Football Party

On my way home from work one day last week I was listening to a sports talk radio show based in Madison, WI.  Saying that the host of the show, Mike Heller, and his sidekick Jon Arias are homers when it comes to Badger sports would be an understatement.  On this particular day, they were bemoaning the lack of student attendance at University of Wisconsin football games.  They wondered why the students arrive late and leave early.  Now, as a warning, and this may seem sexist but so be it: Mothers of Badger students this blog post may contain graphic descriptions and information, and you are urged to proceed with caution.  In other words, your sweet little child may not be so innocent.

Camp Randall Stadium, looking toward student section in north end zone
They would not take the photo if the student section was not full, so the photo
was not taken in the first quarter.

What brought their complaint to the airwaves was the UW game against Maryland.  It was a beautiful and warm mid-fall day in the southern part of Wisconsin, and it was also the annual  homecoming game.  Mike Heller was complaining about the lack of student attendance at the game.  Maryland is a poor to middling team, and its season will best be remembered for defeating the Texas Longhorns.  The UW student section is well known for its graphic chants, not only to opposing teams, but one student section to the another.  (Warning, the following contains graphic language!)  For example, one section yells "Eat Shit!", and the other yells back: "Fuck You!"  (Moms, you were warned.)  I have attended a few UW football games, and quite frankly, I could not pick out what they were saying.  However, this chant made the news in Madison several years ago (I think it was 2011) when, a high school football recruit was attending a UW game with his parents, probably up in one of the boxes for the coddled, up and coming football players.  This women knew exactly what the student sections were saying she did not like it.  Neither did the powers that be in the athletic department and administration--after all they did not want to lose a coddled prized recruit.  Perhaps the UW likes it when the students are present only for part of the game.

Bucky Badger

They have also been known to taunt opposing teams and states.  To Minnesota they would yell: "Safety School!" To Ohio State they would yell "Overrated!"  All in the aspects of good sportsmanship.  I am sure there are worse chants that have been had, but I have not attended many Badger games, and if they were present they escape my memory.

The Badger game against Maryland had an 11:00 am start, and to show the naivete of Mike Heller he and his sidekick were wondering if the early start time affected the lack of early attendance. What I realized is that Mike Heller needed some statistics, so I did a poll of my five nieces/nephews who had or are at the UW, and my son who attended the school.  I explained the reason for the poll, and offered the following:What most closely approximates your and your Significant Others opinions or reason for arriving late, and leaving early for Badger football games:

1. There is beer to drink at pre and post game parties
2. Nobody that is cool would arrive early, ie everybody arrives late
3. Don't want to fight all the "old" people who are trying to get in the stadium
4. There is studying to be done
5. If the Badgers played somebody tough it may be a different story, ie lack of quality opponent
6. The game does not matter until Jump around
7. Who goes to the game to watch football, (it's a party)

Interestingly, among those that responded there was unanimity on the top choice, and it was not #4.  And all these years I thought they found it hard for them to pull themselves out of Helen C. White Library, and once they did they could not wait to get back to the library.  The top reason was item #1. They also were unanimous on a second choice, and that being #5.  The Badgers are well known nationwide for having a soft schedule.  Their division in the Big Ten conference (West division)  until this weekend only had themselves with a winning division record.  But, the likes of the homers, such as Mike Heller are awaiting the arrival of Michigan later in the season.  Michigan, however, is tied with Rutgers (nobody's power house) for fourth place in the eastern division standings.   I have yet to hear from the youngest niece who is currently a freshman at the UW; the others all have a bachelor degree from what is termed the flagship school of the state university system.  I would have to agree with my young relations on why students are late, and leave early.  Given my limited experience with Badger games, the drinking culture is strong at the UW.

