Mads

When I left behind my hippie-wannabe pseudo-intellectual ways as I left Ann Arbor for the first time, I also left behind my taste for foreign movies (called “international” these days).  It was the mid-70s and Hollywood was still in its heyday, with Star Wars, Bonnie and Clyde, Flashdance, Carrie, Alien, Taxi Driver, Chinatown, The Exorcist, French Connection, Jaws, Close Encounters, The Deer Hunter, Animal House, Play Misty for Me, Little Big Man, Saturday Night Fever, Rocky, Nashville, All the Jazz, Being There, Coming Home, Shampoo, Kramer vs Kramer, Breaking Away (go Hoosiers!), Superman, Smoky and the Bandit, Every Which Way but Loose, Network, and so on.  Yes, I saw ‘em all.

Hard to say when the quality of American movies began to decline, but it’s no doubt they’re in the gutter these days.  Kathy and I haven’t been out to a movie for over a year and a half, when we ventured to Jackson to see Dennis Quaid’s portrayal of “Reagan”.  And nothing on the small screen, as the only thing close to a “streaming” service we pay for is Amazon Prime.  Our big TV stays cold for anything but Michigan football games.

About the only time I might catch a movie is on a plane.  Back-of-seat screens and airbuds don’t exactly replicate the movie palace experience, but you can see the flick o.k., and there’s always a huge directory.  But it’s like the old Springsteen tune “57 channels (and nothing on”)(1).  But sometimes you get lucky.  Scrolling through one time, I happened on a panel for “Another Round”, featuring a tall ruggedly handsome actor I’d never seen before taking a deep pull on an upturned champagne bottle.  

I learned from the info tile this was Danish film Druk.  “Druk” translates roughly as “binge drinking”.  The plot involves 4 middle-aged male schoolteachers who decide to test the theory of Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud: that humans are born with a blood alcohol content (BAC) deficiency of 0.05% and that maintaining a BAC of 0.05% makes one more creative and relaxed.  It won the Oscar for best International film in 2021.  Here’s the trailer if you’re curious (2).

While the movie is always engaging while ripping your emotions right and left, one key to its appeal is Danish dancer turned actor Mads Mikkelsen (3).  Follow his arc from sad, bored schoolteacher to ecstatic survivor and try not to love the guy.  I may have sent my friend Angie too many YouTubes of him, as she accuses me now of having a man crush.  If the shoe fits!

No, this movie won’t drive you to debauchery.  If anything, you might decide to temper your own consumption.  Should you wish to test Dr. Skårderud’s theory, you’ll need your own breathalyzer (4).  Even though the New Year is entering its second week, I’m sure you can shoehorn that into your resolutions somehow.

But don’t take my word for it.  See the movie!  It’s up for FREE on YouTube (5).  Great expenditure of time and you’ll surely get your money’s worth.  Be careful trying to mimic some of Mads’ moves!

References

1. Keith “Hollywood” Sousa.  57 CHANNELS (AND NOTHIN’ ON) – Bruce Springsteen – w/lyrics. YouTube 8/11/15. https://youtu.be/ZPEKbXNYWwE?si=CHtn0gM-9BTenD_V

2. StudiocanalUK.  Another Round | Official Trailer | Starring Mads Mikkelsen.  YouTube 9/21/20. https://youtu.be/40X5EX6Us7c?si=9j6M0QGEk2HEBmML

3. BabaYaga.  Mads Mikkelsen – Big Bad Handsome Man. YouTube https://youtu.be/ewoJ2iywSr4?si=NFAkN23QnVICCDcf

4. breathalyzer.  Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=breathalyzer&crid=2AQ2UI7TOO0XP&sprefix=breathalyzer%2Caps%2C266&ref=nb_sb_ss_p13n-expert-pd-ops-ranker_ci_hl-bn-left_1_12

5. YouTube Movies & TV.  Another Round.  YouTube https://youtu.be/Qbl89-pUyuQ?si=R11U-d2Ov7Ex2DAS

High, Semi-dry, January

I never managed to make sweet, willowy, athletic Denise my girlfriend.  We went our separate ways after graduation, she snaring Kevin – a U-M educated lawyer and all-around good guy – while I lucked into Kathy.  My reacquaintance with old ‘burg friends included Kevin and Denise, now a dear friend once again.  It was from Denise that I first learned of the practice that is the topic of this blog.  Several years ago, she wrote that she was giving up drinking for January.  She’s not a lush, but likes her white wine, and cold.  She’ll throw some ice cubes in her glass if it isn’t cold enough.  As she told it, the motivation wasn’t concern for impending alcoholism, but rather the extra poundage those empty booze calories were putting on.  For her, those pounds were going to places where tall women can mask them while nevertheless knowing full well what’s happening.  I tried to dissuade her, pointing out the advantages of moderation over full abstinence.  She did it her way, and although I never got a detailed progress report, I think she was satisfied with the results.  Maybe Denise was ahead of her time, but I’ve begun hearing this practice is a thing: a New Years Resolution for a “Dry January” (1).  Starting with an official announcement in the U.K. 2014, it’s spread worldwide (2).

I understand the motivation.  Booze can put on the pounds.  And we regular drinkers get advice from everywhere, and it’s rarely about some nice new IPA out there.  Mainly that it would be in our best interest to cut back, heard especially from our doctors!

I’ve played this game before, if not as a voluntary participant.  As part of a “corrective action” to some behaviors of which the U took a dim view, I was put into a program that required total abstinence, enforced by regular monitoring.  I was in 7 months before being released by my case worker, who determined that drinking was not a factor in my questionable actions.  While I found some ways around the monitoring and managed a beer now and then, it was a true dry stretch, probably the longest I’ve been without a drink since I started the practice in the shadow of the White House at age 16.  And, to quote Ren & Stimpy’s Mr. Horse: “No sir, I didn’t like it” (3).  I vowed it would be a cold day in Hell before anyone did that to me again.

But I think I’ve come up with a system that might fulfill the spirit of “Dry January” without depriving our shiny human brains of the intoxicants they so crave.  Now, I write this as a privileged native of the great state of Michigan, whose legislature in 2018 passed Proposition 1, approving state-licensed recreational sales beginning in late 2019, building on earlier legalization for medical cannabis in 2008.  If you’re of my generation and went to college, you’ve had ample education in how to handle this agent.  I got introduced after an injury qualified me for a Medical Marihuana Card.  Helped reintroduce me to those effects that so motivated my student ingestions.

Of course, the product line has expanded well beyond that once bag of leaf, seeds, and stems you bought from some shady character.  I particularly like the edibles, conveniently packaged and labelled.  My old asthmatic lungs just aren’t up to smoking anymore, even though the effect is faster.  You know what strain is behind the product, and the THC dose in milligrams.  Indica is fine at inducing sleep while sativa is better if a party-time effect is being sought.

Should you wish to follow this practice and don’t live in the state of Michigan, hope you live in one of the many other states that have legalized (4).

The system is pretty simple.  Once you feel the urge for a drink, reach for a gummie instead!  Some dose adjustment will be necessary.  I’ve found that 2 gummies containing 20 mg THC each do me fine, either for sleep or pleasure.  My local pot shop – Cloud Cannabis – will sell me a pack of 10 for $5.00.  That’s a buck a buzz!  Compare that with what you’d pay for 4 beers at $12/6 pack: 8 bucks!  Not to mention the 800-1000 calories involved.  Sure, we all know what cannabis can do to the appetite, but there are ways to counter that urge (5).  Scientists have recently nailed down why this happens, with action in the mediobasal hypothalamus (6).  Perhaps a more precise solution will be forthcoming.  Some, like yours truly, do not feel this effect.  Not so Kathy, who gets so ravenous after even a little bit, she’s stays far away from the herb in all forms.

So, have you figured out the program yet?  Very simple.  Alcoholic beverages still permitted but substitute any urge for a drink with a nibble on a gummie.  The buzz that washes over will diminish or eliminate any urge you might have for alcohol.  This isn’t disulfiram (Antabuse) where ingestion makes alcohol into something that makes you sick.  Its sensation just substitutes for an urge for alcohol, so you’ll consume less.  And isn’t that the point of “Dry January”?  It’s a crime to enter into a brand-new year facing a month of suffering and deprivation.  So, try my system!

DISCLAIMER: readers should note that compounds and dosing are per the author’s particular situation. These are not intended as any sort of medical advice. Your results may vary.

References

1. Diaz J.  Dry January started with 1 person years ago – now it’s a phenom.  NPR 1/1/26.  https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/nx-s1-5662527/the-origins-of-dry-january

2. The Dry January Story.  The Alcohol Change UK.  https://alcoholchange.org.uk/help-and-support/managing-your-drinking/dry-january/about-dry-january/the-dry-january-story

3. StupidDupid.  Every time Mr Horse says No Sir I Don’t Like It – The Ren & Stimpy Show.  YouTube.  https://youtu.be/PvDP6rozVtk?si=51MwyT_AbBomUV2C

4. DISA.  Marijuana Legality Map.  12/1/25.  https://disa.com/marijuana-legality-by-state/

5. Benali S.  How to Stop the Munchies: A Dietitian’s Guide.  In Good Nutrition 3/20/25.  https://www.ingoodnutrition.com/post/how-to-stop-the-munchies

6. Neporent L.  Scientists Solve Marijuana Munchies Mystery.  Psychiatrist.com 1/17/24.  https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/scientists-solve-marijuana-munchies-mystery/

NAC me up Joe

“I feel bad for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.” — Frank Sinatra

“I’m not saying everyone should drink, it just worked for me” – Jackie Gleason

“Alcohol doesn’t solve any problems, neither does milk”. unknown origin, but it had its own Facbook page! (1)

I’ve wanted to write about this topic for a while.  As we’re facing the apex of the season’s drinking cycle, I thought it might be timely.

