Past Blogs

A few evenings ago I spotted a bunch of guys standing on a bridge near my house. They were staring morosely into the river water below. Beerless beer coolers were at their sides.

Twelve years ago I saw a similar phenomenon on numerous bridges all around my new country house. I came home and reported to my husband what I suspected was a mass male suicide in progress.

My spouse just laughed and said one word, “Smelt.”

Now I’m a bit wiser about this spring occurrence. Smelt (pronounce that SHmelt) are a cigar sized or smaller fish that closely resemble members of the trout/salmon family. Native to North America’s Atlantic coast from New Jersey to Labrador, smelt are also found in some land-locked lakes in New England and eastern Canada. They were planted in Crystal Lake, Michigan, in 1912 and from there found their way to Lake Michigan and beyond.

Like salmon, lake-dwelling smelt go into tributary streams to spawn in early Spring. The fish spawn at night, and the lucky ones return to the lake by morning. According to the Michigan DNR, “Smelt, known best as a tasty batter-dipped, French fried morsel, is a seasonally sought after fish by anyone willing to wade a river and scoop them up with a large net… usually occurring during darkened evenings in early Spring in Great Lake Tributaries.”

Smelt have diminished since their heydays in the late 1970’s to mid-1980’s. Smelt fishermen, however, optimistically forecast a return to the glory days.

A smelting fishing ritual is to bite off the head of the first smelt caught. Although I applaud eating low on the food chain, I think I’ll pass on this tradition. (Click here and then scroll way down to view the ritual.)

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I recently decided to introduce my middle school students to the wonders of world class architecture.

They greeted my explanation of the upcoming project with an unparalleled display of ennui. I put a list of “starchitects” on the board and suggested a few trips to the school’s computer lab to do research. To this I added, “And you can write on anyone who has won the Pritzker Prize, the ‘Nobel’ prize of architecture,” named after Jay Pritzker of Chicago.

When the kids went to work in the lab, the mood changed dramatically. Fingers flashed over keyboards, exclamations of approval were expressed such as “These buildings look like Star Wars.”

Of course, one of the unending joys of teaching is that we, the teachers, get smarter. My first eye-opener occurred when one of the girls said to me, “Zaha Hadid is the only woman who has ever won the Pritzker.”

“Are you sure,” was my immediate reply. Then I went home and brought up the entire list of winners, 1979 to 2007. Sure enough, Ms. Hadid is the lone female.

The second surprise was the lack of one particular architect from the list. Santiago Calatrava has not won a Pritzker. Don’t his works epitomize the words on the prize medallion, “Firmness, Commodity and Delight”? Many students independently chose to report on Calatrava, and everyone finds “delight” in our winged Milwaukee Art Museum.

The class and I are in total agreement that a field trip to Malmö, Sweden, to check out Calatrava’s “Turning Torso” building would be terrific. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll be able to have enough bake sales to pull the trip off.

The 2008 Pritzker Prize has just been announced. Jean Nouvel, a French architect, is the winner. Perhaps a field trip to the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis should be considered. Click here to read the New York Times 2008 Pritzker article.

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Everyone here in the upper Midwest is yearning for any signs of spring no matter how small.

When I was a city dweller, the local custard stand was our harbinger of spring. The air could be frigid and the snow piled up in filthy heaps, but when the custard stand pulled up its windows for the season, joy was in our hearts.

Potholes of legendary size and strange objects (shopping carts, car mufflers, squashed traffic cones) sticking out of melting snowbanks were among our other urban spring indicators.

Living in the country now, I have a different set of markers. First on the list would be the appearance of the buckets. A grove of trees all sporting shiny buckets is a sure sign the sap is rising. Having neighbors who sugar off and share is a treat beyond compare.

The next best milestone occurs when our big rural mailbox out by the road survives two straight weeks without being mangled, disabled or flattened. The gigantic county snowplows eat mailboxes for lunch. Our box has spent hours this winter in the basement ER room being reconstructed.

The appearance of Lake Dennis is another portent of spring’s approach. The view from my kitchen window is a large field which has a low spot in the middle. Last year this ad hoc lake hosted a family of ducks. Might this year bring the installation of a pier and small boats?

Friends who are true naturalists tell me that hearing spring peepers is the vernal equinox made audible. Unfortunately, I can’t tell a spring peeper from a Virginia creeper. But I do know that the day I see Chippy scurrying under the bird feeders vacuuming up the fallen sunflower seeds is the day spring officially begins for me.

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St. Patrick’s Day is fast approaching, so it must be time for me to toast the Czech Republic.

I’ve often been chided about being a bohemian, but the truth is, I really am. My grandfather got off a boat from Czechoslovakia.

As much as I love the irresistible Irish, why do they get all the glory?

After presenting a program to a fifth grade class and referencing the Czech Republic, the classroom teacher asked me, “What’s that checkered thing you mentioned?”

In the interest of diversity, here are some Czech fundamentals. The Czech Republic is a small country in eastern Europe. The capitol, Prague, is one of the most beautiful cities in the world with a fairytale castle high on a hill in the center of town.

The country is famous for producing a curious list of products: firearms, puppets, the original pilsner beer and stunning hand blown glass.

The following incident gives insight into the collective Czech psyche. When Vaclav Havel, the dissident, poet and playwright, was President, his wife died. She was much loved by the Czech people. Havel remarried an actress who frequently popped up, sans clothes, in B movies on late night Czech TV. The Czechs were unfazed by this. But they couldn’t stand the second wife for a much more serious reason – she banished the first wife’s dog from the presidential palace.

The Czechs understand the meaning of irony. They went from Nazi control directly to a communist takeover and still managed to survive.

Don’t think I’m being overly nationalistic. If your ancestral country is as overlooked as mine – Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Moldova or Albania, for example – it’s time for you to take action. You’ll need your homeland to provide a serviceable saint and a functioning brewery or distillery. Then round up a bunch of friends and celebrate your origins. The Irish will be green – with envy.

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