A long-awaited stroll; a latitude, hydrological divides, and other fancies

Snow: mostly melted. Temperatures: in the fifties (F); sixties tomorrow. I take Abel and Daniel strolling. Daniel jumps in all the puddles. He soaks the insides of his boots. I don’t know what he’ll wear if we go out again very soon.

Abel, in the stroller, leans forward, his head as near to the ground as he can get it, as if he were peering into tidal pools.

I halt to check if he’s all right; Daniel races ahead.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Fun fact I just learned: Canada’s lowest latitude passes through South Bend just a few blocks north of Toad Hall.

(Toad Hall is our house.)

I could pinpoint the location, stroll there, and hop back and forth over the line. “Now I’m south of all of Canada. Now I’m north of a little of Canada.”

I suppose the urge is due to having grown up near the equator.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I could do this with the nearby drainage divide, too. “Now I’m daining into the Great Lakes. Now I’m draining into the Gulf of Mexico, I mean the Gulf of America.”

It seems a less arbitrary line since it has a basis in physical rather than political reality – until I remember that the Great Lakes drain into the St. Lawrence River and thence into the Atlantic, which encompasses the Gulf of Mexico (I mean, America). So that, ultimately, the distinction between these drainage basins is artificial.

Of course there’s a physical difference between draining one way and draining the other, but if you mark all such differences you end up with insignificant, postage stamp-sized drainage basins.

Artifice – human purposiveness – seems inescapable if much geography is to be done at all.

I remember checking out geography Ph.D. programs when I was very young. There was the respectable but daunting meteorology specialization; all else seemed postmodern free-for-all. A bitter disappointment to someone who’d vaguely entertained the thought that his vocation might consist of memorizing picturesque but unimpeachable facts, e.g. that Czechoslovakia’s capital is Prague.

The most dangerous college towns in the USA

Ithaca is no. 6. I used to hear rumors but never thought the town was that bad. I also used to see people getting arrested across the street from where I lived, but that was outside a bar and therefore to be expected. Besides, it was on the same corner where I once saw the Vienna Boys’ Choir climb into a bus. The Choir’s beatific presence contributed to the overall mildness of the place.

Gainesville is no. 1 in crime. Not too surprising. Now and then, I see Gainesville in crime documentaries. Gainesville even had its own “Ripper.”

I’m inordinately loyal to, even fond of, Bloomington (no. 10). I’ve never been there. Sometimes, I walk along its streets on Google. I hang out in Assembly Hall or outside Scott Russell Sanders’s house; I avoid notorious “Cutter” districts.

At this point, you’re probably asking what counts as a college town. Is Memphis a college town? Is St. Louis? They have universities and lots of crime. Albuquerque? Atlanta? Baltimore? Boston? Chicago? Los Angeles? New York? Philadelphia? Washington, D.C.?

Seattle? (Think: Bundy.) Salt Lake City? (Ditto.) Tallahassee? (Ditto.)

Is South Bend a college town? Maybe not, since Notre Dame is its own city. But see the murder-writings of Ralph McInerny (where there’s smoke, there’s fire). Or this sad movie.

According to the group that did the study,

a total of 26 U.S. college towns were selected based on the following criteria: The institution [the university] is a central feature of the city, meaning it materially influences local demographics and infrastructure.

Top- and bottom-ten lists don’t mean much in a field of just twenty-six.

R.I.P. Alasdair MacIntyre

Call me a casual fan: an embarrassing status to admit to in South Bend, where fans are rabid.

The only book by MacIntyre I’ve read, cover to cover, is After Virtue (summarized here). I’ll say this: the book has staying power. Bits of it recommend themselves repeatedly and in diverse contexts. Many bits are provocative. Many of the provocative bits are silly. More impressive, to me, are the book’s constructive attempts to reestablish contact with forgotten moral traditions; to say what virtues are; to sketch social conditions for tractable attributions of rightness; and to make room for pairs of genuine obligations that genuinely and tragically conflict (e.g., Antigone’s obligations to her brother and to her city).

