My Impromptus today begins with Augusta National Golf Course — and a lesson about conservatism. I have been accused of bringing golf into everything. Guilty, pretty much. Anyway, I have a smorgasbord in my column, as usual. To try it out, go here.
Let me quote from a column earlier this month, so as to set up some mail:
If you’re like me (heaven help you), you have a traditionalist side and a modernist side. You embrace modernity, or at least accept it, and know that it is largely unstoppable anyway. At the same time, you may shed a tear for the passing traditional.
Henry Ford motorized the world. But he had a panging nostalgia for the agrarian past (as exemplified by his Greenfield Village, which he opened in 1933). (When I visited Greenfield Village as a child, they were churning butter and whatnot.)
I was taken by this article: “On French Riviera hillsides, the once-dominant Menton lemon gets squeezed by development.” The “traditionalist” and “modernist” sides of me danced together — not harmoniously.
Okay. A reader writes,
I read with interest the article about the Menton lemons, and I agree with you about modernity and tradition. While I have enjoyed visiting Greenfield Village several times, it makes me a little sad, too. As a longtime history buff, I understand both the gain and the loss.
When I was in the Air Force, in the late ’80s, I was stationed for a time at March AFB, Calif. I lived in Riverside, a couple blocks off Van Buren Boulevard, which I would jump on and drive all the way to the base in Moreno Valley. In 1986, it was a relaxing, 15-minute drive through hills covered with orange groves. By the time I left there in 1990, houses had replaced most of the groves, and it was a 45-minute drive with plenty of traffic and red lights. I have lamented the lost oranges ever since.
Waxing nostalgic, I checked out that area just now on Google Maps. I discovered that they have preserved 250 acres of an old family-owned grove on Van Buren as the “California Citrus State Historic Park.” It’s Greenfield Village, California-style!
I’m both glad and sad.
I understand.
In the above-quoted column, I (also) said,
You have perhaps been in an earthquake — an unsettling experience. Of course, when an earthquake is really bad, it is deadly. Catastrophic. Taiwan is famous for earthquakes (or infamous). The worst earthquake I was ever in, was in Taiwan. (And it did very little damage, as I recall.)
A reader writes,
I was in Japan this past summer working on one of the largest electroslag remelt furnaces in the world. It’s a three-story steel structure that shuttles back and forth on rails. I was at the very top and it started to sway back and forth, which, as you say, was unsettling. All the Japanese guys were just going about their business and I was holding on. One of them saw me and said, “No problem, just earthquake.” Familiarity breeds comfort, I guess, but to me, it felt like we were going to tip over.
Recently, “God Bless the U.S.A.,” the Lee Greenwood anthem, has come up in the news. Whatever its current political uses (or past), I like that song, very much. I tweeted as much. Also, a little Googling tells me that I wrote a Corner post about it in 2012, here. In any event, a friend writes,
I hate that song. My last battalion commander in the Army would play it before PT every Friday morning and have us stand at “Attention!” for it. Under our breath we would sing alternative lyrics.
Heh, I would like a recording.
Finally, another aptronym. Some readers have been citing them lately. One man says, “There is a chiropractor in Olathe, Kan, whose name is Dr. Bonebrake. Seems like that could suppress clientele.” Or intrigue it?
In any event, my thanks to one and all readers.