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The Gentry is Frivolous

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Abdul Hakim-Shabazz (the man, the myth, the legend) has a column entitled “The Revolution has been Gentrified.” He reports that the protest of the police action shooting of Aaron Bailey by two IMPD officers was much more heavily attended by white people than black people. The black folks were, he suggests, at Black Expo. I’m not writing to offer any thoughts on the particular event.

Instead, what caught my eye was the characterization of the white people who attended the event. It was in what I’m tentatively calling “The Gentry is Frivolous” genre. Abdul’s wasn’t particularly egregious, nor did it dominate his piece. (In his case, it was mainly used for comic effect):

[T]he Don’t Sleep crowd drew the hipsters and people most likely to serve you a tall latte, with skim (or almond milk), and no sweetener.

. . .

[T]he revolution has culturally appropriated by progressive white privilege.  And when that white privilege drove home, it probably didn’t even have to worry about getting pulled over in a traffic stop.

But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about social class in America, and this seems like a fairly common theme. The upper middle class, the gentry, is a bunch of coddled, soft little ninnies with frivolous concerns. The food they eat is silly. Their stated social concerns are merely “virtue signaling,” not truly held beliefs.

They aren’t real Americans ™ doing real work ™. A real job — after all — requires that you shower after work, not before. And, after work, instead of drinking real, American beer like Bud Light or Miller, they drink pretentious, hoppy beers with funny names. Their kids, if they can be peeled away from the screen, probably run around with brooms pretending to play Quidditch instead of something manly, like football. Or worse, maybe they play boring, scoreless soccer instead of exciting American games like baseball.

Again, to be clear, I’m not piling this on Abdul. His line about the latte was just the launching point for something I’ve been thinking about for awhile. I have a very lefty acquaintance with a blue-collar job whose distaste for professionals was a lot stronger than I had anticipated. This class division is real. And it seems to be more about education than wealth. Trump can somehow be seen as of the blue collar social class despite being an alleged billionaire who was born into immense wealth. The professional classes are the ones more likely to inspire resentment among the white working classes. (And maybe the non-white working classes as well — politically, however, the leaders preferred by the white working classes are disastrous from any number of angles for members of the non-white working classes.)

The stated reason for the resentment by the white working class is often that they feel condescension by the professional classes. Whether that’s the true reason or not, I’m not so sure. After all, looking at the withering condescension you see going the other way. There is endless condescension about liberals and their lattes. Or maybe it’s arugula. Or maybe it’s participation trophies. Ann Coulter has made a lot of money telling white working class people what they want to hear over the years. She said:

“Liberals are not like most Americans. They are the biggest pussies on Earth, city-bred weaklings who didn’t play a sport and have never been in a fight in their entire lives. Their mothers made excuses for them when they threw tantrums and spent way too much time praising them during toilet training.”

So, I don’t think it’s an abiding concern for condescension that causes the resentment. It’s a sensitivity to condescension running the “wrong way” that seems to be provoking. And, by the way, this “city people are soft and lack virtue” notion is nothing new. The Greeks were using it against the cosmopolitan Persians. (Persians wore perfume and slippers, don’t you know.) The fall of Rome was ascribed to its adoption of cosmopolitan ways and abandoning the simple, more rustic virtues of real Romans. (Kids these days and their aqueducts. Why, in my day, you had to go to a well to get water!)

So, as you run across critiques of “liberals,” try to see how much of it can be boiled down to mere “the gentry is frivolous” hand waving.

State Impact on High School Career and Technical Training

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Peter Balonon-Rosen, writing for State Impact Indiana has a good article on career and technical training initiatives in Indiana schools:

A new state law could allow job training programs to replace other high school graduation requirements. The law requires the State Board of Education to develop new pathways to high school completion.

It comes just as job training in Indiana high schools has taken on a new life — and new name.

“I think there’s a negative perception associated with the term ‘vocational training,’” Deuberry says. “Instead it is kind of like job training program. It’s so much bigger.”

. . .

Career and technical education programs are growing across Indiana. Today, students learn skills from welding to 3D printing to cooking – not just shop class skills, as was common in the past.

This is probably a good concept if done well but subject to abuse if done poorly. (Not very insightful: you could probably say that about almost literally any initiative.)  Earlier in the article, Balonon-Rosen mentions that policymakers have struggled with whether education should be about getting kids ready for college or for the workforce. Molly Deuberry, speaking for the Department of Education, says “both.” And that’s correct as far as it goes, but I cringed a little at the idea of “college” being the counterpart to “workforce” because you run into the same question in college. Is that just advanced vocational training?

