The Month That Was - September 2022

This month I officially reached the age at which I am eligible to collect Social Security.  Should there be deep meaning in that?  I can see none.  I'm still working so I won't be collecting it just yet.  I summarized my feelings about this point in my life a couple of months ago.  I think that was about right.  The passing of my birthday changed nothing.

For the past five years I have housed a friend and grad student in the upstairs of my home.  I was apprehensive at first, but it worked out well and it was a way to enhance the life of someone I care about, which I maintain is the ultimate purpose of life.  I'm delighted that she achieved her goals and she has left to kick off the next chapter of her life, but she had a cat that I got very attached to.  I find I developed more habits concerning the cat than I had imagined.  Rituals around feeding and scratches and cardboard boxes I habitually start to do even in its absence.  Basically, I miss the cat.  (No, I have to tell my friends, do not get me a cat to help me heal from my loss. I leave town too often to take proper care of a pet.)

Next month -- my new book.  For sure.

[Savannah, Travel] Savannah Views

[Baseball, Sports] Baseball Been Berry Berry Good

[Savannah, Travel] Savannah Views

It's been a long time since I wrote about travel.  20 years back I was constantly in motion.  Not a month would pass when I didn't take off to a new destination.  I also had the self-indulgent ability to write a novella length travel report about an overnight stay in a cheap hotel in some cowtown somewhere. 

Of course, back then I had a condo with a tiny payment and no attachments of any sort.  Then came the house, which sucked a good deal of money away -- not just on purchase but incredibly more than I expected in ongoing maintenance -- along with taking up a lot of my time. Then of course, I found myself in a long-term, long distance relationship which involved buying a second house and pretty much precluded me from spontaneous solo travel.  

So now my travel tends to focus on three spots.  In-State trips summer-y locales, especially Mackinac Island.  (Did you know Mackinac Island was voted Best Island in the Continental U.S. by Travel + Leisure magazine?  Thanks to my previous travels, I have known this for years.)  Florida to visit my brother.  And formerly Houston, but now Savannah to visit the GF.  I am a train and my tracks only run to those three spots.

But that's not bad.  Savannah is a place I was visiting long before my current connections.  I once even brought my sainted late mother there as an 80th birthday gift.  As I look back on that trip report, I wonder if I can still write with the level of guile I did 17 years ago.

Northwest flights to Savannah are on small planes operated by those two-bit, third-rate, fourth-class outfits - Mesa Airlines, Mesaba Airlines, Canadair, Assclown Airlines; I never figured out exactly which one - that seem to exist solely to employ angry, dull-normal cretins who pissed off one too many customers at Burger King.

I had reserved an aisle seat (like always) but I thought I might check at the gate if an exit row was available. The attendant was a battleaxe of a woman who was muttering hostile missives and wondering aloud why "...they blame me for everything. It's not my fault if Northwest overbooks." I gave her my best ingratiating smile as I approached. In return she glared through two-inch thick lenses, thinned her lips to taut ribbons, and tossed me the kind of look that Tony Soprano reserves for someone who is late on a payment. 

In my defense, that passage is probably offensive to some number of disadvantaged demographics; battleaxes and dull-normal cretins to name two.  Even quoting it might get me kicked off Blogger. 

But we were talking about Savannah.  You would be hard pressed to find a city in the U.S. more dedicated to its own history.  The locally powerful Savannah Historic Preservation Commission ensures that it remains that way.  Wandering the historic district with its period correct restored homes and pedestrian squares with old growth trees for shade would be Nirvana for anyone who's ever wanted a trophy home.  If you are someone with dreams of home restoration and lording your authenticity over your friends and their McMansions, Savannah is for you.  (Me, I dream of a one room beach shack.)

From the tourist point of view, the Historic District and its party-time waterfront are what Savannah is all about.  SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design, plays an interesting role here also.  Claiming the historic district as its campus, SCAD punches above its weight as an influence in the area.  The students are intertwined with the district in many ways beyond the artistic events and atmosphere.  In any restaurant your server is likely to be a current or ex- SCAD student.  For me, this gives the area of Savannah the feel of the city I know best  --  Ann Arbor.  The Historic District also doubles as a college town.

