Does anyone find it a bit creepy that the number one song in Great Britain today in 1957 is about Paul Anka’s brother’s babysitter?
Three years later, the number one single across the sea required no words:
Two years later, the number one U.S. single was a dance that was easier than learning your ABCs:
Today in 1963, Paul McCartney was fined £31 and given a one-year suspended sentence for speeding. One wonders if the judge said that you, Mr. McCartney, are …
Today in 1967, the number one single was about an event that supposedly occurred on my birthday:
Back in rock music transportation news, today in 1973, Butch Trucks, drummer for the Allman Brothers Band, crashed his car and broke his leg, not far from where bandmate Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle crash:
That was the same day (probably unrelated) that McCartney’s Wings guitarist, Henry McCullough, left the band …
… and that Bobby Darin performed his last concert in Las Vegas, four months before his death following heart surgery …
… and that the U.S. singles chart was topped by a one-hit wonder:
The number one U.S. single today in 1979:
Birthdays today start with a non-rock figure who nonetheless is one of the great composers of the 20th century:
Walter Williams of the O’Jays:
Gene Simmons of Kiss:
Who is Declan Patrick McManus? You know him better as Elvis Costello:
Vivian Campbell played guitar for Dio, Whitesnake and Def Leppard:
When I was last on Wisconsin Public Radio, one of the subjects we discussed was the proposal of Rep. Robin Vos (R–Rochester) to change the recall election process.
The qualified electors of the state of any congressional, judicial or legislative district or of a county may petition for the recall of any incumbent elective officer after the first year of the term for which the incumbent was elected, by filing a petition with the filing officer with whom the nomination petition to the office in the primary is filed, demanding the recall of the incumbent. …
Laws may be enacted to facilitate its operation but no law shall be enacted to hamper, restrict or impair the right of recall.
My counterpart professed to be in high dudgeon over the idea of restricting the right of the citizenry to recall its elected officials. (Which makes one wonder how she would have felt had Gov. James Doyle and Democratic legislators been recalled for their raising taxes by $2.1 billion and working to simultaneously wreck state finances and the state’s economy two years earlier.)
My position at the time was that changing the Constitution on recalls was no substitute for personal voter responsibility. Vos’ proposal requires a stated reason for a recall attempt, which seems easily attainable, as in “I don’t like how he voted,” which makes one wonder what is the point.
Vos’ proposal doesn’t go as far as what UW–Milwaukee Prof. Mordecai Lee suggests, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political scientist Mordecai Lee, a Democratic lawmaker in the 1980s, offers a third option: Repeal the recall provision for legislators outright.
“The only justification for recalls is misbehavior that rises to the level of a felony,” Lee said in a WisconsinEye interview last week.
Wisconsin doesn’t need the recall clause for lawmakers because state law now says any legislator who is convicted of a felony must be automatically removed from office, Lee argued.
Of course, former Rep. Jeff Wood, the alleged serial drunk driver, was never convicted of a felony, yet there should have been little question that he was unfit to hold office. Many illegal acts, acts you do not want your elected officials to be doing, are not felonies.
Marquette University Prof. Edward Fallone could reasonably be said to oppose both ideas:
The recall provisions in the Wisconsin Constitution are a right possessed by the people of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Constitution intentionally places this right in the hands of the public, and it is intentionally left unbounded. To interpret this right to be limited solely to conduct which would also constitute grounds for impeachment would be to eviscerate the right. Such a result would not only be duplicative of the separate impeachment provisions of the Wisconsin Constitution, it would also limit the ability of the voters of Wisconsin to exercise their sovereign power in any form other than by casting a vote every few years in a regularly scheduled election. One likely result of the removal or limitation of the possibility of a recall would be to make elected officials less accountable to the public and to amplify the influence wielded by lobbyists and corporate donors during the interval in between elections. …
Personally, I have faith in human nature. I believe that the public at large is capable of making wise and informed decisions on public policy. I also believe in the oft-stated principle that it is the people at large who are the ultimate sovereigns in America. Popular sovereignty is not a myth. However, I also know that if we stop believing in popular sovereignty, if we stop behaving as if the principle is real, and if we accept the premise that the people at large cannot be trusted, then we will undoubtedly succeed in transforming today’s right into tomorrow’s myth.
Fallone’s employer is represented in Congress by a self-avowed socialist and the biggest current joke in Wisconsin politics, of course. Then again, two generations ago one of Wisconsin’s U.S. senators saw Communists where there were not and didn’t see Communists where there were. Both were duly elected, and more than once.
