A Life in the Day

SOME WIND!

2004-10-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

SOME WIND
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

The only problem is getting the leaves — and even pop cans — to stay put in 40 mph wind gusts.

OCTOBER SKY

2004-10-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

OCTOBER SKY
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

And one can't complain, working under such a beautiful October sky. It's not quite a Vanilla Sky ... but maybe it will be this evening.

BACKYARD LEAVES

2004-10-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

BACKYARD LEAVES
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

October 30, time to blow and mulch the backyard leaves, an enjoyable activity on a 70-degree day.

MY FRONTYARD MAPLE

2004-10-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

FRONTYARD MAPLE
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

My maples are starting to drop leaves, too. This is only a fraction of what's going to come down in the front yard alone.

FOBES FAMILY MAPLE

2004-10-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

FOBES FAMILY MAPLE
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Like the author of this blog, the Fobes Family maple tree is starting to fall apart, no longer able to support the weight of its own limbs.

I can relate.

Realization! I am beginning to understand why my favorite hockey team is the Toronto Maple Leafs.

SOME FOBES FOLKS

2004-10-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

SOME FOBES FOLKS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes

I would guess this Fobes Family picture was taken about 100 years ago.

The old-timer in the center is Franklin Justus Fobes, my great, great grandfather. Just to his left in the back row is my great grandfather, Charles Miller Fobes.

The complete rundown of names is as follows, front and back from left:

Florence, Franklin Justus , Carolyn, Esther;

Lydia, Harrison, Jane, Charles, Franklin.

FOBESDALE 2004

2004-10-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

FOBESDALE 2004
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Some early Fobes / Kingsville history plucked from a variety of sources.

• How the Fobes name was born

Most distant, directly traceable ancestor is John De Forbes, a man of "rank and importance" circa 1250, during the reign of William the Lion. According to one source, "The surname ‘Forbes’ was taken from the lands of Forbes County, Aberdeen, Scotland, granted by Alexander II of Scotland, to the progenitor of this noble family." Forbes Castle stands in the middle of a 6,000 acre estate. Burke's Peerage and Baronage tells more about the Forbes family, offering such tidbits as, "Sir Alexander Forbes, gave in 1362, a varicolored altar front to the chapel of St. Anne in the Church of St. Nicholas at Aberdeen."

“Fobes” started with John Forbes, born in Scotland, raised in Leyden, Holland, circa 1600; he arrived in Duxbury, Mass., in 1636; he was the son of the Rev. John Forbes, who left Scotland for Holland with his congregation and the rest of the Pilgrims in the late 1500s.

Most of the Pilgrims had to wait many years before coming to the New World. John Forbes the elder returned to Scotland while and John Forbes the younger remaind in Holland so long he developed an accent that resulted in a soft pronunciation of the letter "r," so upon landing in Duxbury he gave his name as Forbes, but it was recorded as "Fobes."

And that started the Fobes Family in America.

• The first settler who was a land owner in what we now know as Kingsville, was Captain Walter Fobes, who came from Norwich, Massachusetts in 1805. He died in 1816. Kingsville at one time was known as Fobes' Dale or Fobesdale. For a short while, although not officially, Kingsville was called "Fobes' Tale." However, the settlers of early Kingsville did not like that outsiders were altering the name, so they finally got together and renamed their township, “Norwich” after the town that Captain Walter Fobes came from. However, the name "Norwich" was short lived.

A traveler named King heard about the controversy and came up with a plan. He suggested that the town be named after him. In return, he would give the people four gallons of whiskey. The people agreed and Kingsville was born. The township of Kingsville was organized in 1810 and was the first township created from Ashtabula Township.

• From an essay called, “Kingsville Women”

“The first woman whose husband settled upon his own land was Amanda, wife of Walter Fobes, who came here in 1805, and their daughter, OCTAVIA, born in 1806, was the first baby to take a glimpse of the world in Kingsville.
“The other daughters were Amanda, Rosamond, Louisa and Harmony. Left a widow in 1814 Mrs. Fobes devoted herself to the care of the sick during the remainder of her life.”

• Link to a Fobes company in The War of 1812.

• WAYNE TWP. / ASHTABULA COUNTY

“In the spring of 1803, aging Simon Fobes of Somers, Connecticut, bought 1500 acres of land in the township, one entire tier of lots south of and adjoining the east and west center line. He traveled to the new lands with his son, Joshua, and Joshua's wife, Dorothy, and his young brother, Elias, age 10, a trip of 49 days. They were joined along the way by a cousin, David Fobes. Simon returned to Connecticut for a while after the Fobes lands were ascertained.
“Joshua and David began clearing land for a cabin, but were delayed when the work proved too much for the weary Joshua. It was October 8 before the family moved onto their own land, on lot 57, to become the first settlers in Wayne.”