The house I own down there is not in the Historic District.  It's in a very nice middle-class suburban area.  This has given me a chance to get the pulse of the city for day-to-day life, although I admit I have just scratched the surface.  Some observations:

• If I read my regions correctly, Savannah is the southern tip of what is called "The Low Country".  Basically the sea level bayous that run from Savannah up to roughly Charleston SC.  Even well away from the coast, every neighborhood has its riverway or wetlands.  There is nary a hill to be found.  The southern gothic image of gnarled tree limbs and moss covered vines in the dusk can be viewed just about every night.  There is a regional beauty to it, and it photographs very well.

• It is as hot and humid as advertised.  Wow. 

• Like much of Georgia, Savannah is working hard to accommodate the film industry.  In Savannah's case, you get the bonus of the Historic District as a backdrop.  10 movies filmed in Savannah.

• The city's economic base is pretty solid.  Manufacturing and the Port of Savannah are big employers, giving it a blue collar feel in many places.  One of my neighbors down there is a longshoreman.  In contrast to, again, Ann Arbor, where the closest thing to blue collar work is leading classes at Orange Theory.

• Drivers are bad.  Significantly worse than in Michigan.  It is decidedly not bike friendly.

• You rarely encounter an actual Southern accent.  I believe that is pretty true of any sizable city in the South these days.  Kinda regrettable.

• I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Tybee Island.  Savannah is about 20-25 miles inland along the Savannah river from the Atlantic Ocean.  Tybee Island is right at the mouth of the Savannah River and, thus, is essentially the beach town for Savannah.  It's easy to access and it's really nice to be able to have a beach day on the spur of the moment.  As beach towns go, I'd place it above Galveston (as would my peeps from Houston, and they would know) and most Jersey beaches, but below Hilton Head and the best beaches in Florida.  It is about on par with an average Michigan beach town.  Nice little bonus.  

I'm sure I'll develop more understanding as the time passes.  For now, I still don't think I would want to settle permanently in Savannah.  I may feel differently about it as I gain experience and maybe spend some time there when it's cold up north.  I like Savannah.  Great place to visit. I'm just not sure living there is for me.  As much as I make fun of the Ann Arbor area, the upper-middle class trappings are part of my life now.  Savannah is not there yet, but gentrification may work its magic in time.

A visit to Savannah barely counts as travel for me anymore.  But the last trip offered the opportunity to visit points south.  As I mentioned, to the north lies the "Low Country".  To the south lie the Golden Isles.  These include Jekyll, St. Simons, Little St. Simons, and Sea Island.  Although we just visited for a day trip, I'm going out on a limb and declare these islands underrated as destinations.

Of these Jekyll Island is the most interesting. Jekyll started as a getaway for the fabulously wealthy of old -- meaning Rockafellers, Morgans, and the like.  They created the Jekyll Island Club where they built lavish mansions and would spend their winters hunting and socializing and generally engaging in revelry.  Although their houses were quite large, they maintained a summer camp sort of atmosphere by having a communal kitchen.  As you can imagine, this was not a serve-yourself establishment.  Dinners would go long into the night presumably with folks wandering in and out as suited them.  All the houses had lawns and wrap-around porches for entertaining.  It really must have been quite a time.  All this was built and utilized for maybe 3 months out of the year.

It all fell apart in WW2.  Deprivations kind of killed the mood and things fell into disrepair.  In time the great state of Georgia decided to take over the whole island, paying the owners a significantly below market rate for the taking.  The intention was to turn it into a State park, but it became clear that was too costly for the State, so they formed the Jekyll Island Authority, and charged them with running the island as a financially self-sustaining concern. They have done exactly that.