When I was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin, my first-semester political science class included a textbook that featured debates on long-standing American political issues. I specifically remember one politician who wrote that the purpose of an elected official is to serve not as a carbon copy of the majority views of his constituents, but as a trustee to represent them, and if the elected official failed to do so, the elected official should be voted out of office at the next election. You may have heard of the author: John F. Kennedy.
A commenter on Fallone’s blog asks a question that has not been satisfactorily answered by anyone:
What if this becomes a pattern? What if every single January another round of recalls start, and instead of having 2 and 4 year election cycles, we have 1 year election cycles? Being stuck in a perpetuum of campaign ads is not a pleasant thought, especially when we’ll have spring non-partisan elections, summer recalls, and fall partisan elections.
That is a point that the public-employee unions and their Democratic puppets appear to have either missed or ignored. The fact that two out of six Republicans and none of three Democratic senators lost their recall elections seems to suggest that sufficiently aggrieved interest groups can generate enough signatures to trigger a recall election (including, as I believe we’ll see next year, the governor’s race), but not enough votes to actually topple the recalled-upon elected official. Which means that we have indeed entered the era of the permanent campaign, with severe consequences for making any decision at all and enormous waste of resources. Does anyone seriously believe state Sens. Jessica King (D–Oshkosh) or Jennifer Shilling (D–La Crosse) are going to make the least bit of difference in Madison?
Marquette University Prof. Rick Esenberg thinks the lack of Recallarama success might be the source of its demise:
The recalls were always a bad idea. Every one of the legislators who just faced recalls was scheduled to be up for re-election next year. If voters — having had an opportunity to assess the impact of Walker’s reforms — wished to vote them out of office, they would not have had to wait long. Recalls based upon nothing more than policy differences rest uneasily with a fixed term of office. We want our politicians to have some reasonable period of time in which they can go about the business of governing, not campaigning.
Recalls create a perpetual campaign in which there is little room for deliberation or consideration of much beyond the immediate political impact of a decision. Politicians, notorious for ignoring the long-term consequences of their actions, are unable to think in even the medium term. Being constantly at war breeds a more bellicose community. In this sense, the best possible outcome of the recalls is that they accomplished so little.
The thing is that there is never a substitute for personal responsibility on the part of the voter. It cannot be legislated, and it cannot be mandated by constitutions or regulations. You have the right to vote for a candidate because you like his last name or dislike his opponent’s last name. (That happened in a Congressional race in the 1980s.) You can be as racist or sexist as you want in the polling booth. If voters aren’t responsible, to quote Joseph de Maistre, “Every nation has the government it deserves.”
Recallarama is in fact an excellent argument for much smaller government. If state government wasn’t trying to get its mitts into every part of our lives, the stakes in elections wouldn’t be as high as they are, and there wouldn’t be as much campaign spending and as unpleasant a campaign experience as state politics now is. Either that, or candidates and voters have to start acting like adults, or at least acting in the way adults tell their children to act.
Today in 1963, Little Stevie Wonder became the first artist to have the number one pop single and album and to lead the R&B charts with his “Twelve-Year-Old Genius”:
Today in 1974 the rock charts were topped by one of the more dubious number-one singles:
Today in 1990, at the beginning of Operation Desert Shield, Sinead O’Connor refused to sing if the National Anthem was performed before her concert at the Garden State Arts Plaza in Homdel, N.J. Radio stations respond by pulling O’Connor’s music from their airwaves.
That was the same day that Iron Maiden won a lawsuit from the families of two people who committed suicide, claiming that subliminal messages in the group’s “Stained Class” album drove them to kill themselves.
Birthdays start with Fontella Bass:
John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service, who played …
… with David Freiburg, who later played with Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship:
Joe Chambers was one of the Chambers Brothers:
Mike Derosier was the first full-time drummer for Heart:
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R–Janesville) disappointed many Republicans but surprised few political observers when he reiterated Monday that he is not running for president in 2012.
“I sincerely appreciate the support from those eager to chart a brighter future for the next generation. While humbled by the encouragement, I have not changed my mind, and therefore I am not seeking our party’s nomination for President,” Ryan said in a statement.
It’s not the first time this year Ryan has said no to a White House bid. But speculation about a Ryan candidacy has persisted, and according to some media reports, Ryan was taking a second look at the race in recent weeks.
The House budget chairman from Janesville has been urged to jump into the race by some GOP insiders dissatisfied with the current field, which is led by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann from Minnesota. Ryan’s fans within the party see him as a skilled, swing-state politician who can make the party’s best case for attacking the federal debt and overhauling entitlement programs. At the same time, some Democrats have argued that the Medicare changes he’s proposing would be a huge liability for a GOP ticket.
