Chris Bohjalian's Blog, page 25
March 19, 2013
The Sandcastle Girls "Lucky '13" Paperback Book Tour -- less than a month away
The Lucky ‘13 Book Tour for the paperback of "The Sandcastle Girls" is less than a month away. Here are the venues — please join me!
April 14
Fresno, California
Fresno State College
Armenian Studies Department
Leon and Pete Peters Educational Center Auditorium
(In student rec center, corner of Shaw and Woodrow Avenues)
5241 N. Maple Avenue
2:00 p.m.
Questions? (559) 224-5878
April 15
Vernon Hills, Illinois
Cook Memorial Library/Lake Forest Books
Sullivan Center
635 N. Aspen Drive
Noon
Registration requested
Call: (847) 362-2330
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Tuscan Market and Wine Shop
141 West Wing Street
6:30 p.m.
Registration required.
Call: (847) 392-9700
April 16
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis County Library Headquarters
1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd.
7:00 p.m.
Information: (314) 994-3300 (x-2280)
April 17
Streamboat Springs, Colorado
Bud Werner Memorial Library
"Literary Sojourn"
6:30 p.m.
Questions? (970) 367-4904
April 18
New York, New York
Armenian Society of Columbia University and Columbia Teacher's College
Horace Mann Hall
120th and Broadway
7:00 p.m.
April 19
Madison, Connecticut
R.J. Julia Book Group Lunch
With Kate Alcott, author of "The Dressmaker"
The Madison Beach Hotel.
11:30 a.m.
To reserve your seat (and your book), click here.
April 21
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda Literary Festival
Hyatt Regency Hotel
7400 Wisconsin Avenue
With Kate Alcott, author of "The Dressmaker"
12:30 p.m.
April 22
Baltimore, Maryland
Details to come.
April 23
Lincroft, New Jersey
Brookdale Community College
Warner Student Life Center
7:00 p.m.
April 24: Genocide Memorial Day --
Nahadagats Hishadagi Or
Southfield, Michigan
St. John Armenian Church Cultural Center
22201 Northeastern Highway
Information: (248) 569-3405
6:00 p.m -- Book signing in the Vartan Room
7:00 p.m. -- Requiem service
8:00 p.m. -- Memorial dinner and program
9:00 p.m. -- Additional book signing
April 25
Albany, New York
New York State Writers Institute
State University of New York
Ballroom, Campus Center
8:00 p.m.
Questions? Call (518) 442-5621.
April 26
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania
St. Sahag & St. Mesrob Armenian Apostolic Church
Memorial Hall
7:30 p.m.
Information: (610) 642-4212
(Is your city not on here? Fear not: It MIGHT be on the July tour for "The Light in the Ruins." Stay tuned.
April 14
Fresno, California
Fresno State College
Armenian Studies Department
Leon and Pete Peters Educational Center Auditorium
(In student rec center, corner of Shaw and Woodrow Avenues)
5241 N. Maple Avenue
2:00 p.m.
Questions? (559) 224-5878
April 15
Vernon Hills, Illinois
Cook Memorial Library/Lake Forest Books
Sullivan Center
635 N. Aspen Drive
Noon
Registration requested
Call: (847) 362-2330
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Tuscan Market and Wine Shop
141 West Wing Street
6:30 p.m.
Registration required.
Call: (847) 392-9700
April 16
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis County Library Headquarters
1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd.
7:00 p.m.
Information: (314) 994-3300 (x-2280)
April 17
Streamboat Springs, Colorado
Bud Werner Memorial Library
"Literary Sojourn"
6:30 p.m.
Questions? (970) 367-4904
April 18
New York, New York
Armenian Society of Columbia University and Columbia Teacher's College
Horace Mann Hall
120th and Broadway
7:00 p.m.
April 19
Madison, Connecticut
R.J. Julia Book Group Lunch
With Kate Alcott, author of "The Dressmaker"
The Madison Beach Hotel.
11:30 a.m.
To reserve your seat (and your book), click here.
April 21
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda Literary Festival
Hyatt Regency Hotel
7400 Wisconsin Avenue
With Kate Alcott, author of "The Dressmaker"
12:30 p.m.
April 22
Baltimore, Maryland
Details to come.
April 23
Lincroft, New Jersey
Brookdale Community College
Warner Student Life Center
7:00 p.m.
April 24: Genocide Memorial Day --
Nahadagats Hishadagi Or
Southfield, Michigan
St. John Armenian Church Cultural Center
22201 Northeastern Highway
Information: (248) 569-3405
6:00 p.m -- Book signing in the Vartan Room
7:00 p.m. -- Requiem service
8:00 p.m. -- Memorial dinner and program
9:00 p.m. -- Additional book signing
April 25
Albany, New York
New York State Writers Institute
State University of New York
Ballroom, Campus Center
8:00 p.m.
Questions? Call (518) 442-5621.
April 26
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania
St. Sahag & St. Mesrob Armenian Apostolic Church
Memorial Hall
7:30 p.m.
Information: (610) 642-4212
(Is your city not on here? Fear not: It MIGHT be on the July tour for "The Light in the Ruins." Stay tuned.
March 17, 2013
Sugaring season may be short, but it's always sweet
Most of us who have lived in Vermont for any length of time know the basics of sugaring: You have to boil about 40 gallons of sap to get a single gallon of syrup. A sugarmaker should expect to lose 15 to 20 hours of sleep every spring to boiling. And as global climate change curtails the number of days when there might be a sugar run, the seasons are likely to be – to quote my friend and sugarmaker, Bristol’s John Elder – “short but sweet.”
If you’re a Vermonter who doesn’t sugar, it’s easy to take the process for granted. It’s easy to forget the feelings we had when we first tromped through the mud and melting snow and walked inside a sugarhouse to watch someone boiling. It’s kind of like the way we grow up and forget the magic of those birthday parties when we were five years old. And, make no mistake, a sugarhouse is an enchanted sort of place, even if it’s a decrepit shed so small it can barely fit an evaporator the size of a pool table. It might be thirty-five or forty degrees outside, but chances are the heat from the wood fire and all that steam will make it feel like a sauna inside. There is the mouth-watering aroma of maple. And there is that entire fairy tale vibe: A shack at the edge of the woods with a roaring, medieval fire inside and something strange and alchemic occurring in the roiling fluid above the flames: A vat of sap that can be stilled in a heartbeat with but a dollop of butter or a drop of cream. Eventually that sap will thicken into ambrosia.
Earlier this month Susan McNally, a reader from London, England, shared with me her introduction to sugaring. “A few years ago, we rented a house in Vermont in the middle of a lot of snow,” she said. “Suddenly we saw smoke coming out of the little hut on our land and decided that someone must have been trespassing.” When she went to investigate, a little wary, she found it was a sugarhouse – and now has great memories of the demonstration and a deep love of maple syrup.