It costs $8 to get on the island and it's totally worth it.  The Jekyll Island Club still exists, although only as a luxurious inn.  The mansions, old buildings, and grounds of the club are delightful for wandering about.  Tours are offered of course.  Either on the grounds or adjacent to it is the Sea Turtle center where they do God's work keeping the sea turtle population healthy.  All of that is on the river side of the island.  The ocean side is populated with some nice hotels and bars of the Hilton/Marriott variety.  I gather it is a regional convention destination owing much to being pretty much right on the beach.

The beach, as all Georgia beaches, is just fine with a nice long sloping entry into the ocean. There is nothing wrong with it, but I am a spoiled Florida beach snob so…  The northern part of the island is pretty much unpopulated and left wild.    

If you are nearby, say a couple hours away in Savannah, Jekyll is a great day trip. In fact it compares very well to any number of vastly better known beach towns for weekend escape.  I do intend to spend a weekend here for just that reason in the near future.

The other islands (St. Simons, Little St. Simons, Sea) are tightly grouped together and are a more traditional wealthy getaway -- kind of a Hilton Head Lite.  On St. Simons there is a commercial center of a street filled with shops and restaurants leading into the main beach.  Little St. Simons is given over to wilderness and a pricey lodge.  Sea Island is also mostly natural, and given over to The Cloisters, a resort of legendary luxury and four figure per night prices. (I know, I had delusions of actually staying there.)  Neither of these places will let you near without being a registered guest.  Whether it's robber barons or nouveau riche, it seems the wealthy will find a way to escape to these Golden Isles of Georgia.

In any event, it was good to visit somewhere new. Even if it was just a day trip, it felt like actual travel. And it must have been since I just wrote a couple thousand words about it.  I hope, when retirement comes, to be able to write things like this as frequently as I used to.

[Baseball, Sports] Baseball Been Berry Berry Good

My attention to baseball has waxed and waned over the years and I haven't picked up a bat or a glove for decades, but I find it quite comforting that baseball keeps plowing forward, evolving, and every now and then grabs my attention again.

There were some truly great performances this season.  I am writing this the day after Aaron Judge hit his 62nd home run, passing Roger Maris for the most home runs by a player without a bloodstream full of anabolic steroids.   He is also very close to winning the triple crown, something that happens maybe once a decade.  Surely one of the greatest seasons in history. Oddly - or perhaps not - there hasn't been the fanfare there was for the record breaking steroid monsters back before the turn of the century.  Perhaps a reaction to it not being officially a new record (although it is an American League record), or perhaps a cynical public is waiting for the steroid shoe to drop.  I don't think it will.  Aaron Judge is a sizable dude, but he doesn't wear the hallmark bloated head and popeye torso of the steroid goons.  Oh and also:  Ruth (60), Maris (61), Judge (62) -- all Yankees.  Why?  Deserves analysis by some stat geek doesn't it? 

The other Ruth-ian performance this year came from Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani is really the first legitimate two way player (pitcher plus something else on non-pitching days) since the years when Ruth was a pitcher for Boston.  Ruth was a first class pitcher and could swing a bat better than just about anyone.  Ohtani is the inverse, an elite pitcher who is also a solid designated hitter on his non-pitching days.  Ohtani came over to the Angels from Japan after a few successful years with the Nippon Ham Fighters (why would anyone want to fight a ham?).  A Japanese import, playing two ways as designated hitter in the National League.  A unique thing that only contemporary baseball could produce.

A surprise feel-good story late in the season was Albert Pujols chasing his 700th home run.  In his prime with the Cardinals he was the best in the game.  He got traded to the Angels and immediately dropped off to be a good, steady, but rapidly aging, hitter.  Still he kept accumulating home runs.  He got sentimentally traded back to the Cardinals for his final season and started pounding the ball and lifted his total to 703, right behind Hank Arron and Babe Ruth for the non-steroidal #3 position (4th overall).  Great story.  I love it when old guys make one last stand.

Performances aside, the evolution of the game and its presentation has been fascinating to me, even if I disagree with most of the changes.  A number of TV outlets are providing advanced stats live, which I can easily geek out for.  ESPN keeps a running list of what pitches are thrown and at what speed as the at-bat progresses.  