“I remain hopeful that our party will nominate a candidate committed to a pro-growth agenda of reform that restores the promise and prosperity of our exceptional nation,” said Ryan in the statement.
In an earlier interview this summer with the Journal Sentinel, Ryan cited at least two reasons for not running: his family (he has three young children) and wanting to see through, in Congress, the debate he started there with his controversial House budget plan, which makes sweeping changes to Medicare and Medicaid.
Ryan is the second Wisconsinite to rebuff presidential-candidacy advances of late. The other, and opposite, is former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, who has been suggested as a primary opponent for President Obama next year by those who think Obama’s main fault is that he hasn’t been liberal enough. But Feingold reiterated Monday he isn’t running for anything in 2012.
The first thought is: Why would anyone in his or her right mind run for president? A candidate has to first have, to put it charitably, the supreme self-confidence that he or she could be president, for starters. But more importantly, he or she has to be willing to put his or her entire immediate and extended family (see Bush, Neil, and Carter, Billy), circle of friends and political and/or business associates through the wringer even before the primaries begin. Candidates must be willing to endure questions of a level of stupidity found only among non-sportswriters on Super Bowl Media Day. (See Obama, Barack, birth certificate.) And the national media’s obsession about reporting the most minute detail of presidential candidates’ lives, significant or not, illustrative or not, meaningful or not, pertinent or not, should make normal people run away from running. (The media does a great job of turning people off politics, particularly during presidential election cycles.)
As a history minor and political science major, this blog writer is going to throw some political history at the blog reader. Charles Gates Dawes might be known better for writing “Melody in A Major,” which became the pop song “It’s All in the Game,” but he was Calvin Coolidge’s vice president three decades after he owned the La Crosse Gas Light Co., though it’s unclear whether Dawes actually lived in Wisconsin. (Dawes’ son drowned in Geneva Lake at 21.) And so much has happened in the past four years that one forgets that Gov. Tommy Thompson actually briefly ran for president in 2008.
There have been a few other presidential candidates of note from Wisconsin. U.S. Sen. Robert M. “Fighting Bob” La Follette ran as his Progressive Party (as opposed to Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party; the latter once called the former “a skunk who ought to be hanged” before World War I) presidential candidate in 1924 and got 17 percent of the vote and Wisconsin’s 13 electoral votes. U.S. Rep. John Schmitz of California, who was born in Milwaukee, ran as the American Independent Party presidential candidate in 1972. Schmitz (who was Richard Nixon’s Congressman) was too conservative to be a Republican, and for that matter, he was too extreme for the John Birch Society, which booted him out. Four years later, former Madison Mayor William Dyke ran as the AIP candidate for vice president while former Milwaukee Mayor Frank Zeidler ran for president as the Socialist Party candidate. (Then in 1980, Gov. Patrick Lucey, who defeated Dyke in the 1974 gubernatorial candidate, ran for vice president as an independent with U.S. Rep. John Anderson of Illinois.) Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm, who was born in Madison, was a Reform Party candidate in 1996, but lost the nomination to the creator of the Reform Party, H. Ross Perot.
Abolitionist William Goodell, who lived in Janesville at the time of his death, ran for president as the Liberty Party candidate in 1852 and 1860. While La Follette was in Washington, East Troy native Eugene Wilder Chafin ran as the Prohibition Party candidate for president in 1908 and 1912, the last two of his nine unsuccessful attempts at office. (Perhaps being a Prohibition Party candidate from Wisconsin struck voters as too ironic to be successful.)
The one politician in my lifetime, from what I’ve read of him, who could have been a presidential candidate had he not died at just 40 was U.S. Rep. William Steiger (R–Oshkosh), the coauthor of the 1970s capital gains tax cut, the forerunner of the Ronald Reagan tax cuts. Steiger had a record of accomplishment in his 11 years in Congress; Feingold has a record of being a phony maverick and the author of the unconstitutional and reviled McCain–Feingold campaign finance law.
Becoming a presidential candidate is as easy as saying: I am a candidate for president. (Believe it or not, I forgot that I had written that.) Being a viable presidential candidate is a bit more complex. (Maybe that’s why I forgot that I had written that.) The experience we’ve had with a president who was a largely accomplishment-free U.S. senator suggests that accomplishment-free Washington politicians should not consider running for president, even if they do.
