave it special ownership rights. The legality of that assertion never will be tested, because Packers’ management a few years ago changed the charter to clarify things. If the Packers went out of business, all assets remaining after creditors were paid would go to a charitable foundation. That would be a rather nice deal for charitable causes, because the franchise today is valued at a bit more than $1 billion, and debt is minimal.

My $200 investment in reality was a donation. The share has no cash value and cannot be sold. It can only be transferred to members of my immediate family. I can attend the annual stockholders’ meeting with about 30,000 other fans, listen to the head coach, general manager, and finance officer field questions, and vote for the board of directors. The board mostly is a figurehead body that includes Wisconsin business leaders and heads of sports organizations, plus a few former Packers players. They select an executive committee. The committee appoints a club president and approves the president’s choice of a general manager who runs the show. Because of the large number of interested shareholders, the annual meeting is held in Lambeau Field.

When a hands-on billionaire owner such as Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys jumps up from his front-row perch in a luxury box and yells, “Run a damn screen,” an attempt at a screen pass is likely to occur soon on the field. When I leap from my stool at Rhino’s Sports Bar with a similar demand, the message goes no further. We little Packers owners have no power to influence policy or play. A provision in stock offerings limits the number of shares a single entity can own; assuring the present limits on stockholder power will be permanent.

Many current histories state or at least imply that E. L. (Curly) Lambeau, Packers co-founder and coach and general manager for 32 years, was a wonderful guy revered by all who knew him, and area residents rushed to name their new stadium for him in 1957. The facts, and the rumor mill when I lived in the Green Bay area, say otherwise.

Lambeau, without question, was an important figure in the early development of what now is the National Football League. His teams pioneered the passing attack. He led the Packers into post-season exhibition games in the South and on the West Coast, often against the arch-rival Chicago Bears. The teams often traveled together. These contests created interest in pro football and helped pave the way for expansion teams some years later. The rumor mill said a side benefit of the excursions to the coast were close encounters between Lambeau and several Hollywood starlets. Giving credence to that story is the fact that one of Lambeau’s three wives was a former Miss California. A personal history that included a couple of divorces probably was not exactly endearing to many football fans in Green Bay, most of whom were Roman Catholics who at that time considered divorce a serious no-no.

Rumors abounded that Lambeau was notorious for late or no repayments of debts. Several times when I asked older De Pere residents (I edited the weekly newspaper there) if they knew Curly Lambeau, they smiled and pulled from their wallets scraps of paper that said, “IOU $10” (or $15 or $20). Each was signed, “Earl Lambeau, or simply, "Curly.” None was marked paid.

The famous founder-coach became somewhat of a traitor in local eyes when he abruptly left Green Bay in 1949 to coach the rival Chicago Cardinals. The rumor mill maintained that whatever was in a depleted Packers treasury left town at about the same time. Whether that is true or not, the Green Bay club was forced to make a major stock sale in 1950 to continue operations.

What is now called an “historic playing field” was not named for Lambeau at the start. When I attended the 1957 opener I was seated in City Stadium. Some locals called it “new City Stadium” to make the distinction between it and the old arena near Green Bay East High School where the Packers played for years. I heard of no one campaigning to name the new field for Lambeau. That did not happen for eight years, until after Lambeau died in 1965.

Both Lambeau and the other legendary Packers coach/general manager, Vince Lombardi, were known as stern taskmasters who often emphasized their instructions with profanity. There the resemblance pretty much ended. Lombardi did not earn the nickname “Saint Vincent” entirely because his teams won a lot of games. Unlike Lambeau who enjoyed lavish living in his spare time, Lombardi was known to be a workaholic and a devoted family man in what off-duty time he allowed himself. He attended a Catholic Mass every working day before heading to the office or the practice field, a ritual that considerably enhanced his standing with many Green Bay residents.

When Lombardi came out of retirement to lead the Washington Redskins, there was none of the animosity among Packers fans that was kindled by Lambeau’s defection to Chicago. The Green Bay fans were only disappointed that “Saint Vincent” chose did not return to the Packers.

Lombardi often is portrayed as a ruthless bad guy by fans of rival teams, and other critics have contributed to that notion. However, in memoirs published by former players, all speak of a healthy respect for the coach’s work ethic and demands that they follow suit. Few disliked him. Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to him, often by critics, was “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Historians now doubt Lombardi ever said that.

It is often said that the club shareholders and citizens of Green Bay are hidebound traditionalists who have prevented Packers management from selling naming rights to the stadium to a commercial enterprise, as other pro clubs have done. The truth is that Green Bay area voters approved a name sale in a referendum on the question. Packers’ executives are the traditionalists. They have ignored the will of the voters, preferring to give up millions of dollars of income in favor of maintaining the Lambeau Field name.

The bitterness of the Packers-Chicago Bears rivalry is real, but historically there has been perhaps more of a love-hate relationship between the organizations' leaders than we are led to believe. Many old Packers fans think that Bears’ long-time owner-coach George Halas actually was an ally who stood firmly against other big-city owners when frequent calls were made to move the Packers franchise to Milwaukee or some other more-lucrative market than the small city (population 50,000 in 1957, about 100,000 now) on the bay (others say Halas backed a move to Milwaukee, at least once).

My rumor mill said that when Halas retired, Packers fans threw a bigger party for him in Green Bay than his friends did in Chicago. It is a fact that Halas served as a pall bearer at Lambeau’s funeral. Some Packers fans were said to be offended, which seems silly indeed.

Apparently, it is true that Lambeau and Halas refused to engage in the traditional post-game handshake during all or most of the 30 years when they were opposing coaches. One observer reports seeing “Papa Bear” shake his fist at Lambeau after a particularly hard-fought contest. Nevertheless, when the Bears faced serious financial difficulties in 1933, Lambeau loaned Halas half the Packers’ share of gate receipts ($1,500) from a game in Chicago. The act is said to have been a big factor in keeping Halas and the Bears solvent during that Depression time.

Was some of the public inter-coach dislike displayed as part of a shrewd show by two skilled promoters seeking to increase interest in their struggling sport? I think so. If that is true, Halas and Lambeau were successful. Packers-Bears games continue to draw big crowds and lots of attention from national television viewers.

The cost of the coming Packers’ stock sale is rumored to be $250 per share. The goal is to raise millions to pay for 7,000 additional seats at Lambeau Field, plus a new scoreboard and complete new electronic communication system. Buyers will be making a donation just as I did in 1997. Will the “worthless” shares sell? No doubt they will. Some current stockholders already have said they’ll buy shares as gifts to their grandchildren. They can’t very well buy their descendents a couple of season tickets, because the waiting list for tickets now stands at 81,000. Although Packers fans suffered through 27 years of mediocre play between the Lambeau and Lombardi eras, every game since the present stadium was built has been a sellout.

Some fans have been waiting for years to become “owners” for the first time. Why? That’s the “bragging rights” part of it, I guess. There is a certain family feeling about the whole thing. The letter signed by the club president that arrived with my share of stock didn’t end with a standard line such as, “Thanks for your contribution.” It said, Thank you for joining the Green Bay Packers.”

Of course, any pro football fan with even a touch of rationality realizes the games are between one group of hired athletes and another. Nevertheless, Packers fans are notorious for saying, “We scored twice in the second quarter,” or, ”We blew the coverage on that play.” There seems to be a personal feeling that “we” always are part of the team of little guys going up against the big city slickers, even though that attitude is unrealistic.

Packers fans seem to have a little special streak of dedication that sometimes borders on craziness. After I had shown off my share of stock as much as possible, I told my son I was going to transfer the certificate to him so he could take a turn at bragging about being a pro team owner. He said, “Don’t bother, Dad. I bought one for myself.”

Myths and facts pertaining to the career of Packers’ old-time pass catcher Don Hutson deserve mention in any discussion of Green Bay history, but this treatise is getting too lengthy for that. Television reporters who would know better if they did their homework, and show business personalities who can’t be expected to have a clue, routinely state that San Francisco 49ers’ receiver Jerry Rice was the greatest pass receiver of all time. As sometimes is said in locker-room comparisons of talented players, “Rice was a great receiver, but he couldn’t carry Hutson’s jock.”

Don Hutson not only was the greatest receiver ever to play the game, but he probably was the greatest player in pro football history. I’ll try to prove that point with a post later in this season when the stars are right.

A Penn State Report Card

2011-11-12T06:23:00.002-06:00

The sad story of allegations of child sexual abuse by a coach who had a 26-year career at football power Pennsylvania State University has brought forth a variety of comments on the educational institution and college athletics in general. The players in the sordid drama deserve one of two grades—A or F—nothing else seems a good fit.

Here’s the Geezer report card:

A—Mike McQueary, an assistant coach who as a graduate assistant says he saw Coach Jerry Sandusky performing a sex act on a 10-year-old boy in the showers in a Penn State football building. McQueary says he reported the incident to Joe Paterno, Sandusky’s boss, as he should have.

McQueary might have earned an A-plus had he called the cops himself back in 2002 when the incident occurred, but that would have been a lot to expect from one who was a low-level participant in the athletic program at the time and who had coaching aspirations. McQueary has been placed on indefinite leave with pay. Penn State officials state he may have special legal status as a whistleblower.

F—Sandusky. A grand jury indictment includes allegations that he sexually harassed or assaulted at least seven other minor boys over a 15-year period. Sandusky is free on bail after his arrest when the youth in the Penn State incident came forward recently and McQueary corroborated the story.

F—Head Coach Paterno. As an experienced administrator in charge of the program within which the alleged crime took place, Paterno should have ensured that police were notified. Instead, the iconic head coach merely informed his immediate superior, Athletic Director Tim Curley, and a vice president, Gary Schultz, and did not follow up.

F—Curley and Schultz. They apparently did not advise Paterno to report the alleged crime, nor did they contact law enforcement authorities. Both have been charged with failing to report the incident. Whether or not the 84-year-old Paterno will be similarly charged remains in doubt.

F—University President Graham Spanier. Investigations now under way probably will reveal whether he did or did not know of the incident. Even if he did not, he deserves a failing grade for maintaining incredibly poor communications with his top assistants.

A—The Penn State Board of Trustees. They promptly fired Coach Paterno and President Spanier, even though Paterno had offered to make this season his last after leading the football program for 46 years. Curley and Schultz earlier had removed themselves from the Penn State staff.

F—The Penn State students who demonstrated in favor of restoring Paterno to his coaching job. More reprehensible are individual demonstrators who turned violent and significantly damaged property. The latter should be arrested and expelled if they can be identified. The remainder should, at the very least, be required to receive some special instruction on the relative values of greed (win at all costs) and integrity (do the right things).

A—The Penn State students who organized vigils as statements of sympathy for any boys who were victimized, and their families, and for all victims of sexual abuse. They showed they understood and supported the values that Penn State long has proclaimed it teaches and practices.

F—A few commentators who implied or flatly stated that the incident unmasked widespread corruption in college sports. The headlines accompanying these stories, and some of the sensational language in the tales, suggested that sexual abuse is rampant in university athletic programs, particularly football.

In more than five decades of closely following sports, including a few years as a sports editor, the Penn State affair is the only instance of sexual abuse of a minor by a coach that has come to my attention. Anyone who knows anything about sports writers knows that given even an inkling of such conduct, many of them would doggedly pursue the story. Child sexual abuse may be common in other institutions, including some well-publicized activities in religious organizations, but it most likely rarely has any association with college athletics.

A—The many critics who cast this incident as a classic case of greed versus integrity. University officials should be the epitome of men and women who place honor and open and honest dealings above all else. They are among the ultimate role models in our society. But too often, stadiums seating 80,000 to 100,000 fans and financial supporters and $100-million-dollar athletic budgets seem to be the motivating forces in these officials’ lives.

At Penn State, a whole series of officials, going right to the top, appear to have participated in a cover up, and if they did so they endangered many children. Obviously, all believed the straightforward action of reporting an alleged crime would somehow endanger the programs they so love. Actually, doing the right thing probably would have enhanced the reputations of all concerned, except of course, for Sandusky.

The bedrock issue in collegiate athletics, as it is today in the United States, is the power of the dollar in influencing decisions that should be made on the basis of ethical, not economic, factors. Rewarding successful college football and basketball coaches (and athletic directors) with multi-million-dollar contracts is ridiculous. University presidents could put a stop to the practice, but doing so would risk the wrath of enraged alums and might threaten their own bloated compensation packages.

Some like to draw a parallel between recruiting big-time football coaches and CEOs of major corporations. “You have to pay top dollar to get a top performer,” that logic goes. It may have some truth in the business world, but this tenet is ridiculous in the world of what is supposed to be amateur sport.

It is difficult to find business execs with proven abilities to turn moribund enterprises around or to maintain other huge organizations at a highly profitable level. It is not at all difficult to find football coaches who have come up through the high school and assistant coaching ranks with winning programs. A whole lot of them are more than willing to head a major university program for a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars. The trick should be to carefully examine the integrity of the candidates. Those who pass that test might be worth a half million or so a year. Six or seven million is outrageously unnecessary.