Just as there are far fewer dairy farms in Vermont than there once were, there are far fewer sugarhouses. Years ago, retired Lincoln dairy farmer, Herb Parker, told me how once upon a time he could stand on a hill by his farmhouse some days in March and see “steams” in all directions. Those “steams” were the working sugarhouses in the community.
Moreover, in the same way that the dairy farms that remain are larger than the ones that dotted the Green Mountain landscape fifty years ago, the sugaring operations are bigger, too. Technology has allowed a sugarmaker to tap more trees and pull from each maple more sap. You might still spot metal buckets hanging beneath taps on a line of maples, but my sense is that a lot of those belong to the dabblers.
Not that there is anything wrong with dabbling. We still need the lasagna pan, stovetop sugarmakers – people with stories like Monique Beaudry. “When I was growing up in Westfield,” she told me, “my parents decided to let my sister have a go at making a small batch of syrup in our kitchen. My mother wasn’t very happy when her wallpaper started falling off the walls of our very old farmhouse, due to the steam created by the boiling sap.” But that finished syrup? Delicious.
Consequently, the sugarhouse remains an important part of Vermont’s identity. In 2011, we produced over 1.1 million gallons of syrup, generating nearly $40 million. Last season, we produced another three-quarters of a million gallons. Maple syrup is part of our mystique, in the same way that milk and cheese are.
And while it may not be possible to recapture the magic of birthday parties when you were still in kindergarten, it’s hard to outgrow a sugarhouse. No one ever regrets visiting one. Besides, when there’s maple there’s mud. They’re meteorological cousins. If we’re going to endure a little mud, we should treat ourselves to a little maple.
‘Tis the season.
* * *
This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on March 17, 2013. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 9. You can add it to your Goodreads "Want to Read" line-up by clicking here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...
If you’re a Vermonter who doesn’t sugar, it’s easy to take the process for granted. It’s easy to forget the feelings we had when we first tromped through the mud and melting snow and walked inside a sugarhouse to watch someone boiling. It’s kind of like the way we grow up and forget the magic of those birthday parties when we were five years old. And, make no mistake, a sugarhouse is an enchanted sort of place, even if it’s a decrepit shed so small it can barely fit an evaporator the size of a pool table. It might be thirty-five or forty degrees outside, but chances are the heat from the wood fire and all that steam will make it feel like a sauna inside. There is the mouth-watering aroma of maple. And there is that entire fairy tale vibe: A shack at the edge of the woods with a roaring, medieval fire inside and something strange and alchemic occurring in the roiling fluid above the flames: A vat of sap that can be stilled in a heartbeat with but a dollop of butter or a drop of cream. Eventually that sap will thicken into ambrosia.
Earlier this month Susan McNally, a reader from London, England, shared with me her introduction to sugaring. “A few years ago, we rented a house in Vermont in the middle of a lot of snow,” she said. “Suddenly we saw smoke coming out of the little hut on our land and decided that someone must have been trespassing.” When she went to investigate, a little wary, she found it was a sugarhouse – and now has great memories of the demonstration and a deep love of maple syrup.
Just as there are far fewer dairy farms in Vermont than there once were, there are far fewer sugarhouses. Years ago, retired Lincoln dairy farmer, Herb Parker, told me how once upon a time he could stand on a hill by his farmhouse some days in March and see “steams” in all directions. Those “steams” were the working sugarhouses in the community.
Moreover, in the same way that the dairy farms that remain are larger than the ones that dotted the Green Mountain landscape fifty years ago, the sugaring operations are bigger, too. Technology has allowed a sugarmaker to tap more trees and pull from each maple more sap. You might still spot metal buckets hanging beneath taps on a line of maples, but my sense is that a lot of those belong to the dabblers.
Not that there is anything wrong with dabbling. We still need the lasagna pan, stovetop sugarmakers – people with stories like Monique Beaudry. “When I was growing up in Westfield,” she told me, “my parents decided to let my sister have a go at making a small batch of syrup in our kitchen. My mother wasn’t very happy when her wallpaper started falling off the walls of our very old farmhouse, due to the steam created by the boiling sap.” But that finished syrup? Delicious.
Consequently, the sugarhouse remains an important part of Vermont’s identity. In 2011, we produced over 1.1 million gallons of syrup, generating nearly $40 million. Last season, we produced another three-quarters of a million gallons. Maple syrup is part of our mystique, in the same way that milk and cheese are.
And while it may not be possible to recapture the magic of birthday parties when you were still in kindergarten, it’s hard to outgrow a sugarhouse. No one ever regrets visiting one. Besides, when there’s maple there’s mud. They’re meteorological cousins. If we’re going to endure a little mud, we should treat ourselves to a little maple.
‘Tis the season.
* * *
This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on March 17, 2013. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 9. You can add it to your Goodreads "Want to Read" line-up by clicking here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...
March 10, 2013
Co-Hosts for COTS: Seth and Whoopi and Billy better watch out
It was two weeks ago tonight that many millions of us watched Kristen Chenoweth ask movie stars on the Oscar red carpet, “Who are you wearing?” I’ve always found the phrasing of that question a little creepy – a little too “Silence of the Lambs,” if you get my drift. Then we got to watch Seth MacFarlane open his first gig as Oscar host by singing “We saw your boobs” – also creepy, but mostly because of what it says about us, not him.
I am rehashing a two-week-old news story, the 85th Academy Awards, because a week from Wednesday night, March 20, I am co-hosting a gala right here in Vermont with my great friend, Stephen Kiernan. It’s the 30th anniversary gala and fundraiser for Burlington’s Committee on Temporary Shelter at the waterfront Hilton, and I was watching MacFarlane carefully so that Kiernan and I would know how to gracefully move the evening along. You know, how to hit that perfect vibe between Billy Crystal and Michelle Obama. (Incidentally, after watching the First Lady dancing with Fallon and presenting the Oscar for Best Picture, I want our current FLOTUS to be our next POTUS.)
Here is what I took away from the night.
It will be important to remind people of the spectacularly important work that COTS does – both sheltering the homeless in our midst and preventing thousands of others from losing their homes. Between 2008 and 2012, the worst of the recent recession, COTS helped over 1,300 Vermont households – and 1,383 children – remain in their homes. There are a lot of reasons why I’m a big fan of COTS, but right there are 1,300 of them.