I’ve read a number of MacIntyre’s papers. I prefer his writing in that less digressive format. (In books he’s relentlessly allusive, and one struggles to keep up with him.) I never set out to read any collection of his papers straight through (e.g., this one, this one, or this one); I’ve taken on his shorter writings “piecemeal,” as this or that issue has arisen. “Is Patriotism a Virtue?” is justly famous. “The Very Idea of a University: Aristotle, Newman, and Us” is a gem. (Whether the book-length treatment improves on it, I couldn’t say.) “Notes from the Moral Wilderness,” which I haven’t read, is “the best starting point for contemporary ethics,” according to the tenth comment in this online discussion; “one might update [that essay] by replacing the name ‘Stalin’ with ‘Trump’.” (My reading group’s next meeting is “Trump Fest”: participants are to report on whatever they’ve chosen to read about Donald Trump. I wonder if it’d be beyond the pale to report on “Notes from the Moral Wilderness” instead.)

May’s poem

… is from the first scene of John Marston’s play, The Dutch Courtezan (c. 1604).

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The darke is my delight,

So ’tis the nightingale’s.

My musicke’s in the night,

So is the nightingale’s.

My body is but little,

So is the nightingale’s.

I love to sleep next prickle 🌵

So doth the nightingale.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Quoted in Anthony Powell, Temporary Kings (the eleventh novel of A Dance to the Music of Time).

When the play is staged, these lines are sung with recorder music for 2 min. 30 sec. (give or take a minute). Don’t listen; the tune’ll take root in your head.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The new pope, Leo XIV, is a Chicago South Sider and a naturalized citizen of Peru who lived in the north of that country – in Chiclayo. These places are mere stone’s throws from South Bend and Guayaquil. So, Leo and I couldn’t be much closer to each other, provenance-wise. (I actually know people who used to live in Chicagoland and in Chiclayo; but they’re disqualified: they’re Lutherans.)

I’ve read that Leo named himself after the previous leonine pope. Uh, huh. We all know which Leo he really had in mind. Yes. The GOAT. (Who, it turns out, was named for Lionel Richie.)

USPS tracking

Alert: Winter storms in the Midwest through the Northeast U.S. and the professional football championship game in New Orleans may delay final delivery of your mail and packages.

No kidding. Behold the shipping history of the package I ordered three weeks ago:

Mishawaka
Mishawaka
Mishawaka
Indianapolis
Indianapolis
“In transit”
“In transit” (1.5 weeks later)
South Bend 😀
Indianapolis 😑
Indianapolis

(Indianapolis is 2–2.5 hrs. from Mishawaka and South Bend, which are across the street from each other.)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Tonight’s Super Bowl’ll be shown on Fox – and, for the first time, on Tubi, which appears to be struggling to handle the increase in viewership. I can’t access my queue or viewing history on the app. I keep putting on Tom & Jerry, for Daniel, but when I go away it switches to Dances with Wolves. Daniel has given up and fallen asleep.

I, too, slept through most of that movie when I saw it twenty-five years ago. I can only suspend judgment as to its quality.

I’m impressed with Mary McDonnell’s hair.

Also, I’m reminded of this amusing error on Facebook (it’s surely due to A.I.).

Some “life hacks”

(1) Stretch pants.

(2) Using the Internet to find out what’s avaliable at your local Half Price Books store.

This is harder than you might think.

The critical link:

https://www.hpb.com/search?q=&prefn1=instorePickUpAvailableStores&prefv1=HPB-131&prefn2=rareFind&prefv2=No&srule=recently-added&sz=80

Suppose that, at Christmastime, both sets of in-laws put gift cards for HPB in your stocking.

Rejoice! Be glad!

But also: How good is this “good” luck, really?

For it may be that you live in South Bend, on the West Side, and that HPB is in faraway Mishawaka (known, locally, as “BFE” or “near-BFE” [“E” is for east; “BF” is vulgar]). Who wants to trek out east twice in January to use both $5 discounts – each, activated by a separate $25 gift-card purchase – without prior knowledge of the inventory?