The Geezer often has laid the blame on college and university presidents for allowing greed to direct the athletic programs at their schools. Perhaps the Penn State experience shows that position has been wrong. The blame might be better placed on members of Boards of Trustees and Boards of Regents. They are where the buck stops, since presidents, unfortunately, are too often complicit in the abuses.

Come to think of it, the Penn State Board of Trustees deserves a bit more that an A for their resolute actions in the football program affair. Let’s hear it for them:

Hip, Hip, Hooray. . . Siss Boom Bah . . . PENN STATE TRUSTEES . . . Rah, Rah, Rah!

Get on Down There

2011-11-08T14:09:00.001-06:00

This is an unqualified endorsement of Applebee’s Veterans Day offer. The national restaurant chain once again will provide free meals on November 11 to all who have served or are now serving our nation in the U.S. military.

If you’re a veteran of any kind, with an honorable discharge, go to Applebee’s on Friday for your choice of a free dinner from a very good menu. If you’re on active duty, ditto. If you’re not a veteran or on active duty, but know someone who is, grab him or her and take them to Applebee’s. That will show, in a very personal way, your appreciation of the sacrifices service people have made and continue to make.

The Veterans Day offer should apply throughout the U.S. and may include Canada. It would be a good idea to check at a location near you to be sure the free meals are available there and learn what type of identification is needed to qualify.

In the future, you may want to introduce your favorite dinner companions to Applebee’s. This company deserves your business.

___________________________________________

This commercial message was written, authorized, and posted by the Gabby Geezer, who may be found about noon on Nov. 11 enjoying a steak dinner at Applebee’s in Plainwell, Michigan, USA.

Ahead of the Game

2011-11-03T07:49:00.002-05:00

(Lately, many notices have appeared urging us to protest the behavior of megabanks by transferring our accounts to local financial institutions. The Geezer was ahead of that game. Following is an abridged version of his Jan. 26, 2010 comments—the original appeared here a full 21 months ago. As predicted, the big bank that lost Sandy’s account has not collapsed, but perhaps now with millions joining the movement the bankers will get the message.)

Take It from the Bank

Of course, the bank president will just laugh at the loss of our business, if by some strange quirk of fate it comes to his attention. But our action will be symbolic. We are going to transfer Sandy’s checking account from a big bank to join mine at a little credit union.

We little guys aren’t moving our business out of greed, although often we can get better rates locally. We’re doing it because we’re mad as hell at greedy big bankers.

We ought to be. In 2008, the median U.S. household income was $50,303. It no doubt will be lower when the numbers are in for 2009 (Ed note: it was). The average professional employee (broker, sales staffer, trader) compensation at JP Morgan Chase was $279,000 in 2008. The bankers gave themselves a raise in 2009, upping average compensation to $379,000. Wow! The average Morgan staffer got an income increase double what the average American family must subsist on.

JP Morgan Chase was given $25 billion dollars of taxpayer money in the fall of 2008 to ensure the firm would be healthy. Wouldn’t it follow that the guys who were making a quarter million or more a year were the same bozos who were making the firm unhealthy? They should have been disciplined, not rewarded with big bonuses.

The medicine worked. Morgan paid back the $25 billion. The taxpayers even earned some profit on the deal. Unfortunately, although the patient survived, it didn’t start doing what the doctors envisioned. The idea was that the propped-up big banks would lend cash to stimulate business, which in turn would save or create jobs.

The bankers quickly engineered a payback to avoid government control of their compensation packages. They made the money to do that in investment banking, and continued a lot of the risky stuff that got us into a financial crisis in the first place. Instead of ramping up typical business lending they tightened things up in that area. They gave the surplus funds to each other, rather than helping their country out of recession.

Was Morgan an isolated case? Goldman Sachs got $10 billion from Uncle Sam to stay in business. It was one of the first to make a full repayment. It should be better managed than some competitors, because at Goldman average professional compensation was a mind-boggling $317,000 in 2008. It increased to $498,000 in 2009. Meanwhile, nationwide unemployment moved above 10 percent.

The big bankers deserve our ire. Some even admit it. At a hearing before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Brian Moynihan, Bank of America chief executive officer and president, said, “Over the course of the crisis, we as an industry caused a lot of damage.”

That’s right on. Politicians, Republicans and Democrats, over the past twenty years stripped away needed regulations or looked away as questionable activities were taking place. But, just because politicians gave financiers a license to steal doesn’t mean the liberated bankers were forced to plunder. They could have applied their own ethical standards—if they had any-- to daily practices.

We need Congress to clamp down hard on the bad guys who betrayed us. Democrats will lose the support of a lot of voters if they simply continue running around yelling “yes, we can” make financial institutions work for all Americans. They need to do it. And Republicans need to identify some common-sense reforms they can support and get with the program.

What Price Freedom?

2011-10-29T09:11:00.001-05:00

Frankly, it was somewhat of a blow to national pride.

Last week, Hamas, which controls what passes for a Palestinian government, released one Israeli soldier it had been holding prisoner in return for the release of 1,027 Palestinians from Israeli jails.

Two days ago, an alleged spy who holds dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship was released by Egypt in exchange for a mere 25 Egyptians imprisoned in Israel.

That incredible disparity in exchange rates could be construed as an indication of the low value assigned to American citizens in the Middle East. Wonder how many Syrians it would take to spring a French double-agent?

Boo! and Poo

2011-10-27T04:17:00.002-05:00

It’s a good thing--Halloween hijinks have been toned down so much over the years they hardly exist anymore. Back in the 40s and 50s failing to provide a proper treat could result in some serious tricks.

In many communities, “Gate Night” produced various levels of damage and civic disruption by older youths, who perpetrated some strange acts apparently just for the hell of it.

Soaping windows was fairly innocuous. Tossing trash onto Main Street from cars driven by juveniles set the bar a little higher. Actually tearing gates off fenced areas to fulfill the Gate Night tradition was not uncommon. There were other types of property damage. Local police gave chase when they spotted miscreants, but they were outnumbered by bands of roving youths and had little chance of apprehending anybody.

The police even could be the target. My father recalled Gate Night escapades back in the early 1900s when he was growing up in Wausau, Wisconsin, long before police had squad cars. They traveled by bicycle when in hot pursuit. His favorite story:

A group of boys spread horse manure liberally in an alley between two garages. They strung a sturdy cord between the buildings about four feet above the mess, and then lured an officer into chasing them into the alley on his bike at full speed. The result was not pretty for one of Wausau’s finest.

A somewhat similar Halloween story told in my hometown involved the lads who lived in "Jersey City," a community a short distance outside the city limits. The victim was "Shorty" Ruff, a small man whose outhouse was a favorite tip-over target during Gate Night forays by neighborhood youths.

After several years of outhouse restoration projects, Shorty decided enough was enough. Early on Gate Night, he took a seat in his outhouse with shotgun in hand, ready to scare away the most dedicated vandals who might show up.

Legend has it that Shorty fell asleep. The tippers appeared and had their way with the outhouse as usual. Shorty fell into the pit. He was said to be uninjured but considerably more aromatic when he emerged.

Cops, outhouse users, and all the rest of us can be happy these sorts of things won’t happen this year. Or will they? Only the witches’ brew can tell us for sure.

What Have We Become?

2011-10-23T11:11:00.002-05:00

I don’t remember all the details, but I can clearly recall the scene on VJ (Victory Over Japan) day in my hometown. My father took me on the two-block walk from our home to the downtown area.

It seemed as though every ambulatory citizen was there. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Socialists, and perhaps even a Communist or two were hugging each other, slapping each other on the back, shaking hands, and dancing in the middle of the street. Loud music emanated from the several taverns in the small business district. Dad said everyone who wanted a free drink had no problem finding someone to buy it.

Joy was general. No one was asking any questions about the ethics of actions that ended World War II, including atomic bombings. No one was questioning our military strategy, or the intentions or operations of any of our allies. Some of that came later, but for the moment Americans were just plain happy that the killing finally had stopped.

In recent days, American involvement in two wars ended. The eight-month civil war in Libya reached the last of its final days when rebels killed the nation’s tyrannical leader. Almost simultaneously, President Obama declared our military work in Iraq over after eight years of struggle in a war that every poll showed was unpopular with a majority of our people.

Were there huge celebrations? Parades? Loud music? Free drinks? Not at all. We were immediately treated to a volley of carping and bitching by various politicians and commentators.

Our NATO allies, primarily the United Kingdom and France, who did the heavy lifting in Libya, where charged in the United Nations and some American media with violating their charter to provide air power to protect Libyan civilians. What were the British and French pilots supposed to do? It seems wildly impractical to suggest they should land when they spotted an armored vehicle and ask the driver if he intended to shoot rebels, innocent civilians, or just a couple of rabbits before they launched a rocket.

From the right came complaints that the U.S. did too little in Libya, and never should have let allies assume the leadership in the military actions. From the left came assertions that we should have shunned any involvement at all, and had run a huge risk of getting into another Viet Nam or Afghanistan quagmire. From other quarters came charges that helping the rebels would surely result in replacing a secular dictator with Libyan leadership controlled by religious fanatics.

We did have the leading role in Iraq, so the critics had to shelve that complaint and come up with a few new ones. One was that Obama played a political trick to gain support before the next elections. That is a strange position, indeed, considering he made a clear promise during his presidential campaign to get us out of Iraq. Apparently, keeping a promise nowadays is an evil act.

Others complained about leaving four or five thousand contract guards in Iraq to protect our diplomats and other civilian workers. They cautioned that relying on contractors for security purposes was a serious danger.

What should we do? Let the remaining known thugs in Iraq wipe out a segment of our diplomatic and foreign aid corps? The prime minister of Iraq refused to continue to allow legal protection for American troops; thus it seems quite logical to turn to contractors to provide needed para-military power.

Probably the most unbelievable criticism is that Obama acted precipitously and failed to execute an orderly withdrawal. Good grief; our withdrawal has been in the planning stages for at least two years. Our administration is well into planning a withdrawal from Afghanistan, with a target date some three years in the future. That would seem to indicate the people in the White House and Pentagon are practicing careful planning.

This critic thinks three years is way too long to wait for the Afghan withdrawal. I hope that doesn’t make me as un-American as the rest of those idiots who can’t take even a day off from their political agendas and negative attacks to celebrate the end of a war and praise our young men and women for their role in bringing it about.

Of course, World War II was much larger, although it lasted only about half as long as the Iraq adventure. And, American involvement in Libya was relatively minor and resulted in no loss of life. No matter the scope or length of the conflicts, however, lives were put at risk and dollars were spent that could have been used for better purposes.

But yet the spirit in the country seems very different from the way people felt at the end of hostilities in 1945. Have all the wars since then caused us to no longer feel any personal connection to military actions?

For the Record

2011-10-20T03:47:00.001-05:00

It’s October, and the boys of summer are jousting once again for the World Championship of Baseball. Where but in the U.S.A. could the champs be crowned? No other nation has the same extensive professional league structure and widespread amateur interest in the sport.

In more than 100 years, baseball has caught some public fancy in Canada, Japan, and parts of Latin America, but gets little or no attention elsewhere. In the U.S., the sport gradually has lost its position as the national game to football. Why? Basically, baseball games are slow-paced with long intervals of nothing much happening interspersed with a few moments of furious action. In other words, watching baseball is boring most of the time. It’s also getting expensive to go out to the old ballpark—this summer fans had to fork over $6.00 for a hotdog in the Chicago White Sox’ stadium.

Perhaps as a way to add some interest, statistics expanded in scope and depth as the baseball years rolled by. From the start number crunchers have provided fans with batting averages and totals for such essentials as home runs, runs batted in, strikeouts, and walks. For pitchers, they gave us won-lost records, strikeout and walk totals, innings pitched, and (relatively recently) earned-run averages. Now the keepers of the record books seem to have gone mad.

The Geezer watched a playoff game on TV a couple of nights ago. A pair of announcers filled every second of spare time with numbers. There was a lot of spare time as the teams changed pitchers whenever a hitter looked threatening. Viewers learned how many pitches a hurler had thrown in every conceivable situation, how every batter fared historically against every pitcher, and the speed of fastballs in miles per hour. We even were treated to something the announcers labeled a “productive out.”

Where there are numbers there will be records. Someone, sometime won the most games, hit the most home runs, and drew the most walks, or was the first to do something or other. These are significant things to baseball fans. However, we can get along well without knowing that Justin Verlander retired an average of four left-handed hitters with an outside slider every time he lasted five innings when he started a game in 2009.

Negative records perhaps are atop the pile of unimportant baseball matters. For example, do we really care if Los Angeles Dodger infielder Eugenio Valez this season set the modern-day record for nonpitchers for consecutive times at bat without a hit? Perhaps Mrs. Valez does, if there is a Mrs. Valez, but I don’t. And I’m sure Mr. Valez would rather not have his performance noted in the record books for all to see.

Other types of trivial baseball records sound positive, but mean very little. High on that list are accounts of the first person to do some obscure thing or other or the only one to perform a trivial feat. The Geezer holds that sort of baseball record—one that probably never will be equaled.

I was the only person ever to play in both the junior and senior championship games in the same Wisconsin State Amateur Baseball Tournament. Wow!

