Carol & Mary

My wife is the extrovert in this marriage - the friendlier half. She engages with friends, neighbors, relatives, strangers and seemingly without fail they immediately bond with her. As further testimony to her likability, every dog within 4 blocks of us will bound toward her at first sight. She worked at the VA Hospital and vets adored her - and told her stories. On one occasion a patient told her about his neighbor Mary who was pregnant and struggling with cancer. She had 9 kids ranging from 2 to 12. Mary was Amish.

The story tugged at Carol’s heartstrings, so she got the family’s address and wrote a warm letter to Mary. About a week later a multi-page response appeared. They became penpals and fast friends. Mary told her all about her family but little of her suffering.

At some point Carol declared we must visit this family and with a few more letters to organize, we packed up and drove east.  When we drove into their farmyard we could see 9 freshly scrubbed faces in the windows. We had picked up buckets of chicken and sodas  - and chocolate - so we were immediately popular with the children. Mary stashed the chocolate bars high in the cupboards and as we sat in the living room visiting, little Miriam walked in with an ear-to-ear chocolate face.  Calmly, Mary asked if she had been eating chocolate. “No”. And we all had to suppress the giggles. A quick look into the kitchen revealed drawers pulled out to create steps to the countertop and a cupboard door left open.

We began visiting this family a couple times a year, one of which would be near Christmas. Carol started assembling the gifts in January, one practical gift and one fun item for each kid. After a few of these visits the family agreed to let the 5 oldest kids visit us - among the ground rules - no TV or movies. So I packed them into a van and  brought them to Minnesota. All the kids learned to ride a bike during that 3 day visit and we went ice skating-  in the summer - at the rink at Minneapolis Union Depot.  The Amish have a "no graven images” rule, so they have no family photos, but I took a photo of the 5 kids from behind skating arm-in-arm down the rink and had the temerity to show it to Mary. She smiled. I think the family might have gotten into a bit of hot water with the Elders for exposing the children to such worldliness.

Mary gave birth to her 10th but sadly it was not long before cancer took her. We went to that funeral and as we drove up we were greeted with the sight of hundreds of black buggies. A very sad day.  All the Amish from the area plus multitudes of mourners arriving in chartered buses from around the country. We and one other couple were the only “English” attendees. As part of the service, mourners walk past the casket to offer their goodbyes. I lost count at about 1000. 

We also had the privilege of attending several of the kids’ weddings. All day affairs with a long ceremony, including a 90 minute sermon in their German dialect followed by noon and evening meals served to several hundred people. And yes, Amish pies are as good as advertised.

Not too long after Mary’s death, the father of 10 married a widow in the neighborhood. She had been left with 9 and not long thereafter they had another daughter.  22 people around the dinner table.  They don’t use the term, but uffda.

Copyright ©  2024  Dave Hoplin

Gaslighting

"Gaslighting" is a term you almost certainly have heard.  It derives from the 1944 Ingrid Bergman film Gaslight, where a husband manipulates his wife into thinking she is mentally ill.  It is a technique intent on making someone(s) believe patently false characterizations of events even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  We have all probably succumbed in - usually - small matters when someone we trust provides information that proves to be incorrect.  

Gaslighting is used extensively in political campaigns, mainly because it seems to work.  People are willing to accept as truth the most ridiculous  claims. ....

The most outrageous example of gaslighting in this election cycle in my view is this:  "Donald Trump insisted that the Jan. 6 attack, when his supporters stormed the Capitol and assaulted scores of law enforcement officers, was not a day of violence, but a "day of love" (See Oct 17, 2024 CBS News story)

Of course the facts of the matter, in case your memory needs a jog or has been corrupted by Russian disinformation, is exactly the opposite.  

Here is a sampling of the Jan 7, 2021 headlines from across the country.

Vote. Vote your conscience.

Copyright ©  2024  Dave Hoplin

Pay It Forward

I broke my ankle in July <read gory details here> and I have struggled through 8 weeks of surgeon ordered “absolutely no weight bearing on that leg”. The implications of that command took a bit to sink in. Another beautiful Minnesota summer laid waste. Of course, I realize there are millions of people who suffer permanent incapacity and I have no right to wallow. I at least have the hope and expectation of a full recovery. But I am not a patient patient, so lolling on the couch with my leg up is a trial. And living on one leg makes most everything you want to do difficult. The temptation to succumb to the "Black Dog" is ever present and my avoidance of it is to a large degree owed to my loving, caring, ever cheerful wife. 

