Do you remember Heckle and Jeckle? They were, for those of you too young to remember such things, Terrytoons characters featured in movie and TV cartoons and comic books from the 1940s up until 1980 or so. I guess they were supposed to be magpies. I always thought they were crows, which is why I thought of them when Babs wrote: We lost most of our snow last week, but had a few flurries today. This is an empty place along M 88 between Eastport and Central Lake. I love the crow in the top of the tree.
First I managed to look in the wrong tree, and then I spotted the bird and wondered how she could tell it was a crow. Then I thought about how all large black birds look alike to me, and the next thing you know I was pondering issues of race and bias and general idiocy and forgetting to write the post.
The last several weeks have been full of interesting reading, a compelling documentary, the promise of a challenging exhibit at the Dennos Museum, and a couple of surprises inside my own head. I have no gift (or patience) for writing book reviews, but I have some Interesting Suggestions for you, in no particular order:
- Them: Images of Separation–“a traveling exhibition from the Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University that showcases items from popular culture used to stereotype different groups”–at the Dennos Museum in Traverse City, now through March 3. This exhibit has special resonance for someone who has been obsessing over Civil War veterans and their descendants for the last four years – and for anyone who’s paying attention to Life As It Is Right Now.
- Brother Outsider, a PBS documentary about activist Bayard Rustin. Friends had rented it from Netflix and we watched it after a good dinner on Saturday. It took waaaay longer to watch it than it would have in a theatre, because we kept pressing PAUSE. This is partly because of the age range – I was the oldest bat in the room and the youngest bat was a bit younger than Rob the Firefighter – and partly because there was more peach blackberry crumble out in the kitchen. The crumble needs no explanation in this crowd. As for the extended age range relevance, some of us were there on the Mall, live and in person, in August, 1963, and some of us weren’t even born yet. The best conversations take place among people with diverse life experiences and perspectives.
- Steve Yarbrough’s novel, Safe from the Neighbors. Narrator Luke May is a local historian trying to untangle what really happened in Loring, Mississippi in 1962 – on the night before James Meredith registered for classes at Ole Miss.
- Steve Luxenberg’s memoir Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret. Luxenberg is a former investigative reporter for the Washington Post who tried to understand why he never knew he had an Aunt Annie, and how his mother had managed to keep the secret. He writes: The easy answer–shame and stigma–is the one that I often heard as I pursued the story. But when it comes to secrets, there are no easy answers, and shame is only where the story begins, not ends.
And here I am at the Elk Rapids Library after dark. This almost never happens, on account of it means that Miss Sadie and the Cowboy have been alone all afternoon, and have probably figured out some way to make me sorry. I’m going to pack up now and go home for a good supper. Back tomorrow.
Torch Lake Views 
Martha
January 14, 2013
I adore crows. I adore ravens, too. Brilliant birds. Nothing like the sound of one or the other or both when you are deep inside the woods.
Take care that Cowboy and Miss Sadie don’t hang a sign in the window “Help Needed”. Who knows how good their interviewing skills are.
Take care going home, eat well, sleep well, stay warm.
Gerry
January 15, 2013
Even when I see them up close I sometimes have a hard time telling crows from ravens, but I agree that, taken together, they are brilliant. They like to let everyone else in the woods know when Miss Sadie, the Cowboy and I are out and about.
Kathleen
January 14, 2013
I’m traveling away from home. It’s so nice to “hear” your voice. I enjoyed your multi-media, multi-arts&culture message. And of course, the fine photography from Babs.
Gerry
January 15, 2013
I’m glad you enjoyed stopping by. I’m going to the Dennos later this week so I’m pretty sure I’ll have more to say eventually. Happy trails.
Bruce Laidlaw
January 14, 2013
A thought provoking post. I remember Heckle and Jeckle because I am ancient. Now I need to check out that house on the hill. We need more snow so I can get the Barnes Park trails in shape.
Gerry
January 15, 2013
I’m glad your thoughts felt provoked. Mine have been pretty well provoked for a couple of weeks now, and the provoked love company.
Rob the Firefighter remembers Heckle and Jeckle, too, and he is not ancient, although he sometimes feels that way at the end of a brutal shift. It turns out the pair were a cultural fixture from our prehistoric childhood right up until Ronald Reagan was elected.
I would be happy to have nice, fluffy lake effect snow that you could groom. The other kind will make me morose.
dawnkinster
January 14, 2013
First off, yes I remember Heckel and Jeckle. That does not make me old. I don’t think. Second, I so totally agree that the best conversations happen with people with diverse views and life experiences. The trick is to get a diverse group of people to sit down and talk. Peach crumble might be the secret. Third I might be in Northport the beginning of Feb and if there’s no snow…maybe (not sure) my friend and I could go see the exhibit in TC. Depends on the schedule of course. Yep. Lots to consider in this post. Pet Cowboy and Miss Sadie for me, ey?
Gerry
January 15, 2013
You are right. Remembering Heckle and Jeckle makes you no older than Rob the Firefighter, and he is definitely not old.
