Monthly Archives: December 2013

Riverside Reflection

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Thoughts from my seven-mile walk. Continue reading →

The rain on Sunday was predicted to begin around noon. I managed to drag myself outside to take a walk alongside the Connecticut River at about 9:15. I made it back to the office just as the precipitation was beginning two hours later.

I had been planning to listen to Pavarotti and Sutherland in Turandot, which is just about the right length for this journey. However, I soon realized that I had left my headphones at the house. I reckoned that it was not worth driving back to pick them up, and I certainly did not wish to risk getting drenched. So, I set out without my iPod. This had the inadvertent effect of allowing me to be a little less oblivious than usual concerning the surroundings. Here are a few things that I observed.

I encountered no other pedestrians during the entire period. In Volunteer Park, a narrow strip of land in East Windsor that abuts the river, someone was vigorously removing brush. Even though I passed within a few feet of her, she paid no attention to me as she removed small bushes and clipped them into pieces that she deposited into large paper bags. She was still at it when I returned ninety minutes later. I have no idea if she was employed by the city or undertook this campaign on her own volition. Her objective was likewise beyond my ken. It certainly made the river more accessible and removed cover for the animals.

I learned that the beverage preferred by litterbugs on the long, straight, sparsely-used road is, by a large margin, Bud Light. I counted more than a dozen empty cardboard eighteen-packs spaced out at intervals on the east side of the road. That is more than two hundred cans of beer! I also saw a couple of dozen cans, but most of them were on the west side of the road. I could not think of a scenario that would explain why the cartons were almost exclusively deposited on one side of the road, but the cans were predominantly on the other side.

The second most common item of detritus was the Coors Light can. A theme seemed to be developing. The litterbugs evidenced a strong predilection for light beer, and fairly expensive brews at that. Could they possibly think that these brands were the tastiest? Were they counting their calories? Did they want to limit their consumption of alcohol while maximizing their consumption of the other aspects of beer? Maybe they got a deal or a five-fingered discount on these brands, or maybe they just liked to pee. I mean, if you are going to get drunk, do you really like maximizing the amount of liquid required, or do you try to reach the ultimate state as soon as possible? I do not claim to know the answer. I guess that it is a question for the ages.

I noticed a pink pair of panties on the side of the road in an undeveloped area. I glanced at them long enough to realized that they came from a store that specialized in “women’s sizes.” I did not slow down to inspect them. In fact, I sped up a little.

As locations in Connecticut, one of the most densely populated states in America, go, this road is pretty remote. Here and there I saw quite a few parked trucks that had obviously not been driven for decades. I must have seen them before, but they did not make much of an impression. I must say that my dominant thought at the end of this walk was that people are pigs.

Near the end of the road the nearby railroad track crosses the river. Just north of the bridge is a sign that says “Stompers Point.” I had noticed this sign many times and wondered about it, but I had never noticed the building just north of the sign. It now has many trucks parked around it, but for the first time I paid attention to the long-abandoned building itself. I think that it must have been a station at one time, or at least that is definitely what it looks like.

When I finished walking I searched the Internet for information about the building, but I was unable to find much. I did find this photo on Flicker. I also discovered some newspaper stories about an attempt to build a new train station not at this location but in the Thompsonville section of Enfield, which is easily the most downtrodden area between Hartford and Springfield, MA. The proponents of the scheme have convinced themselves that a train station there will somehow revitalize Thompsonville. I will believe it when I see it.

One sign I did not see. There used to be a green street sign with “Enfield Town Line” on one side and “East Windsor Town Line” on the other. There was no sign of it at all. I suspect that it is now decorating someone’s bedroom. It would not surprise me to learn that this someone has downed a few Bud Lights.

The last quarter mile of my walking route is on Route 5. I noticed two peculiar things there. At the stoplight for the road leading to the industrial park stand a Dunkin Donuts and three other buildings. Two of them – Enfield Small Appliance Repair (which is comfortably located in East Windsor far south of the Enfield line) and the East Windsor Diner – have been abandoned for several years, and little or no effort seems to have been made to sell the properties or to turn them into something useful. I wonder why not.

The other building is even stranger. The building that faces the highway is a John Deere dealership that also sells Honda and Yamaha equipment such as generators, lawn mowers, and snow throwers. I bought my lawnmower there, but I never noticed that it shares a parking lot with a two-story structure that houses a hair salon and a store called Liquid Sun. I thought that the latter must sell that stuff that makes you look like you have a suntan in the winter, but I discovered that I was wrong when I looked it up on the Internet. They actually sell lighting and other products for people who grow plants indoors. I knew that kits for this were available in places with liberal marijuana laws, but I never dreamed that you could buy them at a retail outlet in this town.