The larger question, in my mind, is whether you are teaching the student to be a worker or teaching the student to be a person. The ability to make a living is a big part of what is going to make you a productive, happy, fully developed citizen and human. But, it’s obviously not the only thing. Schools have to focus on vocational capabilities as a significant part of what will make a student a good person and a citizen who will improve the community. College preparation is not necessarily the path to excellence in those non-vocational areas of life.

But, I’m straying a bit from the point. When I was a kid, it seemed like vocational classes were a place where the troublemakers were shunted off. As I walked the hallways, I saw lots of rough kids through the doors of shop rooms that I never set foot in. The danger is that these vocational classes won’t be used so much as an alternate route for a fully developed education as storage space for troublemakers.

But it definitely doesn’t have to be that way, and from the article it sounds like the aspiration of the career and technical training initiatives is to recognize that college isn’t for everyone. (And, as I say this, I’m extremely wary of sounding like Judge Smails in Caddyshack when he tells Danny, “the world needs ditch diggers too.”) A strong career and technical education path was one of the recommendations of the NCSL report on how to build a world-class educational system after the study group reviewed a number of other educational systems around the world. As I put it in a blog post from last year:

Develop a Career and Technical Education path for those students preferring more of an applied education rather than a more academic approach. This shouldn’t be an educational backwater like so many vocational programs. It should be geared to boosting  the national economy and providing a higher standard of living for a broader base of the population.

More from the report:

Singapore and Switzerland, in particular, have built strong systems of CTE with close ties to industry. Singapore uses a school-based model and Switzerland uses an employer-based model. In these countries, CTE is not perceived as a route for students lacking strong academic skills, but as another approach to education, skills development and good jobs. CTE is well funded, academically challenging and aligned with real workforce needs. It is hands-on, attractive to students and parents, and can lead to university for students who may seek professional and managerial positions later. For other students, CTE is a pathway to good jobs, by building technical skills that can be achieved much earlier than the traditional academic experience.

It bears mentioning that the report also called for social safety net infrastructure so the student comes ready to learn, a well-paid and highly trained force of teachers working collaboratively, and that the system be implemented as part of a comprehensive plan. These items are likely less palatable to Indiana policymakers than beefing up vocational education career tracks. Which, in turn, makes me concerned about whether the career and technical education track will be implemented as an alternate route to a high quality education or just a new name for the old approach to vocational education.

Italy Trip – Part VI: Back to Rome and on to Berlin

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Day 7: Back to Rome, Pantheon, and Capitoline Museum

All my ducks in a row.

After three nights in Florence, it was time to return to Rome where we would spend another night before catching a plane out of Italy. We started the day with breakfast at the same cafe on the Duomo plaza. I’m a big fan of a simple breakfast of croissants and coffee, so that’s what I ordered once again. Then we packed our stuff, hauled our luggage down four flights of stairs, and through the streets of Florence back to the train station. By this time, such trips were becoming fairly routine. The train ride was easy. From my very limited experience on this trip, Europe just seems to do train and plane travel a lot better than we do in the U.S.  Back in Rome, we stayed in the Hotel Torino whose main asset is being close to the train station. It was perfectly serviceable, but it was billed as a four star hotel — so I guess I don’t know what that rating entails. Certainly nothing to do with quality WiFi! But, we weren’t spending much time in the hotel anyway, so it didn’t much matter.

Once we got our stuff up to the fourth floor rooms (elevator this time!) the first order of business was lunch. We ate at Er Buchetto. This place was fantastic for what we wanted. Just a quick, inexpensive sandwich to tide us over. The sandwiches were incredible — pretty much just pork on bread which we ate standing up at tables, which sounds awful, but when the pork is a delicious porchetta and the bread is great and the table you’re standing at is on a sidewalk in Rome, it’s the opposite of awful. I also had a Peroni because, why not?

Marcus Aurelius and Harper

From there, we walked to the Pantheon. We had seen the outside on the first night in Rome but had arrived too late to go in. When we went in, I was a little surprised — but really shouldn’t have been: the many gods one expects with a word like “Pantheon” have been replaced by the one Christian god. I know the popes haven’t controlled Rome for the full 2,000 years of Christianity, but they have at least done so for a long time. It makes sense that the Pantheon wouldn’t remain dedicated to pagan Gods. Wikipedia tells me it was dedicated to St. Mary and the Martyrs in the 7th century.