 Most of my attendance at Badger games has been due to the gracious nature of my sister, who with her husband has season tickets, but a few times she let me use her ticket.  With at least one, if not two or four Hovel's as undergraduates at the UW at the same time, my brother-in-law always knew who had the party.  For a few years it was at my nephew Christopher and his roommates in the backyard of their rented house.  Beer pong was prevalent.  My best memory is of Christopher drinking two beers at the same time, not once but twice, and right after the other. Four beers in the matter of a couple minutes.  It probably took longer for him to pour the beer into his large mug than for him to drink the two beers.  (Yes, Lisa, your son.) Oh yes, the beer flows, this is Wisconsin, after all.

The last game I attended was in 2014 when on a cold November day the UW played the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  I really have to feel sorry for Nebraska, what else does the state have going for it than Cornhusker football?  Although, the character Penny on "The Big Bang Theory" hails from Nebraska.  Melvin Gordon, a UW tail back, set a nation record for rushing yards in one game that day (408 yards).  His title did not last long as the next week it was broken.  The pre-game party we attended that cold day, was at my nephew Peter Nicks (and his roommates) rented house,  The house was just across the street from the Camp Randall's north end zone.  With a strong police presence on the street, one has to give Madison police credit for their non-obtrusive presence.  They could well have been busy that day, as tap beer was sold, and it was not Bud, or Miller, but a keg of a Wisconsin craft beer. Breaking liquor laws there was a price per glass, although I guess they would say donation.  Yes, the beer was flowing on that cold November day, and the police presence on the street, as next to the stadium, was great, but not intrusive.  So, Peter was able to get by with a back yard full of students, but for two 50 something white men.  I also recall the smell of pot wafting out of the home.  I have never used pot, but got to know its smell while in college;  a student across the hall regularly smoked the weed.  While at the parties, Rick and I were always welcomed.  I always wondered what the Aunt's would think. 

As post college age adults head to the game, students head to party

What is interesting, is that in the 2015-2016 school year the UW was ranked as the top party school in the nation and the Hovel family proudly had two undergraduate seniors that term.  The following year, with no Hovel undergraduates the UW fell to fifth place as a party school. Not second, not third, but fifth!  Was it pure coincidence?  I think we in the Hovel family tend to think of it as cause and effect.  The question is whether the current Hovel undergraduate will help raise the party school ranking to where it was a couple years ago.  The UW, however, does rank first in beer consumption.

Mike Heller was taking calls about ways to solve the problem of late arrival and early leaving. One suggested tying ability to get tickets the following year to arrival to be recorded when the ticket is scanned.  The UW's famous Jump Around is at the end of the third quarter, and after that with a blow out in progress the students find better things to do--like drink beer.  If the UW were to play some heavy weight, like Ohio State, I think they would arrive earlier.  And, if it were an exciting game as it was several years ago when  the UW beat #2 OSU, the students would stick around and charge the field.  Beer (and football) is part of the Wisconsin culture, and the arrival times, along with pre-game parties, will be hard to change.


Images from Google

Ease His Pain

It was in the fall of 1920 when a Grand Jury provided nine indictments for racketeering against eight Chicago White Sox players and five gamblers in what is known as the Black Sox scandal.  The players were alleged to have thrown the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds, giving the Reds their first championship.  In an era before free agency, player earnings were rather limited.  They were beholden to their original team, and could not be signed by another.  The owners had the power. Needless to say, there was no 1919 equivalent of multi-million dollar annual earnings many professional players receive today.  One of the highest of the low paid White Sox players who was indicted was “Shoeless” Joe Jackson.  “Shoeless” Joe became famous to us non-baseball aficionados for his role, played by Ray Liotta, in the 1989 movie “Field of Dreams.”  In the movie, “Shoeless” was the sports hero of John Kinsella, the father of film's protagonist--the upstart farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner).  We learn that Ray, acting as late aged teenagers act, riled his father by stating who would have a crook as a sports hero, a rift developed between the two that would last the remainder of his father’s life.  Ray, this wary farmer educated at Berkely during the height of the 60's culture, plowed under five acres of corn to build the Field of Dreams, local farmers probably thought drug use had done in his mind.  Yet, in so doing he would change his life and the ghosts of the Black Sox players. 

