Climbing the Tree

Several years ago my nephew Jim, using genealogy, explored our family tree.  He found a long lost cousin.  Joel turned out to be an attorney in LA associated with some very famous murder trials.

Now, Marguerite is time traveling with the Ancestry people.  On my mother's side she has traced us back to a castle in Sweden.  But her latest discovery would surely delight Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and whoever else cares about this stuff.

If you go back three or four generations on my father's branch of the family tree, you end up in a small town in Russia.  If you do the same climb on Marguerite's father's side, you end up in the very same town!

When she told me, I said: "Maybe when I met Jay, my DNA recognized his DNA and it was enough to seal the deal."

My Year as a Foreigner

My application to Northwestern was a spur of the moment decision made later than the normal time.  When the acceptance letter came, I was told the dorm rooms were full, but if I would agree to live in the “Foreign Student Home,”  I could come to school in the fall.

“Foreign Student Home. Sounds like an adventure. Yes!”, I smiled.  So I unpacked my bags at the  mansion on Orrington Street eager to meet my new exotic friends. Here were the others who showed up that day:  several girls on music scholarships, most from Chicago, some of them black(!); the rest like me, the dormitory overflow.  Not a foreigner among us.

My roommate Joy was a tiny blond girl from the southwest suburbs.  She played the piano like a dream.  (She went on to a great career at the Acorn on Oak in Chicago.)  All the music girls were talented.  The practicing and the jam sessions went on way into the night.

On Friday and Saturday nights Joy played piano at a bar on the “wet” side of Howard Street.  That was the dividing line between Evanston (dry) and Chicago.  We soon found out the hard way (being kicked out of bars in Skokie), that the Howard Street place was the only one that would seat our little integrated group.

Looking back on that fabulous year, I guess our black and white bonding was a pretty foreign adventure after all.

   

Regarding Us

One of my all time favorite films is Regarding Henry.  It stars Harrison Ford and Annette Benning and was produced by Sydney Pollack.  It’s the story of a high-powered, high-priced lawyer, at a high-prestige firm in New York.  He is shot and suffers traumatic brain injury.  With the help of a dedicated, wise therapist,  he comes back to a functioning state.  However, he now experiences the world from a place of innocence and innate decency.  With his new personality, he slowly bonds with his wife. His young daughter understands him completely.  In one of the most poignant scenes, she says: “Here Dad, this is how you tie your shoes.  Now you try.”

Eventually, Henry’s old ways reveal themselves to him and he rejects them.  His powerful colleagues patronize him at first, and then despise him.  I think the billionaires feel the same way about us.  We’re just so nervy to exhibit bedrock values and want to shift the power just a little bit.

Is Regarding Henry telling us that it's going to take a rewiring of our brains to turn us in a different direction?

A Stranger to the Stands

My step-father Harry was a sweet man, an older bachelor adjusting to his new life with a wife and two children.  During World War II he was a Captain doing research in the Air Force.

One of the men on his team had been the trainer for the Detroit Tigers.  Grateful for not being in combat, he said to Harry: “When this mess is over, I want you to be my guest at a game.  I’ll roll out the red carpet for you.”

When Harry found out that I was a huge Tigers fan, he made it happen.  We had great seats behind the dugout.  I got to shake hands with some of the players.  They autographed my ball.  I was busy explaining the action to Harry as he drifted off to sleep.

Many years later when I was working for the American Medical Association, I looked up Harry in their archives.  I found out about his distinguished career and that he had been one of the inventors of the fetal heart monitor.

Harry had great stats.  He is a member of my personal Hall of Fame.

A Coach to Remember

Cheating Coaches.  Cheated athletes.  As March Madness is upon us, I remember feeling good about this story when I wrote it awhile back.  Here it is again.

When Dean Smith died I wrote about his outstanding life -- as a basketball coach at UNC and as a human being. He championed civil rights in the south when it was unpopular and dangerous.  He stayed in touch with his players long after they graduated.  Some of them say they consulted "Coach" before making any big life decisions because they trusted him completely.

Now comes more good news about Dean Smith.  In his will, he has left $200 to each of his students who earned a Varsity letter at UNC.  He encouraged them to enjoy a great dinner as his treat.

We can use a little of this now, right?

Arkansas Time

When I was fifteen, I spend my summer vacation on a farm in Arkansas.  It was owned by our neighbors in Detroit and I played with their boys.  I was excited when my mother said I could go.

The farm house was very comfortable.  The family that worked the farm were friendly, warm, and happy to let me become involved in picking corn from the field,  gathering tomatoes, and other easy farm activities.  I learned how to churn butter.

Then the boys’ mother arrived.  I hadn’t noticed back home how mean and terrifying she was.  She told me I was “there to work!”  There was no talking allowed while we painted the walls in the farmhouse.  No radio, no running around, no fun.

When I was stupid enough to get up on a horse and, of course, fell off, she yelled at me for my injuries and told me I was being punished by God.  God came up a lot that summer as we were forced to attend bible services regularly.

I stuck it out and never complained.  

Many years later, I went to Arkansas again.  This time it was to Hot Springs.  I loved the baths.  There was gambling.  The devil won me over.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

There are signs everywhere that things are really out of whack.

Have you heard of the Iditarod?  It's a race across Alaska using packs of dogs driven by a man or woman called a Musher.  The race takes days going through the wilderness and ends up on the streets of Nome.  I guess it's the ice and snow version of the Tour de France ending up on the Champs Elysees.

Nicholas Petit and his team of sled dogs were way ahead.  Then the dogs started fighting with each other.  So Petit yelled at them.  The dogs stopped in their tracks and wouldn't go on.  They went "on strike."  Petit said they were well fed, and there were no medical issues in play.

"It's a head thing,"  he explained.

Update:  I just saw a story that researchers are discovering that dogs can detect their human's malaise.
Hmmmmm.