I write this while sipping a nice double Manhattan, straight up, of course.  My hors d’ouvres included some N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) as 4X600 mg capsules.  Why am I doing this?  I’m seeking to reduce the amount of acetaldehyde produced as my body breaks down the alcohol I ingest.  NAC reduces acetaldehyde, a toxic byproduct of alcohol metabolism, by either directly binding to it or boosting the body’s natural antioxidant, glutathione, which detoxifies it, potentially reducing hangover severity and alcohol-induced damage by lowering acetaldehyde levels and oxidative stress.

You’d think that organized medicine would pay more attention to this widespread side effect of a common recreational activity.  They do have a name for that morning after symptom complex veisalgia, derived from the Norwegian word “kveis” (uneasiness after debauchery) and the Greek word “algia” (pain).  Try using that term next time you have to call in.

The chemistry of the process has been pretty well studied.

Whether this stuff really works has been a matter for debate.  Placebo controlled trials have shown little protection against hangover symptoms by NAC compared with placebo, although women tended to have less nausea and weakness (2).  A more recent study showed similar clinical results, and measured some serum markers (sodium and 8-hydroxy-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), the latter a marker for oxidative stress), finding no differences between the groups (3).  But those are only indirect markers of whatever effect NAC might have.  It has been shown to reduce acetaldehyde following drinking (4).  Acetaldehyde not only contributes to hangover systems, it is directly toxic to the liver, accounting for much of alcohol induced liver damage.

So, if we listen to “the science”, what do we hear?  Simple observation is discounted in highbrow circles these days.  But here on Harbal, both of us can vouch that we feel better day after drinking if we’d taken NAC.  We both have Norwegian blood and certainly don’t want our debauchery followed by uneasiness.  Despite the weight we give to the results of controlled clinical trials, they still don’t account for a number of variables, like drinking history, underlying conditions, body size, age, etc.  So, if taking a few NAC capsules prior to a slight binge, knowing the effects might be iffy but that production of a liver toxin would be reduced, what’s to lose? You can get the stuff on Amazon for cheap (5).

If there a downside?  I’ve talked to people who worry that NAC would do for us boozers what Narcan has done for heroin addicts, where an antidote to the intoxicant promotes injection of even higher doses, knowing that rescue can be had easily (6).  But NAC isn’t an antidote.  At best, it may tempt some to down a few extra figuring that tomorrow’s misery will be mitigated.  That’s a dose-response study I haven’t seen yet.

So, how about hauling a few capsules to tonight’s party?  If you have a full bottle you can share.  As we Norwegians like to say:

Sköl!

And Happy New Year!!

Let Frank sing it to you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m121tmJzcAc

References

1. Alcohol doesn’t solve any problems, neither does milk.  Facebook https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070371907952

2. Coppersmith V, Hudgins S, Stoltzfus J, Stankewicz H. The use of N-acetylcysteine in the prevention of hangover: a randomized trial. Sci Rep. 2021 Jun 28;11(1):13397. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-92676-0. Erratum in: Sci Rep. 2021 Jul 21;11(1):15262. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-94669-5. 

3. Podobnik B, Demšar L, Šarc L, Jerin A, Osredkar J, Trontelj J, Roškar R, Brvar M. N-Acetylcysteine Ineffective in Alleviating Hangover from Binge Drinking: A Clinical Study. Toxics. 2024; 12(8):585. https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics12080585

4. Brvar M.  N-acetylcysteine Reduces Acetaldehyde Levels in Binge Alcohol Drinking 6/22/23.  https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05911282

5. Horbäach NAC Supplement N-Acetyl Cysteine 1200mg | 250 Powder Capsules | for Women and Men | with Natural Peppermint | Non-GMO, Gluten Free.https://www.amazon.com/Horbaach-Cysteine-Capsules-Non-GMO-Supplement/dp/B07N7R4TFB/ref=sr_1_6_pp?crid=6N7L4DGXWLKM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.wVf8Z_CE0A775-AzB7X_r0SzvXQ57f6xcLUuxGGp1zmQLlrIk7Mpta25w60hbWcy6XO6JrBIa1aREL3kYWmaJnUJFaboG5qu0KvOhNV4B5uyieaP7HDn4sbX_du0ZbVucB_VyohSbHaSXie0Xb2qny_ZvAzrnfacHzXkvGhHRXVdJxqFK6WmIS6cxWJ2pwZTZBx3KUT_VC2hoa5JxGaeOhUs4DMFF_QyLJGdH7f_yguKJkG_oUSaQqY2hDYDlHcNEQTBX-VahaKkdKqWKli1MxE9KxiBfnfSzdQC55gcsho.SN0skEvQPatzw8eP4bjI2NwjKeJ4gL2sMzWTiioCQ00&dib_tag=se&keywords=n+acetyl+cysteine&qid=1767145088&sprefix=n+acetyl%2Caps%2C208&sr=8-6

6. Hood J.  Narcan Parties are No Longer a Dangerous Urban Myth.  Healing Properties 1/25/22.  https://healingproperties.org/narcan-parties-dangerous-urban-myth/

In the year 2525 (less 1/2 a millennium)

Hope youse had a Merry Christmas!  Remember, this is just the beginning, if you play your cards right (1). Boxing Day has its own traditions, like me writing this Christmas letter.

Congratulations to you boomers out there who caught that reference in the title to Zager & Evans’ ’69 hit (2).  Listening to those apocalyptic 60s songs – e.g. also Eve of Destruction (3), Time has Come Today (4), The End (5), A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (6), Bad Moon Risin’ (7), Wooden Ships (8), even What’s Goin’ On? (9) – now over half a century on, offers a certain reassurance, even comfort. Like R Crumb’s Mr. Natural said: 

What songs will they be writing about these times?  You can bet they’ll be no match for those our generation cranked out.

But what about this year almost past?  Just like last year, we started by cheering our Wolverines on to victory. This time the victim was Alabama, and the defeat compelled their legendary coach Nick Saban to retire.  We were there in Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, with our friends Mark and Shellie, Mark a dorm mate of mine, where we came from the dinkiest towns of all.  Tampa is near Madeira Beach, our preferred Florida hangout.  Milton buried our usual house, but we found a spot down the beach, and the views were similar.

We got back in time for the Spei family Christmas celebration.  This brood, from my biological father, congregates long after Christmas has passed to allow folks to celebrate individually with their families before coming together.  

My dad passed to all his kids that they should approach each meal as if it were their last, and his spawn honors that legacy by cooking up a storm.  I’ve finally learned the men’s dress code: flannel shirt – unbuttoned – with a plastic fork in the front pocket, ready to stab whatever goodie might present itself.  Some prepare foodie gifts for distribution.  From us this year was shallot paste, a handy item to have in the kitchen.  

Then, January in Michigan wasn’t cold enough for us so we pushed off to Iceland. The Northern Lights were the main attraction and we were not disappointed.  Since Iceland basically sits on a bed of lava, the geothermals are spectacular too, some shooting into the air and others heating many soaking pools.  For more about Iceland, see (10).

Did you know geyser is an Icelandic word?
Water & rocks. Gotta go somewhere!

Have we made contact?

On the date of the Michigan State game, Kathy delivered a talk to Aero200 as put on by her aerospace engineering department.  She’d go on to deliver 5 more talks this year, three within the U and 3 in the community.  Her NASA background, continuing interest in space travel, and spellbinding style make for a great show.

March found Kathy on the road.  She gave a talk in Brighton and back to AA the next week for our Christian School.  These would take form as a talk based on her books followed by sales of those books.  This model seemed to work, as she’d end up making 10 more stops (some twice): Vicksburg, Saline, Pinckney, Brighton, Manchester, Caledonia, Indianapolis.  The mid-March trip to the ‘burg, to address “Family Literacy Night” would be our first of 4 visits there this year.  She addressed assemblies at all 3 elementary schools and then held forth at the evening’s book bazaar.  Her hostess, head librarian Kristen Shook, is daughter-in-law to Joe, my  dear friend and classmate who died young in a car crash.

April would mark our second ‘burg venture, but only after a quick trip to Chicago to see the Joffrey Ballet with the Chicago Symphony, a treat for my onetime ballerina sweetie.  The pull to the ‘burg this time was mine, to participate in the SW Michigan Tournament of Writers (TOW).  When my first entry won a prize last year (11), I figured I was on a roll.  Not so, although all entries go into a book they publish and sell on Amazon (12).  One problem with visiting the ‘burg is a lack of local lodging.  Lotsa motels in Kalamazoo, 15 miles north, but that’s a lot of driving.

