Wednesday, 11/20

I tried, but I couldn't quite get it right.

My “Life in the 906” piece for this week dealt with change, prompted by two things—a comment made by someone who hadn't been back to Marquette in a decade--”I can't believe how much this place has changed”--and a picture I came across while looking for another shot.

Specifically, this picture--

That was taken off of the (now) Range Bank Parking deck back in 2008, showing a grassy piece of land in the foreground and a power plant in the background. That was going to be the “then” part of a then & now picture, showing just how much what was in the photo has changed. Only, it didn't work out like I thought--

I'm sure an ordinary person would look at the two and see the point I was trying to get across, but, as we all know, I'm anything but ordinary. I couldn't exactly match of the aspect ratio of the shot because the “then” picture was taken by a real camera with a long lens, while the “now” picture was taken with a phone camera. Plus, and I'm sure this is just me being picky, you can't see where the power plant no longer exists.

So I ended up not using either shot. The piece turned out okay, but one of its original inspirations—the 2008 shot—didn't get used. But, then, that's what these babbling are for, right?

8-)

Okay. I have more to say, but seeing as how it's my (it seems) primary purpose in life these days I have to go shoot yet another episode of “High School Bowl” in a few minutes, so we'll continue the conversation tomorrow, if you don't mind.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 11/19

Jim's Adventures in Celebrity, pt 2, or...I suppose that as far as reputations go, it’s not the worst one in the world to have,

No more than an hour after writing yesterday about how I'm apparently a “celebrity”, I walked into a convenience store and the first thing the young woman working behind the counter said to me was, and I quote, “You know everything, right”? Now as those of you who read this on a daily basis are well aware, no, I certainly DON’T know everything, yet I apparently know enough that people seem to think I do, which I guess is a bizarre side effect of my being a local “celebrity”. Anyway, the young lady proceeded to ask me a question that I actually knew the answer to, which, I guess, then further cemented my reputation, at least in her mind.

I’ve said this before and I know I’ll say it again—I, Jim Koski, do NOT know everything. Sure, when I was a teenager and my younger brother & sister were in grade school, they’d ask me something, I’d answer, they’d ask how I knew, and I’d reply with “I know everything”. And that even carried down to the next generation, when a decade or so ago when my niece Mallory brought in a friend to the station. She asked me a question about something, I answered, her friend asked how I knew, and Mallory just said “He knows everything”.

You think THAT’S how reputations get started?

Of course, that’s just in my family. How does the rest of the world get this warped idea that I know everything, especially when I don’t? Well, this is what I think (and, bear in mind, that I could be wrong, especially because I DON’T know everything)—I seem to have a weird talent. I seem to have this bizarre ability to talk about almost anything in the world for at least 30 seconds, and make it sound like I know what I’m talking about, before revealing to anyone around that I’m really just a massive fraud. But before those 30 seconds are up, some people seem convinced that I really am an expert on the subject.

Which, as both you and I know, is hardly ever the case.

It’s an ability that does come in handy on many occasions, be it on the old “Stump Jim Day” on movie trivia, or when asked a very bizarre and intricate question during one of my History Center walks. As long as you sound like you know what you’re talking about when you start out, I’ve found that people—people who know much more than you—will then provide enough new information on the subject to allow you to keep going, which then further leads people to believe that you know everything.

It’s a vicious circle, I tell ya.

Actually, I don’t think my ability is anything out of the ordinary. I think anyone who has a little natural curiosity and who does a little reading could develop it. I’ve always thought that knowing a little bit about a lot of subjects is better than knowing everything about only one subject; if nothing else, it makes you a much more well-rounded person.

And if you take it to an extreme, or happen to be a “celebrity” where you have a chance to show off the ability, you start to develop a reputation, a reputation that ends with you walking into a convenience store and hearing those fateful words—

“You know everything, right”?

(jim@wmqt.com), who actually knows so little about everything that it’s frightful.

Monday, 11/18

I'm still not totally comfortable with it, but at least I now understand it.

Since we last spoke I've had a couple of encounters with people that have stuck in my mind. The first occurred when a plumber came to fix a leaky bathroom sink. Loraine showed him in and he got to working. I thought of something he should know, and walked into out bathroom to tell him. That's when he stopped working, looked at me, and said--

“I didn't know I was going to have a celebrity sighting today!”

And that followed an encounter at last Friday's “High School Bowl” shoot, where the parents of one of the students taking part wanted to get a picture of me with their student because, as they put it, “You're one of the biggest celebrities in the UP”.

Really? Are you sure about that? And if it is the case, doesn't the U.P. REALLY need a much better class of celebrity?