The presidency is the top of the executive branch of government. That suggests you need someone with executive-branch political experience, as demonstrated by former governors Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Unlike Washington, state governments are less sclerotic and mostly nimble enough to serve as laboratories for government reform, as Wisconsin was in welfare reform in the 1990s. Those who claim that governors lack foreign policy experience forget (1) governors’ roles in promoting foreign trade, including overseas trips, and (2) a Congressman or senator’s claim that he or she has foreign policy experience doesn’t mean that he or she has useful or pertinent foreign policy experience.
Most political experts would claim that Wisconsin isn’t big enough or important enough a state to spawn presidential candidates. (To which could be asked: And Arkansas is?) State government is an enterprise of more than $30 billion a year here. However, California, Texas, New York and even Illinois generate more national media attention than Wisconsin. (Not that that that’s necessarily a bad thing, mind you.) Gov. Scott Walker doesn’t meet presidential standards of appearance or communication ability, and if Walker doesn’t, neither does anyone else currently in state government. For Ryan to become a viable presidential candidate, he probably needs to be either Gov. Ryan or U.S. Sen. Ryan, not U.S. Rep. Ryan.
The ethnic makeup of this state (that is, our dour European ancestors) isn’t exactly media-friendly either. Can you imagine a Wisconsin politician with the sunny optimism and wit of Reagan (who once took partial blame for the early ’80s recession in that “for many years I was a Democrat“), or the guy-next-door empathy of Clinton, or the forward-looking inspiration of candidate Obama? (Do any of the Fleeing Fourteen look presidential to you?)
The other thing about Wisconsin — and it is not an attractive feature of ours — is this state’s cultural and institutional envy of success. While the Progressive Era did bring many worthwhile democratic reforms — direct election of U.S. senators, open primary elections, nonpartisan elections and open government — the Progressive Era started the war between government and business that continues in this state to this day. This has particularly been noticeable in this year’s Protestarama and Recallarama, where the facile answer to state government’s financial problems was to “Tax the rich!” instead of making the state a place where people can sell products and services and thus grow rich.
It would be too easy to blame Wisconsin Democrats or Fighting Bob himself for this. No, Wisconsin’s antipathy toward success goes back much farther, as a 2003 Wisconsin Policy Research Institute paper that asked the simple question of why Wisconsin’s taxes are so high revealed:
In reading Wisconsin’s history, what emerges is the Badger State’s rare combination of ethnic, religious, and political traditions. Mix Yankee founders and northern European immigrants; combine Protestant reformers and a strong Roman Catholic presence; add the labor activism of the industrial era to agrarian roots; douse liberally with the “Social Gospel,” the Wisconsin Idea, and Progressive-era legislation … and you have Wisconsin’s unusual brand of politics and government.
Just how unusual is suggested by Daniel Elazar, a leading student of states and federalism, who argues that the 50 states are pure or hybrid versions of three political cultures:
• Individualistic: This culture “emphasizes the centrality of private concerns,” placing “a premium on limiting community intervention.” The individualistic culture originated in such mid-Atlantic, non Puritan states as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland; it spread west to become dominant in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri; and later it spread to such states as Nevada, Wyoming and Alaska.
• Traditionalistic: This is a political culture that “accepts government as an actor with a positive role in the community,” but seeks to “limit that role to securing the continued maintenance of the existing social order.” Not surprisingly, the traditionalistic strain of American politics is a major factor in all of the border and southern states, extending west to Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
• Moralistic: The “moralistic” culture considers government “a positive instrument with a responsibility to promote the general welfare.” This culture is predominant in 17 states that stretch from New England through the upper Midwest to the Pacific coast — what several observers of American history and politics have called “Greater New England.” Even more significantly, this moralistic approach is virtually the only political culture found in nine states: Maine, Vermont, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, and, not surprisingly, Wisconsin.
The states in this last group, Elazar notes, were “settled initially by the Puritans of New England and their Yankee descendants … [who] came to these shores intending to establish the best possible earthly version of the holy commonwealth. Their religious outlook was imbued with a high level of political concern.” Most significantly for states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, “they were joined by Scandinavians and other northern Europeans who, stemming from a related tradition (particularly in its religious orientation), reinforced the basic patterns of Yankee political culture, sealing them into the political systems of those states.”
You may notice that last group, which appears to have combined the worst features of older states’ political cultures, isn’t a breeding ground of successful presidential candidates. California has always had an arm’s-length relationship with government (state budgets require two-thirds approval of both houses of its legislature, and California gave birth to the anti-tax movement through its Proposition 13 property tax limits), and Texas, unlike Wisconsin, likes business and the “rich.” Wisconsin has been historically so anti-business that it is impossible to imagine a Wisconsinite having enough money to run for president.