But, setting the dials for “Schoolcraft”, the town on Vicksburg’s east border, I stumbled on an AirBnb right on Barton Lake, the 200-acre lake SE of town where I’d lived from 8th grade through high school.  The two-bedroom house might have been a little big for us, but oh the location.  We’d end up staying there again for our October trip. That’s a sunrise you’re seeing.

We hung around after the Thursday event as Saturday would see rededication of Ed Knapp Memorial Field where the baseball Bulldogs would host a tournament.  Mr. Knapp, who was my 8th grade basketball coach and an all-around great guy, died last year.  The frigid morning did not raise enthusiasm for a baseball game, set to start later that afternoon.  So we went and secured a couple chairs in front of Heather’s coffee shop to watch the parade go by.  We weren’t expecting one, but this Saturday was opening day for all the kids’ teams in the area.  The parade was mainly flatbeds and pickups, each with a different team of kids waving to the crowd lining Prairie Street.  We sure didn’t expect what happened next.  From a truckful of kids came a little voice shouting “Auntie KC”!”  Others joined, and soon there was a chorus of recognition.  It was the Sunset Lake Elementary team, where 5 weeks ago she had read to them from her books. “Auntie KC” is her pen name, and now we know she’s a rock star in Vicksburg!

With May came graduation season as those homeschooled California kids showed what they could do.  Aislin, then 19, was set to graduate cum laude from Vanderbilt.  That drive to Nashville and back was punctuated by stops to see Kathy’s Uncle Chuck in Cincinnati, Mark and Shellie Garman in Louisville, and June (our late friend Sam’s widow) who came over from Loudon to spend time with us in a cabin in Maryville.

With June came Orion’s turn.  His time as a banana slug (UC Santa Cruz) ran into COVID followed by local rents that turned him into a commuter student, taking the 40-minute drive from Pescadaro each day whenever he had to be on campus.  But it worked out.  He found a concentration he liked (geology), a girlfriend who can fix his cars, and – in the campus – an appreciative performance space for his ukelele recitals.  He wants to be a “Geotech consultant”, with duties which include localizing and timing the next earthquakes.

As June waned, it was time for the ‘burg again.  This time it was a party for Kathy and a number of other mature attractive women whom Linda Hoard had photographed as part of her “40 over 40” project (13).  She’s been at this a while but is not finished.  A glossy magazine is to follow.  I bought Kathy’s shoot as a birthday present 2 years ago (14).  I pondered mentioning that so much beauty in one place in the ‘burg is unusual, but held my tongue.  Linda had just moved her studio from Portage to Main Street in Vicksburg.  Her only misstep was assuming her beauties would be big-time eaters of her hors d’ouvres, which didn’t happen.  We closed out the month with an over-and-back train hop to Chicago to see Asleep at the Wheel. Big Ray Benson delivered as always. We had always competed for height, but now go for waist size and beard length. So far, I’m not winning that one on either front. Good.

Maybe that hop switched on the band chasing mode, as a week after the 4th, we were off to San Jose, thence to Petaluma, home of my Barnes buddy Dave and close to Saturday’s destination.  We stayed at the Metro, a French inspired hotel right downtown.  The place is compact, but they have a shiny way of making extra room.  Friday in Petaluma means the “Safety Meeting” in the back room of Maselli’s hardware; at these meetings, which start promptly at 5:15 PM, Dave and like-minded locals hold forth on the issues of the day while consuming various nutrients and intoxicants.  Hop Monk of Novato was just 20 minutes south on 101, and it was there on Saturday that Bill Kirchen drew the boys together, now known as “Commander Cody’s Lost Planet Airmen”.  The ol’ Commander ascended to the outer ozone 4 Septembers ago, but 6 of the remaining 7 Airmen are still alive, and 5 get together and play several times a year. They even cut a new record 2 years ago (15).  They were excellent, as always, and it was good to drag Dave there to see them.  Kathy even sold a few books to Kirchen’s wife, Louise.  Hey, she’s a grandma too!

The rest of July was quiet until August burst forth with our last graduation party.  This time, my eldest’s brother’s youngest son’s older son Trey was graduating high school.  Trey, who’s almost my size, greeted us in his Davenport University sweatshirt.  This Grand Rapids institution has been around since 1866, under various names.  In the early 40s, it was “Heaney Business School”, and my dad went there before signing on with Fisher Body.  Trey and his mom liked the connection.  I offered up several of the suits and sport coats I no longer use, as someday Trey will want to dress for success, too.

You can start to smell football in early August around here, even though the first game isn’t till the end of the month.  This is helped along if you’re a member of the UofM Club of Ann Arbor, an organization I like to call the “geriatric advisory council to the athletic department”.  Our kickoff luncheon is whenever the football head coach can break away from practice.  Each luncheon, except the first, features two coaches or equivalents.  The basketball and football coaches have their own handlers for scheduling.  The rest are from the “Olympic sports” (formerly; “non-revenue”), and guess who’s responsible for rounding them up?  Kathy’s been doing this for 3 years and sometimes reaches for non-coaches.  One who turned out to be a big hit and ended up returning the favor: Michigan Marching Band director John Pasquale.  He got to know Kathy and at an innocent dinner in May, he invited her to serve as guess conductor for an upcoming football game.  That became the first game of the season, August 30 against the New Mexico Lobos.  She’d be conducting the National Anthem.  Those last 2 weeks of the month included a lot of intense time in Revelli Hall.  Come gameday, she was more than ready.  She got to know the drum major, Miguel Retto, well, as they’d be working closely together.  We walked out the tunnel (with far less fanfare that the band would later see), circumvented the sidelines dodging football families and other hangers on and she mounted that 10-foot ladder.  That ascent had her worried, as she said, “if I fall off that thing, I’ll be on Sports Center forever”.  But she scrambled up, raised her arms, and her cue to Miguel, brought them down to start the anthem.  Not all guest conductors get the beat, and sometimes the band has to rely on assistant conductors spread either side.  But dancer Kathy has rhythm in her bones, and afterward everybody said he’d done a terrific job.  She even managed to co-ordinate with the Air Force.  Just as she was raising her arms for “land of the free…”, five T-34 Mentors flew over, trailing smoke.  She never saw it, asking me in the 1st quarter if she’d missed the flyover.

September saw a bunch of local events, mostly related to Kathy’s books or talks.  If you wondered what I was doing, check out October’s events.  I’d taken on two reunions to organize: dorm mates with whom I’d shared space in West Quad Chicago House ’70-2 and my Vicksburg High class of 70’s 55th reunion.  Here’s the gang for Chicago House.

As organizer, I took the liberty of moving the 55th VHS reunion from the summer to the fall.  Not all cared for the change, and some said they’d have to leave the celebration early as it was getting dark.  Here see a random shot of the gathering.  

In mid-November, an invitation to read at a school in Caledonia turned into an excuse for a Grand Rapids trip.  We squeezed in a dinner with my first friend Chuckie and wife Mary Jo and another with my two sisters (Mom’s side) Jolene GR resident and Di from Lansing.  Chuckie pursued a career as a patents and copyrights lawyer, which has been a great help as I try to get my Commander Cody book published.  

Next week was a big road trip to Indianapolis and back, Kathy’s first out-of-state gig!

Since then, it’s been surprisingly quiet.  The Ohio State game was in there, but not a source of joy this year.  Of course, we’ve been following the coaching drama.  As I type this, word is Kyle Willingham is the guy.  As the playoffs approached, we thought we might have a dog in the fight, after all.  My mom’s brother settled in Arlington and had 10 kids.  Several went to James Madison, and some still live in Harrisonburg.  Their mascot, Duke, is a bulldog!  So bulldogs from a ‘burg sure sound like my teen years!  They drew the Oregon Ducks first round.  Kathy and I demonstrated what the Dukes should do to the Ducks.

Alas, no, but Kathy does love her new purple t-shirt!  Should talk of her books have your interest piqued, check out “Auntie KC’s” (her pen name) web page (16).

Here’s our wishes for a fine, prosperous, and healthy New Year!

