Blowing and Drifting - Christopher Tassava

One of the best drives in the Upper Peninsula takes US41 from the Copper Country around Keweenaw Bay to L’Anse, Michigan. Driving west on that route last Sunday, I stopped in the tiny bayside town of Baraga to take a few shots of the morning sun on the bay. I could not have been more lucky with the weather. It was spectacular. The water was the definition of “limpid.”

The second “30 Days of Biking” event kicks off tomorrow, on September 1. As the website says,

The only rule for 30 Days of Biking is that you bike every day for 30 days—around the block, 20 miles to work, whatever suits you—then share your adventures online. We believe biking enriches life, builds community, and preserves the Earth.

The brainchild of Patiomensch and Zachamon, two riders in Minneapolis, 30DoB was a decent little phenomenon in April. September is a good riding month, too, so – barring a broken leg – I am definitely going to ride every day until October. I hope many others will try to ride for 30 straight days, too: it would be good for the heart, the legs, the streets, and the planet. If you want to do the 30DoB, you can register at the website or via Twitter (using the #30daysofbiking tag) – or not register at all and just, you know, ride.

For my part, most of my rides will be commutes – twenty-one of them, if I ride every workday in September. But beyond that functional riding, I want to accumulate at least 300 miles of training rides, including rides of 85 and 100 miles. Those long rides would build on 50 and 65 miles I did  earlier this summer, and would build fitness nicely toward winter. Skiing is only about 90 days away!

I’m just back from my four-day trip to the Upper Peninsula to attend my grandfather’s funeral. I’ll be writing more about the trip – and about the funeral – soon, but for tonight I wanted to just post three pictures of the Copper Country: the view from Houghton, on the southern side of the Portage Lake ship canal. The Copper Country is a gorgeous place, and only rarely more gorgeous than it was on Sunday afternoon. It had been seven or eight years since I’d visited – far too long. I hope I can go back (with the family!) next summer.

All of these photos were taken from the patio of the Keweenaw Brewing Company, an excellent microbrewery in Houghton – which is roughly ten thousand times cooler now than it was in 1990.

The view to the northeast, of the picturesquely abandoned Quincy copper-smelting works in Ripley, MI.

The view straight north, of Quincy Hill, outside Hancock.

The view to the west-northwest, of the Portage Lake Lift Bridge – one of the most beautiful bridges in the world.

It’s been a while since I posted some good kid quotes, and since I’m going to miss the girls a lot while I’m attending my grandfather’s funeral in the U.P., I thought I’d post a few from the last couple weeks:

Genevieve, disagreeing with me: “You don’t know the truth, big man.”

Julia: “Tomorrow for breakfast, I want a sporn and fook, okay? Sporn and fook? What did I just say?”

Genevieve, getting into her chair for dinner: “Well, here we are again, sitting at the table, eating watermelon.”

Julia, bored with our outdoor games: “I’m getting out of here and going back to my castle.”

Genevieve, wearing toy butterfly wings: “I’m a fairy, and I just turned you into a handsome dad.”

Me, telling them about my new diet plan: “I’ve decided that I’m going to eat a bigger dinner so that I don’t get hungry later and have an unhealthy snack later.”
Julia, unimpressed: “That’s a good idea, but you could just have a healthy snack.”

Genevieve, frustrated: “If Julia doesn’t stop being mean to me, I’m going to go to Chicago and live for 15 years.”

Herbert "Hub" Jauquet, 1921-2010

So I called him when I was a little boy, to distinguish him from my dad’s dad, “Cow Grampa.” I’ll write more about “Hub” Jauquet later, but here’s his obituary. He was a tough guy, one of a kind.

Herbert “Hub” Francis Jauquet, 89 of Channing, Michigan passed away on August 24, 2010 at ManorCare Health Servces in Kingsford, Michigan. Herbert was born on July 24, 1921 in Sagola, son of the late Clem and Josephine (Ferry) Jauquet. He graduated from Channing High School in 1941 and had served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II. He married Lenore Mary Roell on October 30, 1943 in Channing and was a lifetime resident of the area. They raised six children and were members of the St. Rose Church in Channing.