From there, we had yet more gelato, enjoyed some fountains, and made our way to the Capitoline Museums. This museum had been recommended by our tour guide for the Colosseum, and (in my opinion) it delivers. It sits atop the Capitoline Hill, has great exhibits, and was very uncrowded. In particular, the huge statues of Marcus Aurelius and Constantine are impressive. And the length of time there have been people settled on Capitoline Hill is staggering. They had evidence of Bronze Age settlements there. It’s a good, defensible location on the Tiber connecting the Mediterranean to the interior of Italy, so settlement there makes a certain amount of sense. We cut this visit a little short — our Museum Tyrant was a little gassed (as was the family generally) and not insisting on seeing every room. 

A cozy little room with understated decor in the Capitoline Museum.

So, we made the long walk back to the hotel and had a little rest before dinner. Our last dinner in Italy was at the Alessio — a nice restaurant down the street from the Hotel Torino with tables in the basement. Seemed to be a popular place for Americans. I had a mushroom and sausage pizza. But, Harper’s meal was probably the most interesting — it was a seafood pasta with things like oysters, clams, and shrimp on top of the pasta. She had to do a fair amount of work peeling and whatnot with her meal, but it looked delicious!

I think I mentioned that traffic in Rome is like a perpetual game of chicken. At the crosswalks without lights, you have to kind of walk out into the middle of traffic and trust that cars will stop for you. And, they do stop. But for an American not used to this kind of thing, the level of trust it takes to walk in front of a fairly fast moving car is unnerving. Indecision will get you hurt. We were taking a stroll after dinner when we came upon one of these crosswalks. Harper kind of lost her nerve and her body was trying to go forward and backward at the same time, causing her to fall in the middle of the street! The rest of us were there and, so, the traffic was coming to a stop; so, nothing was hurt but her pride.

Last Supper in Italy

Day 8: Rome to Berlin

Our last day in Italy began with breakfast on the roof of the Hotel Torino. I was moderately excited to see a self-serve coffee dispenser, since I had not had a large cup of coffee since our trip began. But, unfortunately, the coffee was not that great. After making ourselves some plates, we went out onto the roof. This was clearly the pigeons’ roof. We were mere visitors. The wait staff had to be quick to remove the plates and the tablecloth when a patron finished eating because those pigeons were going to be on the table quickly. I think at this point, Harper started rethinking her view of pigeons as cute and interesting and began gravitating more toward the “rats-with-wings” consensus.

We took the Leonardo Train from Termini Station to the airport. There was a bit of trouble with the conductor as we had inadvertently not paid the fare for Cole. When buying the tickets we must have marked both kids down as “children” when 13 year old kids were required to pay full fare. Fortunately, the conductor chalked it up to a misunderstanding and we were able to simply pay the fare without paying the associated fine. Other than that, the train ride, checking bags, security, and the flight from Rome to Berlin were easy. I don’t know if we were lucky or if the Europeans are just better at this sort of thing than we are, but travel on trains and airplanes seemed to be much less of a hassle than I’m used to here in the U.S.

Our bunk room in Berlin

Once we got to Berlin, we were happy to see trees again. When I heard birds chirping again, I realized I hadn’t heard birds chirping while I was in Italy. The driving also seemed more civilized with cars giving each other more space and rules of the road being observed. We stayed at the Hotel 103 which was an interesting place. We initially had some trouble with the buzzer to get into the hotel. We rang the bell, the hotel staff buzzed to unlock the door, but we kept pulling instead of pushing. The guy came out and let us in, then observed that the door didn’t have a “push” sign on it and figured that was something he ought to take care of. The place almost has a feel of a cross between a hotel and a dorm or hostel. The lobby is more hotel like whereas the bedrooms are definitely more dorm-like. Our four bed bedroom was just a long, narrow room with four single beds lined up in a row along the wall with a small table separating each one. There was a table in the corner with a 12” TV. The table was situated such that the bathroom door didn’t open up all the way.

