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It’s football season again, a sport I know nothing about. The game has been described as a healthier alternative to war, and that does make sense to me. Why else would guys violently bang their heads and bodies together over a piece of pigskin?

One thing about football does intrigue me. Why does our neighboring state of Minnesota have a football team with the absurd name of the Golden Gophers? The mascot of the University team is Goldy Gopher. Not many people would rate gophers as macho, charismatic animals. So I did some digging (pun intended) and dug up the origin of this funny moniker.

The nickname for the entire state of Minnesota is “The Gopher State”. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, this came about because of a railroad and a political cartoon. In 1857, the United States government granted land to Minnesota for the purpose of building a railroad. The state had to supply the money for the train itself. Proponents of the train lobbied the state legislature to amend the state constitution to allow the state to issue $5,000,000 in bonds to construct the railroad. Opponents of the train produced a political cartoon of a train car filled with bond holders being pulled by gophers who had the heads of legislators. Each gopher had a heavy $10,000 bag of money around its neck, an obvious reference to digging for cash. The train was built, and shortly after the phrase “Gopher State” was coined and made the official state nickname.

The University of Minnesota got the Golden Gopher name because of a radio announcer. In the 1930s, the football team announced new uniforms featuring gold colored jerseys and pants. At the first game in their new attire, announcer Halsey Hall referred to the team as the “Golden Gophers.” The name stuck. There is not now, nor has there ever been a real animal named a golden gopher.

And this narrative gets even sillier. The Goldy Gopher mascot is not really a gopher. The artwork was based on a thirteen striped ground squirrel, a separate animal from a gopher. Its stripes are the giveaway. Real gophers don’t have stripes. For the record, Minnesota does have real pocket gophers as well as thirteen striped ground squirrels.

I must also note that gopher mascots have invaded the famous Minnesota State Fair. Their names are Fairborne and Fairchild.

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Every morning, without fail, my husband takes two brimming buckets of sunflower seeds and one of corn out to the Tooley Cafe, our on-site animal restaurant. The bird feeders get filled, the deer table replenished and a small, low table for the ground feeders is heaped to overflowing. All diners at our Cafe have food security.

In return, we are provided with endless entertainment as we watch the action from our kitchen table. Lately, the chipmunks have been racing like crazy, chasing each other like a bunch of pent up kindergartners let loose on a playground. They run each other off the seed table somehow knowing that soon they will be underground in their burrows for long, winter naps. It’s time to stuff themselves.

Since we have been watching and enjoying the chipmunks for many years, we assumed we had garnered a great deal of knowledge about chipmunk behavior. That delusion ended last week. I walked in the door and my husband said to me, “I can’t wait to show you this video I took when I looked out the kitchen window over the sink.” The view is of our 9 to 11 foot high cup plants which have gone to seed.

Apparently, the treats in the Cafe needed to be supplemented. Who knew that chipmunks could live the high life? We thought that was only for their cousins, the squirrels.

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One of the most popular words at this American moment is “mindfulness”. In classrooms, yoga sessions and self-help books, the benefits of calm, thoughtful, focused thinking are being promoted. (Note: I am an advocate of rational thinking).

At the same American moment, it appears as though a large number of our citizens have lost their minds. To them, lies are truth, science is fantasy and hatred is a patriotic value. In other words, a mindless movement is afoot. The Wall Street Journal recently referred to our times as “The Golden Age of Brainlessness”.

These wide contradictions are mind-boggling. The mindfulness people are thinking each moment on how to be kind to everyone and everything. They feel guilt if the steps they take, the food they eat and the words they say are not purposeful. The mindless ones are working hard to negate everything but themselves. It’s yin and yang; polarization on steroids.

This craziness should not come as a total surprise. Americans are known for taking everything to extremes…extreme sports, extreme size houses, extreme consumption and now, extreme thinking.

The million dollar question is how do we get this madness to stop and bring the country together again. Our brains have gotten us in a lot of trouble. Perhaps it is time to turn off our busy minds for a while each day and turn on our eyes. Nature heals. Watching the sunset every day, walking in parks and woods, observing backyard wildlife, noting the turn of the seasons might be the therapy we need. Doing nothing is greatly underrated.

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Once again, as summer fades into fall, I have to get into cheerleader mode. I’m not cheering on any sports teams. I’m rooting for an entire season. My husband is emphatically not a fan of fall.

Summer is my favorite season as well, but I can’t be a hater of its successor. The other half of our household has no difficulty taking that stance. To him, every one of those brilliantly colored leaves is a warning signal that six months of winter lies ahead.

I’ll be tackling my “cheers for fall” campaign on several fronts. The first will be road trips. I’ll suggest heading south. This has two-fold benefits: I will get to see the fall foliage as we leave here, and he will get to return to the lingering days of summer as we go down the map.

Next, I will cook up large servings of fall foods. Squash soup, ratatouille, pumpkin bread and apple cake are guaranteed to deliver happiness and a fondness for the season that brings harvests.

I will also suggest that we search for the most beautiful fall tree of all. This is, of course, totally impossible. For each blazing sugar maple we find, there’s always a more spectacular one just down the road or over the next hill. But this is a wonderful distraction from thinking about the winter ahead.

And, finally, I intend to turn on the furnace or fireplace at the first hint of those chilly nights. Plus, I will be having a conversation with our cat herd about the necessity of more cuddling up with my guy. It’s always a good move to keep a fall curmudgeon as warm as possible.

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The man who put a rainbow in my kitchen cupboard died last month. His name was Alan Heller, a manufacturer of high quality, iconic plastic housewares and furniture.

Mr.Heller was born in New York in 1940. Rainbows ran in his family. His father manufactured aluminum housewares, most notably rainbow-colored, stacking tumblers, a staple of midcentury design. ( We have these in our cupboard as well.)

The dinnerware that made Alan Heller famous was not his design. The cleverly stacking dishes were created by Massimo Vignelli, an award winning Italian designer. After seeing the Vignelli dinnerware at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in New York, Mr. Heller convinced the design team of Massimo and Lella Vignelli to let him manufacture a slightly altered version for the American market. Because Americans do not start the day with a few sips of espresso, a large mug with a “waterfall handle” joined the stacking plates and bowls. Plus, the Vignellis did not think in technicolor. The brilliant hues were entirely Heller’s innovation.

The dishes were an instant success; high design married to quality manufacturing…and they were affordable. Our plates are fifty years old, well used and looking brand new.

And then there is the goose. Anyone who lived through the 70s and 80s probably remembers Gladys. She was a life-sized plastic goose that lighted up, a creation of Alan Heller who was known for his sense of humor. Our little girl had a Gladys lamp which stayed with her for many years.

In today’s world, the word “plastic” is most often associated with the words “cheap”, “disposable” and “unenvironmental”. But fifty years ago, Alan Heller proved that plastic, properly manufactured, could have both style and durability. His plastic products do not end up in landfills. They are passed down in families or are sold as midcentury treasures in antique stores.

Massimo Vignelli, stated, “If you do it right, it will last forever”. His lifelong friend, Alan Heller, proved him right.

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