One Century Ago

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Things were very different. Continue reading →

It often can seem as if the papacy is stuck in a rut. The pope is seldom seen without his traditional papal garments – either the vestments with the miter or his white cassock with the zucchetto, the little white skull cap. Photos from a century ago depict a different face wearing very similar attire. Similarly, the pronouncements from the popes on so many issues – contraception, abortion, homosexuality, women in the clergy, clerical celibacy – seem not to have changed at all in the last one hundred years.

This appearance is quite deceptive. The institution of the papacy has actually changed dramatically. Even a cursory examination of the man who sat on the Throne of Peter in 1913 reveals someone totally different from the last handful of pontiffs. Pius X, who reigned from 1903 to 1914, was the last pope to be declared a saint. The following observations about his pontificate emphasize how far the Church, admittedly a slow-moving institution, has come in that period.

    • By all rights Pius X should never have even been elected pope. Cardinal Rampolla was leading in the votes when a Polish cardinal vetoed his selection. How, one might well ask, did this cardinal have the right to prohibit anyone from being elected the leader of the Church? Because he had in his possession a piece of paper that said that Franz Josef, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor did not want Rampolla. For centuries the Holy Roman Emperor and a few other powerful rulers were awarded the privilege of vetoing papal selections. 1903 was the last conclave in which it was exercised. Pius X abolished the practice, but he did not decline the nomination that resulted from it.
    • Pius X was the third of five pontiffs who claimed to be unable to resume their rightful role as the legitimate king of central Italy because they were were being held prisoner in the Vatican by the Italian government. In fact, the Italian government, while it definitely did contest the pope’s imagined sovereignty over the corridor from Rome to Ravenna, allowed him to move freely around the country. Nevertheless, for the period spanning from 1870 through 1929, no pope ever left the Vatican. Think of that: the head of the largest Church in the world refused to budge from an area that is only one-fifth of a square mile!The claim that now seems so bizarre was based on some forged documents from the seventh century that purported to show that Emperor Constantine had bestowed on Pope Sylvester I most of the Roman Empire west of Greece. That these documents were bogus had been clear for at least six centuries before the era of the prisoner-popes.
    • The pope acted like a king, too. He had an elaborate crown, called the tiara. It was shaped like a a bullet and contained three rings of jewels.
    • The pontiff’s feet seldom touched the ground. He was carted around by a dozen or so men in a sedan chair called the sedia gestatoria. Someone kept him cool with a large fan made from ostrich feathers.
    • Pope Pius X banned all music except chant from Catholic services. I suspect that he was tone deaf. I mean, the music of Mozart and Vivaldi (who was a priest) was too wild for him. The only language allowed was Latin.
    • “Modernism” was the target of the pope’s most strident injunctions. It is not easy to pinpoint exactly what he was against, but anything not covered by Thomas Aquinas was pretty much out of bounds, including the scientific method. He forced priests and professors to swear oaths that they would not promote any “modernistic” teachings.
    • The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was still going strong. If you read anything on the list, you could expect to spend eternity tormented by beings with pointed tails, goat-horns, and pitchforks.
    • Loans were taboo. Christians could neither lend to nor borrow from other Christians if interest was charged. In the eighteenth century Pope Benedict XIV had ruled that the biblical ban on usury meant that charging interest on loans was absolutely prohibited, and he also said that no one was allowed to circumvent the prohibition by some elaborate arrangement that resulted in the same effect. This was pretty much the last word until the Code of Canon Law issued in 1917 muddied the subject sufficiently so that everyone could stop paying attention to it.
  • Pope Pius X detested the Italian government and refused to deal with anyone who recognized it.

By most standards today’s Church seems old-fashioned, but Pope Pius X would be moved to rage and then tears if he saw what had become of it. His successor, Benedict XV, was cut from a different cloth. He was equally appalled by what he saw in the world, but for entirely different reasons. I will write about him when the centennial of his investiture in 1914 approaches.

Me and Karl Pierson

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Shotguns and debate are a deadly combination. Continue reading →

As details of the backstory of Karl Pierson, the eighteen-year old who brought a shotgun (as well as a machete and some Molotov Cocktails) to Arapahoe High School, are slowly released by the media, memories of my own teenage experiences have flooded my consciousness. Yesterday a television station in Denver reported that the target of his assault was his debate coach, who was also, apparently, the school’s librarian. Today a newspaper in Oregon reported that Karl had evidently just been kicked off of the team. It also said that he had qualified for and participated in the national tournament of the National Forensics League last year in extemporaneous speaking. He must have been pretty good. Only the best in each state make it to the NFL nationals.

I debated for all four years of high school. I have very vivid memories of that period. As a freshman my partner and I won our first debate against two girls from (now defunct) Lillis High School. Actually, he won the debate, or maybe the other team lost. I was so nervous that I could literally hear my knees knocking together; I doubt that I said anything that advanced our cause much. I then proceeded to lose fourteen debates in a row. Two of those debates especially stand out.