• According to THE HISTORY OF ASHTABULA COUNTY OHIO
Published in Philadelphia by Williams Brothers in 1878

THE SIMON FOBES FAMILY. Members of six generations from this family are buried side by side in the cemetery at the centre of Wayne Township. The first death among the early settlers of Wayne was that of Mrs. Thankful Fobes, who died January 8, 1808; and three days later the funeral of her husband, Simon Fobes, took place. These aged people were married March 24, 1748. Their family consisted of eight children - four sons and four daughters - namely, Thankful, Joshua, Bethiah, Simon, Nathan, Ellis, Eunice and one who died in infancy.

Simon Fobes (2d) was born April 5, 1756. He was a soldier in the army of the Revolution, and fought in the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, and afterwards joined the expedition under General Benedict Arnold against Canada, and was engaged in the assault upon the city of Quebec, where he was taken prisoner of war. After suffering incredible hardships, he escaped from the British on the 18th of August and reached his home on the 30th of September, 1776. He afterwards served as ensign in Colonel Levi Wells' regiment.

DAY AT THE BEACH

2004-10-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

DAY AT THE BEACH
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Here's Mother Fobes with the Conneaut Township Beach stretching out behind her.

There's also a flock of Canada geese coming up the shorline. They might be easier to see if you click the link and view a larger version of the picture at Flickr.

BLAZING AWAY

2004-10-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

BLAZING
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

You don't have to go to New York State to shoot pictures of blazing color from the comfort of your automobile. This is Lake County near the Mentor exit.

THE OAF

2004-10-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

THE OAF
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

And here's the oaf who does this blog. Not a bad picture by Mother Fobes ... considering her first attempt showed nothing but leaves and feet.

FOBESDALE LEAVES

2004-10-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

FOBESDALE LEAVES
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Some colorful Fobesdale leaves dropped by the huge maple and scattered across the back yard.

MOM ON STEPS

2004-10-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

MOM ON STEPS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Mom was a good sport and posed on the steps ... even though she almost took a header coming back down after the photo was snapped.

STEPS

2004-10-25T18:48:00.000-07:00

STEPS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

We also visited Lake Shore Park in Ashtabula, where the most scenic sight was this flight of leaf-covered steps.

THE BACKYARD MAPLE

2004-10-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

THE BACKYARD MAPLE
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

I remember when I could punt a football over the backyard maple. It gets bigger and brighter each year. And I get older and weaker. My punting days are done.

MOTHER FOBES

2004-10-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

MOTHER FOBES
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Mother Fobes poses for a picture at Township Park in Conneaut. As a girl, she and some friends once pitched a tent and camped overnight on the hill in the background.

FOBESDALE

2004-10-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

FOBESDALE
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Since Kingsville used to be called Fobesdale, Dad long ago put a sign out front to remind people of that. And it's still there.

His cousin, Dale, had one that said, "Fobes, Dale." Honestly!

WEIRD GROUPING

2004-10-24T18:06:00.000-07:00

WEIRD GROUPING
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Once you start looking through old pictures, you never know what you might find. This must have been taken about 1986. It was first titled, "Jon, Scott and Wives,*" but since none of the people pictured stayed married, I changed it.

What's more, it's a bit scary to think how much those women look alike. "Weird grouping," indeed.

*My first and only — so far — his second of three.

MIKE DAY — SCOTT FARGO

2004-10-24T17:55:00.000-07:00

ON THE ROAD
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

One summer in the late 1970s when Scott was doing research on the southern pine beetle, he hired Mike to help him cut trees and haul samples. To escape the blistering Texas woods, they hit the road and hitch-hiked to Florida, where they could find beer, Bud, sand, surf ... and probably some home-grown. (I love this picture despite its poor quality.)

REMEMBERING SCOTT FARGO

2004-10-24T17:09:00.000-07:00

OSU 1973
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Note: One thing good about having a series of Web sites that go back for years, is that you accumulate a lot of material; but there’s a drawback — sometimes you lose track of things. Here’s something I just ran across from 1995. And it’s not something I want to lose track of.

Eulogy delivered by Jon Fobes at Bethany Lutheran Church, Ashtabula, Ohio Saturday, 16 September 1995 – 4 p.m.

I read last night that Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Every man is eloquent once in his life." I am really hoping today is my day.

I am glad to say – and proud to say – that I was friends with Scott for 25 years. We met at the Kent Branch – just up the street here – in 1970. I am not sure if we met because we had a class together or if we met for the first time in the KSU weightlifting club. I think it was at the club, probably early in the winter quarter.

Before long Scott became the equipment manager for a rock and roll band I was playing in at the time with another Scott, Scott Goddard, who was also a Kent student and a weightlifter. One day while lifting weights at the YMCA Scott Goddard and I told Scott that our band was going to be playing at the Psychedelic Lounge.

"You are not!" Scott said.

"Oh, yes we are."

