Holy Wah!

Stubb's bartender Jen, center.

     Moonshine Mike wasn't at home—his truck was gone—so we slid by Stubb's, a watering hole on the main drag in Ontonagon, Michigan, to check on his whereabouts.
     "I haven't seen him in two days," said Jen, giving the impression that this was an unusually long stretch for him not to make an appearance at the bar.
     A phone call was placed. Mike was found, notified of our location and interest, and was heading this way.
     In the meantime beers were ordered for my friends, an O'Doul's dusted off for me. Spirits were high—Kentucky was kicking the tar out of its opponent, 33 to 3.
     "Holy wah!" laughed Jen.
     I chewed on that for a while. Curiosity can be unappreciated in a stranger. Better to listen in silence. But the etymologist in me couldn't be restrained.
     "'Holy wah,'" I mused, trying to seem cheery and not intrusive. "That's a new expression for me. What does it mean?"
     "I don't know; it's a yooper thing," she said— "yooper" as in "UPer," meaning Upper Peninsula, the northern segment of Michigan. "I'm from Kentucky."
      The online Urban Dictionary offers a definition:

    A regional phrase known in Northern Michigan, used to express excitement, surprise, awe, and more. Much like the use of "dude", "Holy Wah" can express many different things, depending upon context and tone of voice.

       The derivation of "wah" eludes me—one online source speculates it is a corruption of "wow"—and gets in the way of a more intriguing question: why is there an Upper Peninsula at all? An unusual arrangement, a state in two big chunks, with almost a third of Michigan's territory—29 percent—in the UP, though only 3 percent of its population.
     The answer lies in perhaps the least-enigmatically-titled book of all time, "How the States Got Their Shapes," by Mark Stein. 
      The mitten of Michigan began to take shape with the Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War in 1783, Stein explains, cutting a border with Canada through the Great Lakes. Michigan's southern border was set by the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, which envisioned a straight line from Lake Michigan's southernmost tip to Lake Erie. 
     When this came to actually doing this, not with a line on a map, but in messy reality, however, the official would have carved the thriving ports of Gary from Indiana and Toledo from Ohio, which objected, strenuously, pressuring Congress to tilt Michigan's southern border slightly northward at its easter edge.
     "Michigan was less than pleased," Stein writes. "But lacking the population that Ohio had, and still needing congressional approval for its own statehood, there wasn't much it could do. Then Indiana got into the act."  
      Indiana was unwilling to give up Gary, and be left with a geometric point of lake access. So it too pressed Congress, which dutifully carved off another slice of Michigan, leaving Michigan with the two-stage, slightly tilted southern border it has today, and an insult more than the the Wolverines could stand. 
    They went to war. 
     The "Toledo War" of 1835 was brief and bloodless, and involved shots being fired into the air and the Michigan territorial militia seizing nine surveyors working for Ohio. The end result was Congress offering Michigan the Upper Peninsula and statehood in return for the "Toledo Strip," a deal Michigan voters at first rejected, then later approved, in essence, because they had to.
    I think that's enough Michigan history for one day. Leaving the bar, we returned to Moonshine's house where, circumstances dictated that I fire a .22 rifle out his garage window and, later, tentatively apply a lumberjack's cant hook to an enormous cedar log, which some friends and I maneuvered quite handily, they providing the brawn, me providing the supervisory skill. 
     

Bereaved mothers find solace, purpose in donating their milk

Kate Weidner, at home in Oak Park, in the rocking chair she bought to nurse Everett.

     Today's column came from asking a basic question. In mid-July, I was researching this column on the United States cravenly coddling formula producers by pulling out of a global accord on the importance of breast-feeding. I was talking to Summer Kelly, the head of the local milk bank, in Elk Grove Village, and asked, "So who donates to your milk bank?" This column is a result of asking that question.