8-)

You'd think I'd be used to stuff like that, especially since encounters like that have increased since I started doing way too much TV. But I don't know that someone ever gets used to stuff like that. I mean, I know I'm not a celebrity. I'm just a dorky kid who grew up in Marquette and is now a dorky adult who lives in Marquette. I am not a celebrity. Taylor Swift is a celebrity. Jon Stewart is a celebrity.

I, however, am not.

But I get it. In this very small pond I guess that my ubiquitous presence on TV screens, through radios, and leading hundreds of people down the street makes me a slightly bigger than usual fish. It's not like I set out to do it; it just comes with the territory, I guess. And, if we're being honest, I guess it's better being someone's celebrity sighting than it is being someone's object of loathing.

I mean, that just may be me, but still...

So if our paths cross feel free to say something. But don't feel like you need to act like I'm a “celebrity”. Because, as we both know, I'm really not.

I just happen to be an example of the closest thing we might get to a celebrity around here.

(jim@wmqt.com), NOT a celebrity.

Friday, 11/15

Happy opening day! Or, if you're agnostic in that regard, happy Friday..

Either one works for me.

Today marks the start of what we jokingly refer to as the official UP national holiday, opening day of Michigan's firearm deer season. Whether you celebrate it or not it IS a big deal around here, as evidenced by the Instant Requests I was getting as far back as Tuesday from people who were already heading out to their deer camp.

So even though I look it as a strange Yooper tradition, for many people it's a tradition that's a big deal.

In that vein, I wrote what could loosely be called a “poem” about the tradition back in 1999, a (gulp) quarter of a century ago (as a side note-- quarter of a century ago??? Isn't it time I started looking for a real job??) I've been posting that “poem” every Opening Day Eve since then, and I don't feel as if I can buck tradition and not post it.

And I DO apologize for the very bad pun in that last sentence.

Since it's a tradition, here is that “poem”. If you actually are going out hunting, good luck, and stay safe. If you're agnostic regarding the holiday, that's okay, too. It's just one of those things that makes the UP such a unique place to live.

Have a great weekend, either in or out of the woods!

(jim@wmqt.com)

*****

“’Twas the Night Before Deer Camp”,

by Jimmy Koski, grade 3.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE DEER SEASON

AND ALL THROUGH THE CAMP

HUNTERS WERE UNLOADED BEER CRATES

AND LIGHTING UP LAMPS

THE RIFLES THEY HUNG

IN THE PICKUP WITH CARE

IN HOPES THAT A 10-POINTER

SOON WOULD BE THERE

I IN MY ORANGE

MY BUDDY IN GREEN

SAT DOWN TO A CRIBBAGE GAME

THE BIGGEST EVER SEEN

WE PLAYED THROUGH THE NIGHT

AND EMPTIED THOSE CRATES

BUT MORNING SOON CAME

WE DIDN’T WANT TO BE LATE

WE SET OUT AT SUNRISE

AT DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT

PUT DOWN A BIG BAIT PILE

IN HOPES THAT BAMBI WOULD BITE

WE SAT AND WE WAITED

AND WAITED SOME MORE

I KEPT MY EYES OPEN

MY BUDDY STARTED TO SNORE

WHEN TO MY SURPRISE

STANDING RIGHT BY A TREE

WAS A BIG 12-POINT BUCK

MY PANTS I DID...WELL, NEVER MIND ABOUT THAT

I BROUGHT UP MY RIFLE

I LINED UP THE DEER

THEN MY BUDDY WOKE UP AND YELLED

“HEY--WHERE’S THE BEER?”

THE BUCK RAN AWAY

I LOWERED MY GUN

MY BUDDY JUST LAUGHED

SAID “LET’S HAVE SOME FUN”

WE WENT BACK TO DEER CAMP

AND HAD US A BALL

SO LET ME SAY THIS--

GOOD LUCK DEER HUNTING TO ALL...

(copyright 1999)

Thursday, 11/14

It appears as if this is now a different world than the one in which I grew up. And it leaves me a little sad.

First of all, I'm not saying that today's world for a kid is better or worse than it was when I was a kid. After all, that was last century, and things change. It's not better now, nor is it worse now. It's just different now, as different as the 1940s or the 1950s were to when I grew up.

Change is a constant. That's a fact of life. It's not a bad thing.

That being said, here's how it's a different world than the one in which I grew up. It's my nephew Abel's birthday today. I looked around a few stores to find a gift for him, a gift that would both appeal to a 8-year old and show off what a cool uncle he has. I tried to find him a spaceship. A rocket. Something that would show him about the wonders of space flight.

