­­­­­­The Game

🐖    Pigs and Pigskin, A Family Retrospective   🏈

            You may think The Game refers to Michigan-Ohio State or USC-UCLA or even Harvard-Yale. Not in our clan. When we became the family outcasts and moved to Iowa, The Game occurred when Iowa and Michigan played football, but it didn't happen in Michigan or Kinnick Stadium. No, the real game took place off the field. Unlike many family traditions, I can pinpoint the perp, the day, and the venue when this one began.

            The perp was my brother-in-law, Mike, a quiet man and not known as a trickster or instigator. Heaven knows we have many other candidates for those positions in our family. The day was a September football Saturday in the early ‘70s. The venue was Gianettis Hole-in-the-Wall in Northville, Michigan, not far from Ann Arbor. After Michigan once again trounced Iowa, about 25 extended family members gathered at Mike’s favorite restaurant. It was a big, family-style Italian place. You didn’t order food there; they just brought it when they were good and ready. Served the whole place at once. They brought what they wanted you to eat and in large quantities. The Gianetti family members were servers, and they were loud. They slammed big platters of gooey Italian food on the tables, and they sang and yelled smart-ass comments to one another. After dinner, one of them took a mic, and the rowdy crowd quieted down.

            “Anyone go to that game over in Ann Arbor today?” he asked. Our table raised hands and cheered.

            “How’d that turn out?” he asked. Some of us cheered; some of us whimpered.

            “Anyone here from Ioway?” he asked. A fifth of our table reluctantly raised our hands.

            “Okay, boys,” he yelled to his staff, “you can take the silverware off those tables.” He then proceeded to malign us in a hilarious routine. Since he had been informed there was an actual Iowa professor at the table, Bruce became his special target for the rest of the evening.

That was a fun and unexpected event. All weekend, Mike looked permanently satisfied. I am sure the phrase “can of worms” (or “Pandora’s Box”) never crossed his mind, but it should have. My family does not go quietly into that good night, and it certainly does not go quietly into the kind of night when one is pranked.

Each year, 3 generations of Gilberts and their unfortunate, innocent relatives caravanned to Iowa City or to Ann Arbor for The Game. These were the years of Hayden Fry and Bo Schembechler. Naturally, a humongous, gaudy plaster pig named BoFry became the loser’s trophy. We painted the years and the scores on his side. The losers had to house the monstrosity, which took up half a back seat. Mike’s little surprise caught on, persisted, and grew. Inexplicably, the victims of these intensifying pranks became brothers-in-law, Mike and Bruce. Maybe that was just safer than irritating a Gilbert.

Ever seen the endless airplanes circling Michigan Stadium pulling ads and political banners? Ever see one pulling a disparaging message with your name? Round and round and round?

No way in my family does that call for an equal and appropriate response; it calls for something more akin to scorched earth. So, the next year, off I went to a West Branch, Iowa farm where a confused farmer rented me a young pig, about the size of a Cocker Spaniel. I got to choose from about 5,000 of Iowa’s finest, as this was a huge confinement. I needed to sequester him until game time, so one of Bruce’s colleagues volunteered. She took him home, gave him a bubble bath, and made him a nice warm bed.

Next day was a beautiful fall day, a great day for our tailgate picnic along the Iowa River. About halfway through, we heard an odd commotion in the crowd of tailgaters, a kind of squealing and crowd murmuring sound. It was getting louder. Then, as planned, out of the crowd came said colleague carrying said pig. He was wrapped in a baby receiving blanket.