Black Sox Players

“Shoeless” Joe is said to have been illiterate, but yet would confess to being a part of the fix on the baseball championship series.  He later desired to recant his confession, but was unable.  As Ray was plowing under the corn to construct the field he regaled his daughter, who sat on his lap, with Shoeless Joe’s statistics during the series to explain why Joe was likely railroaded and not part of the fix.  One teammate, involved in the scandal says that they used Joe’s name to the gamblers in order to impress them with how committed most the team was to throwing the series.  Some of the players claim that the fix was never in place as they became too scared of the consequences of being found out, which they say explained the high number of errors.  Another player says they stopped the fix after not receiving the money, at $20,000 per loss, as promised after each game.  For some reason you cannot trust gamblers and mafia—go figure.  Too bad the “Godfather” story was not out in 1918, maybe they never would have planned it in the first place.  Regardless, they planned the fix. 

Acquitted, but Condemned by Commissioner Landis

It appears that some desire to blame Charles Comisky, the founder and owner of the White Sox.  Many claim that he was miserly, others say he was frugal.  There is fine line between the two.  Educated by the Jesuits at Chicago’s St. Ignatius Prep, one cannot doubt he was probably engaged with a level of frugality.  Was his level of frugality inappropriate?  One story, probably an urban legend, has it that the term Black Sox actually arose because Comisky would not pay to have the wool player uniforms cleaned, so the players wore the dirty uniforms fame after fame game until they became a darker color.  It is said Comisky finally had them cleaned, but deducted the cleaning from their pay checks.  If he was a miser, why did the White Sox did have the highest payroll in baseball in 1919?   Comisky would be no body’s fool, and he banned the players near the end of the 1920 season even though he knew it would cost him a championship. 

Field of Dreams Movie with some of the Black Sox Players

Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis was appointed the first commissioner of baseball in November 1920.  Even though the players were found not guilty in the summer of 1921, after a trial, the new commissioner would ban them from the game forever.  Attempting to support themselves and their families, the men attempted to put together some exhibition games, but the strong arm of Landis, apparently even stronger than that of current football commissioner Roger Goodell, would intervene and say that any who played with them would forever be banned from professional baseball.  The city of Chicago, presaging the scarcity of baseball championships, much less consecutive championships, in the city of big shoulders would also prevent them playing in the city.  The eight men, with John Kinsella as catcher, were left to meeting their dreams playing baseball in a fictional story as ghosts in the rich deep prairie soils of Iowa that usually grew corn.

Costner in Field of Dreams

The fictional story does more than simply ease the pain of Shoeless” Joe Jackson, and the other seven of the Black Sox scandal by allowing them to play among the corn of Iowa.  In one of my favorite sport movie endings, cars line the cardinal oriented roads near Dyersville, IA as dusk envelopes the well-tended corn fields and they slowly make their way to the Field of Dreams.  This eases Ray Kinsella’s financial pain.  They come, as character Terrence Mann puts it, to relive their childhood.  More importantly, Ray, in the end, was able bring back his childhood memories, and ease his own pain, by once again playing catch with his father on that early fall evening in Iowa as dew starts to settle on the manicured grass of a field a dream told him to build.  Childhood memories reinstated after being pushed back in a rift with his father over “Shoeless” Jackson.  

Three Days in October

Looking back in time you can probably find major historical events within any month.  Nonetheless it seems that October is an important month.  There was the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, the October Revolution, the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Cuban Missile Crisis and the Raid on Harper’s Ferry.  Whether it is the changing of the season, the shortening days, or the coming of winter, October is a historically significant month.  This post will talk about the raid at Harper’s Ferry that began the dark of night on October 16 and ended in the daylight of October 18, 1859. 