"If you guys are really playing I’ll help you carry in your amps and set up your equipment." And he did. From then on Scott was there for every performance. And that’s really saying something because that band played once or twice a week for well over a year.

We finally said to Scott, "If you are going to be here every night, why not do a song?" We didn’t have to twist his arm too much. And so, at the end of the night, after a few beer breaks, and when the volume and the crowd both got cranked up somewhat out of control, Scott would come on stage and do his song. For a while it was "Summertime Blues." Then we switched to a song by the Rolling Stones called "Little Quennie." They were both good rocking, rolling, blasting, driving songs, and it was fun to have Scott up there singing them.

You may have known Scott as a clean-cut high school kid or a professor of entomology, but you should have seen him then. Hair down to his shoulders. Sideburns. Mustache. He wore a pair of blue jeans covered with stars on the bottom and patches on the top. He had a shirt with Daffy Duck on the front. He had some sort of headgear that looked like a World War I flying ace hat, one of those leather ones that came down over the ears and had straps hanging down. And he had a pair of boots he had spray-painted blue. I had a pair I had spray-painted gold, and sometimes we traded, so each guy had one blue and one gold boot. We both looked like something out of a parent’s worst nightmare – but we had a lot of fun.

One thing I will never understand is how that Scott Fargo, that long-haired, star-spangled, blue-booted, rockin’ and rollin’, space cowboy, in the World War I flying cap, ever got named Lady Elks Man of the Year in 1994. Amazing!

So, as time went on, we had classes together and we ran all over the place with the band. We played in Geneva, Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ashtabula and all over the Youngstown and Warren area and God-awful places like Pymatuning Valley. And once we drove four hours, way down past Pittsburgh, to audition for a job that would have hardly covered our gas money! The point is this: When you add up the time with the band, and classes and the weightlifting club and double-dating and going to parties and concerts . . . you can understand that Scott and I spent a lot of time together those two years at Kent. That alone could have made us friends for life.

But after Kent, we were roommates at Ohio State for three years. That meant even more time together. And when you put that kind of time in, you really get to know someone. I should mention some other people at this point because there was a core group of friends during the KSU and Ohio State years. And I am thinking now of Mike Day, Jim Ogren, Scott Goddard, Jim Buckett and Bud Jerauld. There were other good friends at this time like our bandmates Perry and Stuart Burgess and Rick Tackett, and, of course, Mr. Burgess, who was with us for every job we ever played. Sad to say, Perry is gone too. But in those days, there always seemed to be lots of things to do and lots of people involved in doing them.

I think I can speak for these people when I say Scott was a great friend and companion. If you knew Scott for 5 minutes, you knew he was smart. And if you knew him for 10 minutes you knew he was funny. Or maybe it was the other way around, depending on the day. But if you knew Scott for a week or a month or a year, you knew he was a consistently great person to be with. As I said, he was smart and he was funny, and those are nice traits to have in a friend, but more than that, Scott really liked people. I am sorry that's such a cliché anymore, but he really did. He was interested in his friends’ lives. He wanted to know what they thought and how they felt, and he wanted them to know what was going on with him in his thoughts and feelings. I think it boiled down to this: Scott had a lot of love to give to his friends, and his friends gave him lots of love back. I think that is why Scott had so many good and lasting friendships in his life.

I think one of the things that was interesting about Walter Scott Fargo – and I think it shows you the affection people felt for him – was that he had an incredible number nicknames. In his family, and I suppose in high school, he was known as Scott. When I met him he was being called Wells. I think that was a weightlifting club nickname. Once a Kent English professor named Bill Poese, who started the weightlifting club, had picnic at his farm, and he had a donkey there. Scott was amazed by the donkey. He just kept saying, "Boy that thing looks like a big, blue dog," and so we started calling him Blue Dog Fargo. And that stuck for a while.

Then sometime later on we started calling him Wally, which apparently no one had ever called him before. Then came "The Wally-Eyed Kid." David was at OSU when Scott and I were there, and David was sort of chunky at the time, so Scott started calling him Fat Fark. So we started calling Scott "The Fark." And if you did something Scott didn’t like, he’d look you in the eye and say, "Don’t pimp on The Fark." And someone down at the Spot Cafe used to call him Scotty Dog! So we started calling him that, too. You might think it took a lot of brain power for Scott to get a Ph.D. in entomology, but it was nothing in comparison to the brain power it must have taken for him to remember all his nicknames because even though we invented new names for him all the time we never stopped using the old ones. So you could talk to him for an hour and never refer to him the same way twice.