Another lesson from the Academy Awards? Neither Kiernan nor I should try and rock a pair of Jack Nicholson shades. Only Nicholson can get away with wearing sunglasses at night. And, along those lines, we shouldn’t ask anyone what they’re wearing – unless they’re Bjork and they’re wearing that swan. Besides, this isn’t a black tie affair. Attire is everyday business. If someone shows up dressed like Charlize Theron or Kristen Stewart, we’ll simply ask if they’re in the right spot. (On the other hand, if someone shows up with Kristen Stewart’s hair, we will also ask if she needs a comb. Bella had serious bed-head on Oscar night.)
Kiernan is an award-winning journalist whose first novel arrives this summer and the former editorial page editor of this very paper. He has the heavy lifting at the gala, because he’s giving the keynote address. I merely have to sing, “We saw your boobs.” I’m kidding, of course. We’re bringing in a children’s choir for that little ditty. I merely have to repress my inner curmudgeon and say clever things like, “Thank you all for coming. Drive home safe – and be thankful you actually have homes. Not everyone does.”
See how easy that was? Both clever and true.
Incidentally, there will be an auction with some terrific items. Among them? The chance to be a character in my 2014 novel – which is set in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and in downtown Burlington. But, as the old New York State lottery ads reminded us, you have to be in it to win it, and to be in it you have to be at the COTS gala. So, please join Kiernan and me. It’s a great cause and I promise I won’t say anything that Seth MacFarlane did on Oscar night.
I will say things that are much, much worse.
* * *
IF YOU GO
What: The COTS 30th Anniversary Gala
When: Wednesday, March 20. Cocktails at 5, dinner and auction at 6:30
Where: The Hilton, 60 Battery Street
How much: $130 per person
Visit www.cotsonline.org or call (802) 540-3084 (ext. 207) to reserve your seat
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 9.)
I am rehashing a two-week-old news story, the 85th Academy Awards, because a week from Wednesday night, March 20, I am co-hosting a gala right here in Vermont with my great friend, Stephen Kiernan. It’s the 30th anniversary gala and fundraiser for Burlington’s Committee on Temporary Shelter at the waterfront Hilton, and I was watching MacFarlane carefully so that Kiernan and I would know how to gracefully move the evening along. You know, how to hit that perfect vibe between Billy Crystal and Michelle Obama. (Incidentally, after watching the First Lady dancing with Fallon and presenting the Oscar for Best Picture, I want our current FLOTUS to be our next POTUS.)
Here is what I took away from the night.
It will be important to remind people of the spectacularly important work that COTS does – both sheltering the homeless in our midst and preventing thousands of others from losing their homes. Between 2008 and 2012, the worst of the recent recession, COTS helped over 1,300 Vermont households – and 1,383 children – remain in their homes. There are a lot of reasons why I’m a big fan of COTS, but right there are 1,300 of them.
Another lesson from the Academy Awards? Neither Kiernan nor I should try and rock a pair of Jack Nicholson shades. Only Nicholson can get away with wearing sunglasses at night. And, along those lines, we shouldn’t ask anyone what they’re wearing – unless they’re Bjork and they’re wearing that swan. Besides, this isn’t a black tie affair. Attire is everyday business. If someone shows up dressed like Charlize Theron or Kristen Stewart, we’ll simply ask if they’re in the right spot. (On the other hand, if someone shows up with Kristen Stewart’s hair, we will also ask if she needs a comb. Bella had serious bed-head on Oscar night.)
Kiernan is an award-winning journalist whose first novel arrives this summer and the former editorial page editor of this very paper. He has the heavy lifting at the gala, because he’s giving the keynote address. I merely have to sing, “We saw your boobs.” I’m kidding, of course. We’re bringing in a children’s choir for that little ditty. I merely have to repress my inner curmudgeon and say clever things like, “Thank you all for coming. Drive home safe – and be thankful you actually have homes. Not everyone does.”
See how easy that was? Both clever and true.
Incidentally, there will be an auction with some terrific items. Among them? The chance to be a character in my 2014 novel – which is set in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and in downtown Burlington. But, as the old New York State lottery ads reminded us, you have to be in it to win it, and to be in it you have to be at the COTS gala. So, please join Kiernan and me. It’s a great cause and I promise I won’t say anything that Seth MacFarlane did on Oscar night.
I will say things that are much, much worse.
* * *
IF YOU GO
What: The COTS 30th Anniversary Gala
When: Wednesday, March 20. Cocktails at 5, dinner and auction at 6:30
Where: The Hilton, 60 Battery Street
How much: $130 per person
Visit www.cotsonline.org or call (802) 540-3084 (ext. 207) to reserve your seat
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 9.)
March 6, 2013
The first Galley Giveaway of "The Light in the Ruin"s
So, it's official: The first galley giveaway of my new novel, "The Light in the Ruins." The novel arrives in July.
Interested in an ARC? Thanks to Doubleday Books and Shelf Awareness, here is a chance to try and get one early.
Simply follow this link.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YmF4...
Fingers crossed you're not disappointed!
Interested in an ARC? Thanks to Doubleday Books and Shelf Awareness, here is a chance to try and get one early.
Simply follow this link.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YmF4...
Fingers crossed you're not disappointed!
March 5, 2013
It's official. Behold "The Sandcastle Girls" Rock-and-Roll Paperback Book Tour -- April 2013
Mark your calendars -- and please join me!
April 14
Fresno, California
Fresno State College
Armenian Studies Department
Leon and Pete Peters Educational Center Auditorium
(In student rec center, corner of Shaw and Woodrow Avenues)
5241 N. Maple Avenue
2:00 p.m.
Questions? (559) 224-5878
April 15
Vernon Hills, Illinois
Cook Memorial Library/Lake Forest Books
Sullivan Center
635 N. Aspen Drive
Noon
Registration requested
Call: (847) 362-2330
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Tuscan Market and Wine Shop
141 West Wing Street
6:00 p.m.
Questions? (847) 494-3707
April 16
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis County Library Headquarters
1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd.
7:00 p.m.
Information: (314) 994-3300 (x-2280)
April 17
Streamboat Springs, Colorado
Bud Werner Memorial Library
"Literary Sojourn"
6:30 p.m.
Questions? (970) 367-4904
April 18
New York, New York
Armenian Society of Columbia University and Columbia Teacher's College
Horace Mann Hall
120th and Broadway
7:00 p.m.
April 19
Madison, Connecticut
R.J. Julia Book Group Lunch
With Kate Alcott, author of "The Dressmaker"
The Madison Beach Hotel.
11:30 a.m.
To reserve your seat (and your book), call the bookstore at (203) 245-3959
April 21
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda Literary Festival
Hyatt Regency Hotel
7400 Wisconsin Avenue
With Kate Alcott, author of "The Dressmaker"
12:30 p.m.
April 22
Baltimore, Maryland
Details to come.
April 23
Lincroft, New Jersey
Brookdale Community College
Warner Student Life Center
7:00 p.m.