John Brown

Led by the famed abolitionist John Brown, he of the tune, by Rev. William Patton, with the famous first line: “Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave” would be the mastermind of the raid, and it would lead to his death for treason against the state of Virginia.  John Brown was a vehement abolitionist who strongly believed that bloodshed would be necessary to rid the nation of its peculiar institution.  To understand John Brown you need to understand Bleeding Kansas, and to understand Bleeding Kansas you need to understand the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and to understand the Kansas-Nebraska Act you need to understand the Missouri Compromise, and for the Missouri Compromise you need to understand the long tensions between free and slave states.

Bleeding Kansas

The Missouri Compromise set forth a latitudinal line such that states north of the line would be free, and those south of the line would allow slavery.  Overtime the south realized the inherent issue with more territory in the continent (north of Mexico) favoring free states.  They did not wish slave states to be outnumbered by free states.  Stephen Douglas (D IL) would derive the idea of self-determination.  The legislation he pushed is known as the Kansas-Nebraska act which would allow self-determination.  Adopted in May 1854, the debate over the act is said by some to be the beginning of the Republican party (founded in Ripon, WI in March of that year).  The act would lead to what we call blood shed in Kansas as both pro-slave and pro-emancipation settlers would move to the territory.  Violence was anticipated given the rifles and supplies that would go with the settlers.  John Brown, with his sons would kill five persons during the early part of Bleeding Kansas.  Brown would move back east to plan his raid on Harper’s Ferry.

Missouri Compromise Line

It was in 1959 that John Brown would undertake the act that would further split the nation.  Due to limited methods of news travel, it is not like the nation was on edge awaiting results of the raid.   He intended to capture the Federal arsenal and believed that slaves of Virginia would rise up against owners and he would have the bounty of the arsenal to supply them with guns and ammunition.  It did not work as planned, in part because there was no communication method to the slaves in bondage.  His plan of 200 to 500 slaves in the first night alone to assist in his operations did not come to fruition.  The task was left to him and his 18 co-insurgents.  Two of Brown’s sons would be killed during the raid. 

A militia group mainly composed of Baltimore and Ohio rail workers first attempted to subdue the uprising, and the task was later left to a company of US Soldiers led by Col Robert E. Lee.  President Buchanan would not order federal troops to the site until the mid-afternoon of October 17, so Lee was not long on the scene.  Lee would attempt to get the militia to attack, but they said no, and the job would fall to him.  Being a good commander Lee passed the effort down the chain of command, and J.E.B. Stuart would lead the effort.  These two men would become more famous due to the war that would begin with Fort Sumter less than two years later.  Brown’s group had raided a B&O train, but let the train move on which led to the report of his act, and the appearance of the militia on the first night.  Yet, there are more interesting circumstances.  Brown would have four of his men kidnap Col. Lewis Washington, great grandnephew of George, and steal two items: the first a sword given to George Washington purportedly by Frederick the Great, and two pistols given to him by Marquis de Lafayette.

Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, depiction in Oct 1959

The attack, however, did not have to occur.  Senators Seward and Wilson became aware of the planned attack by Hugh Forbes who had been hired by Brown to train his attack party.  Fobes' tattling  was not due a patriotic duty, but simply because he was not paid more.  Gridley Howe, a backer of Brown, had been persuaded by Senator Wilson to get Brown and his team to back down.  Brown found out and would take time out of his planning for Harper's Ferry to discredit Forbes.  David Gue, another abolitionist, also knew about the planned attack, and believed, like others including Fredrick Douglass, that it was a foolhardy plan that would only lead to death.  Gue wrote an anonymous letter to Secretary of War John Floyd, but Floyd discounted the letter due to an error as Gue said arsenals in both Maryland and Virginia in the plan of attack.  There was not an arsenal in Maryland, but the Harper's Ferry arsenal was just below the border with Maryland.  However, Gue specifically called out Brown as “old John Brown,’ late of Kansas.”  In a time before terror watch lists, or a man not in tune with what had been going on in the nation, Floyd says he never recognized the name.  Maybe it was purposeful amnesia, as the Buchanan administration was a south-friendly administration.  Seward would become Secretary of State in the Lincoln administration and he himself was almost killed the night Lincoln was shot as part of the overall plan by John Wilkes Booth. 