I said before that I was proud to say I had been friends with Scott for 25 years. I say proud because there was something I deeply respected and admired about Scott: It was his enthusiasm for life and that he always wanted more of life. For example, he was in the KSU weight-lifting club to get in shape, meet people – and get more of life. He graduated from Ohio State and went on to Texas A&M for his master’s and his Ph.D. because he was interested in learning – and because he wanted more of life. He became a full professor at such a young age because he worked hard, had good ideas – and because he wanted more of life. And he was out jogging the day his heart stopped because he wanted to be fit and energized – because he wanted more of life. He wasn’t afraid to work, and he wasn’t afraid to think, and he wasn’t about to sit around and wait for life to come to him. No. He was a doer. And he knew that the right combination of hard work and play is the thing that brings you more enthusiasm – and more of life. And he would not settle for less.

If you want to know what kind of guy Scott was in regards to his enthusiasm and his ability to work really hard, just look at his obit headline. I am an assistant news editor at The Plain Dealer, and I was working the night we ran Scott’s obit. I had talked with the obit writer a few times that week, I had dealt with the photo desk on Scott’s picture, and when the obit page got put together, my friend across the desk asked me if I wanted to come over and see how it turned out. Earlier I had tried to put a little pressure on him to get the obit played high on the page; of course, I didn’t really need to because Scott earned the top spot on his own merit. Anyway, I went over to see the page, which was up on a computer screen, and the person doing the page said he had changed the headline a little bit so it read: "W. Scott Fargo/professor, expert/in entomology." Which is ultimately how it came out in the paper. I said, "Boy, those are two words you’ll never see in my obit headline. PROFESSOR and EXPERT. No chance!" And another person working nearby said, "Mine either. My obit headline will probably say ‘Jeff McVann, he liked to watch TV.’" And then another person said, "My obit headline will probably say: ‘Mary Jo McVay, she liked pie.’" About this time a copy aide walked past and said, "What a morbid topic of conversation," and that shut us up. But the point was obvious: Scott had done a lot with his life. He was a special person.

Quite a few years ago we lost our wonderful friend Mike Day. Mike was killed in a wreck in Florida. There were services for him here in Ohio, but Scott was in Texas at the time, and I was working in Dayton, and neither of us got back for them. So during one of Scott’s summer trips home to Ashtabula we went to see Mike’s grave. As I recall, we were both a bit angry that evening, not at Mike, but at life in general for robbing us of our friend. And we also were sad as we stood there, of course. But maybe most of all we were disbelieving of the fact that Mike was really gone. I remember Scott tapped the gravestone with the toe of his cowboy boot. I guess to see if it was real. I think we both thought it would disappear. But it was no dream.

Scott said, "We lost our pal."

I said, "Unbelievable."

And then Scott said something totally fitting and appropriate. He had a knack for that. He said: "Well, you have a pal that’s still here, that’s standing right beside you, and he is getting pretty thirsty, so I think you ought to buy him a beer!"

So I did. More than one, actually. But what I think Scott was saying was that it is fitting and proper to think about the people we lose as long as we don’t forget about the people we still have. There are people in this world you love and that love you, and don’t let this loss take your attention from them for long. If anything, let it remind you how much you should cherish the people you still have. And buy them a beer. Or a Pepsi. Or dinner. Take them to a movie. Go for a drive. Watch a TV show. Or just sit with them. But cherish your time with them. That’s what Scott would want. So don’t pimp on The Fark.

I think we’re probably all feeling what Scott and I felt when we stood at Mike’s grave. Maybe some of us are angry at life for taking Scott away so soon, when we had hoped for so much more in the years to come. We all are feeling a terrible sadness – there’s no doubt about that. And perhaps for many of us there is an almost overwhelming sense of disbelief. That’s what I feel most: disbelief. Maybe you too.

If so, I would say this: If you can’t believe Scott is gone it’s because he’s not. If you knew Scott they way I knew him then he touched your life in so many ways that you will never be without him. If he was in your life then he is in your life and he always will be in your life. That was the power of Scott’s personality, of his enthusiasm, of his friendship and of his love. Scott will live as long as our memories do.

And for me, that’s a lifetime.

I MIGHT HAVE TO LEAVE THE LEAVES

2004-10-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

FALL LEAVES
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

I bought 5 packs of 39-gallon garbage bags today. But this year's leaf project could be cut short if all that blowing and mulching takes a toll on my back as I fear it probably will. I usually end up with thirty-something bags of mulched maple and oak leaves. That requires lots of bending.

Too bad the old-fashioned rake-and-burn method is prohibited in Lorain.

THE SECRET NEWS ABOUT FOUNTAIN PENS

2004-10-13T10:23:00.000-07:00

PENS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

I will admit a weakness for fountain pens. When people talk about fountain pens they say a lot of things: that they are lovely, that they are a reaction against computers, but what nobody says is this:

They simply write better than anything else on the market. Yes, in some respects the fountain pen is certainly retro, but it's also light years ahead of the ballpoint and rollerball.

The more you write, the more you'll appreciate a nice fountain pen — or 40.

FERNS FOR THE DESKTOP

2004-10-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

FERNS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

I use photos of my own plants as computer desktop backgrounds. Here's one.