But HPB has online ordering!

Alas, it costs $3.99 to have each book shipped to your house.

But books in your preferred store can be reserved online and retrieved, gratis, in person.

Again, how are you to know what’s in your preferred store? (Besides by searching for one book or author at a time and then trawling through items that may or may not be in that store.)

By clicking the above link, that’s how. Behold a list of most of the books in the store.

Here’s the link again:

https://www.hpb.com/search?q=&prefn1=instorePickUpAvailableStores&prefv1=HPB-131&prefn2=rareFind&prefv2=No&srule=recently-added&sz=80

I’ve tweaked the search to exclude collectables and to show recent arrivals on top.

To add keywords (e.g., “Agatha+Christie”) to the search, type them into the web address between the first equals sign and ampersand:

https://www.hpb.com/search?q=Agatha+Christie&prefn1=instorePickUpAvailableStores&prefv1=HPB-131&prefn2=rareFind&prefv2=No&srule=recently-added&sz=80

Maybe you don’t want to order and retrieve from Mishawaka’s store. Maybe you live in darkest Chesterfield, Missouri. Then replace “131” above – the Mishawaka store’s number – with the “120” pertaining to Chesterfied’s store.

https://www.hpb.com/search?q=Agatha+Christie&prefn1=instorePickUpAvailableStores&prefv1=HPB-120&prefn2=rareFind&prefv2=No&srule=recently-added&sz=80

Voilà.

(The “store finder” page is here.)

“Another one rides the bus,” pt. 2; R.I.P. two mainstays

Success!

The bus took Samuel to school this morning for the first time.

I’m pleased that we got this sorted out within the month. The bussing in this district is not well thought of.

That said, the half-dozen dispatchers and drivers Karin & I talked to this week were all wonderfully helpful and kind.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

R.I.P. Nevin Longenecker, distinguished high school science teacher. (No, really. Distinguished.) I used to drink coffee with him in the Social Studies lounge before I’d go off to make photocopies for lesser pedagogues.

He ended up coming to my wedding. When it was discovered that his was the longest-lasting marriage in attendance, he was obliged to give a little speech.

I knew teachers in the school who had no idea how remarkable his record was. He didn’t toot his own horn – at least, not to me.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

R.I.P. the iconic Dame Maggie Smith.

“I believe I am past my prime” (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1969).

No: Her prime was just beginning.

Hey! God!

My sibling-in-law – “Atti” (Atticus, formerly referred to here as Brianna) – told an amusing story.

What with tuition breaks, Atti used to attend a private Christian high school in Granger, South Bend’s upscale suburb. Her mother (Karin’s mother) taught there. Being a teacher’s child wasn’t always easy for Atti.

One day, Atti + classmates were riding through South Bend to a charity recipient’s house for “Service Day” and talking about the privileged lives of Grangerites.

They passed a trailer park. Hey! Atti exclaimed. That’s where my sister – not Karin – used to live.

Nuh, uh! gasped Atti’s classmates.

It began to dawn on them that Atti was different from the others.

As the children rode along, the surroundings became curiously familiar to Atti.

Then they parked in Atti’s driveway.

Atti’s mother had signed them up to rake the leaves in the yard.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Samuel has been taught to say “please” and “thank you” but still begins most requests with “Hey!” This morning he was, as usual, taking out his frustrations on Daniel. I told him to ask God to help him to be patient, and to breathe some deep breaths.

Hey! God! Please help me to be patient! (Deep breath, deep breath.)

Some ex-residences

Forgive me for raking up old history, some of which I’ve surely blogged about before, but I have little else to discuss tonight. I must be getting on in years because I’m keen to list buildings I’ve lived in that have been torn down.

(1, 2) Mission houses, Las Palmas, Esmeraldas, Ecuador.

My boyhood home was the eastern house. As a baby, I briefly lived in the western house.