April 24
Detroit, Michigan
Details coming soon.
April 25
Albany, New York
New York State Writers Institute
State University of New York
Ballroom, Campus Center
8:00 p.m.
Questions? Call (518) 442-5621.
April 26
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania
St. Sahag & St. Mesrob Armenian Apostolic Church
Memorial Hall
7:30 p.m.
Information: (610) 642-4212
April 27
Massachusetts
April 14
Fresno, California
Fresno State College
Armenian Studies Department
Leon and Pete Peters Educational Center Auditorium
(In student rec center, corner of Shaw and Woodrow Avenues)
5241 N. Maple Avenue
2:00 p.m.
Questions? (559) 224-5878
April 15
Vernon Hills, Illinois
Cook Memorial Library/Lake Forest Books
Sullivan Center
635 N. Aspen Drive
Noon
Registration requested
Call: (847) 362-2330
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Tuscan Market and Wine Shop
141 West Wing Street
6:00 p.m.
Questions? (847) 494-3707
April 16
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis County Library Headquarters
1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd.
7:00 p.m.
Information: (314) 994-3300 (x-2280)
April 17
Streamboat Springs, Colorado
Bud Werner Memorial Library
"Literary Sojourn"
6:30 p.m.
Questions? (970) 367-4904
April 18
New York, New York
Armenian Society of Columbia University and Columbia Teacher's College
Horace Mann Hall
120th and Broadway
7:00 p.m.
April 19
Madison, Connecticut
R.J. Julia Book Group Lunch
With Kate Alcott, author of "The Dressmaker"
The Madison Beach Hotel.
11:30 a.m.
To reserve your seat (and your book), call the bookstore at (203) 245-3959
April 21
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda Literary Festival
Hyatt Regency Hotel
7400 Wisconsin Avenue
With Kate Alcott, author of "The Dressmaker"
12:30 p.m.
April 22
Baltimore, Maryland
Details to come.
April 23
Lincroft, New Jersey
Brookdale Community College
Warner Student Life Center
7:00 p.m.
April 24
Detroit, Michigan
Details coming soon.
April 25
Albany, New York
New York State Writers Institute
State University of New York
Ballroom, Campus Center
8:00 p.m.
Questions? Call (518) 442-5621.
April 26
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania
St. Sahag & St. Mesrob Armenian Apostolic Church
Memorial Hall
7:30 p.m.
Information: (610) 642-4212
April 27
Massachusetts
March 3, 2013
It's germane: Thank the school and select boards.
I love it when presidential aspirants have what we in the media call a “town meeting” style debate. Those debates are not town meetings — and not simply because there are no school board officials there we can pretend are slow-moving zombies in an Xbox game designed for violent teens with 666 tattooed on their arms.
I really respect everyone on the school board. They are the salmon of local government, always swimming as hard as they can upstream. Sure, most of the time they get what they want — an approved budget — but then they collapse, exhausted. Unlike the salmon, they don’t actually die. But have you ever glimpsed a school board member’s face after Town Meeting Day? They always look like those actors in the last reel of Oliver Stone’s “Platoon.”
In any case, they impress the heck out of me. Every one of them is a much better person than I am. Same with the folks on the selectboard. Just like the members of the school board, they do very hard work for very little money.
The selectboard also does work that is — and there is no polite way to say this — boring. Seriously boring. Work that involves some of the most tedious words in the English language. Words like “permit.” And “budget.” And “grader.”
Moreover, they have to go to meetings. When Dante was designing his inner rings of hell, he wanted to make one of them nothing but meetings. His publisher dissuaded him, explaining that no one would buy the book if they thought there were meetings.
I am reminded of this because tomorrow night and Tuesday mark Vermont’s annual foray into legislative self-determination: town meeting. I’ve now been going to town meeting here in Lincoln since March 1987. I read the Warning (Has there ever been a more aptly named booklet?) and my wife and I make our over-under bet on the word “germane.” How many times will the moderator have to silence one of our neighbors with the dreaded “G” word? Five? Seven? Nine? I speak in public all the time, sometimes before two and three hundred people, but when I stand up to speak in town meeting, I’m terrified. I’m convinced I am about to say something that is not, in the end, germane.
But here’s the thing about town meeting. It works and I love it. It’s messy. It’s contentious. It’s boring.
And yet by the time we are done, we will have a budget for our town and one for our school. When we go home, we will have supported — or chosen not to support — a variety of local nonprofits and social service providers. An animal shelter. A preschool. A hospice.
People joke that making laws is like making sausage. Town meeting has moments like that. Some years, I’ve had absolutely no idea how our moderator or town clerk has kept track of the amendments to the amendments to the motion. For all I know, I have been voting to make Paris Hilton the Queen of our annual Hill Country Holiday. It’s possible I’ve voted to make Slim Jim Pudding a new flavor of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.
But I don’t think so because, more times than not, my neighbors know what they’re doing.
I imagine that’s the case in most of Vermont’s 251 towns. That’s why town meeting continues to work, despite people writing its obituary for a quarter-century now. And while the presidential town meeting debates are far more mannered, rehearsed, and staged than what we do here in the Green Mountains, I think we should be flattered that the term still has so much cachet that political spin machines have commandeered it.
Consequently, this week, even if you disagree with everything your school boards and selectboards have said, take a moment to remind them you’re grateful.
And then, to keep them humble, tell them nothing they said was germane.
* * *
This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on March 3, 2013. Chris's new novel, "The Light in the Ruins," arrives on July 16.
I really respect everyone on the school board. They are the salmon of local government, always swimming as hard as they can upstream. Sure, most of the time they get what they want — an approved budget — but then they collapse, exhausted. Unlike the salmon, they don’t actually die. But have you ever glimpsed a school board member’s face after Town Meeting Day? They always look like those actors in the last reel of Oliver Stone’s “Platoon.”
In any case, they impress the heck out of me. Every one of them is a much better person than I am. Same with the folks on the selectboard. Just like the members of the school board, they do very hard work for very little money.
The selectboard also does work that is — and there is no polite way to say this — boring. Seriously boring. Work that involves some of the most tedious words in the English language. Words like “permit.” And “budget.” And “grader.”
Moreover, they have to go to meetings. When Dante was designing his inner rings of hell, he wanted to make one of them nothing but meetings. His publisher dissuaded him, explaining that no one would buy the book if they thought there were meetings.
I am reminded of this because tomorrow night and Tuesday mark Vermont’s annual foray into legislative self-determination: town meeting. I’ve now been going to town meeting here in Lincoln since March 1987. I read the Warning (Has there ever been a more aptly named booklet?) and my wife and I make our over-under bet on the word “germane.” How many times will the moderator have to silence one of our neighbors with the dreaded “G” word? Five? Seven? Nine? I speak in public all the time, sometimes before two and three hundred people, but when I stand up to speak in town meeting, I’m terrified. I’m convinced I am about to say something that is not, in the end, germane.