Bob & Kathy

References

1. Ike B.  Party on.  YouTube https://theviewfromharbal.com/2023/12/23/party-on/

2. Dumišić S.   Zager & Evans – In the Year 2525.  YouTube https://youtu.be/zKQfxi8V5FA?si=i2xKlIgDVagCTr7z

3. John1948OneB.  Barry McGuire – Eve of Destruction (Hullabaloo – Sep 20, 1965).  YouTube https://youtu.be/RdARD9Qi8w0?si=rwCg6WG0AvnWnfYj

4. jawright3030.  Time Has Come Today (Chambers Brothers-Long Version) with no cuts to song.  YouTube https://youtu.be/_zfgoJzOCgg?si=ro6Ai0HdVNoNOEjV

5. Shinobi Tobi.  The Doors The End. YouTube https://youtu.be/ZeMlQEWEg2Q?si=sMemCyo3wbQtrmbu

6. Bob Dylan.  Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (official audio).  YouTube https://youtu.be/T5al0HmR4to?si=R8cIluo1HsVAOH_M

7. Creedence Clearwater Revival.  Creedence Clearwater Revival – Bad Moon Rising (Official Lyric Video). YouTube https://youtu.be/zUQiUFZ5RDw?si=QGJno-2w-2bmMKL2

8. Wolfgang’s Classic Rock.  Jefferson Airplane – Wooden Ships – 2/4/1970 – Wally Heider Studios. YouTube https://youtu.be/bp7yB0JCn_I?si=TNpR1Wolf64zCb89

9. SuperWhoopass.  Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On?  YouTube https://youtu.be/H-kA3UtBj4M?si=5sR13XEYflkjrNAq

10. Ike B.  Land of Ice.  WordPress 2/12/25.  https://theviewfromharbal.com/2025/02/12/land-of-ice/

11. Ike B.  Speilberg ’70?  4 ‘burg boys go to the moon, 8 mm style.  In: Vicksburg Cultural Center.  Small Town Anthology X: Southwest Michigan’s Tournament of Writers 2024, pp76-81.  Published 4/8/2024.  https://a.co/d/dwPfFxf.  Text of entry is in blog: https://wp.me/pbBaof-1xF

12. Ike B.  Head in Tree Town, Heart in the ‘burg.  Vicksburg Arts.  Tournament of Writers 2025: Adult Edition:11th Annual Edition.  pp123-32.  4/25/25 https://a.co/d/cAqp03p Text of entry is in blog  https://theviewfromharbal.com/2025/12/27/head-in-tree-town-heart-in-the-burg/

13. Linda Hoard Photography.  Capturing the Beauty and Strength of Women Over 40: An Empowering Photoshoot Experience.  https://www.lindahoardphotography.com/40over40

14. Ike B.  glamour.  WordPress 11/17/22.  https://theviewfromharbal.com/2022/11/17/glamour/

15. Lost Planet Airmen. Back from the Ozone. The Last Music Company, 10/27/23. https://amazon.com/music/player/albums/B0CD27QN5Z?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_ol0KxV8Fhe7ukSKcpaQ2X2CI1

16. Auntie KC | Home of Skyer’s space adventures.  https://auntiekc3569.live-website.com

Head in Tree Town, Heart in the ‘burg

This was my entry to the 11th annual SW Michigan Tournament of Writers. When the winners were named April 24th, mine wasn’t among them. I share it here for those who don’t want to buy the book (1).

A lucky dog was this Ike(2) in ’64 as Fisher Body’s brass kicked my dad from Tech Center to Comstock to raise their biggest metal stamping plant ever.  Dad’s eagle eye caught a red shingle ranch on the North shore of Barton.  Thus began my ‘burg years, ultimately 5, where teachers, coaches, students, friends, and neighbors helped me grow from the shy fat boy bullied by the cool Birmingham kids to the tallest (and skinniest) player in the Wolverine Conference who graduated almost atop his class then headed to Ann Arbor and UofM.

Tree Town wasn’t heaven – studying was expected – but came close, establishing lifelong pangs.  Nearly everyone here is from elsewhere.  True “townies” can name their elementary school.  Counting 47 of 55 years here, occupying our ’58-built house since ’85, Kathy and I are seniormost members of this 13-house neighborhood, the two other longer-residing families both second generation.  Still an Ann Arbor outsider, like my wife, born of Michigan grads (in Ohio), faithful football season ticket holder since ’64, recipient of 3 post-graduate UofM degrees, and 28 years of University paychecks.  44 years of Tree Town living for her, interrupted by 4 years in D.C., but that’s another story.

I came to Vicksburg as an outsider, too.  Boy, did Vicksburg take me in.  Leaving wasn’t hard, as look where I was going!   Shortly after joining UofM faculty, a colleague – Bruce Richardson, a small-town boy himself – said to me “Bob, a lot of smart people come out of small towns, and the smarter they are, the faster they come out”.  Not a nice comment, but it sure would have fit that tall guy headed east in ’70.

Ann Arbor was o.k.  Resisting the siren song of hippiedom, hearing a lot of great music, I shed my law flirtation and dove into the math and science that was my strength. Worked!  On to med school!  “Where you from?”, innocent conversational opening back then, not a “microaggression”, meant  students quickly learned each other’s origins.  Not everyone was from them ritzy Dee-troit suburbs.  Some even came from a Wolverine Conference town!  An origin sufficiently unique beget nicknames.  Yes, I was called “Vicksburg” a few times.  It coulda been worse.  One guy on our floor from Marlette (2020 census pop’n 1855, in the Thumb), tried to tell us that his town was actually a big place.  Henceforth, he was “Big City”.

I never tried to hide my small-town roots; the Commercial delivered to my dorm room a hard weekly reminder.  My more-sophisticated hall mates sniggered reading about the goings-on.  I hung on to a couple old girlfriends for a while, went to parties back in Kalamazoo, and had some VHS friends up for concerts.  Summers were in Kalamazoo, working in my dad’s plant. He sold the Barton Lake house after I went to Ann Arbor.  Summers with Dad, I still could hang with some of the old gang.

Those easy jaunts to the ‘burg – either 15 miles from Candlewyck or 100 miles from Ann Arbor – disappeared after I was admitted to the University of Chicago then matched to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis.  Learning medicine those 8 years didn’t leave time for much else, especially trips home.   We Barnes residents, all top-of-the-class eggheads, competed fiercely.  Sharing details about one’s origins humanizes, keeping our heads from exploding.  Curiously, most of the guys I called buddies were also from small towns.

In St. Louis, there was still radio time, and I never missed those Saturday late afternoon broadcasts of Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion”.   His tales of the quirky, stubborn, resilient, sneaky-smart, and life-loving residents of Lake Wobegon took me right back to the ‘burg.  Garrison’s gift is to portray these small-town folks not as helpless rubes, but as special, unique, and lovable individuals, people you root for. Imagining I could fit into some of his stories, I came to feel more and more comfortable – and proud – being a small-town midwestern boy.   My first chief at UofM, Giles Bole, grew up on a farm outside Battle Creek.  We both talked that midwestern twang.  Giles was a hotshot researcher, taking his show on the road to places like Stanford and Harvard.  He said he turned up his twang for those Harvard types.  Hearing him talk like that, they figured he wouldn’t have much of anything intelligent to say.   Then his superior intelligence kicked in, and what he said was appreciated, understood, and unexpected.

Then, as Rodney Crowell sings in “It ain’t over yet” (3): “I got caught up making a name for myself.  You know what that’s about.”  It was my dream to become a Professor of Medicine at my beloved alma mater, and here I was on track to do it.  I neglected much while I had my nose to that grindstone.   I thank God for my dear wife, who stayed with me while chasing her own dream, and the few remaining members of my little family who stuck with me.  And thank goodness you can’t keep those Vicksburgers down.  I missed the 10th reunion as I was on-call.  VHS70’s class president Steve (a.k.a. Hummel) began to throw parties for our old crowd, usually at his place, but sometimes out.   Fun, and nobody gave a crap about my credentials other than to remind me how I screwed myself out of being class valedictorian, losing by 7 ten-thousandth of a point (3).  Our class’s insult artist, Ott, took to calling me “Mister Ike”, not buying my explanation of that title as appropriate to a qualified English surgeon.

My best friend from the ‘burg, Eric, lived many places after graduation, rarely near me.  After one of his moves back to Michigan, he found himself in this area so came to my house.  I was at the hospital when he knocked on our door.  Kathy answered, and Eric followed his introduction with a pitch for subscriptions to several magazines he said he was selling, a cover he blew when he broke put laughing.  We’d have some great times over the years, sharing a house on Lake Bellaire Memorial Day weekends, a dip in Eric’s pool around Labor Day, and a small boat cruise of Alaska’s inside passage plus trip to Denali in 2014.  Like a good friend should, Eric improves on my ideas.  When the 30th reunion was rolling around, I suggested we rent a place on Indian Lake for the week before.  We can do better, he said, and we spent a week driving and hiking around the Keweenaw.