(3) Cottage on the property of Lakeview Church, Zion, Illinois.

My family lived in Zion from 1990 to 1991 (my third-grade year).

(4) Missionary Church Dorm, Quito, Ecuador.

My home during boarding-school years.

If I were asked to choose one former residence to live in forever, this would be it. My own Hogwarts.

It was torn down a few weeks ago.

(5) The Music Machine, River Park, South Bend, Indiana.

I lived in the tiny apartment above the office of the Music Machine, a DJ-ing business. I moved in when I married Karin. Less than a year later, the city forced us out and built a fire station on the land.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I used Google Maps to try to find the house in Seattle’s U-District in which I rented a room for four months, in 2004 and 2005.

Ultimately, I can’t be sure of the address. It was a grungy building surrounded by gaudy fraternity houses. I leeched wireless Internet from one of those fraternities; the network was called “Sex Gods.” So, if I’m ever back in that neighborhood, I’ll know how to pinpoint my old location.

I did find this lovely 2013 article in the University of Washington’s student newspaper about my landlady, who rented to ex-cons, sex offenders, and others who needed a break. I was in neither of the first two categories, but she rented to me after she called my friends and they confirmed that I didn’t drink alcohol. (And it was good that she rented to me, because it was about the only room in Seattle I could have afforded.)

I lent her my mom’s parents’ missionary memoirs, and she read them.

That year and the next, when I moved back and forth across the continent, alone, to pursue fruitless but necessary studies, the Lord put me in touch with some remarkable people.

Recreation and parks

John-Paul: “Karin, what should I blog about?”

Karin: “How good Howard Park is.”

It is good. It has a splash pad, a large playground, an ice-skating rink (in wintertime), valleys, hills, and a view of the river. It was redeveloped a few years ago, but we only recently began taking the boys there.

It’s also next to a trendy restaurant with loud live music. Acoustic covers of Savage Garden: that sort of thing. Alas.

The other day, we took the boys up a hill next to the park and across a footbridge to look out over the river. There were homeless people on the other side, resting. One guy – the coolest-looking one – lifted up his palm as if to say: Hey, man.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Another time, we went to a rather desolate park closer to our house. It borders a desolate apartment complex.

We were the only people there until an SUV pulled up and a little Hispanic boy got out. His mother (I assume that’s who she was) stayed in the SUV. The little boy played by himself. I was pushing Daniel on a swing. The little boy walked over and gestured as if he wanted me to lift him onto a swing. I peered over toward the mother. She wasn’t visible; the SUV was behind some play equipment. I lifted the boy onto the swing. He sat forlornly. He couldn’t get going. After a while, I pushed him and he swung for a bit. Then I helped him off and he went back to the SUV. It drove away.

Then some youths ambled over and asked Karin for dollars to buy sodas. She gave them some. She’s soft that way.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We all walked to Kroger today (that, too, is recreation) and, while we were in the checkout line, a pretty, young, Black woman with classic basketball shoes opened her box of Outshine popsicles and gave one to each of her children and one to Samuel. Then, as she was leaving, she noticed Daniel. I didn’t know you had two children, she said. She went out to the parking lot, came back inside (we were still checking out), bought another box of popsicles, and gave one popsicle to Daniel.

The Dain curse; a weekend outside the house

Not a good novel, The Dain Curse (1929). Indeed, not really a novel. Mostly, self-contained stories, strung together.

(I wonder how often this sort of detective “novel” used to get published. Agatha Christie’s The Big Four [1927] is another specimen.)

Here’s a passage in which the detective recites a non-exhaustive version of the casualty list. (To reduce spoilage, I’ll replace the victims’ and perpetrators’ names with capital letters.)

“Are you sure,” Fitzstephan asked, “that you’re right in thinking there must be a connection?”

