?`s and ANNEswers

Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Connections

Posted on April 19, 2024

The NY Times offers a game called “Connections” every morning for free. In other words, you don’t have to subscribe to the paper to play, but I imagine it’s something like a loss leader in grocery stores. You get hooked and maybe want to buy a full subscription.

“Connections” has become part of Earl’s and my daily routine; in fact, it is the start of it. You can find the instructions online, so I won’t describe them here. Rather, here are some observations I have that could help novices.

First, most words on any given day are both nouns and verbs. This is important, although I assume not many people these days know the distinction. Trust me, it helps. Next, the most obvious answer is rarely correct. Lion, witch, and wardrobe are not about C. S. Lewis; instead they belong to The Wizard of Oz.

Then there are words within words. For instance, the four words tinder, ironic, leadership, and Goldilocks have nothing in common on the surface. But if you study more closely, you see that the minerals tin, iron, lead, and gold are imbedded in the longer words. So one must dissect the words in many different ways.

It’s an interesting game, and our record so far is fairly decent. Maybe you’d like to try one I made up. What do carrot, partridge, information, and mission have in common?

(Send me your answer in the comment section, which is at the bottom, far right, of every blog, after all the “share” icons.)

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Vacations

Posted on April 18, 2024

I’ve been home from Boston about 24 hours and have begun to assume the mantle of my daily life in Benton Harbor. It’s a comfortable life: we have more money than month; we’re entering the most gorgeous time of the year; and asparagus farm stands are about to open.

Still, I’m struck with how a vacation puts your regular life on hold, and it’s a good thing.

In the past six weeks I’ve taken two vacations, one to Naples, FL, and the other to Boston, MA. Even though I brought my computer on both, I wasn’t tied to checking my bank accounts, answering emails, or solving problems. Sure, I’d planned ahead before leaving town, so that I wouldn’t be greeted with any ugly surprises. And, yes, I returned to a stack of projects.

But in between I was aware that vacation meant long periods where I could read a book, catch up on items of interest, and have more time to relax. I didn’t worry about cooking meals or cleaning the house or tending the garden. Emails went unanswered, and the world didn’t end.

In essence, I got off the grid. In this age of technology, where everything is an urgent “NOW,” it was refreshing to feel aimless and untethered to the daily grind. I recommend it highly.

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The Day After

Posted on April 16, 2024

There are many different ways to experience Boston on Marathon Weekend. Some people come from all over the world to soak in the local culture, enjoy fantastic seafood, attend a Boston Red Sox game. And then run the race on Monday after a loaded weekend of tourism.

That’s never been our style.

Other runners fly in at the last minute, get their entry packet, run the race, and fly home with little sense of the city.

That’s never been our style either.

Our pattern is to stay about five days, hang out at the same haunts year after year (which are local establishments rather than historic monuments or sport arenas), sleep a lot, and save energy for the big day. Our celebration is the day after the race when we decompress before returning to our individual lives.

We go to the Black Rose, an Irish pub on the waterfront, where we devour fish and chips, listen to Irish music, and rehash the previous day’s trials and triumphs. We compare this year’s race to previous ones: the weather, the spectators, the finish line. Kevin’s time.

Then we head to our lodgings to pack and start home tomorrow morning.

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Bombing

Posted on April 15, 2024

April 2013 –  Boston Marathon bombing. Lives interrupted, race stopped, city on edge.

April 2014 – I am at the eight mile marker waiting for last year’s survivors: those with new limbs and those with impaired eyesight; the runners who were stopped before the finish last year; the elites. And then my son, Kevin, who is running Boston for the first time.

The tears are pungent as is the scent from grills where residents plan to spend the day. A cacophony of cheers, claps, cow bells . . . and footsteps.

I see Kevin in the crowd; he blows me a kiss. Then I head for public transportation and the finish line in downtown Boston, the MC’s raspy exhortation: “Take back the finish line” ringing in my ears.

And 35,000 runners did.

April 2024 – Ten years later.

Still coming to Boston. We are all ten years older, but the mystique remains. The bombing and taking back the finish line have receded but not completely. They probably never will. At one security checkpoint a woman said to me, “If you had been here the year of the bombing, you’d understand.” I said nothing, but because we were here the year after we understand completely.

For the record, a little under 30,000 runners finished this year. Kevin ran 3:14, which qualifies him to run Boston 2025.

We’ll be back.

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More Migrants

Posted on April 13, 2024

Kevin and I are not alone in our migration to Boston. This year, there are 32,000 runners with probably as many family members providing support along the course. This doesn’t match the number of arctic terns or monarch butterflies who flit the globe annually; but it is impressive since humans have the ability to choose whether they migrate or not; animals do it by instinct.

We are staying in an Airbnb for the first time, because hotels have become too expensive. What we spent $250 a night last year at the AC Marriott is now $400. So L, Kevin’s partner, who is a pro at finding space with good vibes and fewer dollars involved, booked a flat for us in a neighborhood about a mile and a half from the AC at about 50 percent of the cost.

We don’t know what the other 31,999 runners are doing this evening, but we assume most of them have arrived, possibly picked up their race packets, and are bedding down for the evening. For most serious runners, tomorrow, the day before the race, is devoted to relaxing, carb loading, and going to bed early.

In that regard, the 32,000 migrants are all in sync.

