T. Buckingham Thomas Archive 2024 October

In olden times — specifically 1909 in New Haven, Connecticut — Cole Porter enrolled at Yale. Some 25 years later, he wrote Anything Goes. In that musical, a comic character called Moonface Martin tries to stop the action by shouting, “Hang on! I'm saying my prayers!”

Don't be fooled by the clerical collar. Moonface is a gangster, “Public Enemy Number 13,” and he's less familiar with the Gospel of Matthew than with Amos 'n' Andy. He prays:

At home, my cell phone is usually powered off. Incoming calls get forwarded to the answering function on my landline phone. Usually when that phone rings, a telemarketer hangs up without leaving a message, and I can ignore it.

The phone didn't ring for a couple of days. Then when I wanted to make an outgoing call, the display said NO LINE. Sure enough, there was no dial tone.

So I powered up my cell phone and called Verizon to report the problem. An automated voice asked me a number of questions and listened to my spoken answers. Then another voice asked me some more questions. Eventually I was scheduled for a service visit between 9:00 and 5:00 two days later.

But then the next morning the landline phone rang with an automated message that my prescription at Rite Aid was ready. The telephone proved to be back to normal! I assume there had been a glitch at Master Control. I called up Verizon's reminder text and replied “fixed,” and a return text thanked me and noted that the service visit was canceled.

Afterwards I pondered the fact that it felt as though I had conversed with two helpful customer representatives and a pharmacist and a service technician who collectively solved everything over a period of two days. Yet in fact I had spoken to no one. Only robots. This modern world is still amazing to a 77-year-old like me.

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “eke out a living.” Eke, pronounced “eek,” is a verb that means “to achieve with difficulty.”

There was once a different English word also spelled eke, except it was an adverb and was pronounced “ache.” Like the German auch, this eke meant “also.” William Shakespeare sometimes used it. Geoffrey Chaucer eke employed it two centuries earlier:

Mickey Rooney’s passing earlier this year prompted me to watch his 1935 appearance in the film of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Comic actor Joe E. Brown eke was in the movie, playing the character called Flute. In Act III, he had a punning line describing the young Pyramus: “most brisky jew-venile and eke most lovely Jew.”

“And eke”? There are alternative possibilities like “and also” or “and at the same time” or “as well as.” However, those would not have fit the iambic meter, so Shakespeare chose “and eke” though the word had already begun to fade into obsolescence. (He also spelled the preceding word “juvenal.”)

But Joe E. Brown must not have been familiar with Middle English vocabulary. He knew not eke (“ache”), but only eke (“eek”) as in “Eek! A mouse!” The actor raised his pitch and squeaked the word as “eek!” The meaning seemed to be “most animated juvenile and — horrors! — most lovely Jew.” I cringed slightly.

Welp, this week is a scary one. We might call it Halloweek. Many will be cringing and shrieking “Eek!” in the Flutish sense, even in Pittsburgh.

Way back in the haunted Victorian era, just three miles down the Allegheny River from where I live now, the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company opened its first factory in 1883 on the sandy banks of Creighton, Pennsylvania.

Their name eventually shriveled to PPG, while their product line swelled to include Pittsburgh Paints.

In 1983 the hundred-year-old manufacturer moved to a new corporate headquarters (right), a complex of buildings in downtown Pittsburgh designed by famed architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee. The office towers are sheathed in PPG glass, of course. A plaza in the center features a 44-foot pink granite obelisk.

From eye level, one’s gaze is drawn to the ominous black balls at the base of the “monument” (above). They inspired local columnist Peter Leo to dub it, unofficially, the Tomb of the Unknown Bowler.

Also in PPG Place until three weeks ago, looming over visitors were two huge dancers modeled after a Renoir painting (right).

And in season, a 60-foot Christmas tree will conceal the Tomb and will be surrounded by a skating rink.

But the really imposing part of the complex is the 40-story office tower (below). During a recent full moon, photographer Dave DiCello captured Pittsburgh’s creepy castle with its spooky glass spires.