But here’s the thing about town meeting. It works and I love it. It’s messy. It’s contentious. It’s boring.
And yet by the time we are done, we will have a budget for our town and one for our school. When we go home, we will have supported — or chosen not to support — a variety of local nonprofits and social service providers. An animal shelter. A preschool. A hospice.
People joke that making laws is like making sausage. Town meeting has moments like that. Some years, I’ve had absolutely no idea how our moderator or town clerk has kept track of the amendments to the amendments to the motion. For all I know, I have been voting to make Paris Hilton the Queen of our annual Hill Country Holiday. It’s possible I’ve voted to make Slim Jim Pudding a new flavor of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream.
But I don’t think so because, more times than not, my neighbors know what they’re doing.
I imagine that’s the case in most of Vermont’s 251 towns. That’s why town meeting continues to work, despite people writing its obituary for a quarter-century now. And while the presidential town meeting debates are far more mannered, rehearsed, and staged than what we do here in the Green Mountains, I think we should be flattered that the term still has so much cachet that political spin machines have commandeered it.
Consequently, this week, even if you disagree with everything your school boards and selectboards have said, take a moment to remind them you’re grateful.
And then, to keep them humble, tell them nothing they said was germane.
* * *
This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on March 3, 2013. Chris's new novel, "The Light in the Ruins," arrives on July 16.
February 24, 2013
Watching paint dry? A little wistful, actually.
A couple of weeks ago, I had one of the single most rewarding days of my life: More satisfying than even when I decided there was just no point in ever again frying a grilled cheese sandwich in anything but butter.
Here’s what I did: I brought 58 cans of paint from the dirt floor in my basement here in Lincoln, Vermont to the hazardous waste bay of the transfer station in Middlebury. Yup, 58 cans. Most were gallons. The vast majority had a two or three-inch block of solid paint at the bottom, though in some cases the block wasn’t in the can at all: The cans were so badly rusted that when I picked them up by the handles, they lifted like empty cylinders, leaving the metal bottom and a two or three-inch disk of rock-hard paint on the floor.
This was satisfying on a variety of levels. First, it was a cardiovascular workout: I went and up down the basement stairs 29 times. Second, I was increasing the value of my house by transforming my basement from a superfund cleanup site – imagine the Love Canal, but less picturesque – into a merely claustrophobic and moldy playground for my family’s six cats. Third, I had freed up a lot of space. Make no mistake: 58 rusting, decaying, and completely worthless cans of paint have the same footprint as an SUV. Finally, it was among the least expensive home improvement projects on which I have ever embarked: The cost of disposing of 58 scary cans of paint? Three bucks and change. Not kidding.
But here is what interested me most: This two-and-a-half hour chore (counting my time in the car) was an archeological dig into the quarter-century or so my family has lived in Vermont. Each can was a memory of a moment in our lives in this house and what a bedroom or clapboards might once have looked like. There was the Barbie pink we painted the bathroom outside our daughter’s bedroom, when she was a little girl and viewed Barbie as the ultimate arbiter of good taste. There were the four different shades of exterior yellow that once graced four different exterior walls of our house. (Yes, it took us a few years before we managed to have all four sides matching.) There was the cerulean blue that we used to paint the ceiling of the screened porch, and, of course, there was a veritable color wheel of oranges and reds and creams and denims and ebb tides and toast.
I could recall a moment from almost each weekend over the years when my wife and I might have been first opening one of those cans: There we are painting the bedroom that would become our daughter’s nursery. (Our daughter is now a 19-year-old sophomore at NYU.) There I am painting the rec room that had once been an unheated, unfinished shell on the second floor. There is my wife in a paint-splattered blue jean work shirt, a roller in her hand, as she works in the living room; there she is in the den, meticulously finishing the trim with a slim brush in her fingers. And, of course, I found the cans with the last of the paint from a variety of different incarnations of the kitchen.
We were both younger then. It takes a good, long while for a family of three to smear enough paint inside and outside a house to amass 58 cans in the basement. I don’t know how many cans that means we finished over the years and disposed of long ago, but it must be at least three or four times that many. (Note to self: Buy stock in Sherwin-Williams.)
The truth is, as rewarding as the chore was, it also left me a little wistful. Watching paint dry is, according to the sarcastic among us, not an especially interesting way to pass the time. But the dried paint in all of those tins? It reminded me of just how much time has really passed.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on February 24, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on April 15.)
Here’s what I did: I brought 58 cans of paint from the dirt floor in my basement here in Lincoln, Vermont to the hazardous waste bay of the transfer station in Middlebury. Yup, 58 cans. Most were gallons. The vast majority had a two or three-inch block of solid paint at the bottom, though in some cases the block wasn’t in the can at all: The cans were so badly rusted that when I picked them up by the handles, they lifted like empty cylinders, leaving the metal bottom and a two or three-inch disk of rock-hard paint on the floor.
This was satisfying on a variety of levels. First, it was a cardiovascular workout: I went and up down the basement stairs 29 times. Second, I was increasing the value of my house by transforming my basement from a superfund cleanup site – imagine the Love Canal, but less picturesque – into a merely claustrophobic and moldy playground for my family’s six cats. Third, I had freed up a lot of space. Make no mistake: 58 rusting, decaying, and completely worthless cans of paint have the same footprint as an SUV. Finally, it was among the least expensive home improvement projects on which I have ever embarked: The cost of disposing of 58 scary cans of paint? Three bucks and change. Not kidding.
But here is what interested me most: This two-and-a-half hour chore (counting my time in the car) was an archeological dig into the quarter-century or so my family has lived in Vermont. Each can was a memory of a moment in our lives in this house and what a bedroom or clapboards might once have looked like. There was the Barbie pink we painted the bathroom outside our daughter’s bedroom, when she was a little girl and viewed Barbie as the ultimate arbiter of good taste. There were the four different shades of exterior yellow that once graced four different exterior walls of our house. (Yes, it took us a few years before we managed to have all four sides matching.) There was the cerulean blue that we used to paint the ceiling of the screened porch, and, of course, there was a veritable color wheel of oranges and reds and creams and denims and ebb tides and toast.
I could recall a moment from almost each weekend over the years when my wife and I might have been first opening one of those cans: There we are painting the bedroom that would become our daughter’s nursery. (Our daughter is now a 19-year-old sophomore at NYU.) There I am painting the rec room that had once been an unheated, unfinished shell on the second floor. There is my wife in a paint-splattered blue jean work shirt, a roller in her hand, as she works in the living room; there she is in the den, meticulously finishing the trim with a slim brush in her fingers. And, of course, I found the cans with the last of the paint from a variety of different incarnations of the kitchen.