Wisconsin’s overemphasis on politics all over the political spectrum means we’ll always be able to supply fringe presidential candidates. Serious presidential candidates? Not in the next several election cycles, and not with the current system, which puts the “fun” in “dysfunction,” by which presidents are elected.
As I mentioned Friday, I spent Saturday afternoon driving cars in my favorite fundraiser, Bergstrom Automotive’s Drive for the Cure.
Because I didn’t get to Bergstrom until relatively late, I didn’t match my personal record of last year, nine cars. I drove six. I didn’t get to drive a BMW, or the Fiat 500, or an Audi, or any of the Minis, or this year’s winner of the Answer in Search of a Question Award, the Nissan Murano convertible, an SUV convertible, or convertible SUV. Bergstrom cannot be blamed for hosting a popular event, so I need to resolve to do this on Friday next year, the earlier the better.
Every time I drive a new car, I am reminded again of two things, starting with how capable even the most base model of car is today. I am also reminded of the axiom “just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” which seems to apply to such models of complexity as keyless ignitions and ventilation and audio controls that require several nights of owner manual study to comprehend. The latter is difficult to do while one is driving out of the car dealership driveway, so the fact that fender-benders don’t seem to occur during the Drive for a Cure is a minor miracle.
I was also pleasantly surprised to experience expansion in driver’s side legroom. I have always assumed that reduced legroom is the price one pays for either front-wheel drive or air bags, under the assumption that car engineers want the air bag to hit the driver square in the face. (Neither our Subaru Outback nor our Honda Odyssey has enough legroom for a 6-foot-4 driver with a 34-inch inseam, which requires the aforementioned driver to drive with his knees excessively spread out. That makes the driver pine for the days of his 1975 Chevrolet Caprice and its seemingly unlimited legroom.)
The six cars I drove ranged in price and complexity from a Volkswagen Jetta SE to a Hyundai Genesis 4.6 sedan. The Jetta was plainest of the six, and yet it was more than adequately equipped, as practically all cars are today. (The Jetta lacked a sunroof. The horror.) Cars of the past could be optioned as plain-Jane as possible (for instance, a 1984 GMC S-15, owned by a former employer, lacked not only power brakes, but a parking brake light), or with everything then available. But somewhere in the 1980s, some automaker (I’m guessing from Japan) figured out that standardizing equipment reduced variability in equipment, which could improve build quality, and that moving features from the option list to the standard list (for instance, power windows and door locks, cruise control and tilt steering) means the automaker can charge more.
The most amusing moment may have been when I was driving a Volvo C30 T5 (like the Jetta equipped with a five-cylinder engine, though the C30’s is turbocharged, hence the “T5”) while the radio played Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” Volvos are made in the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow, so to be driving a Swedish car while an ode to my Viking ancestors was the soundtrack was whatever the opposite of irony is.
The Volvo is an example of a car infrequently found in this country, a “shooting brake,” or two-door station wagon. Had I one less child (or more likely no children), I would enjoy owning a C30 and its combination of performance (which would be even more fun with its available six-speed manual transmission, but Bergstrom no longer supplies sticks for this event, probably due to the cost of replacing a clutch shredded by an inexperienced test-driver) and just-in-case storage space. Unfortunately, its two rear seats are one fewer seat than I need, plus the rear seat is likely to produce complaints from its passengers, even its young passengers (“Quit breathing my air!”).
Somewhat related to the C30 in terms of performance, or at least potential performance, was the Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback, the compromise between sedan and station wagon. The Lancer can be purchased with a turbocharged engine and all-wheel drive; this Lancer was not, which didn’t prevent an earlier driver from getting the attention of the Grand Chute police.
The vehicle that fits in the Drives Better Than It Looks category was the Lexus RX350 SUV. It was very luxurious, and I assume it is quite capable in its all-wheel-drive iteration. I fail to understand, however, why designers see its sloped rear end as attractive. It screams to me Not As Much Space As You Think.
The nicest car I drove was the Genesis, which harkens back to the good old days of rear-drive V-8 sedans, which is just what you’d expect from … a South Korean automaker. I drove the Genesis coupe last year and gave it my Most Likely to Cost You Your License Award, for its fun formula of lots of power in a small package. (Similar to the car my wife would call her favorite, her 1992 Pontiac Sunbird coupe with a V-6 and five-speed and the second worst torque steer of any car I’ve ever driven. It also was a challenge for the tall driver to get into and out of, and it was cramped, but it was a most excellent driving experience assuming you launched with both hands on the steering wheel.)