Guess what you can't find in stores any more?

I mean, you can find Transformer-like toys that could (loosely) be called spacecraft, and you could find a bunch of “Star Wars” vehicles that (theoretically) could fly in space. But I couldn't find a toy that's a realistic space craft. I couldn't find a shuttle, an old Apollo/Saturn V stack, or even a Space X Crew Dragon capsule or the new STS booster. There was nothing along those lines available in any of the stores I checked.

I was bummed.

In all honesty, I didn't know if I actually expected to find any. I know that rockets and spaceflight aren't as magical to kids as they were to kids back when I was young (you know, last century). So I wasn't totally surprised by what I found (or didn't find). But still—spaceflight is one of humankind's great, defining technical achievements.

Shouldn't kids know about that?

I guess I'll just have to make sure he understands what a big deal it was (and is) as he gets older. But for now, I hope he enjoys what I did get for him. And I hope his mom & dad don't get TOO upset if he tries what I ended up getting for him and it, say, explodes all over their living room.

I mean, isn't that what uncles are for?

8-)

Speaking of the birthday boy (and his very dorky uncle)...

Happy birthday, Abel!

(jim@wmqt.com)

Wednesday, 11/13

I'm starting to wonder if we're gonna have a repeat of last year.

Those of you who weren't in Marquette last winter may recall me writing about how we didn't actually HAVE a winter. We had one storm—in January—and spent most of the season wearing shorts, walking under umbrellas and canceling all sorts of events that required snow. Well, this year we're now just a few weeks before Thanksgiving, and here's what it looked like outside yesterday--

To me, at least, that looks more like mid April than it does mid November. And based on a long range forecast from the National Weather Service, one that calls for above-average temperatures and below average precipitation for (at least) the rest of the month, you gotta wonder--

Will we have another non-winter winter this year?

Normally, I'd say no. Normally, I'd point out that last year we had a La Nina and a bunch of other factors that led up to a (no pun intended) perfect storm of weird weather. But we no longer live in normal times. We've broken the planet, and that's cause massive change all around the world. Thankfully, we don't have to deal with floods or fires, like some places; instead, we get dusting of snow here and a dusting of snow there. And temperatures anywhere from 5 to 25 degrees above the (very) long-term average. We've only been able to hold a full, complete signature UP event—the UP 200—once in the past six years. And I can't even tell you the last time either harbor in Marquette froze over completely and for an entire season.

I guess that, compared to what winters used to be like around here, it's a radical new normal.

We'll see how it turns out. After all, the odds of us having a non-winter winter for two years in a row would seem to be infinitesimal, at best. But the way things are going these days?

I wouldn't bet against it.

(jim@wmqt.com)

Tuesday, 11/12

 

Hope you had a great weekend. While mine was three days long, I'm still wondering how it went.

What did I do, you ask? Well, I answer...

I, in no particular order, bought a new washer/dryer, used said new washer/dryer, did an interview with someone, got a Covid shot, didn't feel too hot for a few hours after the Covid shot, played soccer with my favorite soccer partner in the world, bought a new love seat, tried (unsuccessfully, so far) to get rid of the old love seat, wrote a TV piece, performed said TV piece, made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, put together a holiday gift list, complained about the rain, tried to remember the password to a website I hadn't been on in a while, spent too much time resetting the password to that website, started working on my next History Center show, wrote up a bunch of UP-themed questions for the second round of “High School Bowl”, and started ruminating about a project which, if I decide to do it, could take almost all of my time at the beginning of the new year.

So, you know, a usual weekend for me.

8-)

I'll often joke about how I'm always so busy because I get bored easily, and while there is a modicum of truth to that, I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, I should put it to a test. You know...work my butt off one weekend, accomplish everything I need to for two weekends, and then spend the following weekend doing absolutely nothing at all.

I wonder if I'd be able to handle that?

I'd like to think I would, but I know me better than that. I realize that there are people who use the weekend for its intended purpose—to do nothing but veg out in front of the TV and relax. And I suppose that's what a normal person SHOULD do. But, as both know, I'm anything but normal, and I have the feeling that by, oh, 10 am Saturday morning, I'd be pacing around, looking for something to do, and accomplishing nothing other than driving Loraine insane.

And I'm sure she'd appreciate that.

So for the foreseeable future I'm gonna guess future weekends will look like the one I just finished, minus (hopefully) the Covid shot and purchasing of a washer-dryer. If that ever changes...well, I probably wouldn't bet the farm on it.

Really, I wouldn't.

(jim@wmqt.com)