We were both younger then. It takes a good, long while for a family of three to smear enough paint inside and outside a house to amass 58 cans in the basement. I don’t know how many cans that means we finished over the years and disposed of long ago, but it must be at least three or four times that many. (Note to self: Buy stock in Sherwin-Williams.)
The truth is, as rewarding as the chore was, it also left me a little wistful. Watching paint dry is, according to the sarcastic among us, not an especially interesting way to pass the time. But the dried paint in all of those tins? It reminded me of just how much time has really passed.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on February 24, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on April 15.)
February 17, 2013
A broken record? Not so fast.
When Apple introduced the iPod eleven years ago, it boasted that you could carry a thousand songs in your pocket. To put this in perspective, that was roughly a hundred record albums – or 65 pounds of vinyl and cardboard. To this day, I still use what the company now calls its iPod Classic (a much better name, of course, than either the iPhone Dinosaur or the iPhone Luddite). It holds 40,000 songs – or one and a half tons of vinyl and cardboard.
That’s not hyperbole. We’re talking 2,600 pounds of old-fashioned record albums and sleeves.
Now, vinyl had become a niche product long before the iPod. By the time the device was introduced toward the end of 2011, albums had been rendered obsolete by eight-track cassettes, cassettes, and compact discs. I hadn’t owned a turntable since I’d been in college.
That changed this past Christmas. Under the tree I found a turntable, courtesy of my wife. It is one of those devices that allow a listener both to play record albums and to preserve the music digitally. I loved the gift and we both imagined I would climb into our attic and exhume from the dust and debris our boxes of old vinyl albums.
I will do that. I haven’t yet.
But I did do something else. When I was in Burlington, Vermont the other day, I visited Pure Pop on South Winooski and Burlington Records on Bank Street. When I was in Manhattan between Christmas and New Year’s, I browsed in the stores that sell vinyl in the East and West Village. And I was buying records – used records from my adolescence and new recordings by current pop stars. I was, I discovered, as likely to purchase the Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” as I was Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” I was actually a little astonished by how much brand new vinyl is available. There are new copies of old classics as well as new records by the young stars who took home Grammys last Sunday night. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of vinyl’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
But given the unbelievable ease and convenience of digital music players and the sheer prevalence of digital culture, I was surprised. I know some people believe vinyl gives music a better sound quality, but someone like me sure can’t tell the difference.
When I was in Burlington Records, I asked owner Jacob Grossi to explain to me vinyl’s appeal. “Music is much more than music,” he explained. “There is a physicality to it. It’s just so much fun to play ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ and look at the 24-page booklet that comes with the album.” In that regard, it’s rather like the way I still read books made of paper and glue. I have a totemic connection with pulp. I still want to hold a book in my hands.
And, it seems, I still enjoy holding a record in my hands.
But there is even more to it than that. Grossi held up an album cover and said, “When you see a cover this large, it creates an instant memory.” I knew just what he meant. The Ramones “Road to Ruin” is a Proustian madeleine that catapults me instantly back to college. Grossi is 39, but he can tell you the first music he bought: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on cassette. (Me? Jeannie C. Riley’s “Harper Valley P.T.A.” as a 45 rpm single. I’m not proud.) He can also tell you his first experience with vinyl: The Beatles’ white album with its extraordinary gatefold and poster. In other words, from the very beginning for Grossi vinyl was about more than just the music. It was about the experience.
His store has been around since April 2009 and the majority of what he sells is used records. His clientele includes students, hipsters, and middle-aged folks like me. In addition to bins of alphabetized records, he sells posters and music memorabilia – including his favorite image, a 1960 poster promoting a Roy Orbison concert in Suisun, California.
Does vinyl have a future? Apparently it does.
And that gives me hope for the old-fashioned book, too. I may just have to buy another bookcase to go with that record player.
* * *
This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on February 17. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 16.
That’s not hyperbole. We’re talking 2,600 pounds of old-fashioned record albums and sleeves.
Now, vinyl had become a niche product long before the iPod. By the time the device was introduced toward the end of 2011, albums had been rendered obsolete by eight-track cassettes, cassettes, and compact discs. I hadn’t owned a turntable since I’d been in college.
That changed this past Christmas. Under the tree I found a turntable, courtesy of my wife. It is one of those devices that allow a listener both to play record albums and to preserve the music digitally. I loved the gift and we both imagined I would climb into our attic and exhume from the dust and debris our boxes of old vinyl albums.
I will do that. I haven’t yet.
But I did do something else. When I was in Burlington, Vermont the other day, I visited Pure Pop on South Winooski and Burlington Records on Bank Street. When I was in Manhattan between Christmas and New Year’s, I browsed in the stores that sell vinyl in the East and West Village. And I was buying records – used records from my adolescence and new recordings by current pop stars. I was, I discovered, as likely to purchase the Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” as I was Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.” I was actually a little astonished by how much brand new vinyl is available. There are new copies of old classics as well as new records by the young stars who took home Grammys last Sunday night. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of vinyl’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
But given the unbelievable ease and convenience of digital music players and the sheer prevalence of digital culture, I was surprised. I know some people believe vinyl gives music a better sound quality, but someone like me sure can’t tell the difference.
When I was in Burlington Records, I asked owner Jacob Grossi to explain to me vinyl’s appeal. “Music is much more than music,” he explained. “There is a physicality to it. It’s just so much fun to play ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ and look at the 24-page booklet that comes with the album.” In that regard, it’s rather like the way I still read books made of paper and glue. I have a totemic connection with pulp. I still want to hold a book in my hands.
And, it seems, I still enjoy holding a record in my hands.
But there is even more to it than that. Grossi held up an album cover and said, “When you see a cover this large, it creates an instant memory.” I knew just what he meant. The Ramones “Road to Ruin” is a Proustian madeleine that catapults me instantly back to college. Grossi is 39, but he can tell you the first music he bought: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on cassette. (Me? Jeannie C. Riley’s “Harper Valley P.T.A.” as a 45 rpm single. I’m not proud.) He can also tell you his first experience with vinyl: The Beatles’ white album with its extraordinary gatefold and poster. In other words, from the very beginning for Grossi vinyl was about more than just the music. It was about the experience.
His store has been around since April 2009 and the majority of what he sells is used records. His clientele includes students, hipsters, and middle-aged folks like me. In addition to bins of alphabetized records, he sells posters and music memorabilia – including his favorite image, a 1960 poster promoting a Roy Orbison concert in Suisun, California.