All well and good so far?  Clearly my years in Vicksburg gave me a solid foundation for my brain, and for my heart, many friends and many wonderful memories, except maybe one.  But I gave that one little thought till my retirement.  Freed from getting up, donning the white coat, and seeing patients,  I quickly got into that favorite retiree sport: not pickleball, but decluttering!  Guided by Magnuson’s The Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (5) and Washtenaw County’s on-line guide “Trash to Treasures” (6), Kathy and I went at it.  We didn’t send Marie Kondo anything, but invoked her “joy, no joy” test frequently.  One medium-size box brought plenty of joy, till I got to the bottom of it.  Marked “Vicksburg Items”, it contained some trinkets from those times, my English papers (w/Mrs. Pharriss’ red ink), even some George Wallace for President pamphlets.  Then, on the bottom, were several sections from the Kalamazoo Gazette and the Vicksburg Commercial.  Yellowed and brittle, as you’d expect a newspaper from 1968 to be, I knew the story right away from the pictures, long before reading.  My friend, classmate, teammate, and namesake Ike had driven his dad’s station wagon, containing Ike’s teammate Pat and 3 boys from the class of ’68, right into the path of an eastbound Grand Trunk freight.  An event from over 50 years ago I thought I’d forgotten is one for which I recall every detail as if it were yesterday.  After a morning feeling that sorrow and loss, I recalled that I’ve found it helpful to write about troubling things, helping to make sense of them.  The late Detroit Free Press cartoonist Guindon had one with his characters sitting at a table, pen in hand, staring off into space; the caption “Writing is God’s way of showing you how sloppy your thinking is”.  My way was set.  I would go, learn,  and write about this event.  Targets for the work?  Too much for my new blog.   Maybe a magazine featuring Michigan stories?  Maybe a book, if I write enough words?  I could start with what I knew, but then my story would have too many holes.  Some field research was necessary.  The train from Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo was familiar from visiting my dad in hospice.  The choo-choo was the way to go-go, particularly with the 3 hour round trip spent sitting quietly rather than fighting I-94 traffic.   The Radisson ”spaceship” was 2 blocks from the station, and Enterprise rent-a-car would meet you and take you 3 ½ miles west on W. Michigan to where you’d pick your car.  Reverse service too.  The Kalamazoo public library was 3 blocks away, and there were microfilmed Gazettes chronicling events of that fateful week.  15 miles south is the ‘burg.  I was pretty sure their District Library would have old Commercials but couldn’t find any in their catalogue on their web site.  Lazy, I asked Eric.  He said Sue Moore would know.  She was editor of South County News, the monthly that replaced the Commercial.  She’s the daughter of Meredith Clark, who published that paper back in the day.  She directed me back to the VDL, and there they were.  Sue liked my mission, met us at the library, took pictures, and wrote me up! (7).  She was such a wonderful person, so full of life at 80, always interested and always interesting. I counted her as a new friend.  Then she died, suddenly and unexpectedly.  Her SCN solicited remembrances, publishing mine (8).

Knowing I could milk my ‘burg crowd for reminisces and insights, I arranged on each of my trips to meet as many as could respond to my invitation to gather at some restaurant in the area.  I wasn’t forceful in how I conducted these “meetings”, but I had my briefcase full of clippings to show and did.  My friends reminded me of many things I had forgotten or  never knew.  There were more and more quiet stretches and subject changes with each meeting.  Finally, when it was just me and him at the table, Jim put it to me “Bob, a lot of people just don’t want to hear about this thing anymore.”   I guess some people deal with past painful events by just shutting them out.  Not me.  I was accused by one of my psychiatry instructors of having a “hydrodynamic” theory of emotions.  Still do.  Negative emotions are like pus: need to be drained when encountered.  With the onsite research wrapped up, those train trips stopped.   Additional information came from unexpected sources.  It turned out that the lawyer solicited by the 4 boys’ families suing Grand Trunk was the father of Sam, also a lawyer, and my friend since we met as freshman on the 4th floor of Chicago House. He directed me to the county clerk, who got me the court records  from the Grand Trunk trial.

That was plenty to go on.  The book practically wrote itself, although it came up kinda short.  I couldn’t find a magazine I thought would take this 2,268-word article.  Jeff Bezos has been a pal, publishing 8 (and counting) of my books (9), but found this first one too short for a paperback.  You can get a Kindle, free these days .   I’ve printed up a couple runs, the first in time for  VHS70 50th.  Though I left the books in my car, interested had access.  Copies sit in several libraries – Vicksburg,  Schoolcraft, Kalamazoo, and Ann Arbor – and in the Vicksburg Historical Society’s collection, and are available through Docere (10).

So, I consider the book a success, even if Mr. Bezos hasn’t written me any big checks.  While the pain of that fateful time in October ’68 won’t ever go away, I now have a much better grasp of those events, and a feeling for how they shaped us.  Moreso, re-engagement with the ‘burg: the people, places, and memories have been precious benefits. COVID influenced everything those days, curtailing the research trips, but also getting me to Zoom with my classmates monthly leading up to our 50th.  I volunteered to set up the meetings as Zoom is part of the software the U gives me.  Hummel got me the classlist and I was off and running.  Since I didn’t screw it up too badly, Hummel passed me the torch for organizing our 55th!

I get to the ‘burg a lot these days.  Kathy seems to like my friends, at least most of them, and we’ve met some wonderful people.  I even roused up an old teacher for her to meet, finally getting youthful nonagenarian Mr. Horn out of his lair.   My basketball coach, he still validates my bench role, even when I’m buying his beer.  Of course, Mr. Horn likes Kathy.  He always had an eye for pretty girls.  We’ve done “Christmas in the ‘burg”, hit beers-and-brats, attended baseball and basketball games, gone on a “Historical Vicksburg” tour, attend services at VUMC whenever in town, always hit “Something’s Brewing” (whose proprietor Heather we befriended when she had a shop on South Street downtown), and of course Distant Whistle.  I have a Senior Pass from AD Mike Roy, so Bulldogs’ games are free.  I even get my haircut at Getty’s!  As I hinted before, Kathy likes the ‘burg.   For her birthday 3 Julys ago, I bought her something from an ad in the SCN,  a glamor photo shoot by Linda Hoard (11), who’s niece-in-law to my classmate Kevvie.   Kathy’s a writer, too, and has pitched and sold her children’s books at Gilbert & Ivy.  We’ve even given thought of getting our own Vicksburg getaway, even spending an afternoon with a realtor looking at lakeside properties.  The meeting with our financial advisor which followed got his sober recommendation that we could swing this only if sold our Ann Arbor house.  Not happenin’, so we just have to hope for rising book sales as we rest in Tree Town.  But we’ll keep visiting for sure.  It’s only 108 miles from my door to Distant Whistle, a place where both my brain and heart are very happy.  But when I’m walking Main Street, I’m pretty happy even before Andy and Dane open their doors.  Maybe it’s Heather’s latte.

References

  1. Ike B.  Head in Tree Town, Heart in the ‘burg.  Vicksburg Arts.  Tournament of Writers 2025: Adult Edition:11thAnnual Edition.  pp123-32.  4/25/25 https://a.co/d/cAqp03p

    2. ewjxn.  1987 Purina Lucky Dog “Ike – The Lucky Dog” TV Commercial.  YouTube https://youtu.be/EaSNDuekuXA?si=xD1morf6YU-MRz4C

    3. New West Records.  Rodney Crowell – “It Ain’t Over Yet (feat. Rosanne Cash & John Paul White)” [Official Video].  YouTube.  https://youtu.be/EFrpzPR6TLY?si=AUIuBSL3bGeO-cy3

    4. Ike RW. Make it add up, doc. Strategies Account Manag 2021;2(4) SIAM.000542.2021 https://crimsonpublishers.com/siam/pdf/SIAM.000542.pdf. (invited)

    5. Magnusson M.  The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter (The Swedish Art of Living & Dying Series).  New York: Scribner, 2018 https://a.co/d/1A2GsD6

    6. Water Resources Washtenaw County.  Washtenaw County Trash to Treasure Guide.  your guide to local repair, reuse, and recycling.  https://www.washtenaw.org/281/Turning-Trash-into-Treasure

    7. Moore S. Dr. Ike plans to write about 1968 Vicksburg car accident. South County News April 2020. https://southcountynews.org/2020/04/18/dr-ike-plans-to-write-about-1968-vicksburg- car-accident/

    8. Ike B.  Goodbye Sue. South County News. July 2020 Issue 86:8. https://southcountynews.org/2020/07/09/goodbye-sue/

    9. Dr. Ike’s Amazon Author’s page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Robert-Ike/author/B095CPDZGP?ref_=pe_1724030_132998070&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

    10. Ike R. The Accident. Amazon (Kindle) 2021.  Published 5/18.  Updated 3/20/24.  Available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095BS8VRJ and directly from Docere (email: docerellc86@yahoo.com)

    11. Ike B.  Glamour. WordPress 11/12/22.  https://theviewfromharbal.com/2022/11/17/glamour/

    Please note that these references are available on-line, from which all the links can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/HITTHIB

    moo-derer

    The news comes fast and furious these days.  Two items from the week before this one really caught my attention and happen to be related.  The first was Bill Gates’ announcement that “climate change” wasn’t going to kill us and some funds targeted for its mitigation might be spent on more pressing problems (1).  Of course, he’s caught some flack

    My wife figures ol’ Bill saw the money for climate change drying up with this new administration and is in search of his next money-making save-the-world venture.

    News of adherents bailing may be slow in coming, as so many have embraced climate change as a secular religion (2,3,4).  There are still a lot of Lieutenant Onodas out there (5), especially in academia, the source of the 2nd news item.  

    Lt. Hiroo Onoda followed his elite intelligence unit into Lubang, a tiny island in the Phillipines, in December 1944. Within weeks of his arrival, a US attack forced Japanese combatants into the jungle – but unlike most of his comrades, Onoda remained hidden on the island for nearly 30 years. He was discovered, still battle ready, and refused to surrender until they brought in his commanding officer to tell him the war was over.