Some might be awed by this achievement. Wisconsin has held amateur championship tournaments for 63 years. Back when I played in the 1950s every little town and many companies sponsored teams. Today, although interest in baseball is much diminished, Wisconsin still has about 60 amateur teams concentrated in northern and western parts of the state. So my record might be considered a biggie, but how I earned it is as bizarre as the honor is unimportant. It was a pure case of being in the right places at the right times.

Through some mysterious manipulations by the chamber of commerce, my hometown (Tomahawk, Wisconsin) was selected to host the 1953 state amateur tournament. At that time, tournament sponsors invited teams to compete in two divisions, also by a somewhat mysterious process.

Players in the junior division could not be older than 17. They played seven-inning contests. The senior teams had no age restrictions, and apparently few or no requirements about who might be considered an amateur or a regular member of the team. All the teams, junior and senior, were known to add any talented players they could find to beef up rosters for the tournament.

I don’t know if the sponsors considered it a courtesy to the host city or needed a couple of teams to fill the brackets, but that year they invited one team from Tomahawk to participate in each division. Apparently, the invitation came somewhat unexpectedly. Managers had to hustle to assemble the two teams. No one expected the locals to win anything—just play one game and take a bow after the defeat.

I was working that summer in a National Tea store. Bob Koth, a local businessman involved with American Legion baseball, showed up and convinced my boss to let me off work because he needed a catcher for the junior division team he was assembling. I had played Legion and high school ball and was 17. The first game was the next afternoon. Our ragtag nine wore the Legion team uniforms. We won. We won the next day. To the amazement of one and all we were headed into the championship game.

The performance of the senior Tomahawk team perhaps was more amazing. Competing against teams loaded with former minor league professional players, the local all-stars also won their first two games, which were nine-inning affairs played at night, and advanced to the championship game.

Our junior team had a big problem. We only had two pitchers and it would have been a disaster to put one of them back on the mound with inadequate rest. Mr. Koth learned that high school pitcher Dave Lemke was returning from a trip to Chicago the day before the title game. He met Lemke at the train station and gave him a briefing and a uniform. We had our pitcher, a guy with a strong arm but not as much experience as the first two we used.

Lefty Lemke was superb for six innings. He was up against a team of stars from the Wisconsin Rapids area, a hotbed of amateur baseball. One outfielder had signed a professional contract after a tryout. We were tied 1-1 going into the last inning. Then we broke down defensively, and the visitors wound up winning going away for the championship.

I barely got home and shed my uniform when the manager of the senior Tomahawk team phoned. His catcher had been called up by the National Guard and he couldn’t find another one when he checked with all of the area mens teams. Would I play in the championship game that night? I did. We took a terrible thumping from a team that competed in a Milwaukee industrial league.

Two championship game appearances in one day—two sound defeats. Not a record to be pointed to with great pride. But my very own record, nonetheless.

Recently, two local authors published a 550-page “History of Tomahawk Sports” book that covers teams and events from 1897 to 1980. The book includes records and noteworthy accomplishments by athletes while they played on school teams and afterward in college or elsewhere. Yes, I’m in there. My appearances are in those standard pictures of a bunch of kids lined up to pose for high school football and baseball team photos.

My 1953 amateur baseball record does not appear in the book. The authors obviously have a keen perception of the importance of things.

A National Disgrace

2011-10-13T08:51:00.006-05:00

Last Friday marked ten years of warfare in Afghanistan since we and several allies invaded that land. The anniversary, which was preceded by the loss of billions of dollars and thousands of lives for no good reason after the successful initial attack, was largely ignored by news media and those who usually delight in claiming the spotlight.

Some Afghan protesters marched in Kabul with signs urging Americans to get out of their country. That was about it. One of our top generals said he planned no special event to mark the anniversary. Representatives of the White House said President Obama might issue some sort of written statement, but planned no major speech and was not scheduled to participate in any commemorative events. The usual suspects who organize American demonstrations were busy dispatching their troops to march on Wall Street protesting unfair taxation and actions, or lack of actions, by bankers and corporations.

Pundits explained that our political leaders were too busy worrying about unemployment in America to be distracted by foreign wars. Maybe our leaders ought to consider there could be a link between the two. The billions of dollars we are throwing away building roads, bridges, irrigation systems, and various buildings in Afghanistan would be better spent improving our crumbling infrastructure at home. Reallocating that money would provide lots of jobs for Americans, and what they built would not be available later to benefit religious fanatics such as those who will regain control of Afghanistan after we leave.

There are connections between the war and our economic situation on more personal levels. Consider the case of U.S. Army Corporal Joseph VanDreumel, who was killed in Afghanistan in August. Read between the lines a little. VanDreumel was 32 years old when he joined the Army. He left behind a widow and two children, Angel, 10, and Skyler, 8. After years of steady employment in various jobs, VanDreumel was unemployed when he enlisted. Thirty-two-year-old men with families do not enlist as privates in the army if they can find any other kind of suitable employment. I shudder imagining going through army boot camp at age 32. It was hard enough for me at 22.

Skyler VanDreumel honors his dead father (Grand Rapids Press)

My read is that VanDreumel did what he believed he had to do to support his family. He risked, and gave, his life doing so. He was a true hero. Doesn’t anybody in power give a damn that our wrongheaded policies force people like him into such desperate situations?

“Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind . . .” Donne’s famous words apply to all of us. That is, they apply unless you are a politician, general or admiral, or an arms manufacturer. They, probably with a few exceptions, care not at all if others die in Afghanistan or elsewhere. And you will find none of them endangering their own lives in battle.

The current plan is to maintain troops and nation-building programs in Afghanistan at least until 2014. You can be sure some activities financed by American taxpayers will continue after that. Why don’t we do ourselves a favor and simply get out now? Staying there wasting our treasure while the killing goes on, and then having the national gall to ignore the whole situation on a significant anniversary, is disgraceful.

In Grateful Memory

2011-10-11T08:31:00.001-05:00

Capt. Drew E. Russell (U.S. Army), 25, Scotts, Michigan. Killed by a rocket-propelled grenade In Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, October 8, 2011.

A Blogging Birthday

2011-10-06T18:35:00.002-05:00

The year has been slipping by so quickly that an important (at least to a few) milestone almost was neglected. This is the fifth anniversary of the Gabbygeezer blog. It started back in 2006 with, of all things, a little story about how it started. Since then, 300 little stories have appeared, discounting a dozen or so that defy classification as stories, or much of anything else.

Which story generated the most favorable comments? Hands down it was “Give Yourself a Proper Sendoff,” referenced in my profile on the right-hand column of this page. That story describes why each of us should write our own obituary, and how we can do it to maximize self-aggrandizement and still be truthful. It uses my obituary (now somewhat out of date) as an example. Most of the commentators said the story left them laughing, or at least mildly amused.

Which of the 300 stories attracted the most readers? That is impossible to determine. But one story was republished several times. The story repeated here, of my business venture in my hometown of Tomahawk, Wisconsin, first appeared as a Gabbygeezer post early in 2006. It soon was published again in the Tomahawk Leader newspaper. Like the obituary tale and 165 others, it then appeared in my memoir, “Days With The Dads,” in 2008. Shortly thereafter, the Tomahawk Historical Society included it as part of a book it published.

Here’s the story, once again seeking a few more readers:

A Very Small Business

As small businesses went in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, mine had to be one of the smallest. And as business owners went, at age 10, I was probably one of the youngest.

In the summer of 1946, Billy “Barrel” Schmidt and I were hanging around my dad’s tailor shop voicing the usual complaint of youth that there was nothing to do. Barrel’s uncle Louie, who ran the Central Drug Store in front of my dad’s shop, suggested we do something useful and start up a shoe shining business to make a little money.

We thought that was a pretty good idea. My dad found a shoeshine box somewhere, bought us a few supplies, and we were in business. The partnership lasted only a couple of weeks. Barrel decided going swimming at Crystal Lake and other typical Tomahawk summer activities beat heck out of work. He left me as the sole proprietor of the business.

One of the group of downtown businessmen who met every morning for coffee at Rouman’s Restaurant told my dad he thought the Hotel Tomahawk once had a shoeshine stand in the lobby. Sure enough, it was in storage at the hotel. Dad got it for me, and I hauled it out in front of Central Drug every morning, ready for business.

My only advertising was two cardboard signs attached to the arms of the chair. They read: “Shoe Shine 15 cents, other shoe free.”

This postcard showed me at rest

When business at the stand was slow, which was often, I toted the shine box to the local barber shops (I think there were three in those days) looking for customers. My recollection is that the only shop where I did much business was Charlie O’Rourke’s. That’s where I got my hair cut, and Mr. O’Rourke returned the favor by trying to gently persuade the men awaiting their turn in his chair to let me shine their shoes.

I think my dad suggested my other regular “house call.” If my mom had found out about it, the business would have ended right then and there. On Friday nights, Dad worked until 9 p.m. so Mom thought I was tending to business at my stand until we came home together. Actually, I was at Scorch’s Bar with my shine box. Business there was great, often netting me $2 or $3 for a couple of hours work—big money in those days for a little kid.

At 15 cents a customer, making that kind of cash depended on how much beer was flowing at Scorch’s (usually quite a lot) and some help from my friends.

My friends were two single ladies who worked at the A&P Store and always showed up at Scorch’s about 6:30 on Friday nights. They sort of adopted me, and since the males at the bar were trying to adopt them, they convinced a lot of drunks to get shoe shines—and woe to him who didn’t include a tip in the payment. One slightly absent-minded, or more likely very inebriated, guy paid me to shine his shoes twice in the span of 10 minutes!

I also did some “carry out” business. The best customers were Myron Veith and “Bev” Beverson, who owned The Gift Box across the street from my stand. On Saturday mornings, they left the door to their upstairs apartment unlocked and set out a half dozen pairs of shoes for me. I carried them across the street, shined them up, and took them back.

Another regular customer was Terry Small, who worked at the Quality Meat Market owned by his parents. Terry always dropped off two pairs of shoes for my attention, also on Saturdays. This was easy to recall because Terry was a very big man. His shoes were size 13 EEE. However, he always paid 25 cents a pair, so I didn’t complain about needing to use extra polish and elbow grease.

I worked all summer and occasionally in the fall after starting the seventh grade. Then work got a little old, and in the spring playing baseball was a lot more attractive than popping shoeshine rags and wielding brushes. I sold the stand and my supplies for $5 to Bob Gilley, an older man with some physical handicaps. Mr. Gilley shined shoes at the stand in the entryway of Nick’s Casket Factory on Wisconsin Avenue for quite a few years. He, however, was not known to solicit business in barbershops or bars.

Photographer Claude Venne gave my business a small measure of fame when he sneaked up on me one day when I was taking one of my frequent breaks, reading a comic book and eating a popsicle. Venne made his photo into postcards, which he sold at the Tomahawk Drug Store across the street with some other local scenes he had snapped. He had a note on the shoeshine card display that said something like, “Business is lousy, ain’t it?”

Business wasn’t too lousy. In addition to paying for popsicles, I saved nearly $100 from my summer’s work 60 years ago. I still had the money in the Bradley Bank seven years later to help pay for my first year at the University of Wisconsin. In those days, tuition for one semester at UW was $90.

* * * * * * * * *

Five years from now, I’ll rerun the most-republished little story from the previous five years. That’s a promise.

Come Back For a Look

2011-10-05T08:49:00.000-05:00

The "Newer Knowledge" post that appeared here three days ago got a large number of visitors. If you're among those who were interested in the topic, you may want to revisit the item. Thanks to blogging buddy Alan G., it now includes a video showing operations of a single-stream recycling plant.

In Grateful Memory

2011-10-03T17:59:00.000-05:00

Staff Sgt. Nicholas A. Sprovtsoff (U.S. Marine Corps), 28, Davison, Michigan. Killed in combat in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, September 28, 2011.

Newer Knowledge

2011-10-02T13:25:00.004-05:00

Sometime back, the geezer spoke of pride in having worked with scientists at the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) in Madison, WI, who were searching for better ways to recycle wastepaper. However, I said “to my knowledge” the processes they developed had not been put into use.

Like much knowledge, mine now has improved after I took the time to thoroughly check into the situation. It turns out that an important part of the work by the Forest Service researchers was put into practice in Europe several decades ago.

The scientists invented a new method, which received a public patent, for separating plastics from paper in household trash. They thus solved one of the technical problems inhibiting large-scale, mechanized recycling schemes.

In 1979 a plant using the FPL technique was set up in The Netherlands. It processes 50,000 tons of material a year. Another plant with the same capacity began operations in Sweden the following year. The equipment manufacturer later established a large-scale pilot plant in Japan.

It has not been economical to use the technology in the U.S., but that could change in the future as recycling systems become more automated. That future may not be far away. My local newspaper, the Kalamazoo Gazette, recently reported that a township in Kalamazoo County was switching to “single-stream” recycling. Residents there no longer will have to separate paper, glass, metals, and plastics for processing. They put everything into one large container and the materials are separated in a sophisticated processing plant. Such systems are in use in several parts of the U.S.

The video shows a current "single-stream" processing system in use today.