“Yeah. A’s father, step-mother, physician, and husband have been slaughtered in less than a handful of weeks – all the people closest to her. That’s enough to tie it all together for me. If you want more links, I can point them out to you. B and C were the apparent instigators of the first trouble, and got killed. D of the second, and got killed. E of the third, and got killed. Mrs. F killed her husband; G apparently killed his wife, and D would have killed his if I hadn’t blocked him. A, as a child, was made to kill her mother; A’s maid was made to kill H, and nearly me. F left behind him a statement explaining – not altogether satisfactorily – everything, and was killed. So did and was Mrs. G. Call any of these pairs coincidences. Call any couple of pairs coincidences. You’ll still have enough left to point at somebody who’s got a system he likes, and sticks to it.”

Fitzstephan squinted thoughtfully at me, agreeing:

“There may be something in that. It does, as you put it, look like the work of one mind.”

In the last two chapters, Hammett somehow makes good his detective’s hunch and ties all these crimes together as “the work of one mind.” He also wrings as much comedy as possible from his distressed damsel’s morphine withdrawal.

The ending almost makes the book worthwhile.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Karin’s dad & Carol took Samuel to Fort Wayne over the weekend. It went well enough until bedtime, when Samuel shrieked and shrieked that he wanted to walk home to be with Mommy & Daddy.

In South Bend, Karin & I took Daniel to get his hair cut. Later, we took him to a park. He loved it so well, he protested (shrieking) all the way home from the park.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Something’s wrong with how I’ve been sleeping. Today my head and shoulder and the back of my neck feel like somebody whacked them with a board.

The World Serious

This blog entry’s title is due to Ring Lardner, who, in my estimation, is the all-time greatest Son of Michiana (he was born in Niles and began his reporting career in South Bend). So much lore surrounds baseball, I wish I liked the sport. I try to watch some of the Serious each year, if only to root against the Yankees (or, lately, the Astros); often, I end up rooting against almost everyone in the stadium, but I do cheer for this or that player. A pitcher in his late, late thirties, usually. One who glares like Clint Eastwood.

This year, the Astros and the Phillies have split the first two games. It’s been exciting. (But then, watching homemade YouTube videos of marbles racing each other down the gutter can be exciting.) For reasons of moral decency, I want the Phillies to win, even though that Bryce Harper fellow carries himself obnoxiously and, let’s face it, the city’s reputation isn’t good. But perhaps virtue is irrelevant in the World Serious. The sport is hardly without blemish.

“How did MLB get to [the] point where no African American players on a World Series roster isn’t a surprise to many?” asks a Yahoo! columnist, inelegantly.

The answer: economics. “Baseball is a white, suburban game reinforced by foreign labor.” Clubs can pay to develop players, or the players can pay to be developed (I mean, their parents can pay). And so the players come from two sources: academies in countries like the Dominican Republic, where it is cheap for the clubs to operate; and domestic pay-to-play leagues, which are even cheaper, because the clubs don’t pay. Pay-to-play. What an idea. Not only is it exclusionary, it’s, like, one step removed from giving your money to a casino. There’s a lot of that around South Bend, and not just in baseball.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

South Bend novelist makes it big

Here’s a pretty typical “rags to riches” story for this part of the country. One parent works for a Catholic high school; the other works for Notre Dame. Kid gets free tuition. Skips town as soon as possible. Moves to New York, then Los Angeles. Writes debut novel about how challenging it is in the Rust Belt. Becomes establishment darling.

Back in South Bend, the dozen-plus copies in the library system are all in use. People here love to root, root, root for the home team.

Newpaper profile 1 (The Guardian).

Newspaper profile 2 (Los Angeles Times).

Library event.

The sports

We watch the White Sox’s starting pitcher give up his first hit against the Twins, after 8 2/3 innings. He looks like his dog just died.

We tried, he says. But they got us.

Yeah, if by “they got us” he means they spoiled his no-hitter but still lost thirteen to zero and ran out of pitchers. (Two of their position players had to take the mound. What’s wrong with that guy’s wind-up? What’s wrong with his hair? Since when do pitchers look like that?, I wondered before I realized what was going on.)