As of this week, I have received permission to start putting partial weight on that damaged leg - while wearing a boot - and in a week or so I can swap the boot for an elaborate ankle brace. It's not the "lift up your pallet and walk" pronouncement I was hoping for but it did produce an audible sigh of relief. I may get my life back.

My little neighbor girl says I am "sooo lucky" to have such a fancy scooter

I have essentially been idle since mid-July - and you know what they say about idleness and workshops. More to the point, the unwritten, unspoken burden of my upbringing - duty and responsibility and all that, sends the message: idleness equates to worthlessnesses. Guilt is a well understood Lutheran thing.

So in my many available idle hours, I was thrown into a dangerous state - thinking.

How do/should you define yourself? Most people lift the banner of work or a business as giving purpose to life. I am what I do, what I own - or in retirement, what I was. Some find a cause or an all consuming hobby. Some measure their worth by their net worth. Some on travel. Some find meaning in service.

I believe, in the end it is how you lived your life. Did you make a difference in the lives of others? That is a legacy worth pursuing. I for one, have been blessed in this life and it seems a responsibility in some small way to look out those less fortunate. You don't need to save the world. Try helping your neighbor, volunteer, donate, offer a kind word, be a friend.

Be kind. Pay it forward.

Copyright ©  2024  Dave Hoplin

Cousins

There are 29 people who, when/if they see the title of this post will be thinking - "oh-oh". I am one of 31 cousins, 17 my father's side of the family and 16 on my mother's side. 31 cousins, an embarrassment of riches. In contrast, a good friend has none and an Amish family we have befriended have 135. In my high school class of 100, there were 15 sets of cousins. Baby Boomers.

The “oh-oh impulse stems from the realization that I possess a raft of family lore and the associated angst over what might drop. But I value my cousin connections, so if you are expecting something lurid, you will be disappointed. Although I suspect there may be a few of these fine souls wouldn’t mind reading some scandalous stuff as long as it only pertained to the other 29. 

Eccentricities on the other hand … are somethings that might slip through.  

Cousins like quarks come in flavors: up, down, charm, strange and of course, red, blue .. and green. Bonds vary from strong to weak - or none - but are not welded like sibling bonds can be. For example, if you need a kidney, you probably wouldn’t immediately ask a cousin. In most families, cousins occupy a weird place ranging from very close to nearly strangers. The relationships are usually uncomplicated with rare but brief, genial contact.  And yet, they all have something in common, something rare and valuable. They know what it’s like to be part of your particular family - for better or worse. A cousin might be one of the few people who understand your eccentricities, virtues and foibles. In most areas of your life, you might not be alike at all. But knowledge of your family ties through decades is a form of closeness. 

In our family, for many years, we had a tradition, sadly now defunct, of gathering on Epiphany for chili and chat and Scandinavian Christmas delicacies. <see post>  Families made an effort to travel to Columbia Heights and I recall them as joyful occasions. The “Greatest Generation” drove these gatherings, having a far better sense of the benefits of even weak bonding than my generation. And it offered a chance to expose some strange Holiday traditions. 

The grandfather of us all was a farmer, an electrician, a hardware owner .. and an undertaker, which perhaps introduced a bit of somberness into the clan, but also some whimsy - such as, in some families, an apprentice program. 

This may also have encouraged prodigious musical talents that could be counted on to render ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ or ‘The Navy Hymn’ in support funeral services. One cousin has made a nice side hustle from funeral vocals.

I like all my cousins, which I think is quite miraculous, but I have regular contact, usually by phone, with just a few.  

One calls me to give me pep talks or to suggest a bike ride, recognizing my tendency toward Scandinavian stoicism. Another calls to preserve the tight bond our fathers had. And I, paying it forward, call another to remind they are not immortal and they should avoid a fall into dissipation.

So pick up the phone give a cousin a call and don’t be discouraged if they say “Who?”. You’ve got a lot of memories to talk about.