These ferns grow beside my patio reading area. The bed also features Pacasandra and another green plant with spear-shaped leaves and little white flowerbells in spring.

Somewhere under all those fronds and leaves are a host of hungry slugs wondering where the hostas are.

PROBLEM 2 — No sky-high lounge

2004-10-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

HIGH IN THE SKY
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

The second problem of elimininating Toronto as our 2004 vacation destination, was that Chicago has no sky-high lounge, where one can sip a beer as the city stretches out below.

The CN Tower lounge is awesome.

"Defining the Toronto skyline, the CN Tower is Canada's most recognizable and celebrated icon. At a height 1,815 ft., 5 inches, it is the World's Tallest Building, an important telecommunications hub, and the centre of tourism in Toronto." Read more and see views.

PROBLEM 1 — No outside hot tub

2004-10-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

GETTING COOKED
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Chicago was great, but there were two main things we missed by skipping Toronto in 2004.

First, we missed our night of cooking in the hot tub at our first-night stop, Webb's World Resort on Chautauqua Lake, New York.

This picture was taken in 2002.

The sense of story

2004-09-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

I just came across an interesting sentence in James Hillman’s “Healing Fictions.” He writes, “I have found that the person with a sense of story built in from childhood is in better shape than the one who has not had stories, who has not heard them, acted them, or made them up. And here I mean oral story, those depending mainly on speech — and reading too has an aural aspect even when one reads in silence — rather than a story watched on screen or in a picture book.”

The child drenched in story soon learns “that worlds are made by words and not only by hammers and wires.”

WORD STORIES

Hillman thinks that, “Screened, watched stories are different because they enter imagination via perception, reinforcing the confusion between perceptual pictures and imaginative images. … but the essence of word images is that they are free from the perceptible world and free one from it. They take the mind home to its poetic base, the imaginal.”

In other words, picture stories incline us toward literalism while word stories fire the imagination. I think he’s saying your life is more personally and imaginatively your own if you create your own mental images, not simply incorporate ready-made images from outside, which might incline us to develop misbegotten realism, a literalistic view of the world. He then says, “The person having had his stories early has had his imagination exercised as an activity. He can imagine life, and not only think, feel, perceive, or learn it. And he recognizes that imagination is a place where one can be.”

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE FIGHTS

2004-09-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

SATURDAY NIGHT
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Here are some of the folks who visited for Saturday Night at the Fights.

Front row: Me and mom; Cousin Kathy and Aunt Pat; Aunt Kate.

Top row: Dad, Uncle Wendell, Uncle Tom and Uncle John (still single at the time).

BEHIND BARS

2004-09-30T15:56:00.000-07:00

BEHIND BARS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

I was put behind bars at a very early age. My crime was toppling anything I could get my hands on. Some things don't change. That's cousin Kathy in jail beside me.

This might have been when Dad was up in Greenland working for the Air Force, stringing phone lines across the frozen wastes, making the world safe for Eskimo pie and cross-continental pizza delivery.

Iris Murdoch: How we "tell our day"

2004-09-30T13:58:00.000-07:00

Philosophy is a matter of getting hold of a problem and holding on to it and being prepared to go on repeating oneself as one tries different formulations and solutions. This patient, relentless ability to stay with a problem is a mark of a philosopher, whereas a certain desire for novelty usually marks the artist.

When we return home to "tell our day," we are artfully shaping material into story form. … So in a way we all exist in a literary atmosphere, we live and breathe literature, we are all literary artists, we are constantly employing language to make interesting forms of experience, which perhaps originally seemed dull or incoherent. How far reshaping involves offences against truth is a problem any artist must face. A deep motive for making literature or art of any sort is the desire to defeat the formlessness of the world and cheer oneself up by constructing forms out of what might otherwise seem a mass of senseless rubble.

Any artist must be at least half in love with his unconscious mind, which after all provides his motive force and does a great deal of his work. The philosopher must resist the comfort-seeking artist in himself. He must always be undoing his own work in the interests of truth so as to go on gripping his problem. This tends to be incompatible with literary art. Philosophy is repetitive; it comes back over the same ground, and it is continually breaking the forms which it has made.

MY GREEN AGE

2004-09-30T13:54:00.000-07:00

MY GREEN AGE
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

There's one thing about having your own Web log: You can post any damn picture you want.

This was taken in Conneaut, Ohio, about 1954, back when I was still an only child and "Mickey Mouse Club" was the big event of the day.

The TV cabinet was as big as a chair but the screen was only the size of a platter. On Saturday night my uncles came over for boxing, beer and pizza pie. "Hey, Mabel. Black Label!"

Links to my other sites

2004-09-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

You can find The Plain Dealer News Desk site at Nightsiders blog. • You can reach the Rumors of Order Web site portal at www.fobes.net. • And here's where you can find the Rumors of Order Forum.