     Not every pregnant woman who gives birth in a hospital comes home with a baby.
     Six out of every 10,000 women deliver a child in the United States only to have their newborn die during childbirth or shortly afterward.
     One of them was Kate Weidner, 35, of Oak Park.
     "My husband works in architecture. We have a 3-year-old son, Gus," said Weidner. "We got pregnant with our second son. He was due in October of 2017. I was diagnosed with a really, really rare condition, vasa praevia. The baby's umbilical cord didn't attach, and some of the veins and arteries are left vulnerable. If I went into labor, he would die instantly."
     The plan was to have a C-section at 34 weeks, to give the baby as much time to develop but still two weeks before labor, with its fatal complications, was to begin.
    That almost worked.
     "At 33 weeks, two days, I started gushing blood—a hemorrhage," Weidner said. "I knew right away what was happening."
     An ambulance rushed Weidner to West Suburban Medical Center. She had a crash C-section, but the baby, whom they named Everett, was in very bad shape.
    "None of his functions were functioning," Weidner said. "His heart wasn't circulating blood."
    Her husband was in California on business, got back to Chicago just in time for them to be together, briefly.
    "We were able to be with him and hold him," she said. "We started the process of being a family. My first son was so easy ... this was the absolutely worst thing that could happen."
    The next day, Everett Weidner died.
    A new mother's body doesn't know her baby is dead. Since the 18th week of pregnancy, her system has been getting ready to feed her new child. After birth, progesterone levels drop triggering the production of milk.
     "I breast-fed my first son and loved the experience," Weidner said. "I had intended to breast-feed my second son..."
    Her milk was here but her baby was not. A counselor at the hospital instructed her in techniques to dry up her milk.
     "It's funny," Weidner said. "No one told me about milk donation. I don't know how I knew about it. I learned when I was planning the C-section, I knew donor milk was an option, but didn't know who donated it, never suspected I would become one who would be a milk donor."
     Some two dozen mother's milk banks are scattered around the country. The majority of milk collected goes to premature infants in hospital intensive care units; most of their donors are women who have expressed more milk than their babies need, though some are in Kate Weidner's situation.
     "Ten percent of our donors are bereavement donors—women who have lost their babies," said Summer Kelly, RN, executive director of the Mothers' Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes. "It really helps with the grieving process."
     Nursing releases Prolactin, a hormone that can lesson symptoms of depression. It also gives grieving mothers something to do.

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Jerk...y

 


        I admit. At no point during the rest of the year do I think, even once, "What I really need right now is some deer jerky."
     Yet driving up to Ontonagon, on the shores of Lake Superior, it feels not only natural, but necessary to stop in Slinger, Wisconsin, at Held's Meats and Cheeses, to pick up a pound or two. 
     Tradition is a stern task master.
     There was a twist this year, as we walked through the door, my buddy whispered to me. 
     "That guy's carrying a gun."
     That he was. A very large man in a yellow shirt. A revolver, by the look of it, shoved in the right pocket of his capacious blue shorts.
     It wasn't a big deal. I joined the queue at the case, considered my cheese options, then ordered what I always do. About a pound of the deer jerky, the regular, not the spicy 
     "The thick part if you can."
     The thick part is softer. Just enough for our weekend at the lake—my wife gave me strict instructions not to bring any home. My older son once said it tastes, "like a burned down house."
     My eyes did glance to the butt of that revolver, and I snapped a photo, to share here.
     I've been coming to Held's for years, unarmed, and never felt imperiled. Obviously this guy feels differently. He has the need to go around packing, not only at Held's but, I imagine, everywhere else he goes.
      So why is he the tough guy, in the eyes of many, the proud American exercising his God-given right to carry a weapon everywhere? While I'm the cringing weenie, taking my chances on the mean streets of Slinger—well, the parking lot of Held's, I can't say I actually set foot on a street in Slinger, assuming such things exist.  
     Which of us has more faith in the nation? In our fellow citizens? In the police? In the rule of law?
     No need to answer. We each have our answers and stick with 'em. 
     Not really my business. This guy is endangering himself more than me or anyone else, and I suppose whatever person who might get shot when he reaches into his pocket for some breath mints and that gun tumbles out.
    It wasn't me, at least, not while I was there, gratefully accepting my white paper wrapped package and hurrying away with perhaps a little extra rapidity. Getting into the car, immediately unwrapping my prize in the car, carving off a generous chaw of jerky with my Gerber LST folding knife. Which shows that I am not against going around armed, provided your weapon has a purpose, such as slicing up jerky. It really is very good jerky, and only $18.95 a pound. 

The Saturday Snapshot #6

Photo by Nikki Dobrowolski

     Now as a photograph, Nikki Dobrowolski's shot of a beaver dam on Huzzy Lake does not rank up there with Ansel Adams' "Moon and Half Dome." Though it does has a certain solemnity and quiet power.
     Rather it was that it was a dam that caught my attention, first, because you just don't see dams much, Hoover notwithstanding. And second, it was a "dam" as opposed to "damn," which you see, or rather hear, all the time, including every day in the name of this blog.
     Which got me playing one of my favorite games: Which usage is older? Dam, the blockage of a body of water, or damn, with that silent "n" creeping in, the condemnation to hell's flame?
    Turns out to be something of a tie.
    The thing that beavers and functioning American governments make goes back at least 700 years, to Old Norse, dammr.
    And the condemnation goes back ... about 700 years, to the Old French damner, meaning to condemn, convict, blame, injure. The Latin damnare, "to adjudge guilty, to doom to condemn," is of course much older, but then the Norse predecessors of dammr could go back far too. Not a lot of written records to help us here.
    Anyway, speaking of beavers, I'm in the Upper Peninsula, with no idea what, how or if I'm going to be able to post anything tomorrow. We'll just have to see. You should be out enjoying this glorious weekend anyway. I sure am.
   