Does vinyl have a future? Apparently it does.
And that gives me hope for the old-fashioned book, too. I may just have to buy another bookcase to go with that record player.
* * *
This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on February 17. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 16.
February 10, 2013
Valentine's gifts that make a vacuum look good
Valentine’s Day is coming, that day in February when we are supposed to buy or wear stripper lingerie to remember the life of a third-century Roman saint who died on the Via Flaminia. In truth, not all couples celebrate with thongs or chocolate or chocolate thongs.
As a public service, a few weeks ago I asked readers for the single worst Valentine’s Day gift they had ever received. (Just call me Cupid.) I was actually a little overwhelmed at the impressively bad choices some of us have made. So, as a public service, here are a few of the responses I received. Here are those things you should never confuse with an appropriate Valentine’s Day present.
• Nicole Williams Adamowicz: “A box of floppy disks. ‘But you need them,’ said my boyfriend.”
• Evan Wing. “A two-page letter from my girlfriend saying that she was breaking up with me.”
• Angi Magnanti: “Three cardboard Valentines cut out of the Little Debbie snack cake box. No snack cakes, just the Valentines.”
• Jude Bond. “On Valentines Day in college, a new beau took me on our first date to see ‘Deep Throat.’ That was our last date.”
• Carol A. Wheel: “A large print Sudoku book.”
• Elayne Carringer: “In college, I got dumped two years in a row on Valentine’s Day. The second time was by my serious boyfriend who, after blowing off our planned date, decided he was going to spend v-day with his buddies because he ‘needed time to think.’”
• Sharon Miller Buchanan: “A blender from my fiancé — and a cheap one at that.”
• Barbara Gayle Dozetos: “Spray cheese. Seriously. Fake cheese in a can.”
• Julie Failla Earhart: “The gentleman I was dating gave me a card that said, ‘Best Wishes, Mike.’”
• Zepure Talar Kurumlian: “My ex-husband, after dating me for five years and being married to me for one, and knowing that I don’t like chocolate, brought home a box of chocolates — on Feb. 15th. It had already been unwrapped. He apologized that he’d forgotten it in his car the night before. He said he’d eaten some that morning because his whole car smelled like chocolate.”
• Deborah Spofford Churchill: “On my very first Valentine’s day as a new mom – after a very difficult pregnancy and rough emergency delivery — I was really excited to get … a sweatshirt. Yay.”
• Tracy Kahl: “A heart rate monitor for exercising, because Valentine’s Day is all about the ‘heart.’ I interpreted it as a not so subtle hint that I needed to exercise more. He made it up to me by dressing up as cupid and bringing a dozen roses to my office and asking for forgiveness.”
• Maggie Rogers: “A vacuum cleaner.” (Note: Three other women reported receiving vacuums. None were happy.)
• Barbara Jester O’Brien: “A chameleon that lunged out of the box and got tangled in my necklace. He did change color, though, to match my turquoise sweater.”
• Mandy Mullinix: “I collected cow figurines, so a guy I’d been dating found a six-foot-tall stuffed cow. I never knew what to do with it, so I sat it in a dining room chair. One night, I got up for some water in the kitchen. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw that giant cow sitting there.”
• Alison Fraser: “Three days after a Valentine’s Day that was present-less, my disappointment guilted the negligent one into buying me a half-off tin box of chocolate sardines. They had gone bad.”
• Sarah Woodard: “A field guide to obstetrics and gynecology – a book filled with photos of birth mishaps and defects.”
Finally, there is this piece of advice from my friend and book publicist, Jennifer Marshall: “Don’t people know to just buy themselves their own damn present?”
This is especially true if you want a vacuum.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on February 10, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on April 15.)
As a public service, a few weeks ago I asked readers for the single worst Valentine’s Day gift they had ever received. (Just call me Cupid.) I was actually a little overwhelmed at the impressively bad choices some of us have made. So, as a public service, here are a few of the responses I received. Here are those things you should never confuse with an appropriate Valentine’s Day present.
• Nicole Williams Adamowicz: “A box of floppy disks. ‘But you need them,’ said my boyfriend.”
• Evan Wing. “A two-page letter from my girlfriend saying that she was breaking up with me.”
• Angi Magnanti: “Three cardboard Valentines cut out of the Little Debbie snack cake box. No snack cakes, just the Valentines.”
• Jude Bond. “On Valentines Day in college, a new beau took me on our first date to see ‘Deep Throat.’ That was our last date.”
• Carol A. Wheel: “A large print Sudoku book.”
• Elayne Carringer: “In college, I got dumped two years in a row on Valentine’s Day. The second time was by my serious boyfriend who, after blowing off our planned date, decided he was going to spend v-day with his buddies because he ‘needed time to think.’”
• Sharon Miller Buchanan: “A blender from my fiancé — and a cheap one at that.”
• Barbara Gayle Dozetos: “Spray cheese. Seriously. Fake cheese in a can.”
• Julie Failla Earhart: “The gentleman I was dating gave me a card that said, ‘Best Wishes, Mike.’”
• Zepure Talar Kurumlian: “My ex-husband, after dating me for five years and being married to me for one, and knowing that I don’t like chocolate, brought home a box of chocolates — on Feb. 15th. It had already been unwrapped. He apologized that he’d forgotten it in his car the night before. He said he’d eaten some that morning because his whole car smelled like chocolate.”
• Deborah Spofford Churchill: “On my very first Valentine’s day as a new mom – after a very difficult pregnancy and rough emergency delivery — I was really excited to get … a sweatshirt. Yay.”
• Tracy Kahl: “A heart rate monitor for exercising, because Valentine’s Day is all about the ‘heart.’ I interpreted it as a not so subtle hint that I needed to exercise more. He made it up to me by dressing up as cupid and bringing a dozen roses to my office and asking for forgiveness.”
• Maggie Rogers: “A vacuum cleaner.” (Note: Three other women reported receiving vacuums. None were happy.)
• Barbara Jester O’Brien: “A chameleon that lunged out of the box and got tangled in my necklace. He did change color, though, to match my turquoise sweater.”
• Mandy Mullinix: “I collected cow figurines, so a guy I’d been dating found a six-foot-tall stuffed cow. I never knew what to do with it, so I sat it in a dining room chair. One night, I got up for some water in the kitchen. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw that giant cow sitting there.”
• Alison Fraser: “Three days after a Valentine’s Day that was present-less, my disappointment guilted the negligent one into buying me a half-off tin box of chocolate sardines. They had gone bad.”
• Sarah Woodard: “A field guide to obstetrics and gynecology – a book filled with photos of birth mishaps and defects.”
Finally, there is this piece of advice from my friend and book publicist, Jennifer Marshall: “Don’t people know to just buy themselves their own damn present?”
