Number Please

The Bay Mills Casino in Brimley, Michigan, is owned by the Sault Ste. Marie Band of Chippewa Indians and is located on the Bay Mills Reservation.  It has a hotel too, and the last time we stayed there, we were given a key to room 425 and told that it was on the fourth floor.  That was slightly bewildering since the hotel is only two stories tall.  A quick look around revealed that the ground floor rooms were numbered in the 300's.

I surmised there must be a basement and sub-basement, but when we got on the elevator, we saw that the button panel had only two floors to choose from:  3 (the ground floor we were on) and 4 (our destination, one flight up).

They must have gotten a hell of a deal on something -- either the elevator car or a truckload of three-digit number signs starting with 3 and 4.

That is not the only hotel I've ever been in with a weird numbering scheme.  At the small, old, quaint, and very French Hotel Brighton on Rue de Rivoli in Paris (which does have more than two floors), I stayed on the second floor in Room No. 1.  There were two other rooms on that floor, Nos. 2 and 16.

Did the French and Indian War have anything to do with numbers?

Y E, L L, Everybody YELL!

Speaking of basketball, ever notice that at the college-level, the only people actually chanting cheers are the cheerleaders?  Spectators don't, except at Michigan State home games when the fans on opposite sides of the arena do their contrapuntal "Go Green! - Go White!" thing.  And I think the fans sometimes start that themselves.

And speaking of cheerleaders, I have never forgotten a cheer I heard when I was in junior high, in a game played by my eighth-trade team.  During a time-out, the cheerleaders from the opposing school went out on the floor and led their fans (all 12 of them) in a cheer that went:

F!  I!  G-H-T!
F!  I!  G-H-T!
F!  I!  G-H-T!
WIN!

For over 50 years now I've been wondering, why "win"?  Why not
"F I G H T - Fight!"?

No answer.

Leaping Hoops

March Madness is upon me.  By the time the NCAA men's and women's champions have been crowned, I will have seen enough basketball games to last me until next November.

However, I have done some serious watching and comparing to determine just what it is that separates the girls from the boys.  One does, after all, perceive a distinct difference in the movements of the players around the court, even though the women run and dribble and pass the ball and make baskets basically the same way as the men.  The women's game just has a different look, and I've finally figured out what it is:  the women don't jump.

Or at least, not very high.  Even in the performance of a so-called jump shot, the separation between floor and sole of sneaker is tiny for most female players.  And when there is the spectacle of three or four players vying for a rebound under the basket, the women look pretty much like a bunch of young girls at a birthday party jumping up and down in excitement.

I didn't say they can't jump, just that they don't.  If I was a coach who wanted to give my team an advantage, I'd be working on that.

The Daily Doily

There is a lovely crocheted doily sitting on the kitchen table.  I think it's one that my partner made a number of years ago, and I think she got it out to show it to somebody.

I cannot see a crocheted doily (or a knitted or tatted one either, for that matter) without thinking of the two upholstered easy chairs in my grandparents' living room.  They were different in design but made to look similar by being covered with identical form-fitting fabric covers my grandmother had made for them.

The other thing they had in common was that they were always adorned with crocheted doilies, a long skinny one over each arm and a large one on the back flowing down to where your head would rest if you leaned back.  They were held in place by straight pins which tended to work themselves loose.  What I will never forget about sitting in those chairs was how often my elbow got scratched or I was stabbed in the back of the neck.

The doilies were pretty, though.

Literally

The place my father worked was in an industrial park where several buildings shared a drive and parking area.  One evening as he was leaving, he saw a car, traveling much too fast, come careening around the corner of a building into the parking lot and then to a screeching stop.  The driver jumped out of the car and began running toward one of the buildings.

My dad yelled, "Hey, what'd'ya think this is, a race track?" and the guy stopped running and walked the rest of the way.

 And people say I'm too literal.

Spring ahead

It seems too early to change to Daylight Savings Time, but I guess I have to keep up with the rest of the country.  Lately all the clocks in the house seemed to say something different, so changing them all today was a great way to get them all in sync.

There's one I never change, the clock on the mantle.  It is such a pain in the butt to get its little back compartment open that I never do.  All winter it's an hour ahead, but we're used to it and can mentally adjust.  There's another clock in that room we depend on more.  And anyway, it's right half the year.

So, I come into the living room this morning, smile up at the mantle clock, expecting to be pleased that it would already be showing 10:00 without me doing anything, and it says it's 3:17.

I'll have to get the back open now anyway, to change the battery.

Kidding? No.

Walnut Hills Country Club of East Lansing, Michigan, used to host an LPGA tournament, the Oldsmobile Classic.  Every time I attended as a spectator, I had multiple opportunities to overhear the snide comments of Walnut Hills Country Club Members moaning about the riff-raff running around their high-class grounds and among their high-class selves. 

So when I received a post card from Walnut Hills in the mail this week (do you mean a fancy brochure? No, a post card) inviting me to become a member of The Club (the word "country" does not appear anywhere), I smiled.

Times is tough all over, ain't they?

Not on your life.  Thanks anyway.