In Memoriam - Dan

Copyright ©  2024  Dave Hoplin

Wipeout

Cycling can be dangerous.  Cycling road racing is said to be the most dangerous sport in the world. Just ask a Tour de France rider careening down a mountain descent at 60 mph or in the mad sprint to the finish. Tragedies on two wheels are not uncommon. Wikipedia has a list 

If you are more than a casual bike rider, you have likely experienced a crash landing. Even outside a 176 rider peloton, hazards are manifold. Curbs, loose gravel, ice and mud, potholes, cars, other riders, misjudged curves, bike malfunctions, opening car doors, unexpected obstacles or just plain inattention to your environment.

I have experienced many close calls courtesy of all those various hazards. And I have gone to ground a number of times, but only once have I been put out of action for any period of time because of a crash.  That happened in 2017 when on a So. Minneapolis ride, I unexpectedly came upon 8” water pipes laying across the roadway. Unable to avoid them, I rammed them and took flight over the handlebars. I have no recollection of the (I’m sure) graceful glide over the bars, but the landing is vivid. I came out of that with a badly sprained wrist but happily no head injury.  Put me on the shelf for a couple weeks. 

That was my worst biking day - until last Thursday. 

I decided to check out Swing Bridge Park and the Mississippi River levels. The bridge is a former double-decker - rail & auto - that crossed the Mississippi in Inver Grove Heights. It has been truncated and repurposed as a sort of pier extending well out into the river. Check it out. It’s a great spot to barge watch. 

Not so great for me that day. As I was pedaling out to the far end, the wheels of my bike slid out and I watched the waves rise up to meet me. Not water. May flies, thousand and thousands of them. As I was falling, the surfer hymn - you know the one if you are of a certain age - with the frenetic drum and guitar riffs, the maniacal laughter and the one word lyric flashed through my brain, all in that 1 second drop into a swarm of writhing bugs turned to grease by my wheels… Wipeout. [That was a Faulkner sentence.]

I crawled from that disgusting mass over to the bridge railing and sat brushing off bugs and fighting back dizziness & nausea and thinking how stupid I had been. I recalled stories of cars sliding into ditches after driving through a swarm of May flies. I knew immediately something not very good had happened to my left ankle, smashed between the fallen bike and the bridge deck, the bugs not providing much of a cushion. I have a lot of experience with ankle sprains from my volleyball playing days, back in time when I could leap high enough to allow landing on another’s foot. 

Deja vu.

After some recovery time, I got back on my bike and rode the 6 miles back to my truck at one foot power. This was my 2nd stupidity and 2 stupids do not make a smart. 

This might have actually been hilarious if it were a tale told to me rather than by me. It would still be funny if I could have survived unscathed.But I was scathed. Turns out my ankle was broken, amazingly the first bone break in my relatively long life. 

So after a 2023 of no riding due to multiple medical issues, here I am in 2024 again on the shelf, awaiting surgery to put pins in my ankle.

Life is hard.

Copyright ©  2024  Dave Hoplin

Deep Thoughts Vol 4

Do you think stroking your chin actually helps brain function?

Why is it that the very wealthy or famous think their notoriety qualifies them as an authority on any subject?

"With the internet, you can have a paranoid fantasy at breakfast and a cult following by teatime."  Quote credit: Must be a Brit. We don't do teatime this side of the pond.

This is frightening. Google has acquired the stupidity of millions of Reddit comments to train its AI technology.

Those optimistic assessments of AI's potential for good reminds me of the early days of social media - and we know how that has turned out.

An Easter service and not a single Easter bonnet.  Another lost tradition. Too bad.

But, of course. Let's leverage Holy Week hawking a $60 God Bless America Bible.

Why do people no longer play croquet?

Sometimes it takes a half-a-day to come up with the word I need to complete a sentence.

I told my wife that mistakes should be embraced. It's how we get experience. She gave me a big hug.

Time is passing me by. I turned to the oldie's station looking for the Everly Brothers and got Bon Jovi.

WWJD is about as far from WWDJTD as you can get.

My annual resolution. I will keep annual weight gain to less than one stone

You have definitely reached old age when thoughts of time are dominated by memories rather than dreams.