These systems are not identical to a pilot plant in Madison with which I was involved in the early 1970s. There Forest Service researchers worked with Heil Company and City of Madison employees to explore the effectiveness of reducing the size of household trash by hammer milling and then separating materials by various methods. However, the approach using dry separation methods and several features of the two types of systems are the same.

The Madison system took it one step further. It was designed to take all household refuse, including garbage. The separation process neutralized contaminants. Very few people were needed in the processing plant.

It was exciting to handle information activities for scientists pioneering recycling research. It’s good to know now that some of the concepts they explored 40 years ago have advanced through research and development into use.

2011-09-22T08:40:00.004-05:00

Gone with the Winds

The credit card statements are in, the pile of laundry is done, and the Geezer is on a diet. It’s time to assess results of our recent foray to the Lake Michigan shore to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Most of the balance sheet entries are on the plus side.

We brought back six bottles of what promise to be some really great wines. Beautiful wife Sandy made the selections after sampling (I was driving) lots of fine products of Michigan’s oldest winery and some more at a nearby competitor.

We returned with memories of great dining, from an elegant filet mignon dinner across the border in an Indiana supper club to the best offerings of two local hot spots in the quaint little city of New Buffalo.

We now can admire a few new doodads purchased in several shops in New Buffalo and points north of there along the lakeshore. The usual summer tourist crowds had returned home, so shopping was a fun, leisurely experience.

Sandy finished up four nights of our attempts to lose the family fortune at the Four Winds Casino by coming home a $100 winner.

The Four Winds is a luxurious hotel-casino owned by the Pokagon Tribe of Potawatomi Indians. It is a huge establishment carved out of the woods on tribal lands situated about 75 miles east of Chicago. Among other features designed to take financial revenge on anyone who may have wronged the Indians in the past are 3,000 slot machines. If a smaller casino opened last month by the tribe at another location is included, there is nearly one slot per Indian. The tribe has 4,300 members.

I do not at all begrudge the Pokagons or other tribes the riches they are accumulating by taking advantage of a unique legal position in the U.S. and exploiting a widespread human weakness. Anyone with just a dash of common sense knows if you hang around a casino long enough you’ll come home broke, not with extra cash as Sandy did. She quit when she was ahead. Most don’t ever get ahead, much less pocket any winnings.

Well aware of the likely outcome of visiting Four Winds, I packed an old shirt with my other stuff.

Don’t be surprised if you happen to pass through tribal lands near Lake Michigan and see a Pokagon wearing a faded green T-shirt proclaiming: Green Bay Packers, Super Bowl Champions, 1997. The tribe won it fair and square.

2011-09-20T14:04:00.001-05:00

In Grateful Memory

Spc. Chazray C. Clark (U.S. Army), 24, Ecorse, Michigan. Killed by an enemy bomb in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, September 18, 2011.

2011-09-15T08:26:00.000-05:00

Fine Dining

Somehow I missed notices that one of my favorite business associates, Vince Dong, died about two years ago. He was a fine gentleman and editor, serving at the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station in Berkeley, CA, for many years.

I sent the news of Dong’s death to several old friends who had encountered him often, as I did, at meetings of station editors. That resulted in some reminiscences, including an account of a dinner at the Dong home overlooking California’s most famous bay. The Dong family had lived in the San Francisco area for many years.

Although Vince was thoroughly American, he was proud of his Chinese heritage. In 2005, he and four other family members joined to contribute $50,000 in honor of their ancestors to help establish the Wing Luke Asian Museum, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution that features history of Chinese and other Asian immigrants.

I tried to take advantage of Vince’s specialized knowledge on one occasion, but it didn’t work out as planned. Dong and I were in a small discussion group at a national meeting in San Francisco when lunch time rolled around. The gathering was in a second-class hotel, so I suggested we go elsewhere for lunch and that, as a local guy, Vince should be the one to pick the restaurant.

I had visions of the finest Chinese fare available in a city known for it. Vince said he didn’t eat out very often, but one place he had enjoyed was nearby.

He took us to an Italian restaurant.

2011-09-09T16:37:00.005-05:00

Oh, It Would Be Sad

The SS Badger may be steaming toward forced retirement.

Oh, it was sad. Oh, it was sad. It was sad when the great ship went down . . . .

That ship we once sang the sad song about was, of course, the Titanic. Until fairly recently, the Titanic had no relationship to the SS Badger, except both carried a whole lot of passengers. Now the Badger also may be a doomed vessel.

As a little boy, one thing I penciled onto my bucket list was to cross Lake Michigan aboard a car ferry. I’m not sure why. When I got the idea, I had never seen Lake Michigan. My family didn't own a car. I admired the glamorized image of a car ferry on the covers of writing tablets we used in school. That was all the motivation I can recall. It wasn’t much, but I never lost the yen to make the trip.

Six years ago, I finally crossed that one off my list. We had driven from Utah and stopped to see relatives in Wisconsin on our way to visit our son in Michigan. The stars were right to fulfill my little-boy dream. We drove north to Manitowoc, watched as our car was driven onto the Badger, and settled down in deck chairs for a great adventure on a bright, sunny day. The novelty soon wore off.

The 60-mile trip across the lake to Ludington took a full four hours. Although the Badger includes a maritime museum room, shows movies in another area, and has a good galley crew serving up short-order food, I’m sorry to report the trip is dull. Two things constitute the scenery on a trip across Lake Michigan—water and sky. We saw what appeared to be two other vessels in the distance during the whole trip. It was dull, dull, dull.

Dull or not, the SS Badger has been crossing the lake with few interruptions since 1953. It is the last of 14 car ferries to be based in Ludington. Service from that port began in 1897, mostly to carry railroad cars between Michigan and Wisconsin. The Badger was built to carry railroad cars. It is both big and tough. With a reinforced hull for ice-breaking, she originally crossed the lake all year long. The need to move railroad cars ended in the 1980s, and in 1992 the ship was refitted to exclusively carry autos and passengers. It no longer sailed in winter. Nevertheless, it still makes 490 port calls per year.

The Badger is the last large coal-burning steamship in the United States. That’s the problem. Its boilers consume huge amounts of coal, and disposing of the coal ash waste in Lake Michigan waters caught the attention of environmental groups and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency several years ago. EPA demanded a change to keep the pollutants out of the lake, and Badger owners face a deadline at the end of next year to find a way to dispose of the waste on land or substitute some other power-generating system. If they don’t, the ship’s sailing days will be over.

In somewhat of a reversal of the usual pattern when Great Lakes water quality is at issue, citizens groups are forming to petition EPA to lift the order against the historic ship, or at least extend the deadline. The main group is titled S.O.S. for Save Our Ship. It seems appropriate.

The Geezer is torn. I fully endorse measures to protect or improve water quality in the Great Lakes and elsewhere. But I also love history, and, after all, that steamship is part of a colorful heritage of lake navigation. Both Michigan and Wisconsin have declared the ship to be among their historic treasures.

Despite my good feelings toward the old Badger, we figuratively jumped ship after my one voyage. Since we moved to Michigan, beautiful wife Sandy has made three trips across the lake to visit her Wisconsin relatives. I put her aboard the Lake Express in Muskegon for those journeys. She arrives in Milwaukee in two and one-half hours, not four, although that trip also is 60 miles.

The Express is a twin-hulled catamaran powered by four Detroit Diesel engines. She holds 42 vehicles, far fewer than the Badger, but the Express has plenty of room for passengers and can travel at 40 m.p.h. When I asked Sandy how the first trip went she said, “Dull, but at least it wasn’t dull for four hours.”

While waiting for Sandy in Muskegon after her latest lake journey, I struck up a conversation with a fully mature adult who was waiting to make the trip to Wisconsin. He said, “You know, when I was a college kid I had a chance to work one summer on the SS Badger out of Ludington. I took a different job. Wouldn’t that have been something to remember if I’d have joined the crew when I had the chance?”

Maybe. He could have become a part of history, but he might have spent a pretty dull summer earning the honor.

2011-09-02T10:07:00.000-05:00

Commitment

Sandy and I decided this morning to establish a long-term relationship. We figured the trial period has been sufficiently lengthy and quite satisfactory. Today is our 50th wedding anniversary.

Tonight we are invited to dine out with son Lee and his fiancé Karen. Next week we will celebrate the start of the next 50 with an auto trip to enjoy the wonders of the Lake Michigan shore. There just happens to be a glitzy casino right where we are headed. We’re not worried. We started with no money; we can restart the same way.

2011-09-01T03:06:00.000-05:00

Why Not a Little Fun?

I attended a church service recently where comments were encouraged regarding death and an afterlife. At the conclusion, a participant said approaching the concepts with a bit of humor was a human characteristic, at least for some.

Consider, we often hear the phrase, “He (or she) laughed in the face of death.” We associate that with a courageous person, a strong person, a person with good values. We seldom, if ever, apply it to the “bad guys.”

I think that when we humans are faced with something we fear, we often tend to respond with humor. Many comedians made good parts of their livings exploiting that position. One of the more famous utterances was by Mark Twain. When Twain (Samuel Clemens) was traveling in Europe, a newspaper made a glaring error. Clemens picked up a copy and read his obituary on page one. His response: “Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Comedic comments on death and the hereafter, more numerous although less famous than Clements’ remark, have been a big part of Woody Allen’s works. On the Internet, you can find dozens of jokes on the subjects written and delivered by Allen. Three (paraphrased) that tickle me are:

“I’m not worried about death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

“Dying is one of those things best done while lying down.”

“I don’t think there is an afterlife, but just in case, I’m bringing a change of underwear.”

A couple of years ago the laugh was on me. A strange disease, which my doctor was unable to diagnose, hit me hard. I spent several days in bed going through alternating periods of chills and fever, comatose much of the time. Fortunately, the ailment left nearly as suddenly as it appeared, and it never has returned. But I was very ill while it lasted.

One night, I came out of a deep sleep in a groggy state. I saw a bright, white, light emanating from a space behind a door. “Here I go,” I thought. “The good news is that it’s not a red light in there.”

I woke up a little more and discovered that my wife had failed to turn off the light in our walk-in closet.

2011-08-25T08:03:00.001-05:00

The Pen Prevails

My July 28 post (The Power of the Pen) bemoaned the fact that two Forest Service Research organizations had failed to respond to e-mail requests for information. I vowed to send off old-fashioned paper letters to both and pursue the matters until I got answers.

Just a few days after my letters to the heads of the organizations were mailed, e-mail responses arrived. I had requested e-mails.

The Pacific Southwest Research Station in Berkeley, CA not only answered my question completely, but said the webmaster already had begun an investigation into what happened to my ill-fated e-mail inquiry. A glitch in the system was discovered. It will be corrected soon.

E-mail responses came from two staffers at the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI. The answers were detailed and included contact information for several scientists who had worked on the project of interest in the 1970s. I was asked to send the address used for my e-mail inquiry, so improvements in the FPL mail system also may be on the horizon.

A little written ranting can be just the thing to get results, and might even improve a system or two.

2011-08-22T18:12:00.001-05:00

Thanks for the Notice

Just got an e-mail ad from Applebees. It announced “Kids Eat Free Tuesdays.” I rescheduled my dinner reservation for Wednesday. Groups of kids are wonderful in many places. Restaurants are not one of them.

2011-08-20T08:34:00.000-05:00

In Grateful Memory

Cpl. Joseph A. Van Dreumel (U.S. Army), 32, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Killed by an enemy bomb in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, August 14, 2011.

2011-08-18T03:03:00.000-05:00

Bachelor Bungling

Beautiful wife Sandy is away visiting relatives in Wisconsin. I was a bachelor for a fair number of years before we hooked up, so I knew this temporary separation was likely to present certain problems.

When Sandy takes a little vacation, she leaves me enough food for a hungry Boy Scout troop and detailed directions for just about everything. She knows my ineptitude with things mechanical, electrical, and electronic is perhaps exceeded only by my complete inattention to where useful items are stored. In my defense, I was trained as a word arranger, not an auto mechanic or pantry expert.

A problem was not long in arriving. On day two of Sandy’s absence my computer stopped delivering anything except a nice, clear opening scene (isn’t that called wallpaper?). “No problem,” I thought, “I’ll just crank up Sandy’s computer and seek her advice with an e-mail.” I had worked at her laptop several times in the past.

Unfortunately, whenever I worked on the laptop, Sandy had turned it on before I arrived. I plugged in everything that looked like a plug into everything that looked pluggable. Nothing. I phoned Sandy.

She told me to take the little doodad off the bottom of the mouse and plug it into the first available slot in the bright blue gadget plugged into the left side of the computer. I don’t like her keyboard, so I explained what had happened to my machine and said I really didn’t want to work at hers, even though now I could.

“Sounds like you just need new batteries in your mouse,” Sandy said. “Oh yeah,” I said, I seem to remember this same kind of thing happened before.”

Sandy told me where our spare batteries were. I searched the basement area without result. I made another phone call. She said the batteries were there, and I ought to look again. “Nope,” I said, “I just wasted a half hour looking where you said. I’m going to buy some batteries downtown.” (“Downtown” is 5.5 miles away.)

Here’s a tip for your older gents: If you want to attract female attention, just stand in the middle of a supermarket aisle looking confused. Women will flock to rescue the poor old man. That won’t work for you younger guys. I suggest buying a cute little dog, and taking it everywhere on a leash. That will work for you. Bewilderment in supermarkets will not.

