Friday, January 28, 2005
Taking Stock
It’s a new year and that’s cause for taking stock of one’s past efforts. In my case I’ve been thinking about some of the Michiana Chronicles that I’ve recorded. I think some of them needed a little polishing. So here goes:
I recently did a piece on the joys of flying. As luck would have it, the very next day after it aired off I went into the friendly skies. The trip was just plain horrible. Delays on top of delays. Bathrooms that should have been condemned. They even ran out of food before they could reach our aisle, and by food I’m even including those little peanut packets. I had the feeling that I wasn’t so much flying as taking part in a tv movie entitled, “when corporate America strikes back.” While my unhappiness quotient was pretty high, I did feel sorry for the flight attendants who were warding off ever-increasing hostile stares from fellow passengers. In the holiday spirit I offered some Tic-Tac mints to two of them and they took them with the gratitude of a last meal. There was an intriguing twist to this hell-ride: apologies were doled out to us by the dozen. Meaningless apologies, true, but I found it kind of touching that people would get on the sound system and say “we apologize for the delay and we can’t help you in any way.”
Just before the election I wrote a piece on questions I’d like to ask President Bush during the debates. Happily, this spawned some great hate mail (I’m talking to you, Steve in South Bend, and Dale in Osceola...thanks for caring!). Well, the election is over, W. has won, and I have tried to move on by pretty much giving up. And then last month I saw that photo of Bush putting those Presidential Medals of Freedom on CIA Director George Tenet, General Tommy Franks, and Paul Bremmer. These “freedom fighters” helped get us into the most morally dubious war in American history. But this photo got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, our Prez should spend some of that political capital he is so proud of and give some more medals of freedom to other Americans who have screwed up so royally. So, George, why not bestow a medal upon Benedict Arnold? Sure he was a traitor, but he was a patriot at one point in his life. And isn’t it time to celebrate Jefferson Davis’ contribution to uniting this country? I mean if it wasn’t for his leadership of the Confederacy during the Civil War we wouldn’t even have this whole Red State, Blue State thing today. Finally, how about giving a medal to Yoko Ono, Mr. President? I mean she only broke up the greatest rock band in history. And given your dislike of the later Beatles’ music I see a natural fit here.
Last spring I wrote about a dismal car trip I took from South Bend to New Jersey. I now think I got something very wrong when I wrote about this experience. At the time I argued that one of the reasons why driving on the interstates is so depressing is that people like to see new and different things when they leave home--and there’s just nothing interesting on these roads these days. But I was wrong. People don’t want the shock of the new, they was the comfort of the old. Thinking back on this trip also, in a curious way, got me thinking about Osama bin Laden. What this monster has done is tap into this fear many Americans have of the new and has managed to exacerbate it ten-fold. We now live in a constant state of fear thanks to him and our government is only too happy to yank up this fear factor as well. And so we citizens become ever-more docile, ever-more dependant on the dictates of our government leaders. This hunch of mine also allows me to blame Osama for the dismal state of food and drink on the interstates. So thanks Osama!
And, finally, I wrote a Chronicle about a series of photos I took of stray gloves in New York. I was amazed and touched by the ways in which people responded to these images. Someone, for instance, sent me a web site of lost gloves from around the world. As luck would have it, you can, right now, see some more photos of my stray gloves at the IUSB library. I may not be a poor, starving artist, but if you like one and want to buy it, I’ll send your money to WVPE. Promise. And as I said last year: hang onto your gloves.
News & Editorial • Travel • Permalink • Printer Friendly
A random selection from more than 300 Michiana Chronicles -- refresh the browser to see another set:
Joe Chaney -- More essays by Joe
Louise Collins -- More essays by Louise
April Lidinsky -- More essays by April
Jonathan Nashel -- Taking Stock / More essays by Jonathan
Jeff Nixa -- More essays by Jeff
Ken Smith -- More essays by Ken
Jeanette Saddler Taylor -- More essays by Jeanette
Chronicles Home | Email:
Leave a note for any of the authors at our WebNote page, or maybe you'd like a copy of our book?
About the series
Michiana Chronicles is a series of radio essays by Jonathan Nashel, Louise Collins, Joe Chaney, Jeanette Saddler Taylor, Jeff Nixa, April Lidinsky, and Ken Smith.
Michiana is the region of north-central Indiana and southern Michigan roughly centered on South Bend, Indiana.
Michiana Chronicles airs on Fridays at 7:35 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on WVPE (88.1 FM), the home of public radio in Elkhart / South Bend, Indiana.
| July 2008 | ||||||
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
Recent pieces
Making Up on the South Shore -- As we’re approaching the Beverly Shores station I glance over and see the woman looking into a pocket mirror. Yes, you’re pretty, sister. Don’t worry about that. Then she reaches into her bag and pulls out a big pink tackle box, sets it on her lap and opens it up, revealing a whole assortment of little tubes and jars. She selects one tube, squirts some stuff onto her fingertips and starts rubbing it onto…her face. Whoa! What are you doing? By Jeff Nixa.
Time Travel in Paris -- I had studied maps of Paris and read French literature and the Parisian works of American expatriates like Stein, Hemingway, Baldwin, and Miller. I had fallen in love, of course, with my French teachers in high school and college. My prior romance with the language, art, stories, and landmarks animated the city. I remember a morning when the sun emerged and lit up the domes and towers across from where my friend and I stood on a right bank quay, and the world itself seemed like a pure gift, a fresh beginning. By Joe Chaney.
Celebrating Magna Charta Day -- Runnymede, the site of the signing of the Magna Charta, loomed right up there in my imagination with Stonehenge: a couple of historical sites that had captured my interest early on. I can still see surly, pimply-faced, bad King John in some old movie being strongly urged, that is coerced, into signing this document where he promised to behave: “The Lion in Winter,” I think. By Jeanette Saddler Taylor.
