Needless to say, Detroit has Lions mania this weekend. Everyone’s wearing the merch. A guy was walking the Eastern Market yesterday with his beard dyed blue. There was a drone show Saturday night. Flags flying from every house. The stadium sold 20,000 tickets, even though they’re playing in San Francisco; the game will be displayed on the stadium’s TV screens, a move that a local sportswriter estimates will earn the team another million bucks.
Here at the Nall/Derringer Co-Prosperity Sphere, we’ll likely make pulled-chicken barbecue sandwiches and eat ’em in front of the TV. However, I’m going to try to sincerely not care who wins, because my support is, for any team, the kiss of death. There are so many ways to get your heart broken, why ask for another? And so.
Pretty nice weekend, if you forget that we discovered a wet spot in our basement, which led to Alan ripping all the paneling in the rec room down, taking down the insulation, and discovering several large cracks in the foundation. They’re not super-serious, but it’s not the sort of thing that makes one jump up and down with glee. It’ll mean Basement Guys to fix the cracks, then replacing the stuff we ripped out, and at this point I’m just going to shrug and say oh well shit happens. At least we didn’t have a flood.
Then, today, I did a driving tour of Pontiac with a journalist friend. “Over there’s the liquor store where the closing door hit someone, so he shot the guy who didn’t hold the door. …That’s the cemetery where the caretaker saw a homeless guy walking through with a bag of groceries, and they found out he was living in a crypt from the Civil War. … Lotsa shootings around here. …Gang on this street. …Oh, let’s turn in here. It’s a great little neighborhood.” And so on. I purely love journalists’ tours. We see different things than most people.
With that, the kickoff and first score has already happened, so I’m-a watch. Let’s hope I don’t jinx ’em. Go Lions.
Brandon said on January 28, 2024 at 7:30 pm
I don’t follow football, but I’m rooting for the Lions.
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Joe Kobiela said on January 28, 2024 at 8:24 pm
Would be curious to see if the crime rate in Detroit has gone down any in the last few weeks, successful teams seem to raise the level of pride in city’s like Detroit that haven’t seen a winner in awhile, hopefully if they win the whole thing the fans won’t cause a devils night.
Detroit vs everyone
Go Lions
From a Bears fan
Pilot Joe
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Ann said on January 28, 2024 at 10:06 pm
It looked like the Lions might actually pull it off but it was not to be. A worthy effort, nonetheless.
Harbaugh’s going to the NFL. Fine. He’s dead to me anyway since he showed up at a Right to Life rally.
The journalist’s tour sounds wonderful. The detail about the Civil War crypt is priceless.
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Sherri said on January 28, 2024 at 10:56 pm
The Lions did better than I expected, but the Niners really are the stronger team. Sadly.
Harbaugh lasted at Michigan longer than I thought he would. He’s a very weird dude, even among football coaches. He basically got fired from the 49ers because his boss couldn’t put up with him and his weirdness any longer.
When he won the national championship at Michigan, it was a foregone conclusion that he would leave, especially after all the suspensions last season. He really wants a national championship and a Super Bowl, joining Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer, and Pete Carroll.
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Brandon said on January 29, 2024 at 12:53 am
It looked like the Lions might actually pull it off but it was not to be. A worthy effort, nonetheless.
Indeed. They were so far ahead initially.
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LAMary said on January 29, 2024 at 8:41 am
In other news Trump says the Iranians would not have killed three marines if he was president. Also Hamas would not have attacked Israel and Putin would not have invaded Ukraine. And he would have negotiated to avoid the Civil War. Somewhere, someone believes this.
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Jason T. said on January 29, 2024 at 9:10 am
In Pittsburgh, we have two kinds of basements: Those that are actively leaking water and those that will soon be leaking water.
I hope your repairs aren’t too disruptive or painful.
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Dorothy said on January 29, 2024 at 9:27 am
For some unknown reason our internet stopped and dropped at halftime during the Chiefs/Ravens game. It was a huge outage – we have a Faceboo neighborhood group so all the comments there were bordering on cray-cray because of not being able to see football. We used celllular data to keep track of that first game’s score, and I was encouraged about the Lions. But I got tired of knitting and reading, alternating those things after we ate dinner, so I went to bed around 8:30. Did not fall asleep right away but the last time I’d checked the score the Lions were up 24-7 I think. When I got up this morning I didn’t even think to look at the end result because I was convinced the Lions must have won. Color me stunned!
