Rants from the Hollow

Well, after almost a decade, the European adventure has come to a close. Who would have thought that High School French was actually useful, or that college German was more than an intellectual affectation?

After boxing up 9 years of intense experience, packing too much Ikea that was no longer so flat to pack, and multiple treasures from the Chertsey auction house, Elizabeth and I flew back to the States. For a couple months, we split our time between my parents in Cleveland, and our house and hopefully future home. I spent most of that time in Ohio, while Elizabeth supervised nest reno in NoVa. It snowed. Everywhere. A lot. Welcome home.

By the first week of February, enough renovation had taken place in the house, which since 2001 has been rented out to children, dogs, and people who plant invasive berry canes in the vegetable garden, that we felt confident that if we moved back in we could sleep and shower. Well, at least shower in one of the baths. And who could have thought that it would take 6 months to install granite counter tops?

It actually took the moving company two separate trips. The first one saw countless boxes of things that we’d stored in 2000 when we left for Europe. Cassette players, VHS tapes, strangely out of style curtains, incandescent light bulbs (are those still legal?), and something that has increasingly become a preoccupation, boxes of negatives, slides and prints, all screaming out “Digitize me! Digitize me! Put me on the web! Make me a slide show! Print me!”

The second truckload, containing our European furniture and effects, arrived several days later. No, it does NOT all fit into one house. It included my PC. After 9 weeks apart, I was easily able to restore to service after buying a pair of new hard drives, fully reinstalling Windows from scratch, restoring all my files, and buying replacements for half the software. If it had been more than 5 years old, I would have started from scratch.

Neatly complementing the boxes of pictures from the first load, my Coolscan is sitting beside me at this moment, chewing its way through some incredible high school memories that actually will bring joy to the class of ‘78. At least the scanner is dual voltage, unlike the printer I brought back from England. New vacuum cleaner, a BestBuy TV that can pick up whatever junk Verizon is spewing at us, a new printer, a pair of used cars….well, you get the picture.

Repatriation is often more difficult than expatriation–especially for families that had such positive experiences overseas. It isn’t the same place you left, and while so much is familiar and comfortable, other things are just strangely wrong. You don’t get all the jokes on SNL, and you can’t remember which states are red and which are blue (simple trick: red=left everywhere else in the world, so the US must use the opposite system). The food is good, and there’s lots of it, but where are you supposed to walk to when you live in a ‘burb?

I think everybody understand that it takes a long time to step across a pond, but for the record, we didn’t send ANY Christmas cards last year, so don’t feel bad if you didn’t get one.

An authentic Art Deco throwback, Lima’s Kewpee Hamburger joint has been astonishing diners for over 70 years.

During a recent business trip to Ohio, I had a chance to detour to Lima (pronounced LYE mah) and  visit a historic bit of American pre-war kitsch to see if the food lived up to its reputation.  A sleepy town that is still coasting from its pre-war prosperity, it has some very attractive buildings, so after having an excellent slice of cherry pie and a decent cup of coffee, I took an hour to explore downtown.

There is something inherently creepy about dolls in general, and something extremely creepy about the androgynous Kewpie character in particular.  The large Kewpee standing watch over the building’s facade was removed several years ago for restoration, apparently creating a minor controversy in this quiet county seat.  Restored to its post of eternal vigilance over North Elizabeth street, it has a distinct crinkliness not shared by its smoother-complexioned interior sisters/brothers, two of which quixotically gaze out across  a roomful of hungry diners from their temple-like perches in two opposing corners of the white-tiled and stainless-steel trimmed Deco interior.

Authenticity is a very subjective thing, but in a post-modern era characterized by failed attempts to evoke nostalgia and emulate historical style, its important to note that this little Art Deco gem is essentially originally.  Their slogan, “Your grandpappy ate here” is true enough, and I wouldn’t be  surprised if my own grandfather did, given that his sales territory covered the once thriving industrial areas of western Ohio.   Stepping out of the step-backed orange and white building, my camera and I took a quick 45 minute swing through downtown.

Every county seat in the US has a courthouse. Usually built in the latter half of the 19th or early 20th century, they all have a certain judicial sort of look about them, even though architectural styles vary. The Allen County Courthouse is no exception. Designed by Architect George H. Maetzel, this Second Empire Empire style municipal structure was built between 1881-1884.