Still, I bet the Twins are drinking champagne and dancing a conga back in the clubhouse. Back in Minneapolis, even. Because the Sox didn’t get a no-hitter against them.

Well, maybe they are doing those things. What do I know. Baseball culture is so bizarre to me.

Why is that player spitting so much?, Karin asks.

They always spit.

You know what I miss from playing tee-ball and softball? she says. When we’d line up and tell each other “Good game.”

Then:

Who is that ancient guy in the Medicare commercial?

I squint at the TV. It’s late. My contact lenses are drying up inside my eyelids.

Joe Namath.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Were I a loyal South Bender, I’d watch Notre Dame get beaten by Ohio State. But I must not be one, because no matter what I do with the antennae and the remote control, I can’t get ABC to come in on the TV.

I really do want to watch, honest. I really do want to see the Irish lose. How the years have changed me.

This game is all they were talking about at work today, Karin says.

Is it being played here, or in Columbus?, I ask. (Don’t shake your head at me. I really don’t know. I seldom leave the house.)

Traffic hasn’t been all that bad, says Karin.

So the game must be in Columbus.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

For several years, I’ve been watching video highlights of Erling Haaland without ever seeing him in real time. Until today, that is, when he suits up for his new club, Manchester City, against Aston Villa.

Some stats from the TV:

In his first half-dozen English Premier League matches, Haaland has scored ten goals; only one other person has done that.

During the season’s first five matches, Haaland scored one goal for every fifteen touches of the ball. One goal per twenty-five touches is supposed to be a world-class scoring rate. (The announcers don’t explain what they mean by “world class,” but I assume it’s something good.)

In six games, Haaland has scored more goals from within the six-yard box than any other EPL player has scored – except for one other (unnamed) player – since the beginning of last season. That is, he leads virtually everyone in that category even though he’s been eligible during 30–40 fewer games.

Scoring so many goals from inside the six-yard box means this. The player has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. And the defenders know this about him, and they still lose track of him.

In other words, he’s very, very smart.

Haaland gets today’s goal from inside the six-yard box; indeed, he scores it with his very first touch from inside the penalty box. He’s been marked so carefully that it’s taken him until the second half to get that touch. (It isn’t as if his positioning has been bad. His runs into open spaces have been impeccable all day long, although the passes to him haven’t been.)

But what most impresses me is his hold-up and linking play. Even with defenders climbing up his back or wrenching him to the ground, he controls waist-high passes and lays the ball off, smoothly and with perfect timing, to onrunning teammates. I’d start him on my team even if he never scored any goals. Teams have won with non-scoring strikers who did superb hold-up work. Haaland does that, and he’ll probably end up scoring more goals than anybody else.

Library statistics

Karin will go back to her job on Monday, leaving me alone with Daniel and Samuel and Jasper and Ziva … and the mice, who seem to have found a passage from the mud-room into the basement, to our dismay. Jasper killed four mice today. Or, I assume, he is killing the fourth mouse; he has it with him under a bed.

The other night, Samuel and I read The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, which is especially bloody. I felt some revulsion. Not so much after today’s infestation.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The St. Joseph County library system has just one book by R.K. Narayan: Waiting for Mahatma (an e-book). This, despite Narayan’s sales, acclaim, cultural salience, etc.

Not that I’ve read anything by Narayan. But if I ever do, it won’t be thanks to the SJCPL.

It’s not that the SJCPL is oblivious to Narayan. Its catalog includes the following e-books: (a) three critical studies of Narayan; (b) one book discussing Narayan along with three other Indian authors; and (c) four GALE “study guides” on different titles by Narayan.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I decided to write down the library branches of every book I found through the electronic catalog from March 8 to April 8. (Hard copies only.)