    If you don’t read the University Record, you missed this (6).  Teams from the 2 UofMs (Michigan, Minnesota), led by Michigan’s Prof Goldstein, compiled greenhouse gas data in all 3531 cities in the contiguous USA (7).  Rather than measurements, gas volumes were derived from amount of pork, beef, and chicken consumed in each locale, determining supply chains for the meat consumed and from these data, generated a map of the “mat generated” greenhouse gasses.  Their paper appeared in one of the Nature journals, considered by many in academia as the most prestigious science journals.  Perhaps Nature has different standards, but this so-called” scientific” paper doesn’t even have a methods section!   Instead, there’s a whiny introduction citing other more accurate methods they could have used if only they weren’t so costly, labor intensive, or held by private companies they’d have to pay to use.  They did generate some nice maps, like these which show levels of meat generated greenhouse gases pretty much following population density. 

    Fig. 1 | Meat consumption and carbon hoofprint across the USA. a, Per capita meat consumption (beef, chicken and pork) (kg percapita) (top) and hoofprint (kgCO2e per capita) (bottom) for 3,531 US cities. b, Comparison of per capita meat consumption (left) andhoofprint (right) for California (top), the Northeast (middle) and Texas (bottom). Consumption values are before retail and consumerlosses (for example, kilograms delivered to retail). Based on uncertainty analysis, there is a mean absolute percentage error of 26%from baseline across all cities (Supplementary Fig. 1).

    But eating meat is like driving an EV: the greenhouse gasses propelling the activity are generated far from the activity itself.  The authors propose a couple ways to mitigate this horrible scenario: reducing food waste and substituting other protein sources for beef.  At least they didn’t cite the European model of killing as many cows as possible.  Indeed, their model implies it’s the eaters’ fault, not the cows’.  Might the map provide the EPA enforcement force with targets as they set about offing the eaters?  Given how Mr. Gates relishes reducing the population, perhaps he’ll be participating.  Surely the Lt. Onodo’s in today’s Climate Commandos won’t be taking this lying down.  They can track methane from space now (8)!  Pray they don’t weaponize the agent transmitted by the Lone Star tick that causes “alpha-gal syndrome”, in which victims develop an intense allergy to red meat (9).  Just like a “vaccination”!  Could we coax Dr. Fauci out of retirement?Hard to say when this anti-meat crusade began.  The 2018 UN encyclical on climate change mentioned that we need to focus on some of the agricultural sources of greenhouse gasses (10).  With those ruminants producing methane as a byproduct of digesting vegetation we cannot, turning it into protein and milk we can.  With apologies for every sniggering adolescent out there, please know that most of the methane comes from eructation, not flatulence (11).  

    Indeed, an entire industry has grown up to address the “problem”, from sophisticated monitoring to mask traps to measure to modify to the cow’s microbiome to be less gassy (12).  The frenzied self-righteousness that arose predated any actual changes in eating behavior, but we were made to feel guilty when we bit into a juicy steak rather than bugs, lab grown meat (“cellular agriculture”) or a full conversion to veganism.  Those Petrie dish patties were lauded as almost o.k., any loss of taste from the real thing more than made up for by the good feeling to be had by knowing how such eating behavior was doing for the environment.  It all came together to transform one of man’s most beloved and helpful domesticated animal into some kind of villain.

    While there wasn’t a little boy standing to comment on the emperor’s attire, Investigators from Virginia Tech published in early 2021 that sudden disappearance of all dairy cattle from the US would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 0.7% (13).  Not to mention all the nutrients that would no longer be provided to a hungry population.  The EPA estimates that all greenhouse gasses from meat and dairy production account for just 4% of domestic emissions (14).  If every man, woman, and child in America turned vegan tomorrow, estimates suggest the US would produce just 3% fewer emissions (15).

    But wouldn’t less meat be a benefit not only to the planet, but to the eaters?  I’ve been hearing about the horrors of red meat since medical school (I graduated ’79).  Often touched with a “meat is murder” layer of guilt, cutting into that steak could be a political statement.  In late 2019, a metanalysis was published in Annals of Internal Medicine (one of the premier journals in my field) evaluating claims that red meat consumption results in increased risk of heart disease and cancer.  From 61 studies involving 4 million participants examining these associations, they concluded “certainty of evidence for these risk reductions was very low” (16).  But if we still crave meat, we can now get it from the lab, avoiding all that messy animal stuff (17).

    Our ancestors began herding cattle 8,000-10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent and Africa, just slightly after civilization began so man could brew beer.  Cows depositing their waste material and walking all over it make for fertile ground that can be cultivated to grow other foods.  As our bovine friends fight for their lives, some of their human proponents have pointed out that the fields in which cows graze make excellent carbon sinks, (18) and that methane can be used a fuel (19), even powering tractors (20)! 

    Yet, the global warming (sorry, climate change) fanatics continue to push for eradication of cattle.  Most of that force has been applied in Europe, but quietly in the US the size of our beef herds is decreasing, and beef prices are skyrocketing.  I don’t think this was part of the Green New Deal, but how long are those bills congress passes these days, so who knows what might be in ‘em!?  The EPA and USDA continue their war on ranchers, using things like obscure water rights regulations and emissions reporting requirements. Their plight may be improving, as the Supreme Court has decided in their favor, ruling they cannot use regulation on water rights to regulate discharges (21).  Perhaps under pressure from Trump’s EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, the agency is refashioning itself as a champion for hungry broke Americans by announcing how rollbacks of some of its regulation will be a boon (22).

    The Woke EU bureaucrats have heaped so many regulations and policies on their charges, it’s hard to know where to holler “uncle” first.  Every now and then the tractors and manure spreaders in the streets and flinging of animal feces at government buildings become so unavoidable, they leak into our mainstream media.  The Netherlands was the first eruption, as the government plans to reduce emissions by halving the country’s number of livestock (23).  Farmers took to the streets in their big vehicles, and the Netherlands now has a center-right government.  I think the cows are still happily chewing away at their share of that green little county.  But protests were continent-wide: Germany, France, U.K., Poland, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Greece, the Czech Republic (24).  Not all beefs – as it were – were about cattle, with issues on imports, fuel subsidies, and unfair competition getting attention.  The pressure has brought around real change, like the EU deciding to exclude cattle farming from regulations on livestock emissions (25).  Always available to governments is the brute theft of taxation, and the Danes see that as their way forward to a cooler future (26).

    The war on Elsie looks like its winding down, but with so many true believers left in positions of authority, you can never be too sure.  What can one person do?  I believe a meme I saw a few days ago pretty well sums it up

    Bon appètit!

    References

    1. Gates B.  Three tough truths about climate.  Gates Notes 10/27/25.  https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/three-tough-truths-about-climate

    2. mfbukowski.  Climate Change as Secular Religion.  Mormon dialog and discussions board.  1/24/18.  https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/70111-climate-change-as-a-secular-religion/

    3. Kuehn EF.  Is the Climate Crisis a Secular Eschatology?  University of Chicago Divinity School 10/3/19.  https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/climate-crisis-secular-eschatology

    4. Baker G.  St. Greta Spreads the Climate Gospel.  Wall St Jl 9/20/19.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/saint-greta-spreads-the-climate-gospel-11568989306

    5. Balmont J.  Onoda: The man who hid in the jungle for 30 years.  BBC 4/13/22.  https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220413-onoda-the-man-who-hid-in-the-jungle-for-30-years

    6. Davenport M.  Revealing the ‘carbon hoofprint’ of meat consumption for American cities.  Michigan News 10/20/25.  https://news.umich.edu/revealing-the-carbon-hoofprint-of-meat-consumption-for-american-cities/

    7. Goldstein BP, Pelton REO., Gounaridis D. et al. The carbon hoofprint of cities is shaped by geography and production in the livestock supply chain. Nature Clim Chan (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02450-7s

    8. New NASA Instrument Catches Super Methane Emitters Red-Handed.  The Weather Channel 10/27/22.  file:///Users/bobscomputer/Desktop/cow%20farts/New%20NASA%20Instrument%20Catches%20Super%20Methane%20Emitters%20Red-Handed%20-%20Videos%20from%20The%20Weather%20Channel.html

    9. The Mayo Clinic Staff.  Alpha-gal syndrome.  Mayo Clinic 8/8/25.  https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alpha-gal-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20428608

    10. De Coninck H et al.  Strengthening and Implementing the Global Response in Global Warming of 1.50 C, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, 2018, https://ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/SR15_Chapter4_Low_Res.pdf

    11. Holmes B.  Cleaning up cow burps to combat global warming.  Knowable Magazine 6/10/24.  https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2024/reducing-methane-emissions-from-livestock

    12. How Dairy Farmers Are Reducing Methane And Greenhouse Gas Emissions.  Undeniably Dairy 2/2/22.  https://www.usdairy.com/news-articles/farmers-reducing-methane-gas-from-cows?gclsrc=aw.ds&campaignid=21324250699&adgroupid=168030205092&keyword=cows%20burp%20methane&device=c&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21324250699&gbraid=0AAAAAC58wDew5xr8t9hMKxYk2mdaHn-MI

    13. Esterhuizen M.  Virginia Tech Researchers Find that Removal of Dairy Cows Would Have Minimal Impact of Greenhouse Emissions.  Virginia Tech 1/6/21.  https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/12/cals-white=research.html