There have been attempts to speed up the game. Once you reach extra innings you start the top and bottom of each inning with a runner at second, hopefully making extra-inning games less interminable.  Also, you can now intentionally walk a batter by just signaling to the ump rather than go through the motions of throwing four balls way outside.  Again, an attempt to save a few seconds. Evidence suggests these have been useless in speeding things along.  

This year, there is also the option of using something called PitchCom.  The catcher wears a device on his wrist with a series of buttons which transmit the pitch call to the pitcher via a speaker in his hat.  This is almost certainly a reaction to the Astros sign stealing scandal of a few years back.

All of these, especially PitchCom seem kind of gimmicky.  I understand the intent, but all of these just remove a human aspect of the game.  You no longer have to work to get a runner in scoring position.  You no longer have to worry about a passed ball on a pitch out.  You no longer have to be clever about hiding your signals.  Unlike, replay which is  an attempt to get things right, these just reduce the random variables in the game without any real payoff.  Games still average over 3 hours.  I could do without all of these and kind of hope they go away, but I admit they've been interesting.

Another development in recent years is something called "The Shift" where teams will make drastic changes in the positioning of the fielders based on the proclivity of the hitter. For instance, for a left-handed hitter who constantly pulls the ball a team will position the third baseman halfway between second and third -- roughly where the shortstop usually plays, the shortstop well to the first base side of second, the second baseman between the shortstop and the first baseman -- probably well back into the outfield, and the first baseman right on the line.  It turns out the idea that the batter can cleverly control where he hits the ball is probably false.  For the most part, if you have a tendency to hit the ball a certain way, trying to change that just makes you a worse hitter.  As a batter, Where you will hit the ball is highly predictable.  As a result, The Shift has been enormously successful.  So successful at reducing overall offense (despite the individual performances above) that MLB has banned it starting next year.  Again, I think it's the wrong decision.  If batters don't want to face a shift, they should learn to hit to all fields. Killing The Shift may boost offense, but it will make things a little less interesting for a fan like me.

Back to the duration of games, I'd be remiss if I didn't point to The Savannah Bananas, the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball.  Their games move like lighting because they live by their own rules:

1.) Every inning counts. The team that scores the most runs in an inning gets a point. The first team to five points wins.

2.) A time limit of two hours. No inning starts after the game gets to be two hours old. There’s a tiebreaker format if a game is tied when the limit is up (see below.)

3.) No stepping out of the batter’s box. If a batter steps away from the box at any point, it’s a strike.

4.) No bunting.

5.) Batters can steal first. If there’s a wild pitch or a passed ball during any pitch of an at-bat, the batter can go to first.

6.) No walks. If a pitcher throws a fourth ball, the batter takes off toward first base in a sprint. The catcher then has to throw the ball around to every defensive player on the field before it becomes live. The hitter is allowed to advance to as many bases as possible before the ball becomes live. The ball doesn’t have to touch the pitcher or catcher.

7.) A one-on-one showdown tiebreaker. If a game is tied when the time is up, each team picks a pitcher and a hitter to face off, with the defensive team only having a catcher and pitcher in the field. If a hitter puts it in play, he has to make it home to get a point before the pitcher gets the ball and throws it to the catcher. If a pitcher gets a strikeout or throws the runner out before scoring, there’s no point for the hitting team. The first team to prevent the other from scoring wins.

8.) No mound visits from any coaches or players.

9.) If a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out. Bring your glove!

Sounds crazy right?  But good luck getting a ticket to one of their games.  I would not want MLB to adopt these rules verbatim, but if they could do something about hitters stepping out of the box or pitchers wandering aimless around between pitches, they could probably cut a half hour of run time on average.

The last thing that I have enjoyed this year is the discovery of Jomboy media on youtube.  They provide highlights and commentary for many sports but mostly baseball and do a great job of digging deep into events, lip reading, and comic observations.  Probably not for the kids, but better than looking for highlights on ESPN.

I'm looking forward to spending some time following the playoffs.  Things are getting interesting.