For some reason the coach sent my partner and me to a six-round varsity tournament at Smith-Cotton High in Sedalia, MO. We dropped the first five rounds. The sadists who were running the tournament then pitted us against a pair from William Chrisman High in Independence, MO. These guys were not only 5-0, but they were also the defending state champions. I vividly remember being cross-examined by one of our opponents. He tied me in knots so badly that I punted and said that my partner would explain any apparent contradictions. I may have also admitted to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. Needless to say, this performance did not enhance my partner’s assessment of my abilities.

In the other memorable round I thought that I had single-handedly defeated and, in fact, humiliated the other team. One of the members of the opposition had quoted Hugh Hefner without giving his qualifications. As the most mature member of our team, I was the one who based his entire attack on the opponent’s case on the fact that Mr. Hefner was the publisher of a naughty magazine. Frankly, I was quite certain that the offending speaker would certainly have forfeited any claim to the debate. I was not positive that he would be banned from participating in the rest of the tournament, but I assumed that some form of severe punishment was definitely in order. It never occurred to me that ignoring his other arguments might not be a wise tactic. I mean, Hugh Hefner!

I got better eventually, but I never made it to the national tournament. In fact, the only time that I was ever even on one of the top two teams at my high school was during football season of my senior year. Unfortunately for me, you see, four guys from my class (including one football player!) won the state debate tournament as juniors. I was the fifth man during both of my last two years, but I had no chance of attending the state debate tournament.

I also competed in extemp, Pierson’s specialty. In my senior year I did fairly well in that event, and I made it to the finals of the state tournament. Even then, however, I did not come close to qualifying for the nationals.

I remember having an epiphany in the preparation (they gave you a half hour or so to research and write your speech after you were given the topic) for that event at a lesser tournament. A guy from Parkview High School in Springfield, MO, confided that he usually started his speeches with a bogus quote: “Was it Coleridge who said … ?” He filled in the ellipsis with something poetic, pertinent, and British-sounding. He claimed that this was OK because he never said that Coleridge actually said anything; he just posed the question.

I was much too scrupulous to resort to this tactic. However he did inspire me to make up a pope’s name once when I had to give a speech on the effect of the papal decree of some year on modern Latin American politics. I asserted that Pope Urban had split Latin America between Spain and Portugal. I half-expected to be struck down by lightning as I was speaking or to be challenged by the judge or timekeeper, but I actually scored pretty well. (I later learned that the author of the Line of Demarcation was Pope Alexander VI, the head of the Borgia clan at the end of the fifteenth century.) I never had the chutzpah to make anything up again.

I was in debate for fifteen years. I never heard of anyone getting kicked off of my team or any other. The closest that I ever came was when Mr. Rothermick, S.J., gave me a detention for shooting imaginary baskets with my rolled-up stocking cap. If I had been kicked off of the team, I doubt that I would have walked home (I certainly had no car) and taken up my shotgun in order to exact vengeance. I would have reasoned that even if this offense did not merit the punishment, my guilt-ridden life of sin surely justified the sentence.

Yes, I owned a shotgun! It was a .410, and it hung on the wall in my bedroom as a testament to my masculinity. I remember firing it twice. Once my uncle took me out to shoot at tin cans. The other time my dad, a neighbor, and I drove out to western Kansas to hunt pheasants with some locals. I remember firing at one bird. Somebody else claimed to have hit it, but my dad for some reason always thought that my so had brought it down.

Pierson, in contrast, wielded a 12-gauge. How he managed to injure only one person with five blasts from that monster has yet to be explained. Maybe he was so embarrassed by his poor marksmanship that he turned it on himself.

Person of the Year?

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Are words and symbols enough? Continue reading →

TimeSmallTwo popes had previously been named Time magazine’s Man of the Year. John XXIII was chosen for 1962, the year that he opened the Second Vatican Council and charged it with bringing the Church into the twentieth century, or at least the Age of Enlightenment. It was a dramatic decision. The Church had not convened an ecumenical council in a century, and that last one was called to rubber stamp decisions made by Pope Pius IX. In contrast, John XXIII had set in place a mechanism for listening to new ideas and implementing the best of them.

MOYSmallJohn Paul II was chosen for 1994. By that time the pontiff’s role in undermining the Communist governments in eastern Europe was becoming clear. He provided spiritual support for all of those movements, and he did much more than that for Poland. Many people still do not realize that the Vatican bank underwrote the political campaigns of the Solidarity Trade Union that eventually brought independence and democracy, not to mention the resurgence of Catholicism, to the Polish people.

Plenty of Catholics would argue that either or both of these two dynamic leaders were misguided (or maybe even tools of Satan), but no one could claim that they were ineffective or that their acts were of little consequence. Both pontiffs were masters at public relations, but they also knew how to convert their popularity into meaningful changes. They were actors.

