Travelin' - III

Paradise, PA

5:30 am. It's hard to find an unused computer so here I am. Everyone's buying trinkets that say "I Love Intercourse PA" (because that's where we ate supper and now we're staying in Paradise.) You can't make this stuff up. This is Amish country and even though it rained hard yesterday we saw lots of horse and enclosed buggies. Those people are serious about their lifestyle. It is hard to understand things like balers or corn choppers being pulled by horses and having gas engines mounted on them to power them. Things run together. Washington, DC wears one out what with all the memorials, museums, and gov't buildings, and traffic, traffic. The Smithsonian couldn't be covered properly in a week. Mary and I went into a couple of the art museums this time and then over to the arboretum. We're about half way through the trip at this point with lots to do yet. Philadelphia is on tap for today. It's hard to not think about my parents back home who are ailing but am keeping in phone contact with them and their nurses. A trip to Lisbon will be first on the list when we get back.

Travelin' - II

Williamsburg, VA

Here we spent the night. Wednesday was a good day touring the Lexington, KY area with sites such as Keeneland Horse Park where we watched a horse auction (one had sold a few days previously for over $4 million) and toured a retired horse farm. One of the horses we saw was one who portrayed Seabiscuit in the movie of the same name. Yesterday we drove in mountains and curves, stopped at a small town and toured a small salsa factory, then drove on 'til we reached Monticello, Jefferson's house. It is quite a place. Then on to where we are now, Williamsburg. Here we will spend the morning at Colonial Williamsburg and then go to Mt. Vernon in the afternoon.

Travelin' - I

Indianapolis, Indiana

The second day of our journey and we are in a Drury Inn in Indianapolis, IN. Lots of miles have rolled under the bus tires since we started, but so many more to go. Tomorrow, Wednesday, we finally get started with a tour of the Lexington Horse Park, then on to Charleston, WV where I will have more to say.

Heavyweight

Sometimes an idea - even when it’s such a silly little thing - gets in your head and you can’t shake it until you’ve found out the details. I’ve spent most of a lifetime not knowing the answer to this one and when it popped into my head again I pursued it until I was satisfied. A farm sets between Leonard and Highway 46 and people would always tell me as we drove past that that is where Charley Retzlaff lived, he fought Joe Louis. But that’s where the stream of information would end, no one seemed able to add to it. So a visit to the Heritage Center was in order for some research. Retzlaff was indeed a heavyweight fighter who compiled a lifetime record of 61 wins and 8 defeats; 52 of his victories were by knock-outs. He did fight the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis, on January 17, 1936 and was knocked out after one minute and 25 seconds of the first round.

The fight gained the attention of sports writers, and a number of articles appeared in the Fargo Forum regarding it. This headline appeared on January 4: Louis adding weight for go - Bomber figures to scale 203 in Retzlaff tiff; then on January 8: Retzlaff-Louis fight will pack Chicago Stadium. With that headline three pictures of Retzlaff appeared making him look like a hayseed. The caption said Rancher Retzlaff, preparing for Louis fight Jan. 17 shows he can do a few things around N D farm. The first pictured him climbing a windmill, the second standing with a pitchfork in his hand and chewing a piece of straw, the third forking hay to cows tied up in their stanchions.

That article gave the first hint that Charley was not expected to win when it said “Retzlaff due to drag down something like $15,000, which if one is thumped around a bit, is soothing salve for bruises.” It went on to say that three rounds were the likely limit. “Here are the condemned man’s last words: ‘I am going to fight Louis like I hunt. I am going out and try to bring him down. Boxing him is suicide.’”

January 9: Probably for the purpose of fooling several of Retzlaff’s spies, the Brown Bomber turned in a poor drill Tuesday.

January 18: Retzlaff goes down gamely under barrage by Louis. Bomber ends it in first - North Dakotan is down twice in brief Chicago encounter. The article went on to say that they found a fighter game enough to slug with Joe Louis, but not anywhere good enough to keep the spectacular Brown Bomber from achieving his 23rd and quickest KO triumph. The victim was strapping Charley Retzlaff from the North Dakota wheat country . . . And on January 20 a photo appeared captioned: Joe Louis lands -- and so does Retzlaff.