Target puts its customers on a pedestal

 

    My Friday column got bumped to Monday—the combination of an extra-long column and extra-tight space. And since I don't believe in scooping the paper on my blog, I'm running something else here today—this picture of a mannequin at Target.
     You'll notice that I didn't attached an adjective to "mannequin." I suppose "hefty" is safe. Target, the nation's sixth largest retailer, calls them "Plus Sized"—they've been rolling them out over the past few years, reflecting their expanded range of sizes.
      As a middle-aged male pundit, I guess I'm supposed to grab the drapery and howl. I suppose George F. Will will do that, eventually, though I can't imagine the man shopping at Target. Nordstrom's has them too, so maybe he'll notice them there.
     But in truth, I can't say I'm distressed by the mannequins—I mean, I noticed them, and took these pictures. But in a cold, clinical, and-so-the-world-turns fashion. We are an increasingly obese country, and as a person who has battled weight all my life, I know that individuals themselves fluctuate between struggle and surrender. Some days start with a grapefruit and determination, others with a donut and resignation. Why should society be any different? I, myself, err on the side of struggle—being fat sucks. But if you want to dive into morbid obesity with a shrug and smile, by all means, be my guest.

     Besides, mannequins are not the hill to die on. At least these have heads—as a child, I always found those slender, headless mannequins to be extremely creepy. My sister and I shared a complicated fantasy where, if you were trapped in May Co. or Higbee's or Halle's when the store closed, the mannequins came to life and murdered you. I'm surprised nobody has used that as a premise for a horror film, but I am not well-schooled in the horror movie genre, so maybe someone already has.
     I do wonder about the efficacy of these mannequins. The purpose of showing off clothes, whether on a dummy in a store, or on a model in an ad, is to encourage the consumer to put down their cash and buy a particular outfit. I'm not saying using a curvy model, or a size-22 mannequin, won't work as well as the half-starved waifs and gaunt sticks that have been the general habit for the past half century. Heck, maybe reflecting women as they actually are might work better. (For some reason, men have not been granted this relief. I have yet to see thickset guy dummies at Target, nor beefy models on the cover of GQ. Maybe that's coming). 
    I could see them succeeding, catching the attention, and the dollars, of the consumer, relieved to see the full wide reflections of themselves. I also could see these stabs at pandering to the World As It Is failing, by ignoring the aspirational aspect of fashion. Most people are not only heavy, they're plain-looking, but modeling clothes on average looking Joes and Janes, looking schlumpy and down-market—I just can't see that moving the merchandise. 
     To be honest, I've never seen clothing on a mannequin or in an ad, said, "Oh look!" and then bought it. So whoever these are designed to appeal to, fat or thin, it ain't me. The clothes I want are the clothes I've always worn, just newer, and less threadbare. 
    

Flashback 2000: Top-flight bass anglers to hook up in Chicago

Barton Lake, Michigan (photo by Nikki Dobrowolski)

     Readers have been sending in photos for my Saturday Snapshot, which is very gratifying. Nikki Dobrowolski sent in a pair Monday, this lovely swan—taken under duress, as the male swan was making a beeline toward her—and a beaver dam, that I'll use on Saturday.
     She prefaced her description of the pictures with, "I took these photos when my husband and I were out prefishing for bass tournaments."
     I don't like to brag. But I am a man of parts, and couldn't help sharing a personal detail few readers know.
     "These are nice, thanks," I wrote back then, unable to restrain myself, added. "If I told you I won $1,000 in the BASS Masters Classic, would you believe me? It's true."
     She believed me—the power of the media.
     "That sounds like a very interesting blog post," she wrote. "I'd love to read that story and congratulations on your win.

    Consider it done. But first, a bit of background about BASS Masters, a Southern phenomenon that ventured northward, to Chicago, in 2000. Someone with a sense of humor at the City Desk thought it would be a hoot to make me the bass fishing reporter for the week, and I rewarded them with this. On Sunday, I'll share how reporting the below put a grand in my pocket, temporarily.