My husband is retiring and Wednesday is his last day. A few months ago he was so wound up about it and worried about trivial and silly stuff; now his head is in a much better place and he’s very, very happy. He’ll be 67 in May. Wednesday is the two year anniversary of when we bought this house. And it’s our daughter-in-law’s birthday that day. Our daughter is flying in on Thursday so we’ll be partying fools all weekend.
Speaking of anniversaries, I saw a pic of actor William Daniels and his wife actress Bonnie Bartlett on Twitter this morning. He’s 97 and she is 95 – they are celebrating their SEVENTY-THIRD anniversary!!
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Icarus said on January 29, 2024 at 10:36 am
The 49ers didn’t beat the Lions; the Lions beat themselves. Going for it on 4th down early in the game may or may not have been a good decision*, but it shifted momentum and sewed the seeds of doubt into the young Lions team.
*Conventional wisdom is you kick early, go for it late.
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basset said on January 29, 2024 at 11:07 am
Saw Franki Valli and the Four Seasons last night, he can still sing the high parts… and his band and backup singers, as you would expect, do the old stuff perfectly. Rest breaks are built into the show and his speaking voice is scratchy but still amazingly good for being 89, all around a show that we would definitely see again.
Not so happy about the $32 “service fee” and $8 “convenience fee” on the tickets, or the $20 parking which has to be paid by phone and credit card, though… or the $15 wine and $30 mixed drinks.
This was only the second event I’ve been to that required showing a QR code on my phone to get in, I would still rather have a physical ticket so I don’t worry about it vanishing into the ether as we walk up to the show.
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Jeff Borden said on January 29, 2024 at 12:52 pm
I’m with Icarus. Dan Campbell playing riverboat gambler on not one but two 4th-and-short –and failing both times– cost the Lions the game. It revved up SF and the fans. Really a damned shame, but I give Campbell credit for taking the blame.
Harbaugh will be missed in the Big 10 because he was a legitimate villain. Hard to see any other coach in the conference taking that title going forward.
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alex said on January 29, 2024 at 1:16 pm
Confident that the Lions’ lead was insurmountable, I tuned into to my new favorite show on PBS, “Funny Woman.” (In which a bumpkin beauty pageant winner goes off to the big city of London seeking fame and fortune. Comedy ensues. Great 1960s fashion, btw.)
Another gray, gloomy winter day of retirement when I can’t decide what to do for amusement but still glad I’m not spending it in a toxic office. Think I’ll head for the library and get lost in the genealogy section.
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Sherri said on January 29, 2024 at 1:19 pm
Dan Campbell had been going for it on fourth and short all season long. That had been part of the Lions’ success in getting there. Teams in general are going for it more often as analytics have made it clear that it’s the better option more often. Especially against a better team, as the Niners were, I think that going for it was a reasonable decision. Settling for field goals against explosive teams like the Niners seldom works.
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Julie Robinson said on January 29, 2024 at 1:39 pm
Ahem. There was another sporting event this weekend which is very important to some of us: Figure Skating Nationals. Since most of you here care as little about skating as I do about football, I’ll say no more.
basset, did they have the brass players too? I was a bit too young for Frank Valli the first time around, so when the musical Jersey Boys came out I was amazed how the band Chicago had been cribbing brass arrangements from The Four Seasons. It’s a great sound.
Incidentally, it’s worth exploring whether you can get tickets directly at the box office without all the fees. They are 18% at the local big-deal downtown venue, but not a penny if you buy in person. This only works when you live in the same town. We bought our Broadway tickets for February when we were there in November, no fees so we ended up with much better seats for the same amount of money.
Dorothy, one more happy retiree to add to the band! Alex, you will find your way. Maybe a little travel this time of year?
We walked into church yesterday and found some friends from up north there. They decided to surprise us, and it worked. They stayed for lunch and a good, long catch up.
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Sherri said on January 29, 2024 at 1:58 pm
The best thing about football right now is the right wingers losing their minds over Taylor Swift dating Travis Kelce, the tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, and prominently showing up for his football games and cheering him on.
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basset said on January 29, 2024 at 3:34 pm
Why is that an issue?
Tried buying tickets in person for other shows, I’m in Nashville so no breaks there.