OCTOBER 25, 2024 AUTUMN LEAVES

In 1855 Walt Whitman first published a collection of a dozen poems, modestly called Leaves of Grass.

I always wondered about that title. Come on, Walt; grass doesn't have “leaves,” it has “blades.” But whatever they're called, each sprig has its own distinct beauty, and together they represent the great lawn of democracy. A more mundane explanation: in those days “grass” was a term for a literary work of minor value, and of course “leaves” are pages of a book.

Yesterday, looking closely at the section of my apartment's yard that turns brown in the winter, I saw that the leaves of grass were changing color! Backlit by the afternoon sun, some of them were glowing gold.

That's just what leaves ought to be doing in October.

With the World Series moving to San Francisco tonight, I’m reminded of my first game at AT&T Park eight years ago.

It was lunchtime for the Pittsburgh Pirates TV crew, a couple of hours before the first pitch. I hadn’t yet visited the press dining area, somewhere under the stands behind home plate, so our director Jeff Mitchell offered to show me the way.

Starting from way out in left field at the TV truck compound (circled), we could have reached home plate via the passageway under the stands. But Mitch decided to take the shorter scenic route through the ballpark itself, walking down the warning track that parallels the left field foul line.

We didn’t realize a couple of Giants pitchers were throwing in the bullpen (red arrows). And the stadium’s designers had located the bullpens on the warning track, squeezed between the foul line and the stands, so they would be close to the fans. That's a throwback to Wrigley Field's arrangment, for example.

We had to follow the yellow arrow, negotiating the narrow space between the flying baseballs and the rolled-up rain tarp. Have you ever been that close to major-league pitches? I could hear them sizzle as they hissed past me at 90 mph, barely six feet from my left ear.

If this ever happens again, I’m wearing a helmet.

CALIFORNIA WARNING TRACK UPDATE, OCTOBER 2024:

The A's (originally the Philadelphia Athletics, 1901-1954) were playing in Kansas City by the time I started following baseball. In 1968 they moved farther west to Oakland. But now, 57 seasons later, they're relocating again. The next “permanent” home of the A's will be in Las Vegas.

However, their new Vegas stadium hasn't been built yet. It was only this month that the Tropicana Hotel was imploded to make room for it. Therefore, for at least the next three years, the team will play in West Sacramento.

Sacramento's minor-league stadium needs to be upgraded to major-league standards. One change is the addition of a new air-conditioned clubhouse, accessed by a new door (indicated by the yellow X) down the left-field line.

To travel between the dugout and the clubhouse, the A's will have to trudge along the warning track. The average high temperature in the three weeks ending July 12 was 104°. Next season's players will not be happy.

OCTOBER 22, 2024
LIGHT 6,027 CANDLES

This afternoon the world celebrates another birthday.

That's according to the Biblical calculations of Anglican bishop James Ussher, who wrote in 1650, “I deduce that the time from the Creation until midnight, January 1, 1 AD was 4003 years, seventy days and six hours.”

Seventy days before New Year's would be midnight tonight, and six hours before that would be 6 pm London time or 1 pm Pittsburgh time. So today the universe attains the age of 6,027 years.

“At least that was the theory, when bishops' books resolved the world,” writes Wallace Stevens. “We cannot go back to that.”

Those who get their facts from more reliable sources have concluded that the universe is more than two million times older than the Bible would lead us to believe. In particular, in the Victorian era Charles Darwin deduced the fact of evolution. Edward Dolnick has written that Victorians were reluctant to give up humans' central, divinely created place in the scheme of things. But the truth grew “harder and harder to ignore.”

As a freshman in college, some of my classes met at 8:00 AM, an hour dreaded by many fellow students. However, I felt the need to get up even earlier than necessary to prepare. Not wanting to bother my roommate during the predawn hours, I went down to the basement of Burton Hall to do my studying.