The final coincidence to mention, is that one man observing the hanging death of John Brown on December 2, 1859 was John Wilkes Booth. These are some of the coincidences of history which add interest to what is often perceived as a mundane topic.  Brown would presage the bloody nature of the Civil War when on the day of his execution he wrote:  "I, John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood.  I had as I now think, vainly flattered myself without very much bloodshed; it might be done.”  Of course, the nature of day meant that Brown's trial would make him a martyr for the north, and hence the songs which arose in his memory.  John Brown’s body may be moldering in the grave, but his actions are not forgotten for those three days in October.

Fragmentation

Two distinct events on different continents occurred, one week ago, on the first day of October this year. One an act of evil, the other a declaration for independence. Both, however, involve history, and this post will be a brief examination of the role or history in these two events. Without history we would not know change, and today, sometimes, change seems to be occurring at an ever greater pace.

Mandalay Hotel, Las Vegas
Knocked out windows on the 32nd floor

During the early night of October 1 we all know that Stephen Paddock, a multi-millionaire and child of a bank robber who was once on the FBI’s most wanted list, went on a shooting spree in Las Vegas, NV. Articles on the event have talked about his father’s psychopathic tendencies, his gambling habit, and his plethora of guns. Investigators are attempting to find a motive for his action that warm fall night in the urban lights of Las Vegas. To look for a motive detectives look to his past, they delve deeply into his personal, financial, and family history. Who we are in character, is formed not just by our DNA, but also by our experiences, our relationships, and our interpretations of events. Or, as historian William Cronon puts it: “The past is the world out of which we have come to the multitude of events and experiences that shaped our conscious selves and the social worlds we inhabit.” In the case of Stephen Paddock, the question is what drove a successful (since earnings are culturally viewed as success) man to undertake such a horrendous act? Detectives are now historians interviewing past acquaintances and friends, delving deep into the record and paper trail of gun purchases and gambling, not to mention other life events and experiences of that led to Stephen Paddock’s 32nd floor hotel suite overlooking the festival grounds. As of today, there seems an increasing concern that a motive has yet to be found.  Mass shootings, unfortunately, have become a not irregular occurrence. One reason why investigators want to find a motive is to help further knowledge of the personality type of the criminal.

On the north shores of the Mediterranean Sea a completely different, and unrelated event took place. It too makes one wonder how history can explain the drive for the Catalonia to secede from Spain. The Catalanonian vote is but one in a recent history of successful or attempted separations, or fragmentation, of current states which has become common in Europe. There was the peaceful separation of Czechoslovakia (into Czech Republic and Slovakia), the break-up of the Balkans, the unsuccessful vote in Scotland to separate from Britain, and varied moves by the Basque region of Spain to separate. It is a paradox that at the same time as globalization is ever increasing in the world, we see fragmentation increasing, if not in practice than by desire. Does it represent a desire for self-recognition and determination? Or, perhaps change and globalization are leading to a yearning for a long lost past, and a desire of recognition of their cultural group.

Rally in Catalonia supporting secession from Spain

National boundaries are lines on a map, some of those lines are the result of treaties from past wars, some due to conquest, others relative to culture. As shown by the Catalonians, Scottish, and Basques there is an apparent desire for grounding and recognition. Wisconsin historian William Cronon has written something I fin relevant to this situation: “the past matters because public and private meaning are crucial to all that makes us human.” The collective remembrances help create a cultural identity and tie past to present. It is perhaps hard for an American, we a nation of immigrants, to understand the separatist desires of European cultural groups. Spain as we know it has been around since over 60 years before the American Declaration of Independence, although as was common at the time, it borders were set by conquest. Yet, Catalonia has over the intervening centuries maintained some aspects of their own culture, and that cultural identity seems to be ever increasing as time, and globalization move on. Although as a wealthy region of Spain, it may in large part be economic. But, economics cannot be separated from culture, nor from history.