Making soap for the first time, guy I hunt with makes it from deer fat so I had to try. Didn’t work, soap didn’t harden in the molds and the uncooked solution ate some of the teflon off my cooking pot. Got a thrift-store crock pot just now, ceramic pot so maybe that’ll work.
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Jeff Borden said on January 29, 2024 at 3:53 pm
Bassett,
MAGAts hate Taylor Swift with the heat of a thousand suns because she urges her young fans to register to vote and because she argued against voting for Marsha Blackburn, the grotesque MAGA-loving Tennessee senator. Also, she’s an enormously successful woman, which is anathema to the sissy boys of MAGA world.
I don’t own a single song and likely haven’t even heard a snippet, but she’s a cool, smart and in total control of her life. Few 34-year-olds can make a similar claim.
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David C said on January 29, 2024 at 4:26 pm
Even more, Jeff. They thought she was their Aryan princess. When it became clear she was a Democrat part of their world view blew up in their faces. Then she started dating the get vaccinated guy. Well, double the fun. Now they hate their manly man game of football. I think the only ones happier about wingnuts hating her than Democrats are incels’ moms. It made laundering the kid’s socks a lot less disgusting.
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Sherri said on January 29, 2024 at 5:30 pm
The MAGAts think Swift-Kelce is a CIA plot, that the Chiefs are going to win the Super Bowl, and that Swift will endorse Biden after the win.
Taylor Swift is beloved by tween/teen girls, and generally speaking, anything beloved by tween/teen girls is declared terrible by men.
On a different topic, here’s a gift link to a fascinating article about modern day train robbery: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/23/magazine/train-robbery-amazon-packages.html?unlocked_article_code=1.RU0.G0og.lesecnV_gcxA&bgrp=g&smid=url-share
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Sherri said on January 29, 2024 at 5:45 pm
Cecile Richards has brain cancer.
https://www.thecut.com/article/cecile-richards-brain-cancer-abortion-planned-parenthood.html?utm_campaign=thecut&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=tw
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Dorothy said on January 30, 2024 at 6:17 am
Julie the US Skating Championships were here in Columbus this past week/weekend. I wanted to attend some sessions but the prices were just a little too much. Plus hubby is only retiring tomorrow and I am the sole person who meets the school bus at 3 PM each weekday. I did record all the broadcast competitions though, fast forwarded through commercials and had a good seat right in my living room or sewing room. I really wish I could sit with you and have you explain to me live and in person the differences between axels, salchows, flips, etc. I can look at drawings til the cows come home but when they are doing them, it goes so fast and my ability to decipher them is non-existent.
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Julie Robinson said on January 30, 2024 at 8:18 am
Axels are easy to tell because they’re the only jump that takes off forward. After that, it’s more complicated; for example, the only difference between a flip and a lutz is the skate edge you are leaning on when you take off. Even the judges struggle with that one, though now they can use replays to help.
It’s not about the jumps for me, though. It’s the stories that are told through the skating, interpretation of the music, and costumes. Did you see Jason Brown skate to Josh Groban’s The Impossible Dream? Jumps not perfect but he made me cry. That’s why I watch.
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Jeff Borden said on January 30, 2024 at 9:03 am
The right-wing insanity about Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce is absolutely outta control Apparently, the fix is in and Kansas City will beat San Francisco in the Super Bowl. George Soros is bankrolling the whole operation! Afterwards, Swift and Kelce will endorse Joe Biden! Millions of brainwashed NFL fans will be hypnotized to vote against our hero ! Will the left stop at nothing!
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alex said on January 30, 2024 at 9:33 am
So my visit to the genealogy library was fruitful. I managed to discover the existence of some 1840s court records that I am now requesting from the basement of the county clerk’s office. These pertain to a presumed slavery abolitionist and possible Underground Railroad operative.
The individual in question had been on my radar for years and he led me down several other interesting rabbit holes. I wouldn’t know where to begin to tell the story yet, but telling it will be one of my projects in retirement.
This morning awoke to a sleet storm. I’m going to take some time out to travel in the next few weeks while my husband is out of town for work. Probably a good time to go pay some visits in Florida and North Carolina.