After 70, stay vertical at all costs. Falls can kill you.

As we age, continue to learn. Aging is grad school.

"I wanted to read Anna Karenina and everybody else wanted to do stuff in the back of cars." Barbara Kingsolver   Which category did you fall in in your youth? 

I thought she wanted us back in 1950 but I guess it’s actually 1590.  Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, wrote, “God is sending America strong signs to tell us to repent. Earthquakes and eclipses and many more things to come.”

My old-age fear is not being able to read.

I don't understand annuities.  Give them all your money and then they give it back to you a little at a time.

My fear is that all these climate change deniers really believe it is not a real problem. This is just one of the rampant false beliefs that has me frightened.

“Invaluable” is one of my favorite words. You know, like inaccurate, incurable, invalid, incoherent … And thank you. Your assistance has been invaluable.

Do they still teach history in high school? If so, then why ... oh never mind.

No one is entirely useless.  You can always serve as a bad example.  Credit: unknown.

A rare book is a loaned book that actually gets returned.

As you approach an intersection and the light turns yellow, do accelerate or brake?

Can you explain the symbiotic relationship between mobile homes and tornados?

"If you have any friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy."  Dorothy Parker

If you recognize you've forgotten something you should know, it may just be slow retrieval times due to your terra-byte cranial database?

“It is not so much the sight of immorality of the great that is to be feared as that of immorality leading to greatness.”  Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America

If you think you are a deep thinker, you are probably wrong.

I hate the histrionic Star Spangled Banner performances so common at sporting events. Just sing it straight.

"To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble." Mark Twain

Deep science ... genetic sequencing of the Minnesota State Fair corn dog. https://www.startribune.com/where-will-the-worlds-first-genetic-sequencing-of-a-corn-dog-take-place-at-the-minnesota-state-fair/600370588/

Fathers' Day used to be the day when the most collect calls of the year were made - for those that remember such things.

I did not know Roy Orbison was Norwegian -  born in Vernon, Texas, to Orbie Lee

Soon I'll have garnered enough of these to publish a coffee table book.

Copyright ©  2024  Dave Hoplin

Hey, Operator

 

Won't you help me make this call?

On Father's Day, we were having lunch with our youngest granddaughter and her parents.  I told her that Mother's Day was the biggest day of the year for restaurants, while Father's Day was the biggest day for collect calls.  I was hoping that joke would elicit at least a chuckle. Rather, a puzzled look and .. "What's a collect call?".  Yet another confirmation of my passage into geriatric-hood. What was I thinking? A Gen-Z'er, born with a cell phone in the cradle, how would she possibly understand collect calls?

I went on to explain it used to be that that every 'long distance' call was individually charged to your phone bill, priced by the minute - long distance meaning any call that crossed out of the local telephone company's territory. A caller had the option to ask the operator to "reverse the charges" so the cost would show up on the callee's bill rather than your own. This feature was often used by children calling home. You just told the operator you wanted the call to be collect and she - always she - would connect the call and ask "Will you accept the charges?".  Another puzzled look .. "What's an operator?".  Deeper and deeper into the twilight zone.

So I had to explain 1950's phone technology. I could as well been speaking Urdu. Before age of the dial phone, an operator fielded every request and connected you to someone via a telephone switchboard.  You picked up the phone and heard "Number please?" and waited for the call to be put through. Our home phone number was 74.  The hardware's was 2.  Grandma was 35. Lowry telephone operators were also the watchdogs of Main Street.  I could pick up the phone and ask Inez or Leona if they knew where my dad might be. "Oh, I just saw him go into the cafe".  

Not knowing when to cut my losses, I then told her the story of coming down with the mumps during my senior year in high school and being forced into quarantine for 3 weeks or so. One boring Sunday afternoon, when my folks were out visiting - people actually did that back then, just drop in on someone for a visit - I decided to give Carol a call.  She lived on a farm about 5 miles away, but in another phone company's territory, so the call was "long distance".  (I didn't ask to reverse the charges!).  We talked for 45 minutes. When the phone bill arrived and my mother saw the mammoth $4.50 charge sticking out like a neon sign amongst the mostly 50¢ calls, she let me have it. "What could you possibly have to talk about on the phone for 45 minutes?"  Hmm, note to self: next time remember to reverse the charges. 