Dinner at Zum Bayernmichel

Making matters even more interesting, the lights wouldn’t turn on. After our inability to get in the front door, I was hesitant to ask the guy at the desk. But, we have to have light. Turns out there is a receptacle on the wall inside the room where you put your key card. This activates the lights. It’s an energy saving strategy. The front desk guy said it’s on his list of things he tries to remember to tell Americans because we’re apparently very often unfamiliar with the concept. We also asked for restaurant recommendations. He offered us a variety of cuisine types, but — much as we like, for example, Thai food — we felt we should get some German food. So, he recommended Zum Bayernmichel which was a block or two away and fit the bill perfectly. He said his wife — who grew up in Germany — described it as the sort of comfort food her grandma might make. The owner was so friendly. He was so enthusiastic whenever I’d order, I felt like I’d done something really good! I honestly can’t remember what I ordered. It was big, heavy, tasty, and made of some part of a pig. I mostly remember the cole slaw which was all kinds of delicious. And, I had some German beer. Again, I don’t remember what it was – but it was listed as the house beer. A pilsner of some sort.

Based solely on the location, I assume this is a reference to David Hasselhoff.

While we were in the restaurant, the only rain of the vacation began. It came down heavy, but was finished by the time we finished eating. So, we took a walk to the Mauerpark where we saw some of the graffiti painted on remnants of the Berlin Wall. Max Schmeling Hall was also in the area, mainly of interest to me simply because I’ve heard the stories about the Max Schmeling – Joe Louis fights in 1936 and 1938 and his later friendship with Louis.  

At the end of the evening, we returned to the Hotel 103 where we had a delightful conversation with the hotel manager and his wife. Afterward, we thought we saw on the name tag that his name was Ben. But,  that could have been part of his surname. But, for purposes of our story, we’ll call him Ben. He kind of ran the check in desk and the bar immediately adjacent to the check in desk. So, he was mixing drinks for us while chatting us up. I just had a beer, but he made the kids some kind of fruity, pineapple, nonalcoholic drink. I think Amy had a Berliner Weiss mit Schuss — like a wheat beer with raspberry syrup.  Ben was originally from Israel but had moved to Germany and become a citizen. His wife told us about the time she’d been to the U.S. She told a story about going to New Jersey and getting hit on by Bruce Springsteen. Ben told us about the ongoing Berlin airport boondoggle. He asked us about health insurance in the U.S. We could have talked to him for hours. But, for me, that would have inevitably have led to drinking at the bar for hours, and we had a flight to catch in the morning. So, we made our way up to the room and called it a night. As we were waiting for the elevator, the kids and I were marveling at the vending machine that had beer as an option. A fellow patron confided in us that the beers were horribly overpriced. (Which was o.k. If I wanted another beer, I would have had it at the bar, talking to Ben.)

Day 9: Headed Home

Found a Masson sign about a block away from our hotel in Berlin

The day started early because the sun rose at about 4:45 a.m. in Berlin. The trip home was smooth. We got a cab, took it about 7 miles to the airport, checked our bags, cleared customs, and ate breakfast in about an hour. Again, Europe seems to be a lot better at moving people than we are. Air Berlin, once again, seemed eager to feed us, giving us a couple of meals and a snack. I was seated behind an aggressive recliner. But, all in all, the flight wasn’t too bad. The entertainment systems on board are pretty remarkable when you compare the situation 10 or 20 years ago. A few dozen movies to choose from, plus TV shows, music, and games with a console at each seat. Our biggest challenge on the return was that the review mirror had become detached from the window. I think it was an add-on mirror (with fancy pants temperature gauge and compass) and the adhesive that held it up had given way. The parking facility where we had our car helped us out with some duct tape to keep it from dangling from its wires. Other than that, there were no problems getting home.

The jet lag was definitely easier to deal with, returning east to west, when compared to the return from our Hawaii trip, coming the other way. As it turned out, with the early sun rise in Berlin and the late sunset in Indiana, we had about 22 hours of sunlight. Sad to have our trip end, but happy to be home.

Class War By Proxy

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One of my favorite news sites is Cracked.com, a comedy site. I don’t know if it’s the old thing about the jester being able to speak truth to power or the lack of a particular axe to grind that makes me find it more informative than a lot of straight news and commentary places. A podcast they aired in March 2016 was a discussion about how bad America is at talking about class (and how that contributed to the rise of Trump). We like to pretend that we’re essentially a classless society, a meritocracy where people rise and fall according to their own abilities. We pretend that social class and wealth are pretty much the same thing. The podcast also talked about how we get a lot more riled up by people in the social class adjacent to us than we do by social classes who are a couple of steps removed. (So, the gentry (upper middle class) tend to get more pissed about acts from the upper class than the lower middle class might.) Social classes who are a few steps removed are more cartoonish abstractions than real threats to your way of life. The podcast website linked to an interesting essay entitled, “I can tolerate anything except the out-group.” The out group is going to be one that’s close to home. The author references what Freud described as the narcissism of small differences:“it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and ridiculing each other.”