“You Mike?” she asked as she approached him. He nodded. “Well, this is your pig.” And she placed the sparkling clean little guy in Mike’s arms. Surrounding Michigan and Iowa fans cheered and clapped. The li’l pig continued to squeal, probably because everyone was toasting him with brats. Mike suddenly pushed the animal out to arm’s length, and it dropped a large piggy puddle at his feet. On his feet. Another cheer from the crowd. Aunt Ellie fell laughing onto the tailgate full of potato salad and pickles. Photos were taken and the pig went back to bed for the game. That evening, as the pig was being lavished with affection by nieces and nephews in my basement, Mike and my sister had an extended discussion about the pig’s future. Mike had become attached. Since the little fella could grow to 800 lbs., my sister thought Iowa might be a good venue. I was helpful by explaining it was actually just a rental pig. My sister smiled. What are sisters for, really? “Well, not really a rental,” I explained.” “I did buy him."  Now, Mike smiled. Again, what are sisters for? ( I didn't mention that the farmer had agreed to take the pig back if Mike didn't want him permanently.) Deep down inside, Uncle Mike knew Babe was going back home to West Branch, just like Herbert Hoover. He, pigless, was going back to his bacon-eating life in Michigan. I always pictured that little pig walking back into the barn, shaking his little piggy head, and saying, “You guys won’t believe what happened to me this weekend.”

And so, it went on for a couple of decades. We had a nice post-game dinner at The Ronnenburg restaurant in Amana, Iowa, with a large man in lederhosen playing the zither in the corner. A family restaurant. I was so surprised they agreed to my request. As dessert arrived, a door opened nearby and a beautiful girl emerged and slithered over to Mike. He turned the color of his strawberry-rhubarb pie. She was a belly dancer, not a cheesy belly dancer but a professional and an expert, a professor of the history of dance. She was however, not dressed like a professor. No, she wore the traditional veils and sparkles and well-placed swatches of gauze. It was black and gold gauze with Hawkeye touches here and there. She danced right in Mike’s face, draping veils around his head. The zither player froze mid-stroke. I have photos with other diners in the background, forks held aloft and mouths agape. Son Jake slid under the table in embarrassment, and Aunt Ellie did another laughing face plant, this time into the sauerbraten.

As elders were lost and a few members moved or lost interest in football, some games went by without fear and mayhem. The tradition quietly ended. And so it should be. If that trajectory had continued, it’s hard to imagine what might have been required to up the ante every year. But, weren’t we lucky to have those days? And those resilient brothers-in-law who graciously accepted their fates? Graciousness sounds nice, but personally I think they had a deep-seated fear of what might have happened if the Gilberts had turned upon one another instead of them. Because of their sacrifice, after The Game this October 5^th, we shall toast them, and not burn one another. To the Brothers-in Law!

Ed and I

            Great Lakes shipwrecks fascinate me and have since I was a child. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum claims there have been about 6,000, but one historian says it’s closer to 25,000. That’s a fair discrepancy, but either way, a lot of ships lie on the bottom of the big lakes. A lot of lives have been lost.

If you have not experienced the Great Lakes, you might ask what’s the problem? It’s a lake, not an ocean; why can’t they keep these boats on top of the water? Perhaps it’s because the waves can reach 20-30 feet high in a severe storm. And, waves in the Great Lakes are a special challenge because they come closer together than ocean waves. Winds of 50-100 mph are an additional challenge. Lake Superior in particular is known for its terrible “Gales of November.” Still, some freight companies try to make that one last delivery before the lakes become impassable. Many sailors, including the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald, paid the ultimate price for the investors’ greed.

In 1976, we all were singing about that famous Great Lakes shipwreck, the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Given that Disco Lady and Play That Funky Music were big songs that year, how strange that we were crooning about a boat full of iron-ore pellets sinking in Gitche Gumee (the Native American name for Lake Superior.) Gordon Lightfoot put us right on deck with his hit song,  The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

I have never actually been on a freighter nor do I know anything about boats that carry iron-ore pellets (taconite.) But, I have had two Edmund Fitzgerald events in my life. One was a wonderful surprise about a life not lost on the Great Lakes, and one was a weird surprise when a life surely did look like it was going to be lost.