Rather adamant on the collective value 

History shows that, while time frames may vary, integrations will often fail: think Roman Empire, British Empire, USSR, the Balkans. In other words, a boundary is not the only test of a nation. A nation is determined by its shared values, its shared ideas, its shared histories. To paraphrase the geographer Yi Fu Tuan, space becomes place when it is endowed with value. That occurs not only on the neighborhood level, or on the local level, but also at the state and national level. (Marshall Erickson a character on the long running TV show "How I met Your Mother" had a line that was to the effect that but for their nice nature, Minnesota would be just like Wisconsin.) These histories, the values and ideas of a people, form to bind people together. The past informs the present. Las Vegas detectives are looking to the past to find clues to inform about a terrible shooting. Spain and Catalonia are working through a divisive period informed by history.

Images from Google

Wrist Watch

Eighty-six years ago tomorrow, on October 4, 1931, the Dick Tracy comic strip debuted. The crime fighter comic, owned by the Tribune syndicate, is still in publication. When I was a child we used to receive three Sunday newspapers, one being the Chicago Tribune. It was likely that newspaper where I would read the Dick Tracy comic. I have not seen a Dick Tracy comic strip in years, so I am not sure of its relevance to the situation in the nation today. I do not know what the comic strip crime-fighting police officer would think of the national anthem protests by NFL players and teams, but I do know that the strip did change to be more relevant over time. The comic strip would regale readers with technological wizardry and use of forensic science long before Apple Corporation or the television show CSI.

In a strip in 1946, the year the baby boom generation would begin, the creator of the strip, Charles Gould introduced the two-way wrist radio. This device would allow communication with other members of the police force. It may or may not have been a secure network, and Dick Tracy never likely thought of the need for such radio security. In 1946 Russian hacking was not even a blip in the imagination of the Charles Gould, and it did not play the role it plays seventy years later. He would not have been aware of Equifax where hackers obtained information on millions of people. In 1964, the last year associated with the baby boom generation, the wrist device of Dick Tracy moved from radio to a television-type screen. This is likely the device with which I, when reading the comic, would be familiar as a child. I know I am not the only person to have been captivated by the wrist television and radio. The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, would note in 2015 how he had been waiting since the age of five to be able to communicate by phone on his wrist. His comment was probably a reference to the Dick Tracy comic strip. What Dick Tracy used was near reality with the Apple Watch introduced 51 years after it appeared in the comic strip. With the Apple Watch, you still need your I-phone, but you can track fitness, receive a phone call, do email, and send a Facebook message.

Apple Watch

Perhaps someday the functionality of the I-watch will increase to that of an I-pad. Yet, technology also brings challenges that Dick Tracy never had to deal with at the advent of his new technologies, but which now unfortunately are not uncommon for us to deal with in real life. Besides Russian hacking, and Equifax, there is the ever present Nigerian prince scam, but more importantly identity theft. Dick Tracy never used a credit card in 1964, so he did not have to worry about his card number being used to purchase items a 1,000 miles away. He did not have an internet connection (long before Al Gore even know of the internet), so he did not have to worry about his personal information being compromised.

What Charles Gould did was take what had become a common device by 1946 (radio) and 1964 (television) and miniaturize the items. The I-watch is going the other way, making watch faces larger in order to better read. Perhaps Gould’s greatest thought was miniaturizing a radio, as the television communication screen was a logical next step. Video conferencing is more and more becoming common place. As the baby boom generation is now retiring they see the millennial generation taking advantage of real life devices Dick Tracy made real for us boomers as we read his comic strips in the 1960’s. Real life imitating comics.