I didn’t need to pretend to be bewildered, because I was baffled by the location of batteries in the supermarket we shop at every week. Two female clerks and a gray-haired lady customer guided me to two large battery displays in a matter of minutes. “What size do you need?” the young blond clerk asked.

“I don’t really know. I think it’s something about A, and it looks like those on the left.”

“Those are AA’s,” the older clerk said. “These over here are AAA’s.”

“Seems backwards to me,” I said. “You’d think the bigger ones would be triples and the littler ones would be doubles. That’s the way it works in baseball.”

“I never thought of that,” the lady customer said. “Didn’t you look at the ones that wore out?” When I shrugged, she gave me a strange look and left.

By visualizing my mouse for several minutes, I decided it was a relatively small device, and therefore AAAs had to be the right selection. I bought a dozen. Eager to get back to my computer routine, I hurried home, pried open the back of the mouse, and gazed upon two big, fat, AA batteries.

Unwilling to chance having to face up to even one of my trio of helpers at the supermarket, I added a mile to the 11-mile roundtrip and bought a six-pack of AAA batteries at a hardware store. Two of them worked just fine.

Two days later on a visit to the basement to replenish the water softener salt, I inadvertently knocked a box off a shelf. I learned that we had a substantial supply of AAA, AA, and other batteries. It is more substantial now.

Let’s hope nothing really big stops working before the lady of the house comes home.

2011-08-15T07:45:00.000-05:00

Excuse Me, Puhleeze

In the wake of Casey Anthony’s acquittal of the charge of murdering her daughter, the jury came in for blasts of criticism from all sorts of commentators. Whether they deserved accolades or brickbats, the jurors should be applauded for one thing. They served.

Trying to wiggle out of jury duty is an American tradition that ranks right up there with a little cheating on the old income tax return. Maybe it ranks higher. There are reasons. Some jurors are injured financially by being taken off their jobs with no compensation. Others suffer when forced to spend what can be many hours away from family obligations. A few people are terrified by the prospects of retaliation should their verdicts wound friends of bad guys too deeply.

My jury experience involved service in the Second District Court in Ogden, Utah. The process there was to summon about 40 citizens for duty, and select the panel for each case from that group. The selections were made based on questions from the opposing attorneys and the judge. I was selected four times.

The first time I made a pitifully weak run at pleading to be excused. I said I was a federal government worker and had a backlog of really important matters to attend to. The judge, who it turned out had a good sense of humor, pointed out that my office was right across the street from the courthouse. He said if my absence from work was threatening to cause a national or international disaster, I probably could slip into the federal building after the day’s jury duty ended and attend to the emergency.

Several prospective jurors had been passed over before my turn came. Only two were excused at their request. It appeared that very good reasons were needed to escape the civic duty.

A young man wearing a dirty t-shirt, ragged jeans, and scuffed work boots sat next to me during the selections. After I was picked, he whispered, “I’ll show you how to get out of this. Just watch me.”

He made the first selection cut, failing to score with a lame work excuse somewhat like mine. During that part of the questioning, my new acquaintance informed the court that he worked in a gravel pit. When the judge asked what his specific job was, he replied, “Digging.”

The judge enjoyed a good laugh, but then posed a meatier question: “Have you formed any opinion about the guilt or innocence of the accused?”

“You bet,” the digger said. “The cops arrested him, didn’t they? So he must be guilty as hell.”

That response did not tickle the judicial funny bone. The judge bellowed, “Out, out,” and pointed dramatically to the door of the chamber.

As the gravel pit worker rose to depart, he winked at me and said, “See.”

Incidentally, I was proud of my fellow jurors. They listened carefully to evidence, debated every conceivable question like ladies and gentlemen, and reached what I thought were solid verdicts. The cases we heard ranged from a relatively minor hit-and-run traffic charge to attempted murder. Serving as a juror turned out to be a rewarding experience, and caused me to gain respect for others who serve.

If called again, I will cheerfully do my duty as a citizen. But then, I pay all of my income taxes, too.

2011-08-12T11:49:00.001-05:00

Great Start

After a lengthy strike and lockout that angered fans whether they supported the rich players or the even richer owners (except for the Green Bay Packers, who have 110,000 stockholder owners, most of whom are decidedly not rich), one could be pretty sure the start of the National Football League season would be screwed up.

I watched part of the first exhibition game last night on the tube. Not unusual, eh? Well, the show was titled “Monday Night Football.” Last night, of course, was an integral part of Thursday.

Another exhibition game will air this evening. Wonder if the presentation will be called “Tuesday Night Football?”

2011-08-04T08:14:00.000-05:00

Another Barrier Broken

On Monday, I passed the average life expectancy of an American male.

What a relief. With that barrier behind me, no generally recognized obstacles lie in my future until we get to what often is cited as our maximum allowable stay on earth. For me, that is 44 years and a couple of months in the future.

That should give me just enough time to finish up those two book manuscripts I’ve been working on (sporadically).

How do we know 120 years is the magic number? Because “the bible tells us so” (Genesis 6:3). The 120-year limit also pops up in a genetics theory supported by a fair number of scientists. How could that number be wrong?

For one thing, a French lady just a few years ago lived to the ripe old age of 122. Her longevity was well documented. On the other end of the scale, a different passage in the bible says the limit is 70 years. If that forecast was right, I’d be long gone. Various other religious pronouncements say all sorts of different things on the subject.

Shucks. Can’t we poor humans count on anything, even an approximate exit date? Well, that old saw probably covers it—death and taxes lie ahead, for sure.

2011-07-28T07:09:00.000-05:00

The Power of the Pen

Oh yes, we’ve long been told the pen is mightier than the sword, despite numerous instances when it wasn’t. We’ve yet to be told the pen is mightier than cell phone messages, e-mails, or tweets. Recent experiences at our place showed it might well be.

More than a year after disputing my 2009 real estate taxes, I was told my claim had been upheld and a settlement check would be sent soon. Six months later, despite numerous phone inquiries and e-mails, no cash had appeared.

I decided to sit right down and write those guys a letter--the old fashioned kind on real paper with a real signature, placed in an envelope, and delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. The only bow to today’s technology was typing it on my computer and printing it out.

I threw in a few legal-sounding phrases in the hope the Michigan Tax Tribunal and my local assessor might think I was benefiting from expert legal advice. (You can pick up all sorts of lawyer phrases watching reruns on TV of “Boston Legal” or the more recent “Harry’s Law” show. Both are entertaining, although they probably have little to do with reality.)

My letter worked. Almost immediately, the assessor presented me with a settlement document to sign. Shortly thereafter, a check arrived in the mail from the county treasurer.

During almost the same time span, promised utility company rebates for installation of a new heating system failed to materialize. Phone calls and e-mails to the contractor and the utility proved fruitless over several months. Each entity said the other was responsible; none offered any real help.

Remembering the “mighty pen” adage, once again I put computer to paper. The letter to the contractor’s vice-president included some nifty phrases like “time is of the essence” and “documentary evidence” and strongly implied that Small Claims Court was the next place we were likely to meet, although I carefully avoided any specific threatening language. Two days after I mailed the letter a sales agent phoned and asked what the company could do to make me happy. I told him, and he did it.

If letter writing has been removed from your communications arsenal, you may want to consider reviving it, if just for those special occasions when more modern techniques don’t get the job done.

My “mighty pen” is about to be dusted off again. Two months ago I sent e-mail requests for some routine information to two U.S. Forest Service research units. One, to the Forest Products Laboratory, asked a general question about the status of a long-running research program. The other, to the webmaster at the Pacific Southwest Research Station, inquired about the status of a history of the organization, which I knew was produced a few years ago. Neither organization responded.

When I worked at the Forest Products Laboratory back in the 70s, it was considered almost a sacred duty to quickly and accurately respond to any request for information. Every incoming letter, and there were thousands, was logged in and assigned to an individual or unit head for reply. A fairly high-level administrator followed up if replies were not made promptly; he also monitored outgoing mail to ensure responses were complete and of high quality.

The many good attributes of our ability to communicate quickly and effectively in the electronic age apparently are counter-balanced by a big, fat negative. If a potential correspondent doesn’t feel like working a bit to frame a reply, he or she simply ignores an e-mail inquiry and nobody seems to know or care.

As a tenacious geezer, I will get the answers to my questions, either with an old-fashioned paper letter or a lot of pesky phone calls. But why, oh why, do they make it so difficult when an e-mail response would be so easy?

2011-07-21T05:04:00.002-05:00

The right mix for the USA

Dumb and Dumber

A Cocktail Party
Position

For several years, your Cocktail Party chairman had legislative liaison responsibilities for the U.S. Forest Service in research or management areas that included the State of Utah. There was a standard saying among legislative coordinators, including those who closely observed the Washington scene, regarding long-time Senator Orrin Hatch. It went like this:

“The only political people dumber than Orrin Hatch are his staff members.”

Now the Utah Senator is again proving his mettle by proposing a constitutional amendment to require balanced federal budgets. Rookie legislators in the House have passed a bill requiring balanced budgets; fortunately, it will go no further.

Mandatory balanced budgets work rather well at the state level, but there the stakes are quite different. Imagine a few scenarios should the feds have a strict balanced budget system:

1. Floods sweep over large parts of the Ohio River Basin. Several governors ask the President to declare disaster areas in their states and provide emergency federal funding to deal with the crisis. The President cannot comply; because it is late in the budget year and the government has insufficient funds earmarked for natural disaster relief, has no surplus funds in other accounts, and is not allowed to borrow money to cope with the unforeseen disaster.

2. North Korea without warning launches a massive missile attack on U.S. bases in South Korea and Japan. Military leaders urge immediate retaliation. The Commander in Chief says, “Sorry, boys, but we’re maxed out on the defense spending budget item right now. Your actions will just have to wait until next fiscal year unless we can quickly get three-fourths of the states to change the Constitution. We’ll probably have to eliminate Social Security next year to handle the extra military funding if we can’t get a substantial tax increase passed in a hurry.”

3. The State of California goes bankrupt. The Governor asks Congress for emergency funding to maintain the education, law enforcement, and prison systems while all the legal issues are being resolved. Congress has no funds budgeted for such bailouts, so it decides to respond by cutting 200 billion dollars from the authorization for defense spending.

4. Unprecedented forest and range fires burn huge acreages throughout the western States. The U.S. Forest Service asks Congress for a supplemental appropriation to pay for combating the blazes. To comply with the request, Congress cuts general disaster relief funds earmarked for such things as unforeseen flooding in the Midwest.

And round and round it could go. The federal government is where the buck stops when disasters strike us. That’s why the founding fathers wisely provided our government with the ability to borrow funds and didn’t say a word about balanced budgets.

We do need to reduce the size of the national debt in the near future, but removing the ability to borrow when necessary would be sheer folly. Borrowing is necessary right now, and will be for some time, to keep the good ship USS America from sinking and sucking the rest of the world’s economies down with it.

Senator Hatch is smart enough (just barely) to know that many Americans are dumb enough to think a federal balanced budget requirement would be just peachy-creamy. A balanced budget amendment would be horrible.

The Great American Cocktail Party is absolutely opposed to any requirement that the government of the United States be hamstrung by a balanced budget amendment or similar foolishness. Our representatives have enough trouble functioning rationally without that sort of impediment to effective government at the federal level.

To view the announcement of the founding of the Great American Cocktail Party visit the August 5, 2010 post titled “Coffee, Tea, or . . .” in the archive on the right-hand column of this Blog.

2011-07-17T09:30:00.001-05:00

In Grateful
Memory

Seaman Aaron D. Ullom (U.S. Navy, assigned as a hospitalman to a Marine combat team), 20, Midland, Michigan. Killed while on patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, July 12, 2011.

2011-07-14T08:31:00.000-05:00

Will Work for Taxes

We were among the fortunate. My wife and I both were born before 1946, so my pension continued to be exempt when Michigan Gov. Snyder and his critics “compromised” by phasing in new taxes on retirement income rather than taxing all seniors the full amount immediately.

Almost hidden in the hot debates were the other two legs of the proposal to raise taxes on seniors. One removed the homestead tax credit for residences with assessed values above $135,000. The other removed the $3,200 individual personal income tax exemption for all seniors.

Thank you, governor, for sparing the oldest Michiganders such as us from part of the tax increase. Unfortunately, the other two tax increases will cut our spendable income by about $1,000 a year. We have no prospects for recovering that amount in the future, other than returning to work. At age 75, I’m having a hard time finding employment.

Perhaps one of those businesses Gov. Snyder said will use my higher tax payment to create jobs will hire me? I’ll wait for the calls.

(This item was published June 26 in the Kalamazoo Gazette. The Geezer is still waiting for the first job offer.)

2011-07-10T12:04:00.003-05:00

In Grateful
Memory

Staff Sgt. Joshua A. Throckmorton
(U.S. Army), 28, Battle Creek, Michigan.
Killed by an improvised bomb during an
attack by enemy forces in Paktika
Province, Afghanistan, July 5, 2011.