Nowadays in retirement, I've resumed that routine. I've connected my lights to a timer that creates an artificial sunrise at 4:30 AM. I get up and do a little walking around the apartment, then sit down at the computer to tend to creative tasks. In the evening, I recline in front of the television at 6:00 PM and soon doze off for First Sleep, well before “lights out” courtesy of the timer at 9:00 PM. After midnight, I'll arise briefly to update the calendar and take my daily medications before settling in again for Second Sleep. (In “The Squire's Tale,” Geoffrey Chaucer wrote of a king's daughter who “slepte hir firste sleepe, and thanne awook.”)

Such habits might seem odd. But I'm not the only one. Aristotle wrote that “rising before daylight ... is a healthy habit, and gives more time for the management of the household as well as for liberal studies.” Then in the evening it's sensible to retire once darkness has fallen. And older adults tend to sleep more lightly and a little earlier than they used to.

University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders says an 8:00 PM kickoff time is the “dumbest thing ever” and “the stupidest thing ever invented in life.” “Who wants to stay up till eight o'clock for a dern game?”

It's a pet peeve for Sanders, writes Brent Schrotenboer in USA Today. “8:15 PM is normally when he might go to bed. His Buffaloes previously played three games on Fox that started at 10:00 AM local time (noon ET); those games were favored by many players and much more in tune with Sanders' personal early-bird work schedule which includes rising before dawn.”

The local morning radio hosts must also rise before dawn, and they have similar feelings. They've been grumbling all this week about tomorrow night's Jets at Steelers 8:20 PM kickoff. That's after their bedtime and the bedtimes of many of my fellow septuagenarians who will be there, including the Steeler veterans being honored for winning the Super Bowl 50 years ago.

On this date 420 years ago, England's King James (of Bible fame) noted that a recently discovered American drug was originally used only by “the better sort” — “persons of good calling and quality” who could afford it — and only as an alternative medicine.

Now tobacco was being “excessively taken by a number of riotous and disordered persons of mean and base condition.”

The king was on record as opposing the addictive fad, which was “a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”

Therefore, to discourage the recreational use of this awful drug, he raised the tobacco tariff. Effective as of October 26, 1604, the import duty would be the present-day equivalent of $137 per pound, 40 times what it had been.

A pound of tobacco can fill roughly 200 pipes. Merchants would of course pass the tariff cost on to consumers, to whom it would mean an additional 70 cents per pipeful.

A newspaper could print those tragic headlines every day. Those are the average daily U.S. gun violence statistics, according to this from Tom Begnal.

That’s a major reason I don’t share some people’s love of firearms. Another reason: I’ve watched nature documentaries on TV. They celebrate the lives of the wildlife with which we share the planet.

On one, an English barn swallow literally feathers its nest. There are ducks in the barnyard, and occasionally a downy white feather is shed and the breeze carries it off. In slow motion, we watch a swallow fly toward the feather floating in the sunshine, grab it in its beak, take it to its home in the rafters of the barn, and drop it into the nest. So charming.

Or we’ve all seen scenes of bear cubs playing with each other. Their mother comes by and starts to teach them how to catch fish. So cute.

Once, changing channels, I came across a scene of an adult bear standing up leaning against a tree, scratching his back. Aaah, that feels good. The bear relaxes, contented. Suddenly, BANG! The defenseless animal flinches, stumbles, falls to the ground, and dies. We cut to two hunters with their rifles and sniper scopes, congratulating each other on the ambush murder they’ve just committed. So disgusting.

For me, several recent days were occupied with medical matters, starting on Tuesday with my annual immunizations to forestall COVID-19 and the flu. The next morning I fasted so I could have a routine blood draw at the request of four different physicians.

Afterwards, no longer having to think about those chores, I ate a hearty breakfast. It was a good cool day for sleeping, so before long I was blissfully unconscious under a blanket.

But my test results soon appeared via an application called MyChart, so I was not finished. On Thursday I spent 45 minutes updating a giant two-page spreadsheet where I can compare my numbers over the past few years. I entered the latest 48 parameters. Of course, I don't know what most of them imply, but I see nothing surprising. I'll get a second opinion next week at my semi-annual visit with my primary care physician.