Finally coming to my senses and rejecting boldly going on to person-to-person calls & party lines, I decided to cease and desist.

So .. I've come to the realization that most of my great treasure of knowledge and a substantial block of my skillset is obsolete and of little interest to anyone - with a possible rare exception of another old geezer. 

Some of my now less than useful capabilities are things like .. 

• Deftly digging out information from American Peoples Encyclopedia
• Coupling cast iron soil pipe joints with oakum and hot lead  
• BASIC Programming on a Commodore 64  
• Operating a key punch machine
• Clipping baseball cards to my bicycle spokes to turn it into a motorcycle 
• Circling good stuff in the Sears Catalog
• Drag bunting
• Diagramming sentences
• Operating a ditch-witch 
• Bowling scorekeeping 
• Operating the Burroughs posting machine
• PowerPoint
• Listing World Series winners from 1903 to present from memory - fyi, no series winner in 1904 or 1994 
• Constructing a haystack - actually an embarrassing fiasco 
• Assembling a hog feeder
• Using a slide rule
• Navigating with paper maps
• Spelling
• Weighing out 25¢ worth of 8p nails
• Conjugating Latin verbs
• Driving a stick shift pickup truck
• Speaking broken German
• FORTRAN IV
• Twinkie baking
• Writing cursive
• Integrating to find the area under a curve 
• Changing a fuse
• Blogging
• Proving a doughnut and a coffee cup are topologically equivalent - but not digestively
• Knowing the way to San Jose
• ...

It’s the beginning of a very long list. Not all is despair. I do have a list - shorter - of some still useful abilities.

Copyright ©  2024 Dave Hoplin

In Defense of Mathematics

I taught mathematics for a living for 7 years and then went on to a career in computer programming, software development and management.  So I never asked the question "Why should I study this stuff? I'll never use it".  But I heard that whine over and over in my teaching days. Math seems to be the principal whipping boy for this critique. Do students ask "Why should I read Shakespeare? Why should I study Newton's 3 laws? Who cares about the Civil War?" What's the valence of sodium? Really?"  

Well, ok, sure they do.  But nevertheless, you don't necessarily know what's good for you.   

I would make the argument that math is beautiful, but that just brought eye-rolls.  I'd argue that math is the underpinning of all the science and if you want a career in science or science related, you better learn math. But the ultimate argument is that math teaches you how to think logically, and that is a skill that applies to most everything you do.  It's not about memorizing your times tables all the way up to 9x7 = 56 or all those word problems you struggled with [if a canoe is traveling 6 mph in Stillwater , how fast is it going in Hastings. - it's a nerd joke] or memorizing the quadratic equation.  These tasks build a foundation for logical, creative problem solving.

Math trains your brain. Much like physical activity helps keep your body fit, math keeps your mind nimble so you can avoid being intimidated by new tasks you might face.  And these brain calisthenics improve your memory - think Alzheimer's vaccine.  Not to mention, in this day and age of creeping AI, reasoning skills will help you identify scams rather than succumb to them. It's also not about being right all the time.  Math teaches you to try different approaches and to be persistent. 

There are loads of things in your life that are "mathematical", even if you don't realize it.

• Board games, crosswords, sudoko, puzzles
• Reflecting on the news. Understanding arguments, interpreting graphs and diagrams, box scores
• Understanding financial information. Creating a budget.
• Following recipe instructions
• Math and music skills have a strong correlation. I hired a few music majors as programmers
• Managing your prescription drugs. It's 10 mg AM & PM, not 20 mg every other day. 
• Cheating on your golf score.
• Calculating how much you've lost in your crypto account
• Creating your itinerary for your next road trip
• Navigating your way around a website
• Making that difficult pool shot
• Calculating your batting average
• ...

You really should be asking yourself "when do I not use math?".

I have become increasingly concerned over American illiteracy in general - and math illiteracy in particular. Math needs defending.  It is massively under appreciated.  Someone's gotta do it.

Copyright ©  2024 Dave Hoplin,  MS Mathematics,'71