2011-07-07T08:43:00.006-05:00

Sgt. Einer Ingman at age 82.

A True Hometown Hero

Other commitments kept me from attending the Fourth of July weekend activities in my hometown--Tomahawk, Wisconsin. That was unfortunate for several reasons.

The parade is a good one. There’s plenty of music, lots of participants, and having a Harley Davidson plant in town ensures there will be enough high-volume roaring to suit those who appreciate Fourth of July noise. Many high school classes hold reunions during the weekend, so it is a good time to renew old acquaintances.

But most important, I missed a chance to see a real American hero for the third time, and there probably won’t be many more chances. Most people have never seen a Medal of Honor or met anyone who has earned one. Sgt. Einer Ingman, who now lives in Irma near Tomahawk, received one for extreme valor during the Korean War.

Ingman is one of only 85 men alive today who have earned a Medal of Honor. About half the awards were made during the Civil War, when the medal was established. Since the start of World War II, only 859 soldiers, sailors, and airmen have earned the medal, and half forfeited their lives doing so. Ingman is one of just three Medal of Honor recipients now living in Wisconsin.

The Medal of Honor is nothing like those ribbons you see covering the chests of generals and admirals. That gaudy stuff mainly consists of unit citations awarded just for being somewhere, not doing anything. Earning a Medal of Honor requires heroic action.

I never was personally acquainted with Einer Ingman, but because of him I can claim membership in the small group of people who have seen both the medal and a recipient. In 1951, Ingman was flown from a military hospital to receive his award from President Harry Truman. Shortly thereafter, he took leave from a military hospital to be reunited with his family in Tomahawk.

The visit was somewhat of a surprise to civic leaders, but they moved quickly to set up a parade and a program to recognize Ingman. I marched in the high school band during the parade. Immediately after that, the program was held in Pride Athletic Park. I was among the spectators.

Tomahawk people did themselves proud. They gave Sgt. Ingman a new Buick sedan and what is almost as essential in northern Wisconsin—a new boat. I was close enough to the hero to see the award he wore around his neck.

A few days later, I got much closer to Ingman. We were in a small group waiting for the doors to open at the Lyric Theater for an evening movie. Ingman had difficulty walking with a cane and support from his girlfriend, who he married a year later. Frankly, it was hard to look at his disfigured face. It was said he had a dozen operations up to that time. He ended up having 30, before surgeons could do no more for him.

I said “Hi,” and he said “Hi.” I think it was just a ritual hometown greeting. He joined the Army while living in southern Wisconsin, and thus probably made north wood’s visits only occasionally on leave. Two years earlier, I worked with his brother, Bobby Ingman, for two months at the Highland Egg Farm near Tomahawk, and that was my only direct contact with the Ingman family, I think the war hero was just saying hello to everybody he encountered, which is customary in small Midwestern towns.

In the 59 years since, I’ve never crossed paths with Sgt. Ingman. He and wife Mardelle, who had seven children, attended numerous patriotic events over those years, including 11 presidential inaugurations. I had to make a living during that time, and didn’t travel in the same circles.

Medal of Honor recipients are so rare because of the extreme courage they must exhibit to merit the award. Here is a summary of what Sgt. Ingman (then a corporal) did to earn his medal, and what happened to him as a result:

Ingman was in one of two lead squads of an assault platoon in Korea. While attacking a fortified ridge held by the enemy, the platoon was pinned down and both squad leaders and several men were wounded. Ingman assumed command, combined what was left of the two squads, and formulated an attack plan.

Than Ingman single-handedly attacked a machine gun crew that was firing on his group, tossed a grenade into the emplacement, and killed the soldiers with his rifle. He approached a second machine gun, and was knocked to the ground and lost part of one ear when a grenade exploded near his head. As he got to his feet, he was shot in the face by a Chinese soldier. The bullet entered his upper lip and exited behind his ear.

Ingman continued his attack on the machine gun emplacement, firing his rifle and killing the remaining crew with his bayonet. He then fell unconscious as his men captured the objective and forced the enemy troops to flee.

Ingman was sent to Tokyo for medical treatment; he regained consciousness seven days after the battle. He lost his left eye and the hearing in his left ear, and had severe amnesia. Memories gradually returned after emergency brain surgery, but he has experienced memory problems throughout his life since and has difficulty speaking clearly. He was transferred to Percy Jones Army Hospital in Battle Creek, MI, for additional treatment, which spanned two years and included 23 surgeries.

What heroic action and what a horrible price to pay. I relate the details only to emphasize the huge sacrifices made by men who earned the Medal of Honor. Ingman still carries the scars of battle, and now is wheelchair-bound. The photo here was published recently by the Tomahawk Leader.

My hometown people saluted Sgt. Einer Ingman once again with a special ceremony on July 5, sixty years to the day after he earned his Medal of Honor. I wish I could have been there, if only just to say “Hi” to a hero.

2011-06-30T07:43:00.002-05:00

“The Fridge” (left) and the kitchen variety both can inflict considerable pain. Encountering either one should be a young man's game.

Refrigerators. . . Ouch!

I used to shudder while watching William “The Refrigerator” Perry run over pro football opponents when he was among the stars on some great Chicago Bears teams. Probably part of my horror was because “The Fridge” seemed to save his most ferocious attacks for my favorites, the Green Bay Packers, who were suffering through some bad years at the time.

The Bears added insult to the Packers’ injuries in one memorable game when they placed Perry, a defensive tackle, at running back. He promptly plowed over and through a couple of Packers on his way into the end zone for a touchdown. I remember wondering at the time how it might feel to be hit by “The Fridge” when he was traveling under a full head of steam. I got a pretty good idea a couple of weeks ago.

Perry claimed he weighed 382 pounds at his physical peak. That was in 1985 when Da Bears won the Super Bowl. The average weight of refrigerators in American homes nowadays is 400 pounds. As part of our ongoing home remodeling project, I was on a two-man team moving a slightly below-average-sized fridge down a flight of stairs. It and Perry probably would have been a match on the scales.

We were not novices at appliance moving. Equipped with a rented professional-model dolly, we securely attached the refrigerator and worked it into position at the head of the stairs. Being the oldest team member (by far!), I took the easy position below the unit. All went well for a while.

Then, about halfway down, we loused up our procedure somehow. The fridge started thundering down the stairs right on top of me. There was nowhere to go but down as fast as I could, and that wasn’t fast enough. The refrigerator bashed me against the wall at the bottom and pinned one arm and both legs to the floor.

I suffered a gash on one leg, a cut elbow, a slice on a hand, a terribly painful knee on the other leg, and assorted scrapes and bruises. When my moving team pal managed to crawl over the fridge and pry it up so I could escape, he asked, “Did you hit your head?”

“Are there any dents in the wall?” I asked.

“None that I can see.”

“Then I didn’t.”

For two days I could hobble about 15 feet from my bed to the bathroom with painful effort and help from a walking stick and anything else I could grab to take pressure off my knee. Two weeks later I could walk fairly normally, and most of the cuts and bruises had healed quite well. Today, everything is back to normal.

I’ve decided fooling around with refrigerators is a young man’s game. In a way I was lucky my encounter with a runaway 380-pound object happened late in life on a stairway rather than as a youth on a football field. Granted, those Packers “Refrigerator” Perry plowed through wore protective helmets and pads, but they didn’t have several weeks to heal up before their next game.

2011-06-25T09:56:00.000-05:00

In Grateful Memory

Pfc. Brian J. Bakhus (U.S. Army), 21, Saginaw Township, Michigan. Killed by small arms fire in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, June 18, 2011.

2011-06-23T07:48:00.003-05:00

Ah, Yet Another
Benefit

The right mix for the USA

A Cocktail Party
Informational

Our executive committee was entertained recently by a newspaper column written by two automotive experts. They were asked if cleaning an engine’s spark plugs with vodka was a good idea, and if so what brand was recommended.

The response to the main question was an emphatic “Yes,” with the observation that any type of alcohol is good for cleaning up accumulated grime and sludge. We have known that for years. It is only logical to believe that a few well-constructed, highly alcoholic, martinis ingested at decent intervals have played a key role in keeping our chairman’s piping in excellent condition for more than five decades.

The mechanical wizards went on to recommend using expensive vodka and avoiding any of the juice and vegetable additives favored by the younger set in what they erroneously claim are martinis. The mechanics were right on the second count, but way wrong on the first.

Their error was in succumbing to what we call the “James Bond Syndrome.” Who has not heard 007 ordering up his favorite drink, a “vodka (pronounced in Bondian British something like vuwadka) martini, shaken, not stirred?” Rubbish, we say. Bond was an exemplary agent, but a total failure as a martini connoisseur.

First, vodka is a tasteless beverage favored by Russian peasants and depressed businessmen who would rather get quickly drunk to forget their woes than have their palates pleasantly tickled. Gin, on the other hand, has a unique taste associated with imperial splendor and fashionable cocktail gatherings around the world. Second, shaking a martini is premature, and thus counter-productive. An excellent martini features two small stuffed olives and a very small amount of vermouth. If you shake the gin and vermouth and pour it over the olives, much is lost. Ice is important. Drinking martinis “straight up” can be disastrous to your equilibrium.

The proper way to make an excellent martini is to fill a glass with ice, add two small olives, pour in two jiggers of gin (large if you really want to get blasted, small if you don’t) and add a dash of vermouth. Stir the liquid gently with a toothpick or swizzle stick upon which the olives are impaled. Stand or sit with a compatible person or persons, sip slowly at intervals, and enjoy the experience.

Never drink only a single martini. That will unbalance your body chemistry and ruin your disposition. Two is the correct number. Three is too many, unless you have a fervent wish for something approaching oblivion.

Two more instructions should be heeded. For the very best martinis, chill the glasses for a half hour before you do anything else. Putting them in the freezer does this nicely. If you have no room, surrounding the glasses with ice cubes or chips in an insulated container is almost as good.

Use any cheap gin and the most expensive vermouth you can find (Martini and Rossi is recommended). This is important for your economic well-being. If you have followed the other steps to successful martini making and ingesting, you will enjoy the result and save a good deal of money in the long run.

Cheers!

2011-06-18T18:29:00.002-05:00

Read It Your Way

German friend Eckart Maier chided the geezer with several messages while he was reading Days With The Dads: Recollections of a Small-Time Journalist, by Richard J. Klade.

Maier read the book a few pages at a time over several months during his daily train commute to work. He advised that a version available on a hand-held electronic device would have made his journey through the memoir more pleasurable.

Eckart, it took a while, but your suggestion, and probably those of others, got action. Now, the 120 million or so readers who can shop at “iBookstore” and own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch can buy an edition of Days With The Dads specially formatted for them to enjoy. The price is a bargain $8.99, a big discount from the retail cost of a paper version.

What will our intrepid production company president, Sancho Thuesen, come up with next?

Apple describes the contents of the new addition to its library thus: “An array of stories—many funny, some educational, and a few inspirational—take readers through the evolution of middle-class American society from the years just after World War II until the Iraq War era.”

Readers now can have it their way, whatever that may be.

2011-06-09T09:18:00.010-05:00

By Which Rules?

In sports, as well as in life, there are written and unwritten rules. And sometimes, the unwritten ones take precedence.

Two incidents in major league baseball just a few days apart illustrate the point. Both involved catchers. I toiled at that position as a youth on grade school, high school, American Legion, and county league teams, so the news got my attention.

First, Buster Posey, a legitimate all-star performer with the San Francisco Giants, had a broken leg after an opponent crashed into him instead of sliding as Posey awaited a throw near the plate. Posey is out for the season. Just days later, Houston Astros’ catcher Humberto Quintero was put on the 15-day disabled list with a sprained ankle after a collision at home plate.

What’s new? Not much. Catchers have led most leagues in injuries since the game began back in the 1800s. “Muddy” Ruel knew of what he spoke when he dubbed the face mask, shin guards, and chest protector (plus a cup to protect a young man’s most important parts) as “The Tools of Ignorance.” Ruel was a catcher for the Washington Senators. The implication was that intelligent people with some semblance of ability could choose more rewarding positions with fewer hazards.

I was a very slow runner with other limited skills, so working behind the plate was my only real chance to participate in what was then, without a doubt, America’s pastime. Green Bay Packers t-shirts were rarely seen when I was a kid in Wisconsin. Chicago Cubs and White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals (and eventually Milwaukee Braves) caps were common. Every rinky-dink town had a baseball team, and, especially on Sundays, going out to the old ballpark was the thing to do. Boys wanted to be part of the action, and donning “The Tools of Ignorance” was my chance for glory.

My baseball career ended at age 17. By then I was smart enough to know I couldn’t hit curve balls tossed by even washed-up former minor league players. I also knew by then I had a relatively weak throwing arm to go with my poor foot speed. Before those truths dawned on me, I had played in several hundred games.

Four things remain from my days on the diamond. A deep bone bruise in my left hand still hurts if something hits there hard enough. The thumb on my right hand is noticeably larger than the one on the left, the result of being split open (it resembled an overcooked hotdog at the time) by a foul tip. All four fingers on my left hand work just fine (I can type really fast), but I can bend them at the first joint in a way few other people can. My left kneecap has a small scar over an area that serves well as a weather forecaster.