Every town seems to have a nut shop, and Lima’s is a dandy. Like Kewpee and several attractive office buildings, Dome’s Nut shop has been operating since the mid-1930s, although the family run business, now in its third generation, has only been in the current location since 1975.  Unusually blessed with two camera stores, some clothing stores, a couple boutiques, and multiple restaurants, but a lot of service offices–public and private round out downtown, which centers on Town Square.

A particularly tall (in Lima terms) and ornate (ditto) office building nails down the south west corner of the square.  A pair of brass double doors are flanked by elaborate iron lamps, and the lower windows are surrounded by elaborately decorated iron panels.  Apparently, the ground floor was once used as a bank. Dozens of crumbling teller windows are faintly visible through filthy windows from the side walk on Market Street.  I still had a long drive before my lunch appointment in Columbus, so I reluctantly left the rest of Lima for a future visit.

I wasn’t planning on stopping, but when I saw the 57 Buick, painted up like a police car in front of this brand new 1950’s style takeout, I had to stop for a quick photo or two.  Refused financing for his dream, Leroy Roby built this burger joint by hand, taking almost 4 years to do it, opening on Memorial Day, 2009.   It certainly wallows in nostalgia, but it’s a contemporary take on the classic American drive-in.   Maybe 70 years from now, one of my grandkids will happen upon this place and decide that its a fine example of early 21st century kitsch.

Additional photos appear in my Lima photo gallery.  The GoogleMap below can be zoomed to taste.

In the summer of 2006, my parents renovated the basement of the house they moved into the day after my June 1978 high school graduation. I was given strict instructions to remove ANYthing that I wanted to keep. In addition to my much beloved HO scale race cars, I found a slightly musty cardboard Kodak photo paper box. It contained a stack of contact prints and negatives from pictures I’d taken from 1976-1978.

My English and European friends aren’t fully aware of how sophisticated many of the extra-curricular activities are at an American high school. In addition to sports and music, journalism is also considered and important activity, participation in which can not only lead to a career, but it also helps develop citizens who are well prepared to participate in a democracy. Bay High, my high school in Bay Village, Ohio, has traditionally had a strong journalism program. When I was in school, we not only had a very competent yearbook, we also had a multi-page newspaper, printed on newsprint by a printer on a weekly basis.

Starting my junior year (11 grade), yearbook adviser Judy Coolidge decided that Bay High was going to have the best yearbook in the country. She chose and motivated an editorial staff of talented juniors and seniors, and set them to work over the summer to develop a theme and to choose a layout. They chose to name the yearbook “The Whole Bay Catalog”, as a pastiche of Stewart Brand’s “Whole Earth Catalog.” My senior year of High School, the yearbook was entitled “Where Do You Go To Find.” Planning went into great detail on the chapters, pages, and even page design (‘magazine layout’). Although there was always opportunity to squeeze in good shots, much of my work for the yearbook consisted of pictures taken to order, to fit into the pre-planned spreads on specific topics. It was a fantastic experience, and 30 years later, I still enjoy photography, but have never found anything as photographically purposeful and challenging as being part of the journalistic team that turned out 2 of the US’ top-10 yearbooks.

Finding a cache of negatives from such a fun and interesting part of my life was a thrill. These are not just souvenirs of my teen years–this is an important body of creative work. I crawled out of the crawlspace, and spent the next several hours poking through the negatives and prints. It was obvious that they had suffered a bit from their lack of care. I went out the next day to buy an archival storage box and acid-free envelopes, and spent another couple hours taking the negatives out of the cheap and yellowing office envelopes that I’d ‘temporarily’ used when I was a kid, placing the negatives into carefully labeled envelopes. When I was done, my archival storage box was almost full. I counted close to 2600 images.

Most of my favorite shots were there, including some that I’d won prizes for. Unfortunately, some were missing, including a couple that were very important to me. There were also a lot of pictures that I’d taken just for fun, or for practice, including color shots of hockey, baseball and tennis. In some cases, I’ve got contact prints without negatives, and those pictures can be recovered, although the quality is low.

Over a three year period of time, I’ve been laboriously scanning, restoring, and uploading the pictures to a web site. In early 2007, I first unveiled 600 pictures on a commercial photo sharing web site (pbase). During the following several years, I continued to restore and upload photos, sending email about the new additions to a growing list of almost 100 former students, parents and teachers. The lion’s share of the photos were done by the summer of 2008 for 20 minute slideshow for our 30th reunion. There are still some photos that have never been seen–mostly several hundred pictures of hockey. I’m finishing those up now, and uploading them to a gallery on my new, PERMANENT web site–this one.