More pictures from The Plain Dealer: My somewhat dated version of The Intern Web site.• And here we have some move-in pictures. • And let's not forget the TNG LOCAL 1 Web site.

MY FAVORITE

2004-09-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

DAD ELYRIA
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

This is my favorite picture of Dad because it captures the good cheer that replaced all that earlier intensity.

I think he learned to relax once his sons grew up and did OK in the world.

This photo was taken around 1992 in Elyria.

SECOND THOUGHTS

2004-09-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

SECOND THOUGHTS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

This photo was among grandpa's slides, and I had to laugh when I saw it and called it, "Dad has Second Thoughts."

He could be a little intense at times, and I imagine him thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?"

But things worked out pretty well in the end.

WITHOUT PIER, BUT NOT WITHOUT BEER

2004-09-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

PIER FROM THE CRUISE
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

The typical Chicago beer cruise provides a variety of intoxicating views; this one reveals a new side of the Navy Pier.

There's one good thing about vacationing early in the week: No crowds. You pretty much have the place to yourself.

I must admit there were a couple of drunks on this cruise. And there also were some other people on board besides me and Jeff.

BEER CRUISE

2004-09-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

BOAT BAR
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

They must have known we were coming because the city passed an emergency ordinance to allow bars on each Navy Pier cruise boat.

Jeff waits for service as our tour is about to begin.

The most surprising thing about this particular tour?

Our bartender was Irish and read sections of "Wuthering Heights" between serving drinks. A book-reading bartender! That was a novel experience. We left him a nice tip and recommended he spend it at church.

THE BEST SIGHT

2004-09-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

SKYLINE
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Of course, the best sight is the city itself.

Jeff takes a photo from the Adler Planetarium overlook.

The skies were overcast part of the day, but things cleared up fairly well by the time we arrived at Navy Pier. Jeff has his camera aimed at the Beer Garden right across the bay.

Our table is waiting: "Taxi!"

SEEING STARS

2004-09-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

AMONG THE STARS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Jeff Fobes at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum in Chicago.

One of the most interesting exhibitions at the Adler is a 3D movie about the universe. It seems like the stars were swirling all around my head. Almost makes one dizzy.

Or maybe that was the aftereffect of too much Navy Pier beer.

VACATION CHURCH

2004-09-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

CHICAGO BORDERS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Of course, I had to go to church while I was in Chicago. Twice.

I've been calling Borders bookstore "church" since my local Borders opened in Westlake ... right around the time I ran away from home.

Mary Jo always told me how good it was, but I said it could never compare to SBX at Ohio State.

I was quite wrong.

Like any "good" person I go to church at least once a week; I leave an offering and depart with a book.

The Chicago Borders provided me with some Karl Popper.

PIE IN THE SKY

2004-09-30T09:52:00.000-07:00

PIZZA PIE IN THE SKY
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Here's another Chicago sight.

When I was a kid it seemed like everyone called pizza, "pizza pie." But I had never actually seen a pizza as thick as a pie until we hit Giordano's.

We split their smallest pizza offering — and hardly finished it.

BEER ON THE PIER

2004-09-30T09:42:00.000-07:00

NAVY PIER BEER
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Chicago trumped Toronto as this summer's vacation getaway; and of all the beautiful sights Chicago has to offer, this is the one that thrilled brother Jeff and me the most.

At least it's the sight we saw most often.

And let it be said that the Navy Pier Beer Garden is the place to go for free live music.

Driving Miss Daisy

2004-09-29T22:08:00.000-07:00

The Force That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower
by Dylan Thomas

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

RED ALL OVER

2004-09-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

RED ALL OVER
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

This photo proves I have a few flowering plants in my sea of green.

These are by the garage and match my car.

I agree with John Laroche on the importance of "finding your flower," and that's why I shop at Pandy's Garden Center, where they’ve been peddling petals since 1961.

Here is a tour of the grounds from 2002.

"Adaptation" — Finding your flower

2004-09-29T16:58:00.000-07:00

John Laroche: You know why I like plants? Because they’re so mutable. Adaptation is a profound process. It means you figure out how to thrive in the world.

Susan Orlean: Yeah, but it’s easier for plants. I mean, they have no memories. They just move on to whatever’s next. But for a person … adapting’s almost shameful. It’s like running away.

Laroche: The point is, what’s so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. A certain orchid looks like a certain insect, so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate. It wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after, the insect flies off and spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. And how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives. It does. By simply by doing what they’re designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live, how the only barometer you have is your heart. How when you spot your flower, you can’t let anything get in your way.

THE GREEN FUSE

2004-09-29T16:27:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HOSTAS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

Though I have many different types of plants, I am especially fond of hostas.

The only thing that likes hostas more than me are the slugs that emerge by night to chew lovely little holes in all the leaves. Until I introduced them to Mr. Ortho, that is.