     Bass can't be everywhere. Which is why bass boats have big 250 horsepower motors.
     They blast across the water at 70 mph, a cheek-flapping wind roaring by and only a placemat's worth of boat bottom actually touching the water's surface. Then they pull up at a carefully scouted sweet spot where suddenly all is quiet, just the buzzing of insects on shore and the gentle zip of the fisherman flicking an expert cast, stalking his prey.
     That's bass fishing: a combination of drag racing and chess.
     Chicago is going to be hearing a lot about bass fishing over the next month as the BASS Masters Classic—the pinnacle of the sport—leaves the South, where it has comfortably played to the choir for 30 years, and dips into Northern waters for the first time.
      Chicago seems receptive, so far.
     "The mayor wants to go out," said Tom Gray, a director in Mayor Daley's office of special events. "We're trying to set it up."
     The classic begins July 17, with 46 of the nation's top anglers trying to hook the fattest local bass, culminating with a "final weigh-in extravaganza" at Soldier Field on July 22.
     "Taking the BASS Masters Classic to Chicago is a bold move that is really going to elevate the sport," said Davy Hite of South Carolina, last year's champ.
     Bass fishermen talk a lot about elevating the sport. Although bass fishing has been moving into the big leagues (two years ago the Angler of the Year first appeared on a Wheaties box, and the Classic carries a $ 100,000 top prize), it isn't there yet.
     "Tournament angling doesn't have the dollars that golf has, but we're right behind," said Chuck Ramke, past-president of the Illinois B.A.S.S. Federation, which has 1,800 members.
     The competitors, in town last week to scout out Lake Michigan, grumbled about slim pickings. But they agreed that it is worth working a little harder if it means introducing bass fishing to an area perhaps unfamiliar with pros such as Gary Klein, with his quiet, intense demeanor.
     "I've never had another occupation," said Klein, 42. "I graduated high school, and instead of going to college I went out on the bass circuit."     

Gary Klein

     Weekend fishermen, who think of fishing as tossing a line in the water and waiting for a fish to bite, have no idea of the expertise that experts such as Klein, who earned $500,000 last year, bring to the sport.
     Klein knows where the fish are. After a week of scouting, including flying over the lake in a rented plane, he roars up to a section of shore just north of Calumet Harbor and searches out a particular rock.
     Standing at the bow of his 21-foot Triton boat, he eyeballs a smallmouth in the clear shallows, flicks his cast, sending a hand-poured tube lure under the fish's nose, practically, and gets a strike on the first try.
     "When I get to the spot the fish likes to favor, I'm on his nose all the time, like a fly, until he gets mad and he bites," Klein said.
     How does he know where the bass will be? Experience, and balancing dozens of factors, such as water and air temperature; wind speed; barometer reading; season, and the contours of the bottom.
     "When we look at a lake, we don't just see water, we see all the subtleties," he said. "We are very fine-tuned when it comes to putting together patterns."
     Though not a particularly physical sport, bass fishing takes a toll. Klein has a nasty scar on his right hand from a prize-winning bass that sank its teeth into him as he lifted it for the cameras.
     "It was a $100,000 fish," said Klein. "I wasn't going to drop it."
                 —Originally published in the Sun-Times June 12, 2000

Focus on Chicago's problems and not the clown car of candidates

     Maybe we're going about this wrong.
     Last week, as you know, Rahm Emanuel realized his mayoralty is upside down in a ditch, wheels spinning, so he decided to take his ball and go home.
     And this enormous crew of marginal figures, cranks, has-beens, and perennial candidates leaps up and announces, in turn, that each is just the person to run what is still the nation's third largest city. It's like that scene where the Oklahoma territory is opened for settlement; somebody fires a gun and all these buckboards and horseback riders go racing across the border in a cloud of dust.
     I won't list them all.
     Some blame belongs to the media, including my own beloved Sun-Times. We pass the time recounting tales of Willie Wilson handing out cash here, William "Dock" Walls making his fourth bid there (I actually agree with Walls about something, when he says of his fellow arrivistes, "They have no clue what's needed." His only omission — omnia vanitas — is not including himself in the magic circle).
     All good fun. I get it. Ringling Brothers went out of business, and the employment opportunities for clowns is severely limited. That's sad. But what's needed now is not to indulge egomaniacs, but to find someone who can address the enormous, city-killing problems facing Chicago.
     Since this column tops out at 719 words, I'll limit myself to the top two problems.
     First, violence in general and the cops in particular. Violence not only rips apart lives, but drives away the investment that the city needs to thrive. And cops, besides killing innocent people all too often, cost the city $500 million we don't have over the past 15 years in settlements and judgments.
     Here, I hate to say it, but Garry McCarthy has a definite edge. Not for any experience in his four and a half years as superintendent, which amounted to saying "Yes Mr. Mayor" twice a day into the telephone. But the CPD rank and file already really, really hate him, which gives him a certain freedom to act. What ruined Rahm is that when the Laquan McDonald video became known, he had already passed through his reform-the-police phase of his attempt to lead and had drifted into the try-to-be-pals-with-cops phase, and if handing the mom who popped up a paycheck kept the video out of sight, all the better.
    We need a mayor who is going to act on the scathing Justice Department indictment of the Chicago police, and who'll implement change while she stops her ears to the we-can't-do-our-jobs-unless-we-can-glibly-trample-human-rights-without-any-supervision-or-consequence shriek the force will put up.
     Whoops.
     Did I say "she"? Giving the game away. 

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If, like some readers, you finish the column and want a little background on my unusual fondness for Carol Moseley Braun, you can find the details here.