A typical scene in Fort Myers Beach.  Video by Jay G. Heiser

As long as I was going to be in Ohio, I figured I’d leverage my time with a few visits to my company’s customers. The account managers in Charleston, WV and Indianapolis took me up on the offer of my time, so I had a chance to visit college roomie Steve Towne in Indy, and friend Dannie Walker in Charleston.

Elizabeth and I met in WV, spent the first couple years out of school there, and were married at Kanawah United Presby. I haven’t been back there for at least 15 years, so it was fun to get a chance to catch up an old friend (much older than I am) and check out some of my old haunts.

Our favorite restaurant, Tudor’s Biscuit World, is still going strong. Kanawah Presby finally seems to have resolved that dispute about ceiling fans in the sanctuary (along with installing a beautiful sounding and looking semi-tracker organ). A. James is long gone, but he’s got a nephew in politics. Danny Jones, who did a great job as L’il Abner back in the day, is not selling sandwiches or sheriffing, but is now mayoring, and the city seems to be doing well.

Capital Street has fewer stores than ever, but had a new ice cream shop and a sort of left-leaning new bookstore. The building where I used to work has had a makeover. Blossom Dairy still exists, as does the nut shop.

After a day of customer meetings, I drove over to Dannie Walkers, who has retired to a life of fast cars, gardening, and trolling the web for the high-meg movies. We went to dinner in a Mexican restaurant. Charleston has Indian food, and even sushi. How wierd is that? You can even get a latte in the lobby of the hotel. Its almost like being in…..well, Cleveland.

My first apartment was just a block east of the capital, and the apartment where Elizabeth and I lived when were married was just to the west, so I asked Dannie to drive down to the other side of town for a night shoot.

Lincoln is still walking at midnight, mountaineers are still always free, but the dome has been pimped up with some shiny gold leaf. The rumor always used to be that Gov. Moore had scraped off the gold and sold it. Whatever happened , it sure looked like gold paint back in the day. Its shiny bright, now.

Here’s the complete gallery of pictures from that trip.

I managed to squeeze a couple trips to the Hollow around a business trip to Chicago. On the last Saturday in April, I picked up Kirk at school and we spent an afternoon. The following Saturday, the first one in May, Dad and I visited.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve been down in the Spring–maybe I had a chance in college, but I don’t think I’ve been there since then.

On the trip with Kirk, the woods were white with trillium. They were already starting to fade the following week. Between the two trips, I saw spring beauties, rue anemone, bluets, violets, dandelions, and some large daffodils that Mom must have planted next to the electric pole.

Animals included a pileated woodpecker, a great blue heron, a deer, bluegill, and one very large, and still not hooked, largemouth bass.

Both were beautiful sunny Spring days with bright blue skies and yellow sun. Before picking up Kirk, I wandered around Doylestown Smithville taking pictures of barns and other country scenes, and then I went to a small Civil War reenactment in Wooster. I’ve started pulling together a gallery of rural scenes from Wayne, Holmes, and Coshocton counties.

As gleefully pointed out in When Satire becomes Ironic, a January 2001 article on humor site The Onion, made multiple jokes about the future Bush presidency that would come almost spookily true. Entitled Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’, the satirical article went online 8 years ago today.

Promises purportedly made by the incoming President in his January 2001 address included a promise “to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton,” assuring citizens that the U.S. will “engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years”, and pledging to “bring back economic stagnation.”

A Republican congressional leader reportedly said “Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend.”

“For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped,” conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. “And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that’s all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up.”

There’s more satire come true in that prophetic piece, on the state of poverty in America, disenfranchisement of black voters, and the need to find and defeat an enemy.

It’s easy to take an “I told you so” attitude, but remember that the majority of Americans supported a pre-emptive war, although many of them subsequently revised their personal history when it went pear shaped.  It could just be a bizarre coincidence that the political humorists at The Onion managed to so effectively predict what actually would happen during the next 8 years, but I think not.  No one would accuse the Bush administration of excessive transparency; indeed, as Bush so eloquently said himself during his final press conference last week, ”We were trying to say something differently, but nevertheless, it conveyed a different message. Obviously, some of my rhetoric has been a mistake.” Forgive me if I’m being ungenerous by suggesting that this was not an elected official who felt a duty to be frank.

In spite of a tendency to obfuscate, spin, and avoid answering direct questions, doesn’t this vintage Onion satire suggest that  the values of the Bush administration were, if not crystal clear (or should I say Kristol clear), discernible from the very beginning?  How much of a surprise can a collapsing economy and 6 years of aggressive war be, when peace and poverty be treated so cynically? It has often been said that a democracy gets the leadership it deserves.  I’m hoping that for the next 8 years, America gets better than it deserves.