Similar to the BMW 540i six-speed I drove the first year of Bergstrom’s BMW Drive for the Cure, the Genesis sedan presents speed in a smooth, comfortable package. (My two speeding tickets were not in a Chevy Beretta GT, or a Ford Escort GT, but in the aforementioned Caprice, perhaps because of the size of the radar signature from its enormous size.) The Genesis had not just heated seats, but cooled seats as well, for those times when the air conditioning can’t work fast enough, or there’s too much glare from the sunroof, I guess. The Genesis also has a 528-watt 17-speaker sound system. (That’s what I read; I didn’t look for the speakers.) For those who wonder, there are radio stations in the U.S. that don’t put out 528 watts of power.
The Genesis almost lost points for a knob that looked as complicated as the first iteration of the BMW iDrive, BMW’s effort to duplicate the computer mouse experience that generated considerable complaint among its car magazine reviewers. And yet, as far as what I was using it for (tuning the radio), it actually worked well. The instrument panel also was better in terms of not requiring advanced education to understand it unlike the aforementioned RX350.
Consumer Reports gives the Genesis sedan its Recommended rating, but claims buyers don’t need to spend the extra $10,300 for the V-8, since the base V-6 will generate 333 horsepower when the 2012 models come out. But like storage space, you can always choose to not use the V-8’s 378 horsepower (or, for another $2,000, the 5.0 R-Spec’s 429 horsepower), but you can’t choose to use horsepower you don’t have. Hyundai has made amazing strides the past several years, with its 10-year 100,000-mile warranty and now roadside assistance for five years. And now they make a car that, other than the Cadillac CTS-V and Chrysler 300 with the Hemi V-8 (both with rear-drive V-8s), you cannot buy from an American carmaker.
Bergstrom deserves enormous praise for sponsoring this event, particularly after BMW ended its sponsorship several years ago. In fact, I don’t know why any dealership wouldn’t do an event like this, given the goodwill and traffic generated. I haven’t seen this year’s numbers, but last year’s Drive for the Cure reportedly raised more than $40,000 for breast cancer research at $1 per mile test-driven. Amazing what free enterprise can do, isn’t it?
Today in 1964, the Supremes reached number one by wondering …
Today in 1968, the Beatles briefly broke up when Ringo Starr quit during recording of their “White Album.” Starr rejoined the group Sept. 3, but in the meantime the remaining trio recorded “Back in the USSR” with Paul McCartney on drums and John Lennon on bass:
Today in 1970, the number one album in the U.S. was Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Cosmo’s Factory” …
… while across the pond number one was the Moody Blues’ “A Question of Balance”:
The number one album today in 1981 was Foreigner’s fourth album, called “4”:
The number one song today in 1987:
Birthdays today start with Dale Hawkins, who wrote a song CCR later recorded:
Ian Mitchell of the Bay City Rollers:
Debbie Peterson, who played drums for the Bangles …
… was born the same day as Roland Orazabal of Tears for Fears:
We begin with two forlorn non-music anniversaries. Today in 1897, Oldsmobile began operation, eventually to become a division of General Motors Corp. … but not anymore.
Imagine turning on your radio and finding out that the Soviet Union was invading your country. That’s what Radio Prague announced today in 1968.
Today in 1961, Patsy Cline, using crutches after exiting a car through the windshield head first in a car crash, recorded Willie Nelson’s “Crazy”:
The Beatles had a busy day today in 1966. They performed a concert at Crosley Field in Cincinnati, rescheduled due to rain and the lack of grandstand cover. Then they flew to St. Louis to perform the regularly scheduled concert at Busch Stadium … in the rain. This day made Paul McCartney determine that the Beatles should not perform live anymore.
The number one song across the pond today in 1968:
Today in 1973, the Doobie Brothers’ “Toulouse Street” was named a gold record …
… as was the Allman Brothers’ “Brothers and Sisters”:
Musicians recognize today’s first birthday, Count Basie:
Kenny Rogers:
Tom Coster of Santana:
Jackie DeShannon:
Joe Strummer of The Clash:
Steve Smith played drums for Journey:
Kim Sledge was one of Sister Sledge:
Finally, a death anniversary: Today in 2005, Dr. Robert Moog, inventor of the Moog Synthesizer, died. The Moog Synthesizer was the keyboard of choice throughout the 1970s and 1980s, perhaps to excess:
If you asked most Wisconsinites to identify their favorite sport, the answer probably would be the activity that in its high school iteration starts across the state tonight.