• In sports, specifically college football, there was a headline a few days ago on The Athletic: “Does the Vanderbilt-Bama upset even matter?”

Of course it matters, to Alabama and especially to Vanderbilt. But to ask the question is to presume that the only outcome which really matters is the eventual national championship.

Baseball sportswriters have long had a similar fixation. We need more to discuss besides the latest game, so let's look at the standings. Who's leading the league? We need even more, so let's speculate on future trades. And lately the same attitude infected NASCAR, where during an April race the announcers feel compelled to discuss how the results could affect who'll make the all-important postseason playoffs in September.

• The WNBA Finals opened on Thursday with a thrilling 95-93 overtime win by the four-time champion Minnesota Lynx over the New York Liberty. Game 2 will be played tomorrow afternoon.

I confess I haven't really been paying attention to women's basketball. From a decade ago when I was working on telecasts of women's college games, I recall scenes of flailing futility as seen here: half a dozen players crowding beneath the backboard, arms raised, slapping at the basketball to no avail.

Nowadays what I see is greatly improved. The women are much better shooters, and they can really play.

Ages ago, CBS News introduced a series called 60 Minutes, anchored by Harry Reasoner and Mike Wallace. They needed a graphic design.

The program was described as a “news magazine”: three separate mini-documentaries within a single hour. Therefore, the background simulated a printed news magazine like Time. (The dark border around Harry’s head resulted from the primitive blue-screen Chromakey technique of the time.) And to symbolize the passing of those 60 minutes, they added a ticking stopwatch. The larger hand circled the dial once in a minute, the smaller hand once in 60.

Later, as a manager of our high school track team, I used one of the school’s stopwatches to help time races. Once I even pretended to start a 220-yard dash by firing a pistol; the photo below was posed for the yearbook. In a real race, at the finish line there would have been as many as eight stopwatches operated by volunteer timers (some with a watch in each hand). Some tracks had a little portable staircase to nowhere. They placed it next to the finish line, so all the stopwatch operators and judges could gather there and have a perfect viewpoint angle.

The timers would fix their attention on the starter's pistol, watch for the puff of smoke, and start their watches simultaneously in what Coach Frank Zirbel described as “one big click.” The sound of the gunshot wouldn't arrive until nearly half a second later.

A standard stopwatch could resolve times only to the nearest fifth of a second, because 300 hashmarks were about the most that would fit around the circumference of the dial. The times of horse races were measured this way. Secretariat won the 1973 Kentucky Derby in a record time of 1 minute 59 2/5 seconds.

But in track and field, we needed to measure time to the nearest tenth of a second, so we used a special double-speed stopwatch whose hand circled the dial twice a minute. Now the 300 hashmarks divided 30 seconds into tenths. The red colors denoted Part Two of each rotation, so we could tell 32.7 seconds from 2.7 seconds.

We added one of these unique German models to our collection. It looked very cool in operation, because the “hand” for tenths of a second at the bottom of the watch was actually Y-shaped. It flew across its window once a second.

Five years out of high school, during my brief stint as a graduate student on WAER in Syracuse, I experimented with using a stopwatch to become a smoother disk jockey.

Announcers often talked over the introductory portion of a record, “back-timing” their comments to conclude just before the vocalist started to sing. Ken Levine posted this week, “8) As a former disc jockey, I still talk-up records in my car. Right up to the vocal. I’m a master at this. It’s maybe my greatest skill ... which is unfortunate since it’s also utterly useless. KHJ Boss Radio is not coming back anytime soon.” Someone named Yekimi commented, “Holy crap! I thought I was the only one that did [that. I only] get embarrassed when at a traffic light with my car windows down and someone pulls up alongside and looks at me like I'm a serial killer.”

To accomplish this trick, DJs need to know the songs rather well. I didn’t. So I used a stopwatch.

I’d start the record playing on an unused turntable and time the intro. For example, suppose it was an unusally long 45 seconds before the vocals kicked in. I then reset the stopwatch to a minute minus 45 seconds, or in this example 15 seconds.