I had that on my mind as I read a column by Matthew Walther singing the praises of Chuck E Cheese as one of the best bars in America (h/t Tipsy). Says Walther:

Another great thing about Cool Chuck’s is that it is almost totally free of upper-middle-class white liberals, the most dangerous and annoying class of persons in America. They would have no reason to go. By the time ordinary people’s children are ready to enjoy the lights and ball pit, theirs are already studying for the LSAT and brushing up on calculus at bespoke magnet preschools. Besides, it is a place that serves real pizza, with pepperoni and mozzarella cheese, not the flatbread creations topped with avocadoes or peaches or goat cheese or broccoli or all four, which they pretend to like for the same reasons they feign enjoyment of prestige cable dramas instead of just watching Sanford and Son reruns. Also: Dylan and Heather already have iPads stuffed with classical music apps, so the games aren’t a draw either. More for the rest of us.

The other parents at Chuck E. Cheese’s are normal, emotionally well-adjusted, spiritually and morally upright working people happy to have found this little low-cost slice of Eden. We have great conversations about things like God, sports, and the difficulties of raising a family in the country’s most expensive metropolitan area.

He also proclaims that “macro brews” are “real beer,” and sneers at craft beer. This focus on seeming trivialities like what kind of pizza or TV shows people watch while the world burns, foreign relations deteriorate, health care is on its way to becoming a distant dream, and the White House is occupied by a person who lacks the emotional discipline to run the country seems like madness. But, it’s not about the pizza. It’s not even about God. It’s about social class and antipathy toward the adjacent social class.

So, when we start calling each other hypocrites it’s often because we weren’t really talking about those things we said out loud. A lot of the folks talking about the need for a leader to share their Christian values were able to vote for Trump because they weren’t really talking about the need for moral probity in a leader. They were talking about wanting the kind of guy who reflected their social class — or at least pissed off the social classes that they hated. That’s what the talk about Obama eating arugula and Trump eating burnt steaks with ketchup is all about.

When the talk radio guys talk about “elitism,” they’re not talking about money and they’re not talking about the super-wealthy. They’re talking about the professional classes that are adjacent to and piss off the social class immediately below them — what I’ve been calling the gentry. When the gentry hear “elite,” they think about the billionaires and such things as the Wall Street casino. But that’s not primarily what the talk radio guys are getting at. They’re pushing the emotional buttons of the working class white listeners hard enough to get them to listen through the next Gold Bond commercial. And it’s the narcissism of small differences that triggers that emotion. So, when I — as a member of the gentry — turn up my nose at Bud Light and reach for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, it’s probably a worse affront than legislator who votes for a tax cut that benefits the billionaire at the expense of the extreme lower class.

I don’t want this to be read as saying “Both Sides ™ are equally to blame” or as a plea to ignore horrible policy ideas in favor of becoming unified and singing kumbaya with the people who advocate those horrible policy ideas. But understating the emotional landscape in which we’re operating is important.

Judge Busch to resign from Tippecanoe Circuit Court at the end of the year

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Dave Bangert, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier, has an article on Judge Tom Busch’s announcement that he is going to be retiring as judge for the Circuit Court of Tippecanoe County. I learned a lot of what I know about practicing law from Tom. He was a partner with the firm when I signed on as an associate. I had just become partner in January of 2002 when a position on the bench opened up upon the death of Judge Heid. I still remember eating lunch at the Triple XXX Family Restaurant when Tom told us he was going to seek the position. That moment was significant for me because I felt like it’s when the training wheels came off for me as an attorney. Our other partner, Dave Luhman, was still a strong presence at the firm, but I had mostly been doing collections and work for Tom while I was an associate. When Tom left, a lot of his case load went to me directly and I didn’t have him to lean on anymore. It was scary, but it worked out.