The fight grossed $67,826 with Louis earning 40% of the take and Retzlaff getting 17 ½ % or $11,869.67. A heavy snowfall began two hours before the bout which affected the size of the crowd. Of course, it’s always boring to just read about it when you can watch it, so go to YouTube.com and type in Joe Louis vs. Charley Retzlaff and see the fight.

Memory of Touch

Somehow I got reminded of an author, Barry Lopez, whom I hadn’t read for a number of years so I went searching out a couple of his works. Lopez is an environmentalist and his writing is reminiscent of Wendell Berry, Edward Abbey, Gary Snyder, Aldo Leopold, and others. One of the Lopez books, About This Life, contained a chapter that spoke to me quite loudly, “A Passage of the Hands.” In essay form, he tells of the memories in his hands: “. . . the subtle corrugation of cardboard boxes, the slickness of the oilcloth on the kitchen table, the shuddering bend of a horses’s short-haired belly
. . .” In another passage he tells of working for a summer on a Wyoming ranch: “It was strengthening to work with my hands, with ropes and bridles and hay bales, with double-bitted axes and bow saws, currying horses, scooping grain . . .”

Remnants of touch linger in my own memory and begin to take shape: the warmth of an egg plucked from under a squawking hen, shivers from touching an unseen lizard in the dirt while checking my gopher trap, polished wood of an oft-used pitchfork, sandpaper rasp of a cow’s tongue, softness of the sheep fleece,

. . . sting of blizzard-driven snow on my bare face, wetness of a rainstorm with no shelter nearby, heat of the summer sun in a cloudless sky,

. . . heft of wheat in my cupped hands, jolt from the recoil of a 12 gauge shotgun, calluses in my palms from lifting hay bales, lightness of foot after shedding overshoes in the spring, hot glow after catching a hard hit baseball,

. . . draw of a fillet knife through a fish belly, pain in my ankle from the kick of a horse, aching throb in my knee after driving a motorcycle into a junk pile,

. . . my bride’s kiss on our wedding day, holding my new-born sons for the first time, and now --- holding my grandchildren.

Exaggeration

exaggerate: to state that something is better, worse, larger, more common, or more important than is true or usual.


“I never exaggerate. I just remember big.” Chi Chi Rodriquez

“remembering -
so much between me and then
always wondering
did it really happen
or did I imagine it” Lynn Bueling

With the above I just imagined myself as being important enough to be quoted as if I knew something; therefore, I exaggerated. I believe that feeling of self-importance prevails in many people and what comes out of their mouths reflects that. The worst culprits in the present-day are those of the talk-show variety. What was it de Gaulle said, something about the graveyards being full of indispensable people. Megalomaniacs abound. I think of General MacArthur being fired by President Truman for thinking he was above and beyond civilian control as stipulated in our Constitution. I think of Napoleon who thought his army could prevail upon Russia with her vast distances and severe winters, I think of Hitler whose grand designs showed little care for people other than his master race.

We just passed the five-year anniversary of Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans. The city is still in the process of being restored; it’s been slow going. I heard with my own ears some who did not feel sorry for the residents of the city, they were ordered to evacuate, it’s their own fault for not leaving; therefore, no aid should be given to them. My ability to present philosophical argument is limited, but one point became very evident to me: most of the people stranded in the city did not have the means to evacuate. Their plight was never exaggerated, but those who felt no concern exaggerated their position of morality in this society.

A sizable minority say the United States is a Christian country and that it was established as such. Read the U.S. Constitution. It does not mention "God". It does not mention "Jesus". It does not mention "Christ". It mentions religion only twice. The first: Article 6, to establish that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States". The second: First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

Exaggeration really exploded at Glenn Beck’s rally in Washington, DC a few days ago. He estimated about 500,000 people attended, Michelle Bachmann from Minnesota bloated the figure to 1.6 million, but the park service thought about 87,000 was an accurate number. One of the guests Glenn Beck invited for his Washington rally was the Rev. John Hagee who has called the Catholic church a “whore religion” and said that God sent the Hurricane Katrina to destroy New Orleans because of some gay-rights gathering in New Orleans. Religious tolerance? Oh, yawn, I guess I shall stop talking about exaggeration.