NOTE: as verification that the original satire truly was published at the beginning of the Bush years, an archived copy from 19 January 2001 is available on The Wayback Machine.

This is my 3rd US presidential election season spent in Europe. Although I’m certainly aware of much of what happens I’ve been mostly insulated from negative campaign ads and the constant diet of meaningless spin and posturing. I’ve also had the opportunity to view a globally unique process from outside eyes.

Make no mistake about it, the US presidential election is a matter of great attention around the world. There are two reasons for this. First, it is a totally fascinating form of entertainment, offering a compelling glimpse into American culture. Second, it is a plain fact that America has an impact on the world that far outweighs its relative population size. American foreign policy has a significant impact in Europe and Asia, and American media is consumed throughout the world. Europeans are usually aware of the national political seen in multiple countries, so why shouldn’t they be interested in what happens in our country?

I spent the 2000 election season working in Switzerland, mostly living in the Glockenhof Hotel of Zurich. Bush’s narrow victory was somewhat marred by a controversy–especially in Florida. The idea that the election for the chief executive of the most influential country in the world could be determined by hanging chads was baffling to the Swiss, if not completely distressing. Switzerland, which arguably has been a democracy for centuries longer than the USA. Although a much smaller country, the Swiss Federation has a fiendishly complex electoral system, supporting local and minority interests through proportional representation. The next time we consider sending a delegation to Zimbabwe to ensure fair elections, we need to be aware that the Swiss seriously discussed sending a delegation to the US.

The 2004 election, at least from the outside looking in, seemed very much to be a referendum on the Iraq War, a preemptive war that was deeply unpopular throughout Europe. Relatively few Americans seem to be concerned about how the rest of the world views their president, which is a ‘foreign’ attitude to Europeans, who usually have strong opinions about the leadership not just of America, but also of the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Israel, Australia and a variety of other countries. The deep unpopularity of Bush’s policies has lead to even greater interest in Europe in his successor.

This brings me to 2008, an election that continues to attract attention throughout the globe. Joe, who turns out not to be a plumber (nor is his name really Joe) has been front page news here, and everyone in the UK has seen him on TV. Tonight’s news did a story on Palin having spent $150,000 on clothing (they missed the important fact that part of that was spent on hair and makeup). They dug up some earlier footage of Michelle Obama talking about how little Barack spent on clothing, and a recent clip of Palin claiming to be a redneck, pointing out that she was wearing a $2,500 jacket at the time. The Brits know all about rednecks.

Although it was considered an insult to suggest that Tony Blair ‘wanted to be president,’ the English actually are a bit jealous about the American’s having the ability to directly elect their national leader, explaining some of their curiosity about the process. When we were still at the lapel pin controversy stage, I did think that TV in the UK was going out of its way to film Americans making silly comments. Treated to the spectacle of seeing McCain, to a chorus of boos, explaining to his rally attendees that Obama is not a terrorist, but is an honorable man (although he’s been pallin’ around with terrorists), and that Obama is not an Arab, but is “a decent, family man” (I leave it to my readers to decide for themselves if ‘decent Arab’ is an oxymoron).

One pundit suggested that this year’s campaign “might be the last great presidential race of the TV Age.” That’s hard for me to judge, because I’ve been seeing this year’s political videos on the web. We do get more US TV than ever before, so I can get my fill of Fox, which generally just shows the same stuff here that it does in the States–MSNBC and CNN have EU offices and concentrate on non-US news. We started getting Colbert Report and the Daily Show here recently, two shows that I’d heard about, but had never seen. I’m not quite sure what the Brits make of them, but they have a long tradition of deeply satirical news shows, and were doing it long before SNL and Chevy Chase.

US presidential races certainly make for a much more colorful race than Europeans are accustomed to, although Zimbabwe and South Africa have their moments of drama. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Palin is just the most recent in a long line of American politicians who started in show biz, including Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Ventura, and multiple congressmen. The Brits have had a couple of actors as MPs, and the Italians notoriously elected a porn queen, but none of these people have reached the level of national political importance (although Berlusconi has a background in media and sports) . Asking some of my continental coworkers if they could think of any entertainers or atheletes turned politician, a German somewhat indignantly replied that nobody really wanted to be a politician in Germany. Before discounting that as yet another example of eurodecadence, I would suggest that it might be possible for somebody to want political office just a bit too much.