Tom has done a great job as a judge over the years. He was a judge you wanted looking at your case, particularly if you had a novel argument or a non-routine matter to look at. He has a great curiosity about the law. (As an associate, that could be frustrating when he sent you back for the nth revision of a brief, but it’s a good quality in a lawyer or a judge!) Back in 2014, he left his position as judge of Superior Court 2 to run for the Circuit Court position which he won. When he retires at the end of the year, Governor Holcomb will fill the position. There are three years left on Judge Busch’s term, but I think there will now be an election in November which will result in a full six year term beginning January 2019. So, Governor Holcomb’s replacement will serve for a year under the governor’s appointment.

And Judge Busch will get to see more of his family which is truly far flung at this point. He’s earned it!

Father’s Day

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Me and the kids on top of the Astoria Column, June 2016.

Today on Facebook, I made a post that said, “it’s Father’s Day, and I enjoy being a Dad.” Upon further reflection, “enjoy” doesn’t quite capture it. I do enjoy being a Dad most of the time. Occasionally not. But the significance of being a Dad for me is bigger than whether I enjoy it. It’s difficult to describe, particularly because I don’t really know what I’d be like if I never became a father. But, I feel like it has made me more substantial as a person. This is a consequence of having a large responsibility and doing my level best, over a sustained period of time, to fulfill it. The returns on the effort are fantastic. The kids have gone from little bundles of perpetual neediness to full blown people whose company I really enjoy.

If it weren’t for family life, I feel like there’s a good chance my life would lack a lot of the depth I feel like it has now: working, drinking, golfing, and playing video games are fun for awhile, but they only take you so far. And, for what it’s worth, I’m speaking only for myself here. I’m sensitive to the fact that people have not had kids for a variety of reasons (e.g. can’t or have decided that’s not the choice for them.) Many of them, from what I can tell, are living lives that are plenty rich and deep. (For that matter, I’ve seen guys who are technically fathers but don’t seem to give a damn). But, for my part, I’m skeptical about what my life would look like now if I had not gone the family route. They make me better.

Italy Trip – Part V: Gallery dell’Accademia, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

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Day 5: Gallery dell’Accademia

Michelangelo’s David

I wouldn’t call this a bad day, but if I had to pick a least favorite day, this was probably it. Even so, seeing Michelangelo’s David at the Gallery dell’Accademia was not something I’ll soon forget. Once again, this is a work of art that is recognized as among the best of all time, so I can’t add anything very insightful here. I’ll just say that the size and the detail are such that pictures don’t really convey the same impact as seeing it in person. However, the rest of the art collection did not speak to me. It was pretty exclusively religious and, after awhile, the paintings of Jesus and Mary kind of ran together in a way that they did not seem to do elsewhere (and, I’m sure you’ll be surprised to find there is a lot of religious art in Italy.)

Exacerbating this was the fact that a lot of the art was created before they had developed techniques such as perspective that make the art more realistic — the result being that, to my modern eyes, the images were fairly crude. (A lot of the Baby Jesuses had what looked to me like the face of an adult man, complete with receding hairline in some cases, rather than that of a child.) The plaques describing the work have the feel of an art student talking to another art student — assertions about the powerful emotion of a piece that, to me, looks like stick figures compared to later Renaissance work. I’m not trying to slag on this art – I recognize that my knowledge of such things is minimal. But it’s jarring to look at a work that does nothing for you then read about its supposed emotional intensity. So, for me, the David was very worthwhile. The rest of the gallery not so much. The kids held up pretty well, though you could see that the place did not much capture their interest either. (Again, aside from David.)

Not having a plan for the rest of the day, I went with my now standard approach of looking for a green space on the map and heading there. This time it didn’t work out for us. We headed for Cascine Park on the west end of town. The walk took us through what felt like a sketchy area of town, then the park itself — at the edge where we entered anyway — was pretty shaggy and didn’t have many people there. One kid riding a bike past us seemed to ride unnecessarily close to Cole, like he was trying to provoke a reaction before he avoided contact and moved on. I think if we had made it to the center of the park, we would have seen more people and more of interest. But, the place was giving us a bad vibe, so, we turned around before getting to anything much. It ended up being a pretty long walk (4 – 4.5 miles) for not much payoff. On the walk back, Amy and the kids got some gelato and I got a Peroni, so it wasn’t all bad.

Waiting for dinner!