Peach crumble is an effective mediator.
A person who deliberately sets out for Northport in the first part of February is (1) a connoisseur of landscapes and communities and (2) intrepid.
The Dennos exhibit will be worth seeing. I’m going to rummage around in my collection for stories the whole thing has brought to mind.
Pets will be distributed this afternoon. I am sure the Duo will be glad to have them.
WOL
January 14, 2013
I always thought Heckle and Jeckle were crows, too.
Gerry
January 15, 2013
I’ve been looking at some of the old images online and have concluded that they were “birds of an indefinite species.” Sometimes they were all black, sometimes they had snowy tuxedo fronts, and sometimes they were black with dark gray breasts. I’m like you – I remember their essential crow-ness. Another topic for a thesis in popular culture, should anyone be looking for one. (See how easy it is for me to digress? Worrying, really.)
shoreacres
January 15, 2013
A few months ago, someone asked, “Wasn’t there a cartoon with some crows in it?” We all remembered the cartoon, but couldn’t remember the names of the birds. It took a dozen people a full day to finally turn up Heckle and Jeckle.
I’m much taken with “Annie’s Ghosts”, and the keeping of family secrets. Two have emerged in my own family over the past three or four years. I never knew that one of my mother’s sisters was an alcoholic, for example. It was only after Mom’s death, when I was looking at photos of gravestones, that I realized my aunt had lived not 60 miles from us, and was alive through my grade school years, yet I never met her.
And then there was my favorite aunt, who had more story behind her life in New York and her marriage to my “I’m from Joisey and I’m in garbage” uncle than I ever imagined. I need to get cracking on that one.
“No Irish Need Apply” caught me, too. My mother lived her whole life suffering the shame of being Irish – and shanty Irish, at that, rather than lace-curtain. She had some stories to tell, but never would talk. Now, I’m beginning to pry a bit out of my remaining aunt.
Gerry
January 15, 2013
I read both books because they dealt with times and places and subject matter I find compelling. The bonus was that each was an example of how to tell a complicated story well. Amazing things, books.
Sybil
January 15, 2013
I avoid reading these sorts of things like the plague. I saw the movie “Sophie’s Choice” over 25 years ago, and still get so sad when I think about it. I take all these tragic, unfair, stories into my heart and weep about the unfairness of life.
But … “Yes”, I do remember Heckle and Jeckle. Did not know they were Magpies.
Gerry
January 15, 2013
I can understand that. I didn’t read or see Sophie’s Choice because I didn’t want to take it into my heart. At that time I had immersed myself in enough hard stories for a lifetime, I thought, and did not want to add another.
Years later I find myself deliberately researching a bigger range of tragedies than I even knew existed back then. I didn’t plan on it – but that’s what happens whenever you follow people’s stories wherever they go. The astonishing thing is that people find a way to go on. They really do.
tootlepedal
January 15, 2013
You make me feel a little intellectually lightweight having done nothing recently but pedal about and take some snaps. I will have to read a book sooner or later. I seem to have stopped reading about five years ago.
Gerry
January 15, 2013
This from a man who has a wide-ranging knowledge of music and birds and the cultural, social and natural history of the borderlands! Pedaling about is, I think, a very good way to learn a lot. When you stumble on something curious and want to learn more about it, you will find your way to a book or two. You’ll remember how. It’s just like riding a bike – she said with a wicked little grin.
Reading goes in fits and starts with me–at least serious reading. Right now I seem to be in a fit. It will pass. My addiction to non-serious reading is probably permanent.
Karma
January 16, 2013
Interesting thoughts in this post Gerry. I have very vague memories of Heckle and Jeckle. I feel like they popped in to the Saturday morning cartoon routine every now and again. I’m curious about Annie’s Ghost. With the gift of a Kindle Fire I received for Christmas, I’m thinking it may be rather easy to check it out. I hope Miss Sadie and the Cowboy were good for you!
Louan Lechler
January 16, 2013
I think, I knew that Heckle and Jeckle were magpies but we didn’t have magpies, in Ingham County, Michigan. I chose to think of them as, the ever present, crows. It worked for me. We had crows.
I think, I must have had the same sort of feeling for the signage. We didn’t have them, in Ingham County, Michigan. I was actually frightened buy a” Whites Only” sign, over a door, on a southern Florida grocery store, in the seventies. Too much reality for me.
Belinda
January 26, 2013
Did you find any new interesting info. at the library?
shoreacres
February 18, 2013
Never mind where’s Heckle. Where’s Gerry? Was there that much snow? Someone start shoveling!
Gerry
February 19, 2013
Gerry is over at Blue Heaven using Babs’s broadband in the middle of lots of blowing snow. It isn’t that we’ve had that much, just that what there is has been blown about and rained upon and frozen and salted and snowed upon and so forth. We have had pretty days and dismal days and invisible days. (I’m pretty sure that Torch Lake is still out there, but I wouldn’t want to swear to it just now.)