    14. Environmental Protection Agency.  Inventory of U.S.Greenhouse Gas emissions and Sinks: 1990-2017, April 2019, https://www.epa.gov/sites/produ ction/iles/2019-04/document/us-ghg-inventory-209-chapeter-executuve-summary.pdf

    15. USDA/Agricultural Research Service.  Exploring a World without Food Animal.  Science Dailu 6/18/2021, www.sciencedaily.com/rleSES/2017/12/12/17120622218.HTML

    16. Johnston BC, Zeraatkar D, Han MA, Vernooij RWM, Valli C, El Dib R, Marshall C, Stover PJ, Fairweather-Taitt S, Wójcik G, Bhatia F, de Souza R, Brotons C, Meerpohl JJ, Patel CJ, Djulbegovic B, Alonso-Coello P, Bala MM, Guyatt GH. Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption: Dietary Guideline Recommendations From the Nutritional Recommendations (NutriRECS) Consortium. Ann Intern Med. 2019 Nov 19;171(10):756-764.   https://annals.org/aim/articlr/doi/10.7326/M19-16

    17. DutkiewiczJ and Rosenberg GN.  The Sadism of Eating Real Meat over Lab Meat.  New Republic 2/23/21.  https://newrepublic.com/article/161452/sadism-eating-real-meat-lab-meat

    18. Reed B.  Cows help farms capture more carbon in soil, study shows.  Guardian 9/28/24. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/28/cows-help-farms-capture-more-carbon-in-soil-study-shows

    19. Melnick P.  Dairy Farm Sustainability: Turning Methane into Energy.  New England Dairy 4/23/25.  https://www.newenglanddairy.com/blog-post/cows-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

    20. Blain L.  Dung-powered tractor drives down agricultural emissions. New Atlas 1/16/23.  https://newatlas.com/energy/cow-dung-tractor-biomethane/

    21. Wolfson L.  Supreme Court Ruling For Western Ranchers Over EPA Is A Win For Private Property Rights.  Harriett Hagem Wyoming’s Congresswoman 5/25/23.  https://hageman.house.gov/media/in-the-news/supreme-court-ruling-western-ranchers-over-epa-win-private-property-rights

    22. EPA Press Office.  EPA Announces Action to Support Lower Food Prices for Americans and Reduce Burden on American Farmers by Addressing Meat and Poultry Discharge Regulations.  EPA 8/30/25.  https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-action-support-lower-food-prices-americans-and-reduce-burden-american

    23. Ro C.  The Netherlands, A Country Of Livestock, Grapples With Eating Animals.  Forbes4/29/24.  https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinero/2024/04/27/the-netherlands-a-country-of-livestock-grapples-with-eating-animals/

    24. Salmonsen D. Why are EU farmers protesting?  FB 2/28/24.  https://www.fb.org/focus-on-agriculture/why-are-eu-farmers-protesting

    25. Igina M.  Emission-Intensive Cattle Farming Excluded From New EU Rules for Livestock Pollution.  EARTH.ORG 3/13/24.  https://earth.org/emission-intensive-cattle-farming-excluded-from-new-eu-rules-for-livestock-pollution/

    26. Euronews.  Danish livestock farmers to be taxed for cow and pig-made greenhouse gases.  Euronews.com 6/26/24.  https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/06/26/denmark-cow-and-pig-burp-tax-to-be-rolled-out-in-2025

    All Souls

    My dear Catholic friend Angie reminded me this morning that in her Church, today is All Souls’ Day, conclusion of the spiritual triumvirate they’ve made out of this cross-quarter day (halfway between autumn equinox and winter solstice) Samhain: All Hallows Eve (which we heathens know as Halloween), All Saints’ Day, and All Souls Day.  The first is a vigil for All Saints’ Day, where the saints are remembered and honored, then today is for the souls of the departed.  The vigil is to pray for those dear to us now gone, and they will pray for us.  To show her how close we hold our dear departed, I took a picture of our “family wall” where we’ve been hanging pictures of our predecessors over the past several years.  

    While my pic gives an appreciation for the scope of the project, details of individual pictures are missing.  Angie’s Android doesn’t take some things from my iPhone, like Powerpoint files, like I tried to send her about an upcoming lecture.  So I thought I’d cover a couple bases by posting the annotated pics on my blog, keeping me in touch with memories of the pictured persons.

    Here’s my Grandpa Ike with his 2 sisters back in Holland in the 1880s

    Here’s my Grandpa and Grandma Slater with my mother, Marion, early 1920s.  Grandpa’s fierce visage mellowed with time to yield the smiling friendly face everybody loved.

    Here’s those Slater kids in the mid-30s.  Baby James, Marion (Mom), and Doris (Aunt Dorie)

    Kathy’s grandparents: Harald and Gladys Olsen, ~1928, possibly their wedding.

    Kathy’s mom Ruth with her bestie, Rex.

    The Ike family ~ 1930.  Dad (Dickie), Bob (born Bowenus, nicknamed Bub), Gary (born Gerritt).  Then Grandpa (Dirk), little Florence, Grandma (Dena)

    Slater Family mid 30s.  Grandpa (Bill), Mom (Marion), Grandma (Vera), Aunt Dorie (Doris), Uncle Jim

    Mom and Dad in their youth, before World War II and Little Bobby came along

    These are my biologic parents.  Marlene Gilbert and Dick Spei had a fling based mainly in the Thumb in ’51-2.  I got to know them both starting in 2009.

    Here are the Clarks in all their glory, late50s.  Major, Clutch, Ruth, Kitty (later Howard Cosell), Bob, Ric, Kathy.  Only Bob and Kathy are still with us.

    Clutch and Ruth headed to some Christmas gala in Akron.  As the new orthopedist in town, Clutch was in demand socially. The edges are clipped off in the wall pic, but I left them on here.

    The Ikes relax at Glen Lake, 1947.  Mom (Marion), Grandpa, Grandma, Dad.

    Mom and Dad at play after the war, before Bobby.  They were both pretty good athletes and a force on the golf course.

    Clutch and Ruthie graduate 1954.  An MD for Clutch and a BA in dental hygiene for Ruth.

    Dr. Robert Clark of Pittsburgh hosts his grandsons Bob and Ric, 1962

    Grandpa Ike standing astride his kingdom at Bissell, where he was an ace machinist.

    Grandpa Slater shortly after signing on to the Grand Rapids fire department in February 1929.  That’s him to the left, the dark-haired handsome man with a bow tie.  This was the pic that inspired the whole project.  This is a scan of one of my paper copies and doesn’t show the whole oval picture.

    An iconic Clark family picture: Jimmy (Mertz) all ready for something.

    Very much alive, here’s the Clarks after dinner at Costanoa, a resort south of Jim’s home in Pescadaro.  Left to right: Orion, Mertz (Jim), Skyler (behind the phone), me, Janet (mom), Kathy, Aislynn. So, that’s the Family Wall.   Once I post this, there won’t be too many hours left in All Souls day.  I hope my friend Angie realizes each struggle with a file to post can be a little prayer, as I’m thinking of them all the while.  I know from my charmed life that they are praying back all the time.  If you’ve got family photos languishing in a storage box somewhere, get them out!  We owe so much to those who came before; it’s not only right that we remember and acknowledge them, and it’s good for the soul..

    Recall Mr. Prine in this topic.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXbEFTv9zr0&list=RDnXbEFTv9zr0&start_radio=1.

    mancave upgrade!

    Timing is everything.  At my first stab at this blog, I thought I had the greatest lead-in: “Should an older man on the eve of his 39th wedding anniversary be spending time waxing over his mancave?”  There’s no relation between the two dates, only that some improvements in my mancave have finally settled in.  Our anniversary and that football game have come and gone, and more than ever I want to share my updates.  I announced the mancave a month or so ago (1), and every moment down there has been bliss.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t keep my eye open for possible improvements.  And some did come my way.  I feel compelled to describe them here.

    For starters, let’s see a shot from my new toy.  My collected cell phone camera lenses include a “fish eye’.  This gives you a panoramic view of the business side of things, and hints at other additions.   You can see that next to the big Cody painting is a smaller framed item.  That’s the photo taken at Bull Run Tavern in Shirley, Massachusetts (45 miles west of Boston) that inspired Angie’s painting; you can see it in my earlier post.  You can see the dryer face is plastered.  Here’s what you’re seeing.

    That lintel over the washer and dryer had been bare.  Now see it ordained with two bicycle helmets framing 7 post cards featuring labels from fruit and vegetable crates.  Then there’s a card featuring Dick Cheney to the right of the deep blue helmet.  And underneath all that is my Commander Cody corner and decorations for the dryer.

    While you may not appreciate it with a fish eye, that helmet to the left is mine, and many decades ago, I painted it up to resemble the iconic winged helmet worn by the Wolverine footballers for nearly 90 years.  Here’s my helmet propped up next to a real Michigan football helmet, won by my wife at the Women’s Football Academy in 2008.  Back when we rode bikes a lot, Kathy used to enjoy the oohs and ahhs of those passing us, their remarks hitting long after they’d passed me.