Well, I’m going to get my news fill on The Daily Show, now, and tomorrow, Elizabeth and I are off to Rome to see what the latins think about the political circus.

Colin Powell’s carefully worded endorsement of Barack Obama may well be remembered as a highly-significant political speech. In Sunday’s network broadcast of Meet The Press, this former Bush Secretary of State and Republican, very precisely states the reasons why he has become disappointed with John McCain, and why feels that Obama will be a more suitable president. He very gracefully lays out his objections to Palin, and the implications of her choice as running mate, without attacking her personally.

After the rather poor treatment that Powell had from the current administration, and his disagreements about Iraq, I don’t think anybody was actually surprised that he is endorsing Obama. Perhaps some of the specific reasons did come as a surprise.

What resonated with me was his concern that as of late, the McCain campaign has found nothing more substantive to offer in support of his candidacy beyond contentions that Obama has been “pallin’ around with terrorists.” Powell made a very compelling case that McCain has gone over a line that shouldn’t have been crossed, portraying the Ayers allegations as well-exceeding the level of mud he expects to be slung by his commander in chief.

Personally, I don’t think that terms like ‘anti-American’ or ‘unpatriotic’ should play any part in a political campaign. Its insulting when Palin paints entire regions of the country as being anti-American. What kind of a bigoted sort of worldview could possibly underlie ideas like that?

A very bizarre incident happened in Lakeville, MN last Friday, at a McCain rally when one supporter accused Obama of consorting with terrorists, and to a chorus of boos, McCain gallantly defended Obama’s honor. Then another supporter stood up and explained that Obama was an Arab. McCain again corrected one of his supporters on national TV, defending Obama’s honor by saying “No ma’m, he’s a decent family man.”

Call me the bigot now when I admit that I don’t think most of the audience at that rally picked up on the irony of McCain’s awkward defense of Obama. Powell got it, and along with American Muslim Abed Z. Bhuyan (Powell Rejects Islamophobia), I found Powell’s plea to recognize and stop anti-Islamic hatred to be one of the few truly profound and important messages delivered by a ‘politician’ during this year’s political race.

My concern is that we are in huge need of wise leadership, but wisdom doesn’t seem to be a currency that buys much in American politics right now.

I drove into Staines the other day to pick up a new suit (funny how the Olympics, the US Presidential race and new suits tend to arrive in the same year). Cleverly anticipating some one-way streets, I entered town from the north, through that complex Crooked Billet Roundabout on the A-30 bypass. A  police car pulled in behind me while I was mentally rehearsing my line through the roundabout. Instantly, I went into ‘American Driver Mode.’ Upon seeing a policeman, most Americans assume he/she is looking to pass out traffic tickets, and you could be next.

After living so long in Europe, I can’t help noticing during US visits how many cops are prowling around America’s road system. Once on a business trip from Cleveland to Columbus I passed 7 highway patrol cars. Sure, most countries enforce the speed limit in some way (well, only in 1/2 of Italy), but other than Canada, I’ve never been any place that felt it was the primary role of the keepers of the peace to be nursemaiding automobiles.

In the UK, the police have better things to do than following around drivers looking for an excuse to issue them a citation. The idea of a ‘rolling stop,’ in which a driver is fined for not coming to a complete halt at an intersection, is totally alien to European driving. If you are not skillful enough to avoid pulling in front of another car, you shouldn’t be driving at all. Probably because they are not needed, stop signs are relatively rare over here–vehicles in the little roads are expected to yield to vehicles in the big road (which road is which is marked if it is not obvious).

To be fair, drivers in the UK are much more predictable and civilized than drivers in the US. I don’t know how much of this is innate. Its hard to imagine that American drivers would suddenly become more careful if there were fewer traffic cops, but nobody would expect any significant upturn in the number of accidents caused by failures to come to complete stops. The driving test is significantly more difficult in the UK, and once you pass the test, you generally drive with courtesy and skill. Lane discipline happens naturally, and there is very little weaving between lanes. UK natives who feel otherwise should spend 30 minutes driving around the Washington Beltway, Cleveland’s inner belt, or anywhere on I-95.

Do American drivers need more enforcement because they are innately more dangerous, or because the local municipalities find traffic citations to be a convenient source of money? I won’t address that, but I’m confident in belief that traffic duty does nothing to improve the level of respect that people in America (and let’s lump Canada into this one) have for their law enforcement officers. It is counterproductive to their purported primary duty.

I’m going to Dorset tomorrow, for the 40th anniversary Great Steam Fair, and I’m taking the train.