For more than 20 years, I have been announcing high school and college football, first on radio, and now on cable TV in Ripon. I’ve been watching football for far l0nger than that. My first sports memory is watching my father swear at our TV as the Green Bay Packers transitioned from the Glory Years to, well, the Gory Years, the 31-year-long desert between Super Bowl appearances. (My father insisted on putting a blanket over our south-facing living room window so he could clearly see the Packers’ descent from Super Bowl glory past mediocrity.)
The Packers were so bad in my early childhood, in fact, that I have this emblazoned memory: One day in third grade, I picked up a sports legends book from the grade school library. (I noticed two things: Milwaukee Bucks center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wasn’t in it, but there was a basketball player named Lew Alcindor who looked exactly like Abdul-Jabbar, and although boxer Muhammad Ali wasn’t in it either, a boxer named Cassius Clay looked just like him too.) And I got to reading about the Packers’ winning the first two Super Bowls, which happened when I was 1½ and 2½ years old. And my eight-year-old mind could not process the fact that the same team my father swore at every fall Sunday had won the first two Super Bowls, even though the Glory Days were in their twilight.
Around that time, I started attending one UW football game a year, thanks to the fact that my parents and grandfather were season ticket holders. I know people who actually prefer watching football on TV because you get a better view from the multiple replays. To me, though, football is about the entire experience — the marching bands (such as, well, you know), the brisk (or worse) weather, the feeling of fan involvement by being there that is just not the same on TV.
I certainly did not get my affinity for football by playing the game. With apologies to my high school classmates who played on those teams, the fact is that La Follette won, in order, three, one, one and four games my four years there. I did not see La Follette win a football game until my senior year, despite the fact that I was at every home game, sitting in the La Follette Marching Band for the last three of those years. The football I played was of the touch or flag variety, where my lack of athletic skills were tolerated.
At the time I, a 6–2 160-pound stick, didn’t get the reason to get my brains beat out (or so I thought, until I got to the UW Marching Band practice field, where I learned that their practices were more strenuous than high school football’s) to sit on the bench during games. And once I started to understand the game more, I couldn’t think of a compelling reason to push around the guy in front of me — or, more likely, get pushed around by the guy in front of me — so that the guy with the ball might gain two or three yards. (Games with little passing and unsuccessful running are to me boring to watch, though running teams are easier to announce.) I didn’t get the positives of athletics (such as getting together in a group effort, the realization of the group as being more important than the individual, and the importance of doing well just because of the importance of doing well instead for recognition) from athletics; I got them from band.
And I didn’t get my affinity for football from the great successes of the Badgers and Packers either. The Badgers were not as bad as they would become in the Don Mor(t)on Veer from Victory Era of 1987–1989 (as in six wins in three seasons). But in the 1970s, the Badgers had exactly two winning seasons — 7–4 in 1974 and a 5–4–2 in 1978. The Packers also had two winning seasons — 10–4 in their NFC Central championship season in 1972, and 8–7–1 in 1978.
The Badgers finally started getting respectable in 1981, which began with a 21–14 win over number one ranked Michigan. The stunning nature of that win cannot be replicated in print here. The Badgers also beat, at home, archrivals Ohio State and Purdue on the way to a bowl berth. The next few years were pretty good too, including my one and only bowl trip, to the 1984 Hall of Fame Bowl as a member of the UW Marching Band. And then UW coach Dave McClain died of a heart attack two days after the annual spring game. McClain’s interim replacement was not retained after his one season, and then, well, six wins in three seasons (including a growing number of games where a growing number of fans dressed as empty bleachers) speaks for itself.
The Packers, meanwhile, hovered around .500 for the early ’80s, and then Forrest Gregg replaced Bart Starr as coach and decided to blow up Starr’s work (such as it was) and start over with players who were worse both on and off the field. The Packers had one playoff year (1982) and two near-playoff years (1983, when the team set a record for scoring offense and were still outscored on the season, and 1989, when 10 of their 16 games were decided by a touchdown or less), but that was it.
This was about the time that I started announcing games after graduating. The first game was on a beautiful Friday afternoon in 1988, Cuba City’s Homecoming against Lancaster. Announcing was a challenge because, independent of the fact that I had never announced football before that, the Cuba City press box faced the wrong direction, into the sun, and was closer to the goal line than the 50-yard line. Both facts proved a problem during the overtime, when, of course, the action was on the opposite end of the field.
