John’s Blog

posted by admin on Sep 13

“You’re going to wear that shirt?” Megan was watching me iron.

“The Buckeyes have a big game today.”

“Why? Are they playing the Steelers?”

“No, dear. The Steelers are a professional team. The Buckeyes are playing USC today.”

“So the Browns would play the Steelers?”

“Right.”

“I heard on the radio that the Browns were hosting the Steelers.”

“Right. The Steelers usually win that game.”

“Bummer.”

“You don’t like the Steelers?”

“Well, I like the colors, but I don’t like the name.”

“What are the colors?”

“Black and yellow. But the name. A ’steeler’ is a person who steals. Like a robber. That’s not nice.”

“That’s not really what the name means, though. You’re thinking of S-T-E-A-L. This is S-T-E-E-L. Do you know what that kind of steeler is?”

“A wolverine?” You have to love this kid. She can be so right even when being completely wrong.

“No, dear. A steeler is a person who makes steel.”

“So they make a lot of steel in Pittsburgh?”

“They used, to. Yes. The Steelers play the Browns, and they would play the Buffalo Bills. But they wouldn’t play the Buckeyes.” Meg has a classmate who is a huge Buffalo Bills fan.

“So the Buffalo Bills aren’t going to play the Buckeyes?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, that’s good.”
 

posted by admin on Sep 1

It’s Labor Day. It’s the end of the summer. School is back in session, and the schedules and routines are getting fuller by the day.

When I was a kid, school always started the Tuesday after Labor Day. So it was always our last day of freedom. I distinctly remember Labor Days from my elementary years. It was a lazy day. It was a day of no responsibilities. Usually, we’d watch the Jerry Lewis Telethon. We were never motivated to actually go out and try to raise money for MD or anything, but it was nice to see the local cutaways, when people in our local community would come on and make their pledges and donations.

For some reason, watching the telethon was synonymous with building card houses. I think we were bored with the show one year, and gathered up some old playing cards. We used to have bags full of them. We started building card houses on the floor. Sometimes, we’d make little villages. Sometimes, we’d just make one enormous multi-leveled structure. Inevitably, we’d run out of cards and have to go searching the house for more.

The cards didn’t have anything to do with Labor Day, of course, but I don’t recall ever doing that while watching any other shows. It was just one of those things that we did once, and then we remembered the next year, and did it again. After that, it was a tradition.

As this Labor Day approached, I decided that it, again, would be a day with no work done. It’s a day for hobbies and recreation. I’ve chosen to spend it making a nice brown ale that I should be able to enjoy later this fall. I don’t always goof off on Labor Day, but I think it might be a nice tradition to start.

I was also thinking about those houses of cards, and drawing mental parallels to the current economic conditions in the United States, the enormous budget deficit, the fact that we’re running out of young people to send to the middle east to die for oil, and the cost of that oil. I’ve been thinking about retirement costs — health care in particular. I’m not sure it’ll ever be possible to retire, because of the exponential growth in health care costs. Then there’s the real estate crisis, the mushrooming costs of higher education, and America’s increasing inability to innovate its way out of economic messes. We’re in for a bumpy ride.

But writing all those things down and trying to make sense of them would be work. And it’s Labor Day. I’m taking the day off.