That’s what catchers do. They get hurt, whether the hurt is applied by errant balls, foul tips, flying bats, or base runners intent on scoring any way they can.

During the time I played, and to this day, the written rule in baseball said a catcher cannot impede a runner by standing in the base path without the ball. I knew that, because I made an effort to be familiar with the rules of the game.

My high school coach, who was a former minor league catcher as well as a college football star, never mentioned it. He taught the unwritten rule: “Your job as a catcher is to guard that plate. Make the opponents respect your territory. Whenever you can, make them pay a price for crossing the plate.”

My mentor pointed out that catchers have an advantage. The “Tools of Ignorance” give them some armor-plating the runners don’t have. That doesn’t always help, though. It often didn’t help in county ball.

The Lincoln County League, where I played two summers, was made up mostly of men in their 20s and 30s with only a smattering of high school boys. It was a man’s game, no question.

In one contest at Tug Lake, a community consisting almost entirely of a tavern and a rudimentary baseball field with no fences, the going got rough. Early in the game, a runner charged in from third base after tagging up on a fly ball. I took the throw and had plenty of time to block the path between him and the plate. He chose to slide with one foot high enough in the air to rake a spike across my leg above my shin guard. There is no written rule against that kind of high-spiking; there is an unwritten rule.

He was the third out, so the father of one of our players had time to give me medical attention between innings. That consisted of pulling a piece of sod out of my wound, dousing the cut with beer, and applying a bandage brought by a lady who had been watching the game from a window in the tavern. I continued to play. We had no subs.

A bit later, one of my teammates, Joe Obey, retaliated. Obey weighed well over 200 pounds and had success as a football center and hockey goalie among his athletic credentials. He was clearly out at first base on a routine ground ball. The first baseman somewhat sloppily let his foot drag over the bag. Obey stepped on it. Howls of pain and a few choice words resulted, but there was no serious injury.

Perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, an opposing runner tried to run right over me several innings later. He was attempting to score on an infield ground ball. I blocked the plate without the ball, assuming it had a chance of arriving about the time he did. It did.

The runner threw himself into me with a sort of clumsy cross-body block. But he missed most of me. I heard a sharp crack as I tagged him out. The middle of his shin had collided with the middle of my shin guard. He had a broken leg. The game was stopped for some time waiting for a stretcher and an ambulance. There were no further incidents, and both teams adjourned to the bar after the contest.

In the wake of the major league collisions, some are proposing rules changes to make it illegal for runners to try to level catchers and to keep catchers from impeding a runner’s path to the plate. The latter already is the rule. Neither of the two injured big league catchers had the ball when they were bashed. They were the ones violating the rule, not the runners.

The better player of the two, Posey, made somewhat conflicting statements. “I don’t think he did anything illegal,” he said of the runner who broke his leg. Later, he suggested that runners might be required to slide if “a lane presented itself.” Why should they have to slide when they could score by just running straight ahead?

Traditionalists yowled that just because an all-star was seriously hurt doesn’t mean the rules should be changed, and that injuries in the battleground around home plate are inevitable. I’m pretty much of an anti-violence guy, but in this case I’m with the traditionalists.

And, it’s not all bad to have a left knee that throbs a little to warn you when a storm is coming.

2011-06-08T13:49:00.001-05:00

In Grateful Memory

Pfc. Robert L. Voakes, Jr. (U.S. Army), 21, L’Anse, Michigan. Killed by an enemy explosive in Laghman Province, Afghanistan, June 4, 2011.

2011-06-05T18:47:00.005-05:00

One Up, For Sure

The geezer used to get lots of laughs with this line:

“Utah has a higher birth rate than Bangladesh.”

Well, no one stays atop the comedy charts for long. Recently, blogger Kay Dennison (http://kaysthinkingcap.blogspot.com) provided a U-Tube link in which Bill Maher rolled them in the aisles while discussing presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Maher said:

“Mormons have a higher birth rate that Catholics on Ecstasy.”

2011-06-01T14:30:00.000-05:00

He’ll Be There

A trusted commentator, who keeps track of such things, wrote on Memorial Day that many communities abandoned the traditional parades years ago. She said the holiday, originally established to honor Civil War dead, was becoming nothing more than a chance for family barbeques and other outings preceded by heavily promoted sales of outdoor merchandise. I was shocked.

By gum, Plainwell, Michigan, hasn’t abandoned our parade. People decked out in red, white, and blue came from near and far. The Martin Fire Department even dispatched a truck, and their village is seven or eight miles away. Imagine that.

I lucked out. A little bench in front of the Plainwell Ice Cream Company, the most popular place in town during summer, miraculously was empty. There I perched for the whole show.

Just as I settled down, a white-haired man wearing a Veterans of Foreign Wars outfit sat down on the other end of the bench. As he rose to offer up a salute when the honor guard carried Old Glory past us, I noticed his shirt and trousers were crisply pressed, the brass insignia on his collar and cap sparkled, and his black shoes gleamed. I also noticed, as the procession continued, veterans and military personnel in the parade often SALUTED HIM as they passed by our bench.

Things like that still happen in small towns.

The parade was almost a replica of those held a half-century ago in my hometown, which is just about the size of Plainwell. The high school band tried mightily to stay in some sort of formation and deliver a martial air. Children, young and old, followed the band in various costumes and vehicles. Restorers of old cars and tractors showed off their prize possessions.

Floats (I use the term very loosely) sponsored by businesses, churches, schools, and other organizations appeared at intervals. Most were decorated trucks of various sizes and vintages. Three displayed signs honoring a Plainwell boy killed in Afghanistan just a week earlier (see previous post). After the parade, a special ceremony at the city’s veteran’s memorial monument honored him. That was nice.

Everything wasn’t solemn, though. Few others seemed to make the connection, but I doubled over in laughter after a business “float” followed by a dozen girls decked out in Uncle Sam uniforms had passed. A point of local pride is that boys from our county formed the Federal unit that captured Confederate President Jefferson Davis near the end of the Civil War. Apparently unaware of which side Michigan was on, the operator of a CD player on the “float” programmed it to blare out the strains of “Dixie.”

What the heck, nobody in the parade was a professional, except the cops who kept things in order and the firemen who showed off their equipment. After the last police car signaled the end of the procession, many of the bystanders headed for an ice cream social on the lawn of the Community Center. The social was conducted by volunteers to benefit a women’s shelter charity.

The VFW guy and his wife just got up without a word and headed, arm-in-arm, for their car, which was parked not far from mine.

Abandon the Memorial Day Parade? I’ll bet if that old vet hears of any such nonsense, he’ll personally march through Plainwell to keep it from happening.

2011-05-26T10:05:00.004-05:00

In Grateful Memory

PFC Thomas C. Allers (U.S. Army),

23, Plainwell, Michigan, killed by an

improvised bomb in Kunar Province,

Afghanistan, May 23, 2011. We did

not know the family; many in our

area did. He was an only child and

a well-liked grad of the local high

school.

2011-05-26T07:28:00.000-05:00

The Price is What?

A few years ago, when beautiful wife Sandy and I were young marrieds, we had to watch every penny to stay above the poverty line. Included in our little family was a lovable poodle named Mitch—for Mitch Miller, the sing-along star of TV fame. Trust me; there really was a resemblance between the jovial band leader and our favorite pooch.

We wanted all the best for Mitch so, despite our meager bank account, when doggie problems came up we promptly took him to a veterinarian of good repute. Dr. Shebanek had a degree from Ohio State as a credential, and a pleasant dog-side manner that made clients want to return whenever professional care was indicated. After several visits, we noticed the bill was identical for quite different services.

We began to refer to the good vet as “Twenty-dollar Shebanek.” We paid that amount every time we put Mitch in his care. Perhaps the limited fee schedule was a way of simplifying his bookkeeping.

Nearly a half century and lots of cost inflation later, we noticed a certain parallel. Sandy’s computer went soundless. Our favorite expert couldn’t fix it. It was repaired at the local techie place. Cost: $200.

This happened about a week after a blogger from Ohio reported her computer developed a mysterious ailment, which her electronic expert friend couldn’t fix. It went into the shop for repairs. Cost: $200. Just after Sandy’s puter returned to duty a blogger in Virginia said his machine went whacko and was sent off for treatment because he could not find a cure. Cost: $200.

We just don’t know what to call the repair nerds. Maybe, $200 geeks? Doesn’t seem to have much pizzazz to it.

2011-05-23T08:08:00.000-05:00

Hold That Celebration

All sorts of reports appeared over the weekend of people in many places partying and cracking bad jokes because it appeared that the forecast Judgment Day and associated Rapture transporting the worthy to heaven was just another false alarm.

Well, hold on there a minute, folks.

It is true that Judgment Day did not start at 6 p.m. on May 21 in New Zealand with an earthquake as the prophesy said it would. And nothing spectacular happened at 6 p.m. as we progressed through the other time zones. But that is not cause for celebration or ridicule. The preacher who launched the whole idea surely will point this out as soon as he has had a chance to think things through.

A quick check of the status of most of my friends and acquaintances shows all are still with us. But we would have to check the missing person lists worldwide to be sure others were not raptured soon after their clocks struck six. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but few if any of my contacts have unblemished records. I may have committed a few minor transgressions myself. It is, therefore, not surprising that none of us vanished over the weekend.

If the bar was set very high, it just could be that only a dozen or so humans qualified to rise into the kingdom on the 21st. The rest of humanity, according to the prophesy, will get what’s coming to us between now and October 22. During that time, a series of catastrophes will extinguish many lives throughout the world. On the 21st, presumably at 6 p.m. although the prophet didn’t state the hour for this event, the world will end in a fiery ball.

Looking at things this way explains something that’s been bothering me. Following my generous offer (see May 11 post) to accept excess assets from all who believed they were too wealthy to make it into heaven, I received only two responses. One fellow blogger sent me a bill for $40,010.00, after calculating that his net worth was under water. The other respondent mailed a check for $1.37.

It’s too late now to make yourself more attractive by shedding your cash. You’ll all just have to join me in toughing it out until fall. Then we can party with confidence.

2011-05-19T02:35:00.001-05:00

Modesty, First Class

For about 20 years when we lived in Ogden, Utah, the Geezer regularly played golf on Saturday mornings at the Ben Lomond Golf Club with the “Local Legends.” The Legends were mostly U.S. Forest Service personnel and retirees, but there was some diversity in the membership.

For a time, Richard Jones, a professor at Weber State University, played in the group. Of course, he almost immediately became known as “Dr. J.” What else?

Dr. J. was a big man who appeared to be in excellent condition and could hit golf balls a long way. He soon was asked the obvious question, “Did you play football in college?”

“Yeah, I played for a couple of years at a small West Coast school,” the professor somewhat grudgingly admitted.

Dr. J. continued with a story about one of the toughest games he ever played in when Michigan State badly defeated his team. Spartan coach Duffy Daugherty went directly into the losing team’s locker room after the game and gave a little speech telling the dejected players they should be proud of they way they conducted themselves during the contest. Dr. J. said he had never forgotten that example of goodwill by an opponent and how he was positively affected by it.

What was the “small West Coast school” whose team lost that day with our friend at tackle?

Stanford.

2011-05-14T10:44:00.001-05:00

In Grateful Memory

Cpl. Daniel W. Courneya (U.S. Army) 19, Vermontville, Michigan. Killed by enemy fire near Al Taga, Iraq, May 12, 2011.

2011-05-11T12:54:00.003-05:00

Let Me Save You

We have been assured by Christian fundamentalist Harold Camping and his followers that the long-awaited Judgment Day is May 21. That gives us only ten more days of normal life.

The Geezer was concerned. A quick google of “Judgment Day” turned up all the biblical arguments and associated mathematical formulas that Camping says prove beyond a doubt we all will be brought to judgment on the 21st. Further, after a period of Rapture in which the “elect” will be taken up into heaven, the world will end on October 21. The webpage evidence was overwhelming. It made a believer of me.

Being convinced we now are living in the last few day’s of the history of earth, I did a little more Internet searching for details about just who the “elect” may be. Well, I found precisely who they will not be.

The Christian bible says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.” Wow! That’s pretty clear. We can assume that rich women, except for very skinny ones, also are excluded from entering the pearly gates. In the days Matthew allegedly penned the words, men didn’t feel much obligation to give spending money to their ladies, which probably explains the discriminatory language.

Some fundamentalists have tried to wiggle out of the clear biblical meaning by claiming the “eye” really is a narrow street or gate, so only the chubbiest of billionaires would have to be concerned. A majority of religious thinkers, however, say those who put forth this view are full of camel dung. The needle is a needle, and needles don’t have big eyes. And camels have big humps.

Unfortunately, nowhere in the bible is there a concise, or any other, definition of “rich.” So we are left on our own to figure that out. At least in America, almost everyone who is not extremely wealthy took a real kick in the assets during the last two years. So, it seems fair to define as “rich” any person whose net worth at the moment exceeds $10.

After pondering the situation at length, I have decided to sacrifice myself to save vast numbers of my fellow citizens. After all, I have lived a long and satisfying life. It is now time to dedicate what few days remain to others.