• Book 1: Francis, Francis, Francis, Main, River Park.
• Book 2: Centre, Main, Main.
• Book 3: Main.
• Book 4: Centre, River Park.
• Book 5: Centre, German, Main.
• Book 6: Main.
• Book 7: Main.
• Book 8: Centre, Centre, Centre, Centre, Francis, Francis, Francis, Francis, German, German, Main, Main, River Park.
• Book 9: Main, Main.
• Book 10: Main.
• Book 11: Main, Main, Francis.
• Book 12: Main.
• Book 13: Main.
• Book 14: Francis, River Park, Western (my branch!).
• Book 15: Centre, LaSalle, Main, Tutt.
• Book 16: Main.

Summary: Centre, 8 copies; Francis, 9; German, 3; LaSalle, 1; Main, 18; River Park, 4; Tutt, 1; Western, 1.

The books that interest me are not kept in the neighborhood where I live.

Of course, I can request just about any book in the system. I simply go to my branch and pick it up after a few days.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A good blog I found: Down Among the “Z” Movies. Better reviews than mine, though writing about turkeys probably isn’t hard to do. Watching them is hard to do.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

P.S. It turns out, Jasper hasn’t killed the fourth mouse.

Usually he is more prompt.

Karin tired of waiting; she rescued the mouse and took it outside. I don’t believe it will fare very well. It seemed rather dazed.

This week, there has been snow.

I♥SB

Samuel: “I yuv South Bend.”

The little weirdo. This isn’t something Karin & I say to each other. And how could Samuel love South Bend when he doesn’t even go out of the house?

Maybe he’s been reading my old pastor’s web posts. (My old pastor’s current job is “city engagement pastor” at South Bend City Church.)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Karin’s dad visits. He tells us that he attended a comic book convention, one county to the east. John Heder of Napoleon Dynamite was there.

Samuel: “I yuv Star Trek.”

Good grief, son.

Karin’s dad is delighted.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Flashback: some weeks ago, at Karin’s dad’s house, I pick up and read a humorous detective novel by Texas Jewboys frontman Kinky Friedman.

Two or three days pass.

A week passes.

All the while, I have the urge to read more Kinky Friedman.

So, I buy More Kinky Friedman, Friedman’s second omnibus. Then I buy his first omnibus. Then I buy his third omnibus (Even More Kinky Friedman).

Back to today:

Samuel gets his hands upon the first omnibus. “Kinky Friedman!” he exclaims, brightly. He sits down with the book. “Chapter 1,” he says. “Chapter 2.” He keeps on paging through the volume. “Chapter 46.” Yes, there are a lot of chapters. They’re short. That’s one reason why I like reading Kinky Friedman. I can get through a chapter or two before Samuel climbs on me and jumps up and down.

Then Samuel goes back to the beginning and counts the chapters again. Then he reaches for a crayon and draws in the book. His drawing is mildly obscene.

A wedding

Continuing on the subject of gluttony, yesterday was my “last hurrah,” at least for the season: I made two trips down a Polish buffet line. (If anything has a claim to being “South Bend cuisine,” it’s Polish food.) The occasion was my mother-in-law’s wedding. You’ll recall that she was widowed in 2020. Now she is married to Scott, her dead husband’s ex-roommate. It was a canny move. When Rick died, she griefstrickenly bequeathed Rick’s guns to Scott; now, presumably, she has got them back. Karin and Samuel and I rode to the wedding with McKenzie, Karin’s mom’s ex-foster daughter. McKenzie wore sweatpants and swigged from a half-gallon of milk and talked on her phone to her imprisoned boyfriend. “I have a gift card,” she told him. “I’m going to sell it to buy you another phone card.” It was a cheerful conversation. Like Scott and unlike the rest of my mother-in-law’s family, McKenzie is a happy-go-lucky sort of person. She gleefully told her boyfriend that her tattoo artist had just been jailed.

We also had a delicious venison stew, courtesy of my mother-in-law’s Uncle Fred, who shoots deer and hangs them up in his front yard. Uncle Fred preached the sermon. Karin said it was about sin (Uncle Fred is another happy-go-lucky sort of person). I didn’t hear it; Samuel started howling as soon as the bride walked up the aisle, so I took him to a Sunday School room where he played with toy cars and I read Agatha Christie. Karin told me not to bring a book to the wedding, but I did anyway; one never knows. I don’t think Karin’s mom noticed. She seemed to be relishing everything else that was going on.