That night, we ate dinner at a place called SimBIOsi. When we got there, the host said it would be a 10-20 minute wait. Turned out to be over an hour. Adding insult to injury, they started handing out those free glasses of wine to people waiting but there were a lot of people waiting and they never seemed to notice us when they handed out the glasses. I get a little skeptical when places promote being “organic.” I don’t mind fresh, locally sourced, food that avoids processing, but I’m not a huge fan of the marketing surrounding these things.  That said, once we did get seated, the food was delicious. The lettuce in the salad was, in particular, ridiculously good. The seating is a long table that runs the length of the room where they sit you on both sides and you share space with other groups. We had some pleasant, but fairly minimal interaction with a British couple and then an Italian couple that were to the side of us. At the end of dinner, Harper finally got her cheesecake (which resulted in a retelling of the cheesecake nightmare story!)

Day 6: Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore

Admiring the understated architecture over breakfast.

Whatever Day 5 lacked, Day 6 made up for. We had 9 a.m. tickets to get into the Duomo museum. We couldn’t get into the Cathedral itself until afternoon because it was Sunday and, I believe, morning was reserved for services. So, we grabbed breakfast at a cafe across from the Duomo. It’s hard to describe how much I enjoyed eating outside in a beautiful plaza with this amazing piece of architecture towering over us. The museum devoted to the cathedral was spectacular. At one point, I was so engrossed in the sculptures cast into panels on the doors known as the “Gates of Paradise” that I bumped my head on the glass barrier. (Testament to how clear the glass was! Now I know how birds feel.)

I’m not sure how much the kids took away, but while we were learning about the construction of the Dome itself, I was very insistent to Cole & Harper about how the Dome was the kind of thing that started the scientific revolution. In particular, it seems to have been one of the points where people of the day recognized that they could not only match the feats of Rome, they could surpass them. The mindset that humans can make the world better than they found it is very important to me and hopefully will be to the kids as well. I think there is some level of irony to the idea that the people of the day were teaching themselves about things like math, physics, and perspective in an effort to create works that would better glorify God but the scientific revolution that resulted lessened the relative importance of religion in day-to-day life. I was also very interested to learn that Bruneschelli who designed the dome got his start (in part) as a clockmaker.

Another exhibit that I found moving was “The Deposition” by Michelangelo. It was one of his Pietas, carved when he was nearing the end of his life in his 70s, intending that it would be placed at his tomb. He became frustrated with a flaw in the marble and attempted to destroy it. (Although there is another theory that the imagery he used would identify him as identifying with a group of Christians who were out of favor with the Church.) The face of one of the figures in the sculpture is said to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself.

Tyrant of the Museum

During this trip, Harper earned the title, “Tyrant of the Museum.” She had very definite opinions on which room we should go to next. She wasn’t trying to hurry us from one room to the next — rather, she was trying to make sure that we worked through the museum methodically so she didn’t miss a room.

Later, in the early afternoon, we climbed the ~450 steps up to the dome. Everyone did fine. Amy was a little concerned that she’d get nervous with the heights, but it didn’t seem to be an issue. (Unlike the Astoria Column last year in Oregon which looked to be pretty nerve racking.) The views were, of course, spectacular. We celebrated the climb with some wine and sodas at yet another street side cafe. On the other side of the street, there was a busker playing an accordion. We had seen him in a number of locations over the two days we had been in Florence and loved his music. Harper took some coins to put in his cup. Buskers are fine, but there were also a number of beggars in the street who were not so fun to be around — they generally gave the impression of being grifters rather than simply people down on their luck.  Later in the afternoon, we made it into the Cathedral itself. We had seen parts of it as we climbed the dome but had not yet seen it from the ground. It’s impressive for sure, but it doesn’t take a lot of time. The line to get in can be fairly long, but generally it moves pretty fast. 

Club del Gusto

We wrapped the day up with dinner at Club del Gusto. One website said it was open at 6 p.m., but apparently they didn’t open for dinner until 7 p.m. (While we were waiting, Cole took the opportunity to pick up a Juventus soccer jersey from a nearby vendor.) On the way to the restaurant, we saw a line for a restaurant called  All’ Antico Vinaio which was significant enough that, when we got back, I felt the need to look up what the hell was going on. From the reviews, it looks like wine and killer sandwiches for not very much money. If we ever make our way back to Florence, we’ll have to check it out.  