If you are nervous about your wealth, you can wrest yourself from among the rich guys who are going to unpleasant places on October 21 by cashing everything in and sending me the difference between your liquified assets and $10. Hurry. This offer definitely expires at midnight May 20. After that, it's a crap shoot.

Should the million-to-one chance that the fundamentalists are wrong actually happen and we are still here on October 22, I will cheerfully return all of your cash (except for a minor administrative fee of 5 percent to cover postage, transportation, and office expenses).

No need to thank me. The joy of giving myself up for a good cause will be reward enough.

2011-05-05T05:30:00.000-05:00

Was He Worth It?

Two related things deserving of comment happened this week at almost the same time. As just about everybody knows, President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan. A day earlier, a Blog reader asked why I limit posts honoring our war dead in the Middle East to men and women from Michigan.

Considering the question first, the Geezer would like to honor all our troops and those of our allies equally. Unfortunately, I simply don’t have the time or resources to identify and salute every individual who falls in combat or is killed as a result of our wars in the Muslim world.

I only had to lower my flag and do a post here four times during April to recognize American heroes from my home state of Michigan who were killed in the Middle East. Four is a terrible toll, but it is only a fraction of the 49 young men and women from throughout the USA who were killed during April in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it is an even smaller number compared to the total of NATO allies lost plus hundreds of Afghans and Iraqis killed during the month.

The news media seem to have lost any interest they had in reporting Middle East casualties, but if you want to keep track of part of the carnage you can do so at http://freedomremembered.com/. That site will give you details of American deaths as they continue at the rate of about one every day. For the others, you will have to do additional detective work.

One of our government’s stated purposes for spending nearly a decade as an occupying force in Afghanistan was to hunt down bin Laden. Now we have succeeded in that. I most assuredly do not mourn his passing. But I wonder whether the life of that despicable monster was worth even one of the fallen sons, daughters, or grandchildren of my Michigan neighbors and many other good people throughout the world who participated in his pursuit.

Will we now honor all of our troops and their comrades by bringing them home?

2011-05-02T18:18:00.000-05:00

In Grateful Memory

Pfc. Robert M. Friese (U.S. Army) 21, Chesterfield, Michigan. Killed by a rocket-propelled grenade, Al Qadisiyah Province, Afghanistan, April 29, 2011.

2011-04-28T14:04:00.001-05:00

In Grateful Memory

Sgt. David P. Day (U.S. Marine Corps) 26, Gaylord, Michigan. Killed by a roadside bomb, Badghis Province, Afghanistan, April 24, 2011.

2011-04-28T08:31:00.002-05:00

The Right Mix for the USA

Those Cats are Too Fat

A Cocktail Party Position on Taxes

Now that some of the smoke and hot air has blown away and we are into serious discussions about federal budgets and how to stop the deficit bleeding, it is time to start talking sense about income tax rates. As usual, quite a few statements by politicians on both ends of the political spectrum twist the facts, or simply are not true.

One common assertion is almost true. The most recent Bush-era tax cuts are derided by political opponents as a gift to the wealthy. Actually, all taxpayers got a reduction. However, the very rich did benefit the most because the top dogs saw the maximum rate reduced from 44 percent to 35 percent, a huge advantage for them.

That brings up something often misunderstood about income taxes. Using an example that might apply to some of us mere mortals, let’s compare a couple filing jointly with taxable income of $50,000 and one whose income is $4 million. The tax rate for the little guys is 13.3 percent. The tax rate for the wealthy couple on the first $50,000 of their taxable income also is 13.3 percent—exactly the same. Higher rates for the high earners gradually kick-in at higher levels of income; the fat cat couple does not pay 35 percent on all of their income, only the amount that exceeds $379,150.

Consider President Obama’s income taxes this year. All recent presidents have made their return information public—a good thing. The Obamas filed jointly. Their income totaled $1.73 million. Most of it was the President’s $400,000 salary and royalties from three books he authored that sold millions of copies. The Obamas paid $453,770 in income taxes. That’s a lot of cash, but it is 26 percent and change, not 35 percent.

Knowing their tax records will be made public no doubt inhibits the Obamas from using tax loopholes to reduce their rate to an even lower level. Most wealthy folks have no such constraints. They can hire accountants and attorneys the little guys cannot afford. It is well-documented that the experts guide their clients to numerous legal ways to avoid a whole lot of income taxes. The rich don’t need much help in finding ways to profit from capital gains; these rates are lower than the income tax levels. People at the low end of the income spectrum have little or no ability to earn capital gains.

Some of the wealthy like to point out that they support millions of low-income people who pay no income taxes at all. It is true that nearly half of Americans pay no income taxes through their annual returns to the Internal Revenue Service, but some of those filers are quite well-to-do. And, everyone who works is liable for payroll taxes that finance Social Security and Medicare. These amounts are income taxes, even if we choose to call them something else.

Congress responded to an Obama proposal by using some trickery to give employees a gift throughout 2011. The usual 6.2 percent Social Security tax on wages was reduced to 4.2 percent. The difference, the legislation says, will be made up in transfers of funds from the treasury to the Social Security trust funds. The trouble with that is the treasury is broke, and the gift contributes to the ballooning deficit. The Social Security trust funds were doing just fine, with a multi-trillion dollar surplus, before this ruse went into effect. It is going to be difficult for Congress to take back this unnecessary gift at the end of 2011. If this tax reduction is not rescinded, it will seriously weaken the Social Security system.

Opponents of any income tax increase claim a return to the 44 percent top rate for the wealthy would retard the creation of badly needed jobs, and even contribute to increases in unemployment. That line of thinking is at odds with reality. The top rate peaked at 92 percent in the early 1950s. It was reduced to 77 percent in 1964 and later to 70 percent, where it stayed throughout most of the 1970s. The three decades when very high rates were in effect were among the most prosperous times in American history.

As the top income tax rate was lowered, we experienced a massive redistribution of wealth in the U.S. from the poor and the middle class to the rich. Reports based on Internal Revenue Service statistics show this clearly. One appearing in The Washington Post last summer said the average income for the top one percent of earners rose 281 percent, or about $973,000 per household, in the previous 10 years. The bottom 20 percent of earners saw their incomes rise only 16 percent, or $2,400 per household, during the same period. When inflation is factored in, poor and middle-class workers actually lost money while the fat cats grew much fatter.

The top one percent of Americans now take in nearly 25 percent of the annual income generated in the country. They control 40 percent of the wealth. These figures have risen dramatically recently as unemployment also rose to high levels.

Americans are fascinated by the rich and famous, and most of us admire those who climb up the economic ladder through their hard work, often coupled with risk-taking. We think they deserve to be well-rewarded. But we know instinctively that the current vast and growing gap between the rich and poor in the U.S. is unhealthy. Respect for the rich is turning to anger over huge Wall Street bonuses and outlandish salaries for corporate officers and a government that seems unable or unwilling to make adjustments to compensate for the excesses.

What we feel in our guts is bad for America has a scientific basis. A 2009 best-seller, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, describes links between wide income gaps in nations and social problems. The problems including obesity, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, homicides, imprisonment rates, lowered life expectancies, over consumption of resources, teen pregnancy, and lack of upward mobility.

Surprisingly, the scientists state that many of the problems are experienced by the rich as well as the poor when wealth is very unequally distributed. And the connections to wealth inequality prevail in rich as well as poor nations. The scientists once again confirm the link between income gaps and poverty, which has been described many times.

Error rates can be high in studies involving the human condition and interpretations of data always are somewhat subjective in the social sciences. But if the authors of The Spirit Level are correct about only a few of the links they describe, we have compelling evidence that huge gaps in income and wealth within nations contribute to vexing problems that have high costs for all citizens. The ultimate solution when the gaps become too wide is revolution. No thinking American wants that.

The Cocktail Party endorses three actions to reduce the gap between the haves and have-nots in America to a more reasonable level, help reduce the federal deficit, and preserve Social Security:

1. Restore the top income tax rate to the 44 percent level when the current tax legislation authorizing the 35 percent rate expires.

2. Return the Social Security payroll tax rate for employees to 6.2 percent at the end of 2011.

3. Remove the cap on Social Security payroll taxation, which currently is $106,800, but leave the maximum payout where it is. Currently, the Social Security payout for workers who earned high salaries and retire at age 66 is nearly $26,000 per year. It rises through cost-of-living adjustments as do all payouts. That’s plenty of safety net for any destitute fat cats who manage to lose their millions. Removing the taxation limit coupled with minor changes in the way cost-of-living adjustments are calculated is sufficient to assure Social Security will be solvent for the foreseeable future.

The fat cats can well afford to slim down a little for their own good and the common good.

To review the announcement of the founding of the Great American Cocktail Party visit the August 5, 2010 post titled “Coffee, Tea, or . . .” in the archive on the right-hand column of this Blog.

2011-04-26T18:23:00.001-05:00

In Grateful Memory

Lance Cpl. Dominic J. Ciaramitaro (U.S. Marine Corps) 19, South Lyon, Michigan. Killed in combat, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, April 23, 2011.

2011-04-21T07:08:00.000-05:00

Put That in Your Cart and . . .

Beautiful wife Sandy is a shopping wizard. She can ferret out bargains obtainable with no sacrifice in quality and develop schemes for visits to stores that rank right up there with some of the more successful military campaigns in history. Sandy is at her best in dealing with the supermarket scene.

With rare exceptions, Wednesday is grocery shopping day. Sandy spends about a half-hour taking inventory, checking for coupon deals, and developing a list. Visits to two, and sometimes three, supermarkets are planned. I go along on the shopping trips often enough to maintain a barely adequate ability to handle the tasks on the infrequent occasions when Sandy is not available to replenish our supplies.

Wednesday is the day of choice for several reasons. All three markets get major deliveries on the same days, and Sandy long ago coordinated her visits with those events. At all three, shelves are fully stocked with fresh merchandise on Wednesday. Also, weekend advertised specials are in effect, but by making a mid-week trip we avoid the clogged aisles and long checkout lines that make supermarket visits miserable on a Saturday or Sunday.

The first market on our route gives a 5 percent senior discount on all purchases—only on Wednesdays. Best of all for me, the same store offers free coffee to fully mature adults on Wednesdays. Yes, Wednesday is the day.

Our next stop generally has lower prices, and Sandy buys items there priced below the 5-percent discount level at stop one. Coffee is 50 cents a cup at the second market, not a bad deal at all if I haven’t fueled up sufficiently at the first place.

Because my only important contributions to successful market-going are sipping coffee and pushing the cart, I have ample time to observe the strange attire and activities of fellow shoppers. It is cheap entertainment—almost as good as sitting in an airport, one of our long-time favorite spots for people watching. The variety is incredible. I often coin playful names for some of the characters—Go-Cart Gertie, Aisle Blocker Blanche, Chatty Cathy Checkout, The Raucous Rug Rat—and quite a few not for publication here or elsewhere.

On a recent visit to what is the cleanest and best-maintained of the three markets, I noticed the door of the toilet enclosure for handicapped folks in the men’s room had been vandalized. Someone had inflicted numerous dents in the metal panel, as though the perpetrator had been pounding on the door with a club.

Could it have been the work of Harvey Stall Banger?

2011-04-14T09:51:00.000-05:00

Buckets of Buds

Sure signs of spring have arrived. Golfers are out in droves, advertisers are extolling the virtues of the latest gardening gadgets and products, and the “Boys of Summer” are back at it doing their best to whack baseballs out of the park or prevent the other guys from hitting them “where they ain’t.”

For me, spring always sets off a bit of reflection back to the days when I served as Sports Editor of the Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune. Spring meant a new crop of young pro baseball players would arrive to start a 124-game schedule in the Midwest League. Covering the team, a farm club of the Minnesota Twins, was my primary task until falling leaves signaled the end of summer. The local club played home games at Witter Field.

Witter Field was a nice ballpark, but no one would mistake it for Yankee Stadium. The press box perched atop the roof over the stands directly behind home plate resembled an enlarged chicken coop.

The box was clean, but far from fancy. It included a counter across the area beneath the two open windows and a few folding chairs. Bill Nobles and Dave Van Wormer joined me there on many summer evenings. They served as public address announcers, and broadcast most of the Class A minor league games for radio station WFHR. They occasionally asked me to fill in some dead time with a statistical report. Those moments probably set radio announcing back quite a few years.

Equipment perhaps unique to our press box occupied one corner. A pail tied to a lengthy coil of rope stood ready for a midway point in the game when one or all of us usually got thirsty. The beer stand was directly below the press box.

We would put two dollars in the bucket, lower it to the beer dispenser, and wait until he tugged on the rope. We then reeled up three Buds and our change.

Our radio broadcasts and newspaper reports didn't suffer. We almost always confined ourselves to one Bud per game. For young Wisconsin men, that hardly amounted to anything. Fans near the beer stand often greeted the appearance of our bucket with a cheer, so we thought we were making a worthy contribution to fan entertainment in addition to slaking our thirst.

Ah, springtime at the old ballpark.

2011-04-13T15:54:00.002-05:00

In Grateful Memory

Hospitalman Benjamin D. Rast (U.S. Navy) 23, Niles, Michigan. Killed by a missile fired from an American drone, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, April 6, 2011.