You may have noticed by now a certain parallelism between Badger football and Packer football fortunes. The Packers started getting good when general manager Ron Wolf and head coach Mike Holmgren arrived in 1992. The Badgers, meanwhile, hired Barry Alvarez, and, wonder of wonders, not only got to the Rose Bowl, but won it on New Year’s Day 1994. Three years later, the Packers won Super Bowl XXXI.
I truly believe Badger and Packer fans of today do not realize how good they have it today. This past season, the Badgers got to the Rose Bowl (and losing the Rose Bowl is better than not getting there), and the Packers became the first NFC team to win a Super Bowl despite playing every playoff game on the road.
Meanwhile, back on Friday nights, I started announcing Ripon games in the fall of 2003. This was a good year to start announcing Ripon games, because if I announce games for another 46 years the 2003 Tigers will still be the most dominant offensive juggernaut I’ll probably ever see. The Tigers scored more than 40 points in 12 of their 14 games and more than 50 points in five of their games. They had a 2,000-yard rusher, and their quarterback rushed for more than 1,000 yards and passed for more than 1,000 yards. They won their second game of the season 56–36 with both their longest pass (82 yards) and longest run (92 yards) in program history. They won their second playoff game 56–42.
The game I remember the most from that year was their next-to-last regular season game against archrival Berlin. (Ripon vs. Berlin is the longest running rivalry in Wisconsin high school football.) Ripon was averaging more than 50 points per game, while Berlin was giving up just 5 points per game. Both teams were undefeated, and the winner was going to clinch a share of the conference title.
Besides the score — Ripon 49, Berlin 0 — one other fact stands out: Ripon got 567 yards of offense, all on the ground.
Gold trophy number two came two seasons later, with a much more defense-dominated team that also played closer games. (Well, except for their first playoff game, won 63–6.) The 2005 Tigers gutted out wins over their archrivals to win their third consecutive conference title, but fans accustomed to seeing the Tigers maul their opponents were a bit skeptical of what this team could do once the postseason started.
The highlight was their next to last game, their state semifinal against Lodi. Ripon scored the first two touchdowns, then Lodi scored the next two. Ripon held Lodi on a big fourth-down play, and then Lodi held Ripon on a big fourth-and-goal play. The Blue Devils had the ball deep in their own end with about 2 minutes left to play, which you would think would be a bad time to fumble.
And then the fun began. Lodi did indeed fumble and Ripon recovered, scoring the game-winning touchdown three plays later. The ensuing kickoff, into a 30-mph south wind, looked like a dying duck and spun out of bounds. Instead of taking the ball at the 35-yard line, the Lodi coach decided to make Ripon rekick. The next kick went up in the air, looked as if it hit something in the air, and came down behind a Ripon player, who decided that now would be a good time to fall on the ball. So Lodi’s comeback attempt turned out to consist of one play at the very end, and Ripon won on the way to its second state title in three years.
Ripon has made the playoffs for 10 consecutive seasons, which is difficult even in these days when most teams make the playoffs. (When I was in high school, only conference champions got in the playoffs, then two teams per conference, and now all teams with winning conference records and most teams with .500 conference records get in.) Besides their success, though, what makes covering Ripon football enjoyable is that the Tigers are a program their community can be proud of for reasons besides their record. The coaches have collected several letters over the years from game officials complimenting them for their on-field sportsmanship. Watch a Tiger game, and you’ll see Tigers picking up their opponents after plays. In a decade of watching them I have yet to see Ripon coaches publicly reaming out their players for something they did on the field, and I cannot say that about other programs I’ve witnessed.
So what is it about football? (“It” includes the fact that of all the sports played by men, football seems to have the most following among women, even though almost no women — almost — play football.) I think it has a lot to do with the fact that there is just one football game per week, and nine (high school), 11 or 12 (college) or 16 (NFL) games in the regular season. There is considerably less margin for error in a football season. Football also undoubtedly has parallels to ground wars in that one side is trying to take territory from the other by ground or air, and the most important battles are won or lost on the road. And in high school, players are not playing for money or for their athletic scholarship benefits (though they may be playing to try to get a college scholarship).
The breakdown sequence at the end of Ripon High School practices goes like this (each line except the last repeated twice):
We are … Ripon!
We are … the best!
We believe in … our team!
We believe in … each other!
We believe in … hard work!
WE WANT SOME MORE!
If a calamity occurred and I was installed as the head coach of a high school football team, other than adopting Ripon’s offense (since I’ve been around them, they have never failed to average at least 200 rushing yards per game), every week I would tell the players something probably similar to this: You get one chance to play this game today. Once tonight’s game is over, you can never play it again. And there are only nine chances to play high school football, every season. So make this one count.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 