Bestowing this title on Pope Francis seems to me comparable to giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama in his first year in office. I suspect that the people in Oslo would like a do-over on that one. The evaluations of both of these men seemed based not on what they had done so much as what their predecessors had done. Obama seemed ready to disavow Bush’s doctrine of preventive war, and Francis has at least eschewed the plodding mannerisms, luxurious accommodations, and red Prada shoes of Benedict XVI.

FrancisPope Francis has certainly made a number of startling statements and gestures. It is difficult to imagine any of his 263* predecessors uttering the words, “Who am I to judge?” His washing of the feet of others and, indeed, his choice of the name “Francis” were no doubt acts of symbolic importance.

But what has Pope Francis actually done? I read the Time article to see if I missed anything. OK; he has set up some commissions to look into some tricky issues, but that is the same tactic that Clement VII employed back in the sixteenth century to put off Henry VIII’s request for an annulment of his marriage. The only actual act that I could find was the elimination of the rank of “monsignor.” I suppose that that is something, but it did not go far in eliminating the hierarchy. There are still deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals and who knows how many other levels. The curia may feel threatened, but it has not yet been attacked directly.

Don’t tell me that Pope Francis has done everything that he could be expected to do. He is the man. He can make judgments! For example, he could eliminate the ban on contraceptives tomorrow morning right after his two hours of prayer. There is no basis in scripture, and the reasoning is convoluted. Other popes have contradicted their predecessors on far weaker grounds.

Someday Pope Francis may be widely recognized as a great pope. I strongly feel that Time should have waited for that day and instead selected someone who sacrificed his livelihood if not his life to bring to light the shenanigans in and around the NSA.

* Pope Francis is #266 on the list of popes, but Benedict IX’s name is there three times.

LM Party for Sue Rudd and Dave Landsberg

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Two speeches in one. Continue reading →

Cake50The Life Master party for Sue Rudd and Dave Landsberg was finally held on Wednesday, December 11, at the 9:30 game. Between the fourth and fifth rounds there was a little ceremony to present them with their pins and to cut the cake. I had planned to make a speech, of course, but Donna Feir warned me ahead of time to keep it short. She said that the president (Gene Coppa) was worried about running into the 1:30 game.

MikeI made some mental cuts as I played the first twelve hands with Jerry Hirsch as my partner. The stress and the distraction of trying to rewrite on the fly threw my game off, and that explains our mediocre results. That is my story, and I am sticking to it even though my play was actually just as bad after the speech was over.

Here is a pretty good approximation of what I said about Sue:

Over the last few years I have often given Sue rides to evening games, and almost always I have also remembered to bring her home. During those rides she told me that her goal was to have “Life Master” in her obituary. So I looked in the Courant’s Future Archives for her obituary. I want to share a little of what I found.

Sue2At this point I pulled a newspaper clipping out of my shirt pocket and read the following:

Susan F. Rudd – I’ll skip the dates – worked in the Collections Section of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, where she was known as Rudd the Ruthless. After retirement she divided her time between her family and her many hobbies. She is survived by her sons Paul and David, eight grandchildren, 27 great-grandchildren, 42 great-great-grandchildren, and one great-great-great grandson.

Susan is best known as being the only woman to win the American women’s super-senior tennis championship as an octogenarian, a nonagenarian, and a centenarian. However, her proudest accomplishment was to become a Life Master in bridge, a game without electronics that was popular in the twentieth century.

I set the paper down and turned toward Dave.

Dave2

Dave Landsberg, who is a chicken farmer, does not get out much. On the rare occasions when he goes to a tournament, he always wants to hit some dive or other afterwards, where I inevitably have to deal with his legendary Irish temper. I can’t tell you how many fights in biker bars I have had to drag him out of.

 

But that’s not what I am here to talk about. I want to describe the extreme highs and lows of playing with Dave. The zenith is easy to remember. In Auburn, MA, a few years back Pat, Dave, and I were part of a five-person team in the Sunday Swiss. I was elected captain, and I assigned myself to play in only the middle four matches. We were 4-2 when I went home to mow the lawn. It was a brilliant decision. The four of them won the seventh round and then in the eighth round they defeated a team that included Sheila Gabay and Jay Stiefel to capture first in B and C.

 

The low point was in the B-C pairs in Hamden when Dave and I decided to play semi-Bergen, semi-Flannery, and semi-inverted minors. The semi- part means that on any given hand one but not the other of us remembered to play the convention. We finished dead last in both sessions. But I will tell you this: even with that miserable result I thoroughly enjoyed playing with Dave.

 

I know both of these people very well and how hard they worked for this. They both richly deserve this honor.

Thanks to Jerry Hirsch, who supplied most of the photos.