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brian stouder said on January 30, 2024 at 10:19 am
Alex – sounds fascinating! Some years back, after being consumed by Ken Burns’ Civil War series and Shelby Foote’s magnum opus, we were visiting the Maryland town of Sharpesburg (near Antietam Creek), and as we ambled down the sidewalk along the Main Street in town, I – literally – stumbled across a block on the sidewalk. As we looked at the block, we saw an informative plate on it, identifying it as an actual auction block, upon which enslaved human beings were put up for bids. The whole thing was (literally) jarring and unforgettable…..and indeed, the implosion of the United States wasn’t all that long ago – and morons like D Rump would absolutely jump at the chance to trigger another
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Jeff Borden said on January 30, 2024 at 10:46 am
The old slave market is a tourist attraction in Charleston, S.C. It’s a creepy counterweight to a lovely old city.
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Little Bird said on January 30, 2024 at 10:50 am
Taylor Swift is loved by tweens, teens, young women, middle aged women, and grandmothers. And that scares the daylights out of the republicans. They know women make up more than half of the population, and they hate the idea that she might sway the vote away from them. And they SHOULD be scared. Personally I’m not a Swiftie, but I do like some of her music. I have no desire to go to one of her concerts, but I don’t have any desire to go to any concerts really. Too loud and too crowded, and way too expensive.
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David C said on January 30, 2024 at 12:57 pm
Some wingnut on Xitter thinks Lauren Boobert should be their Taylor Swift. That’s not even the funny part. The funny part is his Xitter name “Scott Greer 6’2″ IQ 187”. That says more about him than a well written paragraph could.
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4dbirds said on January 30, 2024 at 2:25 pm
I don’t go to concerts either. I hate them. I only recently realized that I don’t like music for the most part. It is an annoying noise to me. My husband used to just assume I would go to concerts with him and not knowing how to tell him I was an abnormal human, I did. I was miserable at each one. Then one day when he announced a concert, I said I wasn’t going. You would have thought I hit him. I said take someone else and that was the last concert I went to. I did see Hamilton and my interest in history overrode my dislike of loud music. Now I go to lectures, especially if they’re given by Neal Degrasse Tyson.
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alex said on January 30, 2024 at 2:47 pm
Through the magic of electronic communications, I got my 1840s court records shortly after requesting them. They’re of course handwritten and rather difficult to make out and there’s nothing particularly earth-shaking aside from the fact that $900 was awarded for defamation, equivalent to about $30-35K today. (E. Jean Carroll would probably say “Hold my beer.”)
Our subject was one Matthew Peter Montgomery, a Presbyterian pioneer school teacher who evidently had some bad blood with a neighbor, Joseph P. Jones. In 1846, Jones had been spreading rumors that Montgomery was a thief who had stolen bushels of corn from Jones’ fields. If I’m understanding the records correctly, Jones also printed up some handbills which he circulated throughout the community; these falsely advertised a nonexistent course of lectures by Montgomery and were intended to further embarrass him.
Montgomery fell ill and died in 1848 and Jones reneged on the $900 judgment and fought Montgomery’s estate in the state’s appeals and supreme courts for years afterward. I believe the judgment was ultimately upheld.
Montgomery is a significant figure in that he was one of the earliest pioneer settlers in downstate Jay County; he recruited the Reverend Isaac Newton Taylor to set up a Presbyterian church in that county; Taylor eventually founded Liber College, a coeducational institution open to all races and bankrolled in part by Harriet Beecher Stowe; and Montgomery’s son, Marcus Whitman Montgomery, wrote an excellent history of Jay County at the age of 20 in the year 1860.
M.W.M., like his namesake Dr. Marcus Whitman, who was a friend of the Montgomery family, went on to become a famed Presbyterian missionary in his own right.
In researching Matthew Montgomery, I learned that the Rev. Taylor separated from Liber College in 1859 (I have found nothing to explain why but I suspect some sort of scandal) and he divorced his wife and relocated first to Illinois, then Nebraska, then Arizona. In Nebraska Taylor worked as a land speculator. Taylor’s son, who was one of the first graduates of Liber, became an attorney in Fort Wayne in partnership with known abolitionist Lindley Ninde, who also previously resided in Jay County. Taylor’s son became quite prominent and held political office; Taylor tried to convince him to pursue a political career in Arizona but he wasn’t interested.
Rabbit holes. I’m piecing together all kinds of interesting stories from snippets of local histories, some of which might make some good reading if the far-flung pieces could all be brought together.
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Jenine said on January 31, 2024 at 9:58 am
Alex, you are finding good stuff. I’m glad to learn the name Lindley Ninde.
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