My Edmund Fitzgerald Surprise #1

            My colleague and friend, Barb, and I had a poster accepted for a pain conference at the Cleveland Clinic. We were thrilled to be included at such a prestigious meeting. Off we went with our homemade display. It was built around an old Bulova watch display case. We had dug it out of a dusty, abandoned antique store in Sigourney, Iowa. You remember those cases that turn, stop, turn a little more, and so forth? We rigged it up to turn and show off several small posters on nurses and pain management. The light in the center made the posters glow. We drove from Iowa to Cleveland with our iffy poster display in an even iffier old van. Turns out, not many exhibitors had mobile posters, and from their expressions, not many wanted one. It was kind of jerky and after each quarter turn, the entire display wobbled. Almost all the other posters had been professionally produced by high-end media departments.

Barb suggested we visit her aunt and uncle while in Cleveland. We pulled up to their old brownstone and walked up a few flights of creaky stairs. Barb’s uncle opened the door. He was a short Danish man in his eighties and had a beautiful shock of white hair and sparkly blue eyes. Barb’s aunt also was short with a shock of white hair and bright blue eyes. They looked like one of those cute little sets of salt and pepper shakers. They brought us tea, and we sat to chat. 

Early in our conversation, I mentioned that it was nice to see the freighters and other boats on nearby Lake Erie. The uncle’s eyes narrowed. He leaned in.  “Are you a Michigander?” he asked. I checked to see if I was wearing some Michigan apparel. I was not.

“How’d you know that?” I asked.

“You knew that no matter the size or purpose, if it’s on the Great Lakes, it’s called a boat, not a ship.” Actually, I did not know that. Just grew up hearing it that way.

“What did you do?” I asked. And, if he had said, “I was a serial killer who dressed as a nun and hunted down Lutherans in Fergus Falls,” I could not have been more surprised.

“I was the captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” he said. I mumbled those song lyrics to myself to see if I had missed something. Should someone call Gordon Lightfoot?

“Well, you’re looking pretty good then,” I said. “Weren’t all twenty-nine men lost on the Fitz?”

“I was the captain right before the accident,” he explained.

Right then, my trip took a turn from pretty-darn-good to in-my-wildest-dreams. Once he knew I was interested, the captain brought out piles of albums. We sailed through his career on various boats with wonderful stories. He had albums full of articles and drawings, all advancing theories about why the Fitz broke up in a terrible storm. He favored the one in which each end of the 700 ft. vessel was perched atop the peak of a wave with the center portion left unsupported. The Fitz weighed 13,000 tons empty, so loaded with iron and without support mid-ships, it broke in half, the penultimate captain explained.

My friend, Barb, watched me drooling on her uncle’s albums (and probably on her uncle) all evening. I asked her how on earth she had never mentioned to her friend from Michigan that her uncle was the captain of the Fitz! She said she knew he’d done “something with boats.” She did not know she was traveling with a shipwreck freak. Since the trip was pre-cell phone, I borrowed our host’s phone and called home.

“Bet you can’t guess who Barb and I are having dinner with,” I said.

“Bet I can’t.”

“The captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald!”

“Didn’t he go down with the ship?”

 My Edmund Fitzgerald Surprise #2

            My friend, Judi, and I were excited. We had tickets to see Gordon Lightfoot at Chautauqua in Boulder. Good seats, too–front and center. All the way there, I bored her to death with my Fitz obsession. I didn’t care what else he sang or even if he sang anything else. Just wanted to hear “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” sung by the original composer and singer. We sat in the most landlocked place on earth, and I was shivering with excitement, waiting to hear a song about a massive storm and shipwreck. The lights dimmed. A few dusty musicians shuffled out onto the dusty stage. It was going to be a night!

Oh, it was a night alright. Out came Gordon. He took center stage to a cheering, whistling welcome from the crowd. Like all of us in the audience, he had aged since his big hit dominated the air waves. Then, he strummed his guitar, sang a few words, and stopped. He sat down, head between his legs. The place went silent. You could feel the worry rise around you. Now, it’s not uncommon for musicians to suffer the effects of altitude when they come from below to perform in the mountains. Some use oxygen during breaks. But, Gordon did not look well at all. He was rail thin and pale and looked about to faint. He stood and tried again. And, he stopped again. Here and there, shouts arose. “We love you, Gordon.” “It’s okay, Gordon.” “Take your time, Gordon.” I grabbed Judi’s arm and was mumbling, “He better not be dying up there. I don’t want to see this.”