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Boston Bound

Posted on April 11, 2024

The arctic tern holds the record for the longest annual migration recorded by any animal as it moves between Greenland and Antarctica in a zig-zag route that covers 44,000 miles a year.

In another  part of the globe, around 1.3 million wildebeest travel nearly 1,900 miles each year as they follow the rains around the Serengeti.

And in Boston, Kevin and Mom make their annual pilgrimage to that Holy Grail of marathons sponsored by the Boston Athletic Association, the oldest continually run race of that distance in the world: the Boston Marathon.

Sometimes it’s just the two of us. Sometimes other family members and friends have come. But in the ten years since Kevin first ran Boston – It was the year after the bombing – it’s become a special event.

We visit the same pizza joint, the same bookstore, the same Irish pub every time. We predetermine where I’ll stand along the route and cheer when he runs by. We relearn the “T,” Boston’s excellent public transportation system. And we immerse ourselves in the lore of winners, past and to come on Monday, April 15.

So if I’m negligent about blogging for the next week, please chalk it up to following our natural instincts. Just like the monarch butterfly and the barn swallow too.

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Prepping

Posted on April 10, 2024

I’ve been in the gardens, and there’s a ton of work to be done. But there’s nothing like the warm sun on your back, little wind in the air, and soil that is ready to give up its weeds to get motivated. Especially the ease of pulling weeds.

Have spent time the past two days, after removing rose cones, addressing the weeds. I didn’t mulch last season, which means weeds felt free to spread their roots and leaves.

Some people mulch over the weeds, but I’m a purist. I start each garden season pulling weeds before laying mulch. I also prune my bushes before laying mulch so that it remains as clean as possible for as long as possible.

All of this means that while my neighbors in the condo community are mulched, I am not. It’s by request. In one way, it means more work later in terms of laying the mulch; but the bushes will be trimmed, the annuals planted, and the weeds banished.

I am a happy gardener.

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Total Eclipse of the Sun (With apologies to Bonnie Tyler)

Posted on April 8, 2024

It’s Total Eclipse Day for much of the United States. Where I live in southwest Michigan it was just a 95 total percent eclipse opportunity. Still, we were invested.

The day was seventy-degree warm, cloudless (which is good for eclipse watching), and calm. I gardened in the morning and got ready to watch the grand event around 1:45. The eclipse itself started at 1:53.

Our friend S joined us. We had snacks and beverages and chairs on the patio. But no trees, which made for optimum viewing. We also had the prescribed glasses, the ones with the tiny instructions on the back side. Both S and I love grammar, and we did find the instructions to be confusing. But then there won’t be another eclipse for a while, so we decided against querying the manufacturers.

Instead, we reveled in the spectacle along with Earl. We watched the entire process and found it food for thought about science, God, and the importance of the sun. When the moon was at 95 percent we were aware of a drop in temperature and an eerie cast to the land.

When it was over, S went home; Earl and I puzzled as we always do to start the evening; and life returned to normal, although I suspect there will be a gazillion photos online and in the news for the  next 24 hours.

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Richard Hunt

Posted on April 7, 2024

Yesterday I attended a special memorial honoring the life of American sculptor Richard Hunt, who passed away last December. I didn’t know much about Hunt, other than having walked past his local installations uncountable times.

My favorite is a work titled “And You, Seas.” Standing nearly 50 feet tall, it was installed in 2002 where the St. Joseph River empties into Lake Michigan at St. Joseph and Benton Harbor. Going out to the lake or returning to the river, it’s a welcoming sight.

Yesterday’s memorial featured his close friends sharing their personal memories. Little of it focused on the fact that he was the foremost African American sculptor from 1958 to the present. There were no lists of his accomplishments, his honorary degrees, or his installations. No mention that his life’s work was affected by attending murdered Emmit Till’s open-casket funeral at the age of 19.

There was, however, a theme from speaker to speaker on how kind and gentle this man was; how encouraging of others; how he could work a room but found the greatest solace in his Benton Harbor studio. How he believed in Benton Harbor as a community of opportunities.

I came home inspired and went to his website to learn more.  It seems inspiration is what Richard Hunt did best after all.

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Conundrum

Posted on April 6, 2024

I believe newspapers are an important source of information on many levels. Nationally recognized publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal built followings for their excellent writing and on-the-scene coverage, regardless of whether one agrees with their political leanings. They cover the national scene from global politics to emerging art to dynamic sport events to current culture.

But as costs for printing a paper increase and the push to put everything online intensifies, newspapers struggle to survive in the age of technology. I’m saddened by this, not so much for the big city papers, but for the local community ones, our own Herald Palladium a case in point.

When we moved here over twenty years ago, the HP, as it’s called, had four or five sections, tons of advertisements, and a full time staff. Now there are only two sections, except for the Saturday edition. But that isn’t the only change.

The paper used to be delivered by a delivery person; now it comes with the USPS mail. It’s a morning publication, but our postal person delivers in the mid-afternoon. If there is no mail on a given day, there is no HP. Which means the Sunday edition has bitten the dust. Additionally, the paper never prints on Mondays. So there are at least 104 fewer papers per year.

I would give up paying the $377 a year it costs to read neighbors’ obituaries, syndicated columns, and sport news from local high schools. At the same time, I don’t want to contribute to the demise of something I believe is important. Any suggestions?

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