    We just missed the chance to celebrate an anniversary.  On October 1, 1938, the Wolverines, led by first-year coach Fritz Crisler, took the field against the Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science Spartans (they ditched “Aggies” in 1925, same year they added “Applied Science” to their name).  Wearing their Crisler-designed winged helmets for the first time, they beat the Spartans for the first time in 4 years, 14-0.  Crisler designed the helmets while coaching at Princeton, a big-time football power back in that day (2).  He wanted a way to distinguish downfield receivers from the opponents so his quarterback could see them better.  It worked, as every school that adopted their own version of the winged helmets saw passer ratings go up.  Princeton dropped the helmet when Crisler left, only to pick it up to celebrate a new stadium in 1998.  Out there in New England, the Fightin’ Blue Hens of Delaware still wear a winged helmet.  Their colors are maize-and-blue.  Yes, it would be a confusing sight if the two teams ever played each other.  Closest was 2009, when the Hornets of Delaware State came to the Big House and got trounced 66-0.  Their uniforms were boring, too.

    I’ve never seen a label on a fruit crate that looked boring.  Colorful and humorous, they are great little pieces of American folk art.  In medical school, I took to gathering up empty crates from the Franklin Street market, ripping off the ends, then decoupaging them for protection.  They’re in a box downstairs somewhere, although they have found their way to walls in some of my previous residences.  Somebody recognized the art and began putting the images on post cards.  Much lighter and more portable, I pick them up when I see them and saw that bare lintel as ripe for a little decoration.

    Before we leave the lintel, let’s not forget ol’ Darth Vader.  While Cheney had his faults, he could be entertaining if you were on his side.  The creator of this card takes all those fears of Cheney’s ruthlessness and distills them into a few vignettes.

    The original mancave decorations left a bare white face to the hanging-up portion of my dryer.  No more.  As you look at the front, starting a 7 PM and moving clockwise, there’s a movie poster for “Reefer Madness”, a popular movie among us stoners back in the early 70s.  Above that is one of my many Commander Cody posters.  The late George Frayne IV (a.k.a. the Commander) was an accomplished painter and sculptor and did all of his own posters after his brother died.  That Jeep logo is off my first Jeep, a ’91 Cherokee Limited, which gave 20 years of great service before rusting out.  I found in Facebook that cartoon of Michigan’s mitten filled with the names of famous rockers from our state and managed to capture it to print out. The wolverine skull you’ve seen before.

    To the opposite wall, I’ve added a framed print of an advertisement Commander Cody’s manager took out in Rolling Stone.  It was 1971, and they’d just appeared in a glowing profile there (3) and had just released their first album.  George’s brother Chris, also a UofM art student, did the band’s art till he died of multiple sclerosis in 1998.

    One final upgrade, technically not part of the mancave, is the big poster I hung on the door to the storage room, just across a small entryway to the door to the mancave.  The little circular items toward the top are the poker chips the promoter used as tickets to the event.

    Yes, all those great bands graced the revolving stage at the Goose Lake Music festival that first weekend of August 1970.  Yes, I was there with 200,000 of my closest friends and we saw ‘em all.  Just don’t press us for details.  Some have called it “Michigan’s Woodstock”.  Happening 13 months after, the organizers managed to avoid a lot of the gremlins that plagued the masses at Yasgur’s Farm.  But the locals didn’t much like the swarms of drugged-out dirty hippies, so made sure the facility would never be used for such a thing again.  It’s a campground now, but every August they bring a few bands to the stage to celebrate the memory.  In 2016,“Glorious Noise” made a documentary – Goose Lake International Music Festival (4).  Careful, it begins with several minutes of locals bitching about hippies.  But there’s plenty of great music!

    Those hippies are all grown up and headed over the hill these days.  But, you can bet if they pass through my mancave, they’ll be clean!

    References

    1. Ike B.  mancave! And so clean!!  WordPress 6/9/25.  https://theviewfromharbal.com/2025/06/09/mancave-and-so-clean/

    2. Bentley Historical Library.  UM Athletics History.  Michigan Football.  Michigan’s Winged Helmet. 2/23/2001.  https://bentley.umich.edu/athdept/football/helmet/mhelmet.htm

    3. Ed Ward.  Interview: Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen.  Rolling Stone 4/16/70.  https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/interview-commander-cody-and-his-lost-planet-airmen-179296/

    4. gdcrow.  Goose Lake Festival 1970.  YouTube https://youtu.be/o7RFG000QGo?si=btsnfBjptsdZ9aud.

    Voddie & Charlie

    When I started this blog over 5 years ago, I vowed to myself to stay clear of religion and politics.  Like Albert Finney’s character in Big Fish said, “You never know who you’re gonna offend”.  My dear late friend Sam taught me to lay off politics on Facebook, and I carried that into my blog.

    You could take this post as a hard break from those self-imposed restrictions.  But the events of the past few weeks have taken me to a place where I just want to share a bit of my emotional self.  As huge a shock that Charlie Kirk’s assassination was, I guess Kathy and I are doing o.k.  After all, funerals are there not only to praise the deceased, but also to remind us we’re still alive and there are a lot of like-minded people with us to carry forward those things the departed valued.  Then two days ago came news that our favorite preacher – someone you’ve probably never heard of – passed on unexpectedly at 56.  Voddie Baucham was raised by a single mother Buddhist in South Central LA, taking his big body to Rice to play football where he met Jesus.  He went to seminary after graduation and has run his namesake foundation since 1993.  He spent some time in Zambia starting up a school and was one of the founding faculty then Dean for Founders Seminary in Florida.  My sadness at his passing dampened a bit when I saw the picture below.  Boy, does Jesus have him some new blood!

    Voddie delivered an apt sermon the day before he died.   An abbreviated version was put up by an admirer (1), although there are a number of annoying commercial breaks.

    If you cut 53 seconds into this tribute to Voddie, you can hear him talking about the “rumors” of his death (2). The remainder of the video is well worth the time.

    His sermons were always powerful, and there are many out there.  Richest source is his web page, Voddie Baucham Ministries, where the archive unfortunately stops at 2022 (3).  And Voddie has an ample presence on YouTube.

    Death may take the physical bodies of such great men from us, but their spirit and teachings live on. Sometimes it can take a death to get us to focus on those things they’ve been trying to tell us.  By heeding them, we honor their memories.  Our way should be clear.

    References

    1. Daily Dose of Wisdom.  Voddie Baucham’s Final Message Was PROFOUND!  https://youtu.be/MQlRU8PZzXg?si=ohXxW0lO2O8i8kf2
    2. The Gospel of Christ. The Tragic Death of Voddie Baucham,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h9V4oC87mM
    3. Voddie Baucham Ministries.  https://www.voddiebaucham.org/sermons-listing

    dilly dilly!

    No, I’m not tapping into Bud Light’s silly theme of a few years ago (1).  A few weeks back, when the notion to write this just started, Mother Nature was easing along into the Michigan  growing season.  A trip to the Farmers’ Market found mostly prepared products but very little actual fresh produce.  Michigan moves slowly, even in June, and after those glorious asparagus spears, there’s not much fresh out of the ground, although those strawberries make a splash.  The peas come next, snap, shell, and snow.  Some vendors shell out some peas, at a price.  But seeing those peas, for me, makes me want to make that classic spring dish: dilly peas and new potatoes.  Those itty-bitty potatoes show up about the same time.  How convenient.  The dish is an excellent accompaniment to any of those white fish you might want to saute or poach.   I’ve included some recipes for this at the bottom.

    Here’s the (well-used) recipe for peas and new potatoes.  It helps that dill is coming up fresh about the same time.

    But that recipe presents problems in our household.  Early last year, Kathy signed up for the “PhD weight loss program” (1).  There are many components to it, but clearly the glycemic index (rise in glucose produced by any food) is a target (2).  Good bye starches, noodles, rice, and potatoes!

    We’ve been rescued by another white vegetable, the cauliflowere (3).  And such was to be by this late Spring treat.  Here’s the alternative we came up with:

    Trust me.  I love me my dilly peas and new potatoes, but this is terrific.

    Now that you’ve got that perfect side dish, how about the fish?  If you’ve got a friend who’s handed you a fresh mess of perch, how about going all French on them?

    Those slender white fish fillets come in many forms, but they all take well to a little nurturing in the pan.  Here are 3 of my favorites.

    Should you come across a whole fish of one of these varieties, feel free to throw it on the grill.  Back in the days when we used to camp on 12-mile Beach in the Pictured Rocks, we’d get whole whitefish and lake trout from the Indians, and I’d fashion a wood stick mesh to hold them over the fire.  Tasty always, but there are many other ways to cook a fish.

    References

    1.   Dale Kovar.  The ENTIRE Bud Light – Dilly Dilly Saga!!.  YouTube.  https://youtu.be/7Nt1HrgjveI?si=FQSxPV3HAalc4osu

    2. PhD Weight Loss.  https://myphdweightloss.com

    3. University of Sydney.  Glycemic Index Research and GI News.  https://glycemicindex.com

    4. Team Ultrahuman.  Cauliflower rice and glucose explained.  5/30/25 https://blog.ultrahuman.com/blog/how-to-access-your-hrv-data-on-apple-health/