Ecuador 3, Bolivia 0

The goals were scored in the first twenty minutes, and the rest of the game was a cool-down session for our starters and then a tryout for various bench players. Énner Valencia broke Ecuador’s career scoring record.

Afterward, Bolivia’s captain, the goalkeeper Carlos Lampe, was interviewed.

He said: We were our own worst enemy – or something to that effect.

Let the scoreline not cause us to forget the solid defending that we did in the second half.

I’m afraid he was deluding himself.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We’ve moved to South Bend. Kind church friends helped us; so did Sam the architect; so did my parents; so did Karin’s dad & Carol, his girlfriend. Samuel was parked in front of the TV for many hours in a mostly happy state, but he would cry whenever I’d leave to move things into the new house. When I’d come back, he’d hug me and whimper, “Don’t go.”

The new house is crammed with disordered furniture and boxes. The rooms are impassable. Karin’s dad & Carol helped us to tidy up our bedroom, so at least we’ll have a place to sleep tonight.

Jasper and Ziva are distressed, of course, but they have been venturing out from their hiding places in the basement.

Last days in Mishawaka

Happy birthday to Karin, who is thirty.

As she pointed out, our ages start with the same digit. For now.

The grownups’ books – not Samuel’s – have all been transported to the new house, except the 35–40 vols. that I’ve set aside for imminent use. I miss the books that are out of reach. Until lately, I’d never had such an urge to read “The Canterville Ghost.”

The furniture, including the beds, will be moved on Saturday. This will be our last week at my parents’ house.

Like a good addict, I worry about where in the new neighborhood I’ll exercise. I’ll miss Mishawaka’s riverwalk. Its pavement once seemed too hard, but my legs have gotten used to it, and I have no trouble covering an extra mile on little more than a whim. Some mornings, I go incredibly fast, faster than I would have dreamed, because I have to get back to the house before Karin can leave for her job.

Still ill

Saturday

Blades of grass I mowed: zero. I’ve been feeling lousy.

COVID test results: negative (Karin’s and mine).

Karin & I went to our new house and cleaned for several hours. I was holding up all right until I swept the very dusty basement stairs and window ledges; afterward, it felt like a gallon of glue was in my nose. I took pills and felt OK. Then I felt lousy again. I took more pills. This illness should continue for a week.

Our neighbor who mows lawns mowed ours without having been asked to. Then he came over and hung around until we paid him.

It won’t be like this after we’ve moved in.

When we left, after dark, our little street was jam-packed with cars. These neighbors party. This will be a change from Mishawaka.

Sunday

Feeling worse. We stayed home from church and watched the service online. Samuel was grumpy all day; finally, I took him out in his stroller, about fifty minutes. He slept the last twenty and woke up as soon as we came home.

He recites passages from his books:

Kite oom
Kite moon
Kite boon
Kite kittens

I have been keeping up with the Dante reading, which is not strenuous, though some nights I don’t finish my canto until it’s time to sleep.

Benton Harbor and Saint Joseph; Sample Street

Benton Harbor, Michigan, and St. Joseph, Michigan – adjoining cities one county to the north of us – are featured in this Guardian report. And not for a very lovely reason.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Fall’s equinox will occur tomorrow. After several bright, hot days, the weather is obligingly misty.

My dad and I moved a carload of books to my new house. We rode along Sample Street, which goes in a straight line forever. One side is bleakly industrial; the other, bleakly residential. The street is dotted with sad little shops and gas stations.

More than any other part of South Bend, this area reminds me of the grim outlands of southern Quito.

When I was younger, I would project a certain romantic feeling onto such places. I guess I still do; but now I face the prospect of spending the rest of my life in one. (Or very near to one; the house’s immediate surroundings aren’t quite like this.) I am a little too old, and too tired, to relish this possibility.