This is especially true if you want a vacuum.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on February 10, 2013. The paperback of Chris’s novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” arrives on April 15.)
February 3, 2013
The Super Bowl of sibling rivalries is here
Among the Super Bowl storylines we have followed this week with a tenacity we usually reserve for nipple slips and ingenue wardrobe malfunctions is this: The head coaches of the two teams squaring off later today are brothers. That’s right, after the nation has consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of eight million pounds of guacamole (no exaggeration) and watched 17 hours of pregame coverage (hyperbole), we get to watch a new frontier in sibling rivalry. It’s John Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens against Jim Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers in the biggest sporting event in North America.
Frankly, I think this storyline is a recipe for disaster for the extended Harbaugh family. I’m not kidding. It’s great for all of us, but it stinks if you’re one of the two brothers. I say that as a younger brother who has always looked up to his older brother.
I also say this as a younger brother who has never beaten his older brother … at anything. And never will. Over the years, I have lost to my older brother at baseball board games, one-on-one backyard football and a weekly tennis match we used to play in a tennis bubble in Brooklyn that lacked air-conditioning. The temperature inside was set at cremation. We called those matches the Hell Invitational.
I mean it: I never beat him at anything and I never will beat him at anything.
Now, my brother is five years older than I am, so it made sense that he would beat me soundly when he was 13 and I was eight. But when he was wiping the floor with me inside that tennis bubble, we were both grown men. Why do I always lose? Why will I always lose? Because, at least in my case, familial history trumps competitive fire. I could no sooner defeat my older brother than — when he was in the prime of his life — I could have defeated my father. (And even at the end of my father’s life, he still beat me soundly at cards.)
In the case of this evening’s competition, John Harbaugh is 50 and Jim is 49. Fifteen months and three time zones separate them. Their two teams played once before in a regular season game in 2011 and — in my opinion, predictably — the older brother’s team won. (Their mother, supposedly, had wished for a tie.)
Now, I’m not going to say that the Ravens are going to win because John is five seasons older than Jim. For all I know, the 49ers will win. Five seasons makes a lot less of a difference than five years. My older brother used to smoke me at one-on-one football, in part, because he invented a rule where you could pass the ball to yourself — and he was plenty taller than me when he was 13 and I was 8.
Of course, the mere fact that he was even hanging around with me when he was 13 and I was 8 is an indication of how much he loved me — so he had every right to slaughter me on the backyard football field. Or when we would play Wiffle ball with the garage door as backstop and strike zone. Or when we would play poker with rules he made up as he went along.
In other words, it was fitting that I would always lose. On some level, it’s why we expect Peyton to outshine Eli when the two Mannings’ quarterback ratings are compared. It’s the natural order of things.
Unfortunately, this John vs. Jim battle on the Super Bowl stage is straight out of Cain and Abel. Jacob and Esau. Greg and Peter Brady.
We put so much stress on winning the Super Bowl that the defeated coach — the second best coach in football that year — is considered a loser. The other day I heard radio pundits talking about the failed history of two coaches, one of whom had coached four Super Bowl teams and one of whom had coached three. Unfortunately, neither had ever won.
My sense is that the losing brother in this case is going to be especially frustrated, both because it’s the Super Bowl and because of that natural order. Either it remains intact or it’s unexpectedly upset. Doesn’t matter. Oh, they’ll embrace at midfield when it’s over and the commentators will talk about familial reconciliation: They’re no longer rival coaches, they’ll say. Now they’re just brothers.
Just brothers? Trust me: There is just no such thing.
* * *
This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on February 3, 2013. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 16. You can add it to your Goodreads ""Want to Read" cue by clicking here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...
Frankly, I think this storyline is a recipe for disaster for the extended Harbaugh family. I’m not kidding. It’s great for all of us, but it stinks if you’re one of the two brothers. I say that as a younger brother who has always looked up to his older brother.
I also say this as a younger brother who has never beaten his older brother … at anything. And never will. Over the years, I have lost to my older brother at baseball board games, one-on-one backyard football and a weekly tennis match we used to play in a tennis bubble in Brooklyn that lacked air-conditioning. The temperature inside was set at cremation. We called those matches the Hell Invitational.
I mean it: I never beat him at anything and I never will beat him at anything.
Now, my brother is five years older than I am, so it made sense that he would beat me soundly when he was 13 and I was eight. But when he was wiping the floor with me inside that tennis bubble, we were both grown men. Why do I always lose? Why will I always lose? Because, at least in my case, familial history trumps competitive fire. I could no sooner defeat my older brother than — when he was in the prime of his life — I could have defeated my father. (And even at the end of my father’s life, he still beat me soundly at cards.)
In the case of this evening’s competition, John Harbaugh is 50 and Jim is 49. Fifteen months and three time zones separate them. Their two teams played once before in a regular season game in 2011 and — in my opinion, predictably — the older brother’s team won. (Their mother, supposedly, had wished for a tie.)
Now, I’m not going to say that the Ravens are going to win because John is five seasons older than Jim. For all I know, the 49ers will win. Five seasons makes a lot less of a difference than five years. My older brother used to smoke me at one-on-one football, in part, because he invented a rule where you could pass the ball to yourself — and he was plenty taller than me when he was 13 and I was 8.
Of course, the mere fact that he was even hanging around with me when he was 13 and I was 8 is an indication of how much he loved me — so he had every right to slaughter me on the backyard football field. Or when we would play Wiffle ball with the garage door as backstop and strike zone. Or when we would play poker with rules he made up as he went along.
In other words, it was fitting that I would always lose. On some level, it’s why we expect Peyton to outshine Eli when the two Mannings’ quarterback ratings are compared. It’s the natural order of things.
Unfortunately, this John vs. Jim battle on the Super Bowl stage is straight out of Cain and Abel. Jacob and Esau. Greg and Peter Brady.
We put so much stress on winning the Super Bowl that the defeated coach — the second best coach in football that year — is considered a loser. The other day I heard radio pundits talking about the failed history of two coaches, one of whom had coached four Super Bowl teams and one of whom had coached three. Unfortunately, neither had ever won.
My sense is that the losing brother in this case is going to be especially frustrated, both because it’s the Super Bowl and because of that natural order. Either it remains intact or it’s unexpectedly upset. Doesn’t matter. Oh, they’ll embrace at midfield when it’s over and the commentators will talk about familial reconciliation: They’re no longer rival coaches, they’ll say. Now they’re just brothers.
Just brothers? Trust me: There is just no such thing.
* * *
This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on February 3, 2013. Chris’s new novel, “The Light in the Ruins,” arrives on July 16. You can add it to your Goodreads ""Want to Read" cue by clicking here:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16...