Hub grew up on a farm near Sagola, Michigan. His father operated a logging camp which influenced his 55 year career in trucking. He hauled logs from the camp in the early 1940’s, and continued trucking until his retirement. These logs were once transported from the camps with Belgian Draft horses which led to Hub’s lifetime interest in horses. He purchased two Belgian horses in the mid-1980’s and enjoyed working with them throughout his retirement. He enjoyed giving people rides as well as working with them in the woods. He was also a huge fan of the Green Bay Packers football and Detroit Tigers baseball teams.

He is survived by two sons, Herbert Jr. (Patricia) Jauquet of Kingsford and Michael (Laurie) Jauquet of Channing; three daughters, Mary Lenore Tassava of Hancock, Barbara (Greg) Kalinoski of Thief River Falls, Minn and Roberta (James) Kluskens of Niagara, Wis; one sister, Marion Finger; two brothers, Joseph (Betty) Jauquet and James (Joyce) Jauquet; two sisters-in-law, Imogene Roell and Shirley Jauquet; 12 grandchildren; six great grandchildren.

Yesterday, Vivi fell off the deck of the Northfield city pool and hurt herself pretty badly. I should have been right there, but I was talking for a second with another dad, and when I looked back, Vivi had slipped, basically right into my arms. But still. She cried really hard, screaming, “I hurt my bottom!” but after a few minutes she calmed down and started to play again. We played in the water for a while, and then headed home, where we discovered that her underwear was full of blood. She and I headed straight for the emergency room. There a doctor examined her. Without getting too gory, suffice to say that her injury was bad enough that he had to call for advice from the pediatric gynecologist at Children’s Hospital in St. Paul. Luckily, they decided that, despite the injury, Vivi would not need any treatment beyond some antibiotic ointment and taking it easy.

Through all this hubbub, Vivi didn’t cry, didn’t wince, didn’t complain… She just held my hand and watched the nurses and doctor work. And she didn’t cry later that night, when she finally went to the bathroom at home, or the next morning when she woke up and had to have her diaper changed, or during the day, or even tonight when she had a warm bath.

I’ve never understood what other parents mean when they say that they’re inspired by their kids’ bravery, but I do now. Little Genevieve is as tough and brave as anyone I’ve ever met.

This is a video camera:

Flip Video

This is a video camera in the hands of a four-year-old. Genevieve calls this “My Laughter Box is Full.”

My Laughter Box is Full from Christopher Tassava on Vimeo.

On Friday night, the girls played some more “monkey in the middle,” which they call “Ball Thief.” Here are 23 seconds of them are in action:

Ball Thief from Christopher Tassava on Vimeo.

There really are twin ruts in this road, but this is a funny sign anyhow.

After dinner tonight, the girls and I went outside to play catch and have a few more minutes of active fun. As Julia and I were tossing a ball back and forth, Vivi – wearing a nightgown for no good reason at all – transformed herself into “Ball Fief” and proceeded to try to steal the ball from us as we threw it.

She’s quick enough that she was actually quite good at this, routinely grabbing the ball away from Julia after a missed catch. Julia thought the whole thing was hilarious, and happily chased Vivi up and down the yard, laughing and shrieking. Once Julia caught Genevieve, they’d have a sort of miniature rugby scrum from which Julia would eventually emerge with the ball – only to throw it off the mark and start the whole cycle over: Vivi in her purple nighty, sprinting over the grass with the ball clutched to her chest, Julia in a favorite skirt-and-shirt combination, pumping her arms with the effort of catching up.

I just sat on the grass laughing until my stomach hurt and occasionally trying to either field a catch or make a throw. I would have been elated to get a minute of these hijinks on video, but I’m glad I have all twenty minutes of them in my brain.