Sure, I could have put beer out to kill them, but why waste it? The only slug who gets beer around here is me! Plus, giving alcohol to insects — is that even moral?

The most detestable stupidity — Kundera 1

2004-09-29T16:08:00.000-07:00

Milan Kundera believes that the novel is the realm where moral judgments are suspended and that the suspension of moral judgment is the morality of the novel.

“The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the viewpoint of the novel’s wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.”

He continues: “Creating the imaginary terrain where moral judgment is suspended was a move of enormous significance: only there could novelistic characters develop — that is, individuals conceived not as a function of some preexistent truth, as examples of good or evil, or as representations of objective laws in conflict, but as autonomous beings grounded in their own morality, in their own laws.”

He adds, “The removal of gods from the world is one of the phenomena that characterize the Modern Era. The removal of gods does not mean atheism; it denotes the situation in which the individual, the thinking ego, supplants God as the basis for all things; man may continue to keep his faith, to kneel in church, to pray at his bed, but his piety shall henceforth pertain only to his subjective universe.”

Kundera goes on to say that the novel renders ambiguous all that it touches and that religion is our revenge against the impersonality of the universe.

NOTE: I want to keep this Web site more about psychology and literature than philosophy and religion, but the magnificent Milan Kundera crosses all borders and, ultimately, belongs everywhere. His book, “The Art of the Novel,” is simply stunning: click here for excerpts.

DREAM HOME

2004-09-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

HOME
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

There's nothing like a bad marriage to make you appreciate the little things.

For years I dreamed of having a small place of my own where I could read books, mow the lawn, have a few plants and live in peace.

So much depends on a sane life in a yellow house on a quiet street.

Magical coincidence — "The Hours" 2

2004-09-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

In a portion of Chapter Two, almost as an aside, Clarissa Vaughan — who’s been nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway — is thinking about getting someone a gift. As she makes her way to a flower shop to buy bouquets for her party, she looks in a bookstore window but rejects every volume sees. “You want to give him the book of his own life, the book that will locate him, parent him, arm him for changes.”

But is it really a book she wants to give?

“There is no comfort, it seems, in the world of objects, and Clarissa fears that art, even the greatest of it (even Richard’s three volumes of poetry and his single, unreadable novel), belong stubbornly to the world of objects. Standing in front of the bookstore window she is visited by an old memory, a tree branch tapping against a window as, from somewhere else (downstairs?), faint music, the low moan of a jazz band, started on a phonograph … this memory more than any other feels urgent and deeply, almost supernaturally, comforting … clearer than some things that happened yesterday …”

It was “as if the tree being unsettled by the wind, had somehow caused the music. It seems that at that moment she began to inhabit the world; to understand the promises implied by an order larger than human happiness, though it contained human happiness along with every other emotion. The branch and the music matter more to her than do all the books in the store window. She wants for Evan and she wants for herself a book that can carry what that singular memory carries.”

It seems to me that the author is talking about the magic of coincidence, the magical juxtaposition that creates not simple delight, but a profoundly inspiring sense of something awesome, “the promises implied by an order larger" than this life we know too well. Indeed, the author provides a magical coincidence himself in one of the neatest bits of foreshadowing on record.

As Clarissa stands in the flower shop “a huge shattering sound comes from the street outside.” It’s a movie crew filming on location in the streets of New York. Clarissa looks out at “the welter of trucks and trailers. Suddenly the door to one of the trailers opens, and a famous head emerges, quite a distance away, seen in profile, like the head on a coin, and while Clarissa cannot immediately identify her (Meryl Streep, Vanessa Redgrave?), she knows without question that the woman is a movie star.”

Since Meryl Streep plays Clarissa Vaughan in “The Hours,” it's easy to imagine Streep as Clarissa looking out the window and seeing Streep as Streep. There goes that branch again.

WAXING ELOQUENT

2004-09-29T15:32:00.000-07:00

ALWAYS IN FOCUS
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

I am no Tim Graham, but I try to thoroughly clean and wax my car a couple times a year. I think Tim does it about six: Two vehicles, six times each!

Of course, he gets such a wax buildup that all his cars look yellow. And once the weight of the wax ruined his shocks.

Richard's triumph — "The Hours" 1

2004-09-29T15:24:00.000-07:00

I believe I just witnessed the birth of humility — or is it what Milan Kundera calls the wisdom of uncertainty?

This happened as I was re-reading “The Hours,” for the third time; and I might add that it’s amazing how many new things keep popping out at me. I’ve enhanced my reading enjoyment by making notes on big Post-Its and then sticking them in the book. Since all the writing space in the margins was gone, what else could I do?

Today I came across the scene where Clarissa is with Richard, telling him about the party she’s having for him after he receives his important literary prize. Oddly enough, Richard doesn’t want to attend his own party.

“I’m not really needed there, am I? The party can just go on with the idea of me. The party has already happened, really, with or without me.”