Gordon did get through the first half but was unable to make it all the way through a song. I whispered to Judi, “I sure hopes he sings The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald soon. The lady behind us tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “He already did.”

We decided to leave at intermission, because it was hard to watch and too worrisome not knowing if he was alright. I knew I’d be afraid to read the paper in the morning. (Turns out, Gordon had done fabulous concerts the nights before and after this one.)

            On the drive home, we sat silently, not so much disappointed as very worried. I took a short-cut across town on an industrial drive. As we wound around shadows of semi-truck carcasses and orange cones, from somewhere deep inside me I heard a voice say, “That sounded like “the Swedish Chef sings the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Judi looked at me, and if she was offended at my irreverence, she failed to maintain it. Instead, she burst out laughing, and the dam broke. All the tension turned into one of those laughing fits you cannot stop. I pulled over in the Mayflower moving van storage area, and in the pitch-black night, we fell against the car windows laughing until no sound came out. All the tension poured out, albeit not too appropriately.

            “What are we going to tell a cop if we get caught here?” I asked. “Officer, we’re laughing because we thought a guy was gonna keel over and die while singing.”

We made it home, and in the morning, I opened the paper ever so gingerly. No headline screamed Death at Chautauqua! So there, Gitche Gumee! You did not claim another life, not on this night, anyway.

🎵    MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS*    🎵

At this age, it’s hard to tell if you have achieved insight

after years of experience or you’re just crabby.

As a word or phrase gains popularity, sometimes it feels a little off. Maybe it’s simply overused. Maybe it’s accurate but just a little too precious. (The use of “inform” comes to mind, as in “that informs my entire career.” Another is “empowering” someone. Maybe your time is better spent figuring out why you have someone else’s power in the first place.) I realize it’s just an innocuous word or phrase getting under my skin, not anything obscene or crass. Still, it’s making me uncomfortable. It begins to make me twitch. Then, one day it happens. The insight! I realize why the phrase bugs me. Next day, I move right on to crabbiness; it starts to drive me nuts.

The current phrase causing me minor shudders is “making memories.” Those are not offensive words, but they grate on my ears. Why? Because words are not innocuous or casual; they have meaning and symbolism. They come from somewhere. In the past, one had experiences, adventures, unfortunate events, lovely moments, minor spills, and life changing encounters. And here is the insight part: you were present for those events or moments. You did them, felt them, went at them full tilt. You let the glorious sun on the beach beat down on your face. You felt your heart expand when you stepped to the edge of the Grand Canyon. You were changed by seeing the defeated face of someone sleeping on the sidewalk. You were not going through life thinking, “Oh, I can’t wait to paste that in my photo album.”

Now, I see many people doing things in front of cameras with absolutely no sense of the moment. They order children or friends to do things so they can look at the video later. Everyone's a movie director telling friends where to stand or how to pose. They postpone soaking up the moment; you can figure that out later when you look at the recording. But, can you really call up the moment, enjoy it, think about its impact if you were not truly present in the first place?

I recently observed a family of five celebrating their daughter’s birthday at a restaurant. She appeared to be about eight or nine years old. She had pizza, cake, presents, a little paper tiara, balloons. When they first sat down, the parents took some pictures. The event was duly recorded. The rest of the time, four family members had their noses glued to phones or ran to the video game room. The birthday girl sat unacknowledged with a very sad expression–for the entire birthday dinner. Good thing they have those photos to show her how much she was cherished on her birthday. See what a wonderful childhood you had, dear? I fear her real memory will be more authentic than those photos.

You don’t make memories; you live a full-on life. Memories take care of themselves.

*Memories are Made of This by Terry Gilkyson, Richard Dehr & Frank Miller, 1955; sung by Dean Martin, Jim Reeves, Johnny    

  Cash, The Everly Brothers

Here’s a little test: Think about going somewhere special or doing something wonderful and leaving cameras and phones at home. Feels like you forgot to put on your underwear.