Today, I submitted the final grades for the online course I taught this summer for Metro State University in St. Paul, “World War II – A Global History.” This is the twelfth time I’ve taught for Metro State since fall 2003, and the third time I’ve taught this particular course, always online. I felt like I finally had it “down” this time, thanks in part to some particularly strong students. The discussions, the midterm and final exams, and especially and the five-part cumulative paper assignment (an idea I stole from some Carleton faculty) really worked well this time around, which is almost as pleasing as teaching the course was sometimes tiring and frustrating.

My Metro State students are usually about half traditional-age college students and half “grown ups” who are either getting a second college degree or finishing their first one. It almost goes without saying that the working adults are the harder workers – though at the same time they tend to be less imaginative and more inclined to connect the dots. (Not unlike their instructor, in some ways. He too has a “day job”!) The best individual students are often the traditionals, young men and women who I think would succeed at most colleges.

And then there are the traditionals who are traditional in less appealing ways, like the five students who earned grades of “F” this term (including students who earned 92, 87, and 12 points out of 200 – the last was still emailing me about “catching up” last week!) and the young man who emailed me literally moments before I submitted the final grades:

When are final grades due? Also this has been a really interesting course and you really challenged us. I learned so much from this course.

His grade wasn’t bad, but this blatant appeal made my eyes roll.

But whatever. This is a decent gig, I tell myself, both a good way to earn extra money and a good way to practice at least some of the skills I learned in grad school. As a reward for teaching all these Metro State classes as well as finishing (in six weeks) the infinitely more onerous and unrewarding task of serving on the townhouse-association board, I think I’m going to buy myself an iPad – which coincidentally costs almost exactly as much as one of my Metro State paychecks and which will be pretty handy for using to teach the online courses.

Monday night, the girls decided we were going to play freeze tag. So we did, and it was both lung-burning and hilarious. They understand the basic idea, of course, but their physical limitations and personal idiosyncrasies make for a zany sort of activity – not quite a game, but not quite not a game, either. Four observations on this:

In the first place, three people really isn’t enough for a really good game of freeze tag. Subtract the person who’s It, and it’s pretty much one person frozen, one person unfreezing all the time. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Second, Vivi loves to be It, and will be It for as long as you’ll let her – which isn’t as long as you’d expect to let her, because she likes tagging people by either slapping them on the arm as she tears past, or, later, simply crashing into them. “I not playing fweeze tag, I playing FOOTBAW!” she yelled after creaming Julia one time. To her credit, Julia thinks this is hilarious – even when she’s lying on her back with her little sister sprawled over her.

Third, the girls are rather different in their literal and figurative approaches to the game. When It, Vivi runs in looping patterns that intersect with (what she hopes will be) another person’s path. She’s right about half the time. some success. On the other hand, Julia tends to run straight at whomever is It, which often results in some quick tags by It. Or tackles, as the case might be.

Fourth, the two girls have almost exactly the same footspeed. If anything, Vivi’s a little faster over shorter distances (and when you’re playing tag in the backyard with a 6 year old and a 4 year old, it’s mostly short distances), though Julia can outlast her sister by jogging and jogging and jogging. And but so, this means that the game is pretty much them freeze-tagging each other and me unfreezing whomever is frozen. Which is, honestly, pretty fun. And very sweaty.

One last post about Vivi’s birthday – photos of her on each of her birthdays.

Apart from some characteristic growliness when waking up, Vivi enjoyed her birthday a lot. In an adorably openhearted way, she loved being the worthy center of attention: eating birthday cake for afternoon snack, opening presents, having a dinner made to order (and what a dinner it was: pizza stromboli, corn on the cob, and rhubarb pie – all homemade). It was a blast, as her face shows in this photo of her holding up two new toy cars – both Volkswagens. (She’s got good taste.)