Life on the Default Setting -- That foam cup will still reside in the county landfill when our great grandchildren are driving their offspring in a nuclear-powered mini-van to gymnastics classes on the moon. "Will you look at those kids jump!" By then the landfill will be the tallest manmade feature in north-central Indiana, visible from earth orbit. Astronauts will steer their sleek ships by the neon glow of all our waste. By Ken Smith.
It’s a Long, Long, Road from May to December -- Over the years Kurt Weill’s music has inspired a legion of devotees who want to be a part of his creepy luster. Some fifty years after Weill’s death Lou Reed took a stab at getting in on this kind of cool. Now, Lou is just about as cool as there is too. In the 1960s he co-founded the rock band, The Velvet Underground, and as the story goes, only a couple of thousand copies of their first album were sold, but everyone who listened to it formed their own band. The man gives new meaning to having no vocal range, and yet conveys everything that needed to be said. By Jonathan Nashel.
Pomp and Happenstance -- Truly, the moments in our lives that really deserve a brass band and velvet robes and a basso profundo voice saying “Something BIG has happened here!” are most often happenstance, unexpected. Maybe you’ve had the experience of reading a novel or seeing a film that shifts you, profoundly, to another axis – that peoples your interior with ideas or characters that become guides – or cautionary figures – for the rest of your life. Or maybe you’ve had a conversation with someone that suddenly made your world slide sideways as you questioned your faith – or gained a new sense of it. Those are moments that warrant pomp and circumstance, but they often pass quietly, despite their transformative legacy. By April Lidinsky.
A Kid and a Rock -- But every night I come home, the kid is hammering on the rock. He’s like a little John Henry. Small stones dislodged and fell to the dirt but then larger ones emerged, and eventually the worst one of all: a granite field stone the size of a pumpkin embedded in there till the end of the world. “This is hard,” he said. “Yeah, it is,” I said, watching the woman glare at me from hell. I left town for vacation. Two weeks. I was carrying an armload of sleeping bags back around the house when I stopped. The concrete monster was gone. Just a circle of rock dust in its place, littered with stones and in the center, the big granite pumpkin. I smiled. He did it. Dang. I’m going to go hug that kid. Buy them both a pizza or something. By Jeff Nixa.
True to Type -- We talk about what we are reading, what we have read, what we’ve read about reading (God bless the Sunday New York Times Book Review section!) and what we are planning to read next. Standing in front of the bookcase, my daughter-in-law, Nancy, and I were having one of those discussions. I think that she was holding Bobbie Ann Mason’s Clear Springs; she flipped to the back and saw the page that tells which font was used in printing the book and a bit of history about that font. Nancy said, “I can’t believe that they waste a page putting that in there. Nobody cares about that!” Danger! A big, evil-mother-in-law-trap just waiting to ensnare me there! Recognizing it in time, I pulled the shreds of my seldom-worn garment of tact around myself and did not blurt out, “Are you nuts! That’s a great thing! I love it when they put that in! It’s like frosting on a cookie; it makes it ever so much better!” By Jeanette Saddler Taylor.
Jump Ball at the Hoosier Primary -- I can’t believe it! At long last, Indiana matters during the national campaign season. We’re in the news every day. We Hoosiers have been crafty, too, not tipping our hand as to whom we favor. We’ve made Indiana a real battleground state, forcing the candidates to pour ad dollars into our communities in a despairing sort of Vegas binge. Here in the second congressional district, we’re a battleground within a battleground. And permit me to announce loudly that I’m an “undecided voter.” You guessed it: a battleground within a battleground within a battleground, the center of a political universe in which not knowing what you want makes you royalty. By Joe Chaney.
Doing Algebra -- I’m doing quite a bit of algebra these days, helping our young mathematician solve homework problems. I last took algebra from Mr. Webb way back in the year 19-mumble-mumble, when President Nixon was still lovingly adding names to his enemies list. My strongest memory from Mr. Webb’s class was that he never learned his students’ names. He called everyone Babe. No matter who you were, he’d say, “Babe, put the next problem on the board. Thanks, Babe.” But he must have been a pretty good teacher, because after a quick refresher I can solve a basic problem. And so for the moment I still have a role to play in our teen’s life. By Ken Smith.
Skirting the Issue -- Now, Land’s End and other sensible clothiers exploit this swimsuit anxiety brilliantly to play on both the intelligence and self-loathing of grown-up women. For one thing, you practically have to have your Ph.D. in Swimsuit-ology to wade through the thick catalogues hitting mailboxes now, with bold headlines promising “Flattering Solutions” – implying every body is a problem. In fact, you can shop by “anxiety zones,” choosing which body part you think most needs to be slimmed, supported, disguised, and, somehow, covered, all while revealing more than most of us care to face in full-length mirrors, fully clothed. By April Lidinsky.
Baby, It’s Cold Inside -- After you see these photos you will probably wonder what we can do to prevent every single last iceberg from melting away and becoming history. Here, I confess, I have no idea. I’ve heard it all before: lower carbon footprints, drive hybrids, recycle with abandon, hate the oil companies, love to read in the dark, you name it. And you know what: none of this is going to bring back these icebergs or grow new ones or do anything to stop our relentless destruction of the earth, let alone quell the naysayers on global warming. I recently heard on NPR that an iceberg the size of Connecticut just broke apart and is melting away. Now, I’ve been in Connecticut many times and I still can’t wrap my head around this little fun fact. What can possibly be the size of a state? By Jonathan Nashel.
Categories
Archives and syndication
- By author
- By category
- By date
- RSS 2.0 syndication
- Technorati Profile