When I actually played the record on the air, I’d start the turntable and the stopwatch simultaneously. I could then make my inane comments, maybe promoting the shows that would be on the air later that night, until just before the second hand reached the top of the dial. Then I’d shut up and turn the airwaves over to the singer.

That’s not me in the picture, by the way. Real radio DJs wear headphones.

During the 1970s, digital stopwatches began to appear. They’re smaller and easier to read, typically to a hundredth of a second. (But can you push the button that precisely?) Also, you don’t have to wind them, and you can more easily measure multiple events.

The old ticking analog stopwatches are obsolete nowadays, except on 60 Minutes.

The Pittsburgh newspaper once editorialized, “The Post-Gazette is not about to recommend a Yes or No vote on tomorrow's ballot questions. ...What we do endorse is an informed approach to the question, in which people do the math on how the new rates would affect the family pocketbook and then vote accordingly.”

My reaction, however, was this: “Good citizens should not cast their ballots selfishly. We shouldn't always base our decisions on what's best for our particular family. We ought to consider also what's best for the commonwealth in general.”

I recently read in the Richwood Gazette that an Ohio woman strongly objects to a county project to clean out a logjam on Mill Creek. Though it might benefit the overall public, it would not benefit her property. “The proposed improvements are not necessary for me as a land owner.”

On a larger scale, should our elected representatives enact whatever's preferred by the partisans in their half of the divided electorate? Or should they enact what they know is best for the people as a whole?

Four months ago in Doonesbury ... five months before the heated Presidential election that's now only one month away ... Garry Trudeau imagined a talk-radio host checking out a rumor.

“We're back and continuing our conversation with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. Mrs. Criswell, I understand FEMA is now pre-positioning temporary shelters in the nation's red states. What's going on?”

“Well, part of FEMA's mission is to prepare for and mitigate against man-made disasters. In the event that Trump loses the election, we need to be ready to set up reality re-entry camps.”

“We're concerned that millions of MAGA survivors will be wandering the country — unmoored, confused, and unable to make sense of post-cult life.”

“We'll be offering deprogramming services, slowly re-exposing them to actual facts.”

“But we'll be doing so as humanely as possible. These folks have been through a lot.”

Well, the Pirates have packed up and left Pittsburgh, because another regular season of baseball has ended. It's time for me to illustrate the Diamond Brick Road of wins and losses traveled in 2024 by our local team, the one with the second-lowest payroll in the majors.

No surprise; the black line depicts the Pirates' sixth straight losing season. Despite starting the year with five straight wins and later staying in the gold (above .500) for a couple of weeks in July-August, they ended with a 76-86 record, the same as last year.

Pittsburgh hasn't been in the postseason playoffs since 2015. Some fans are in despair. Mark Vidonic, my former colleague on the local broadcast crew, posted on Facebook: “The further removed I am from it being my occupation, now going on 15 years, the harder it's getting for me, as also a lifelong fan, to pretend things don't need to change from ownership on down. I'm just at the lowest point of tolerance I've ever been for this.”

However, 2024 attendance at the ballpark was 1,720,361. That's the largest in seven years! “Pirate fans keep buying the product,” wrote columnist Gene Collier, “but unfortunately the product is hope, not baseball, and that's a sin.”

You see, ownership's goal isn't to win games, let alone championships; it's to make a profit.

Of course, things could be worse. I can't resist displaying a more extreme example of a franchise that doesn't need wins to survive, so far at least: this year's Chicago White Sox. Their Diamond Brick Road is shown by the red line. It includes three separate losing streaks of at least a dozen consecutive games, making them the first team since 1900 with this dubious accomplishment. One 21-game streak dropped their record from 27-67 to 27-88 and put them on pace for 124 losses.

During the season, the Sox allowed 813 runs while scoring only 507. Winning only a quarter of their games, their final record was 41-121. That's the most losses in a season during Major League Baseball's modern era.