“Now you’re being impossible. I’m going to lose my patience soon.”

“No, please, don’t be angry. Oh, Mrs. D., the truth is, I’m embarrassed to go to this party. I’ve failed so terribly.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“No, no. You’re kind, you’re very kind, but I’m afraid I failed, and that’s that. It was just too much for me. I thought I was a bigger figure than I was. Can I tell you an embarrassing secret? Something I’ve never told anyone?

“Of course you can.”

“I thought I was a genius. I actually used that word, privately, to myself.”

“Well —”

“Oh, pride, pride. I was so wrong. It defeated me. It simply proved insurmountable. There was so much, oh, far too much for me. I mean, there’s the weather, there’s the water and the land, there are the animals, and the buildings, and the past and the future, there’s space, there’s history. There’s this thread or something caught between my teeth, there’s the old woman across the way, did you notice she switched the donkey and the squirrel on her windowsill? And, of course, there’s time. And place. And there’s you, Mrs. D. I wanted to tell part of the story of part of you. Oh, I’d love to have done that.”

“Richard. You wrote a whole book.”

“But everything’s left out of it, almost everything. And then I just stuck on a shock ending. Oh, now, I’m not looking for sympathy, really. We want so much, don’t we?”

“Yes, I suppose we do.”

I think Richard’s triumph is his realization that most of life gets lost in translation when you try to put it into a book, be it a novel, a holy scripture, a history or philosophy book, a psychology text and so on down the line: Life gets away. This insight is perhaps Richard’s finest accomplishment as an artist. He is humbled in the face of the blooming, buzzing reality and our basic human limitations in grasping and explaining it.

Perhaps it is even more important for us non-Richards to realize that life gets lost in translation in the very act of human cognition, minute-by-minute, day-by-day. Every act of perception is but a fleeting glimpse of reality, an infinitely small and highly personalized 1,000th -of-a-second snapshot of a massive, rushing totality that is forever exploding out of reach. To realize this, as Richard knows, is a very humbling and embarrassing experience, especially if you’ve made big pronouncements about life or truth, even if only about yourself to yourself: “genius,” “journalist,” “Methodist,” “atheist.” As if you could make your self-descriptions stick without distorting the very reality you’re trying to grasp. To call such distortions “truth” is one of the main preoccupations of humankind.

The wisdom of uncertainty is not about saying that “there is no God” or “there’s no such thing as truth” or that there are “no absolutes anywhere” or “there’s no such thing as justified certainty.” No, the wisdom of uncertainty is about realizing that human limitation — compounded by the vagaries of human psychology — disallow definitive statements for anyone who has realized that humility and certainty cannot coexist, that life keeps spinning away from our cherished perceptions and descriptions, and that the best way to keep up with life is to drop as much baggage as you can: Pack light, it’s a long trip.

Quite simply, Richard is humbled by life and his failure to grasp more than a dazzling flash of it, being more inspired than enlightened by the experience, as we might expect from an artist. This inspiring humility gives birth to the wisdom of uncertainty. Accepted joyfully, it can be the start of something big.

POPPER ON THE PATIO

2004-09-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

PATIO READING SPOT
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

It's important to have a shaded outside reading area when you're off during the day.

And if you have some ferns nearby, a couple of big trees and an expanse of lawn to look at, it's even better.

It’s also a good place to watch chipmunks and squirrels play with their nuts ... which is illegal in some states.

RED SKY AT NIGHT

2004-09-29T13:31:00.000-07:00

RED SKY
Originally uploaded by jonfobes.

When you're home for only two sunsets per week, you keep your eye to the sky and hope for the best. It doesn't get much better than this, taken November 2003.

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sunset, for going out, I found, was really going in."

— John Muir

Above the horizon, more exposed

2004-09-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

In “Exuberance: The Passion for Life,” Kay Redfield Jamison writes: “It is the infectious energies of exuberance that proclaim and disperse much of what is marvelous in life. Exuberance carries us places we would not otherwise go — across the savannah, to the moon, into the imagination — and if we ourselves are not so exuberant we will, caught up in the contagious joy of those who are, be inclined collectively to go yonder. By its pleasures, exuberance lures us from our common places and quieter moods; and — after the victory, the harvest, the discovery of a new idea or an unfamiliar place — it gives ascendant reason to venture forth all over again. Delight is its own reward, adventure its own pleasure.”

"The exuberant move above the horizon, more exposed. ... Exuberant people take in the world and act upon it differently. ... Joy widens one's view of the world and expands imaginative thought. It activates. It makes both physical and intellectual exploration more likely, and it provides rewards for problems solved or risks taken."

Talk about being exposed, see also:

The Rumors of Order Web site at www.fobes.net. Or Nightsiders blog. And the Rumors of Order Forum.

That's more like over-exposed! What's the difference between exuberance and foolishness? Obviously, I don't know. But I will persist in my folly and hope that Erasmus was right.