Vivi and Cars

Genevieve had a blast celebrating her fourth birthday at Nonna and Boppa’s house, where most of the extended family also showed up. The best part was either the cake

or the presents

but Vivi was also pretty excited by the fact that she gets “another birfday!” on Sunday, her actual date of birth. Tonight’s bedtime routine consisted largely of me getting her through the various hoops (bath, pajamas, stories) while she talked nonstop about “my reaw birfday.” In the tub, she hurriedly scrubbed herself, suds flying, and shouted, “I gotta wash myself extra good so I’m clean for being four!” Later on, as I tucked her in, she shivered – literally shivered! – with excitement and asked, “So when I wake up in the moaning, I’m just magically four? Just magically?” I nodded. “And I don’t even feel it? I just wake up and I’m four? Oooooh, I can’t wait!”

I love that idea: “feeling” that you’re getting a year old with, say, a jolt of excitement at the exact time you were born. That Vivi won’t have such an experience will not damper the fun tomorrow.

Vivi spent about half an hour before her “family party” on Friday afternoon writing this on her Nonna’s computer:

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
We love our birthday girl
I love my cake
It’s so cute

She was pretty happy with her accomplishment!

A classic sign at the wonderfully-named “Middle Spunk Lake” rest area on I-94 north of the Cities.

Notwithstanding the fact that the girls have never been and are still not particularly good travelers, today’s trip up to Moorhead was by far the easiest, smoothest trip we’re ever had. Nobody (adult or child) cried, the (adult and child) complaining was kept to a minimum, no untimely urination or vomiting occurred, and on the whole, excitement over Vivi’s impending birthday outweighed momentary annoyance at being cooped up in the car for the better part of six hours. Look – can’t you just feel the excitement?

Vivi dislikes when I either work out or take a shower, and will do almost anything to prevent me from doing one or the other. Today, she said that I couldn’t take a shower (after my bike ride) because “thewe awe cwocodiles in the showew.” More, translated into English and restructured into a semi-linear narrative:

I was walking in the woods and I found three crocodiles. There names were Spiky, Greeny, and Joe. I led them home and they went to swim in my tub. But they didn’t like it so they moved to your tub. They are magical crocodiles who can make themselves “avisible” for a day. They come back visible at night. They are friendly, though. They won’t eat you if you take a shower.

So I did. And I wasn’t eaten.

By predilection and by training, I love calculating “as far as” spans between two dates. It can be cheap history, but can also be useful to see how closely in time two events occurred, especially when one of those events seems “closer” to the present day.

Personal information is great for this:

• Julia is about as far from birth (6 years) as she is from finishing elementary school.
• Genevieve is about as far from birth (4 years) as she is from third grade.
• I am further away from graduating college (15 years) than both Julia and Genevieve are from starting college (12 and 14 years, respectively – assuming they start at age 18).
• I’m three times further now from finishing grad school (in 2003) than finishing college (1995) was from starting grad school (1997).

History is always full of these:

• We are almost four times further from the end of Reagan’s last term (1988, 22 years ago) than the start of his first term (1981) was from the end of the Vietnam War (1973, 8 years before).
• We are almost two and a half times further from the end of World War II (1945, 65 years ago) than the end of World War II was from the end of World War I (1918, 27 years before 1945)
• Pearl Harbor was almost as far ago from the present day (1941, 69 years) as it was from the end of the Civil War (1865, 76 years earlier).
• We are further from the end of the Great Depression (1941, 69 years) than the start of the Great Depression was from the start of the Long Depression with the Panic of 1873 (68 years).
• We are almost as far from the Spanish-American War (1898, 112 years) as that war was from the end of the Revolutionary War (1783, 115 years earlier).
• We are almost as far from the birth of the Model T automobile (1908, 102 years) as the first Model T was from the first functional locomotive (1804, 104 years earlier).

I’m not sure what to do with these kinds of facts, except maybe to ponder the passage of time, but they’re fun to think up.