Still, our dinner at Club del Gusto was no disappointment. It’s a small operation — with what I took to be the owner and one assistant. The owner talked me out of a pasta with cow stomach (lampredotto). I knew what it was and intended to try it, but if the owner was suggesting something else, I figured I’d go with his suggested alternative. In retrospect, I wonder if he just assumed that as an American my delicate sensibilities wouldn’t deal well with cow stomach. Either way, I had a good dinner – some pasta with more like a Bolognese sauce. Amy and I split a half liter of red wine that was pretty good and, once again, reasonably priced! The kids had pasta with wild boar. If you’ve been following along, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn that we hit up yet another gelato shop on our way home. This was the view from our balcony at night: 

 

Duomo at night

Next: Back to Rome and on to Berlin

Italy Trip – Part IV: Travel to Florence, Boboli Gardens

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After three nights in the Rome apartment, we were ready to head to Florence. First we had to clean up the apartment and get breakfast. Dealing with trash is apparently a bit of an ordeal in Rome. We didn’t have much of it, but we had to walk it 3 or 4 blocks to a trash receptacle (only available during particular hours). Fortunately, there was a nice cafe nearby. (There’s *always* a nice cafe nearby). In this case, it was the Caffe Lungara 1940. I had a double espresso and a croissant. Amy had a cappuccino. Italian coffee culture is different from ours. We tend to drink more at one time and linger over it. I’m told Italians are more likely to drink it in smaller, more concentrated doses and stand over a bar to do it. The cappuccino is almost entirely a morning drink since it has milk in it. I’d never had espresso (double or otherwise) before. I enjoyed it — but, then I like my coffee strong anyway. The place had a retro decor. (I guess “retro” is relative in a place as old as Rome — think “Beatles albums on the wall.”) It also seemed to have more than its fair share of English speaking patrons. The staff was very friendly. 12/10 would recommend.

Train, train, take me on out of this town.

After a breakfast, we took a car to Termini Station which is the central train station for Rome, serving both the local trains and the regional trains. The news ticker on the TVs at the station were full of news about Trump’s abandoning the Paris Accords on climate change. The quote running was “Trump refuses the future” which, I suppose, tells you what you need to know about Europe’s view of the U.S.’s political situation. That said, the people we met did not seem to associate us with our country’s political situation. I can’t think of anybody who was anything but nice to us. A somewhat unexpected aspect of Termini: pay toilets. That’s a seller’s market, so we paid the price!

The train system was remarkably smooth. Mussolini may be gone, but the trains still ran on time. Everyone here should take the Rome to Florence train to see what’s possible. Compared to that ride, the Lafayette to Chicago train might as well burn coal and use a cow catcher. Indianapolis to Chicago would involve denser populations in both cities at a distance that is not terribly longer. We could do this if we wanted to. The Rome to Florence trip took 1.5 hours. The shorter trip from Lafayette to Chicago takes at least double that.

Some random thoughts about the trip:  I was a little surprised to find that my ears popped from pressure as we headed through tunnels. After reflection, I realized the train was acting like a piston when it went through the tunnel, so of course the air pressure would increase. The arid countryside between the cities reminded me a little of the Western Slope areas in Colorado. Finally, a warning sign on the train window told you that, in an emergency, you should break it with the Martello di Emergenza (“Hammer of Emergency”) which I think would make a good band name.

After hitting Florence, we dragged our luggage ¾ of a mile to our apartment on Piazza San Marco then up the stairs to another fourth floor residence. We didn’t have plans, so I was tasked with coming up with something. I found more green space. In this case, it was the Boboli Gardens which were across the Arno River and up a *steep* hill. The family called it “another one of Dad’s death marches.” Cole used the term affectionately. The rest of the family less so. On the way, we stopped at a little sandwich shop called Sogni E Sapori.  Cole and I had sausage sandwiches that were delicious. The girls had pasta which got the job done, but Amy strongly suspected it was warmed up in the microwave.

Too bad there wasn’t anything pretty to look at on this trip.

When we arrived at the Gardens, we hadn’t necessarily expected an entrance fee, but the fee was well worth it. Initially, where we entered wasn’t too impressive — a path through some corridors of bushes, but then it opened up to (yet another) incredible view. What was more, there was grass! The kids went barefoot. We had spent too many days with footwear on cobblestones. Because I’m 12 at heart, I cracked myself up looking at a statue that I affectionately referred to as Neptune’s Bidet because of the position of the fountain in relation to the statue of Neptune in the pond.

After wandering the park for awhile, we came to a broad clearing without many people and just relaxed, enjoying the day. Cole and I sat on the ground in the shade. Amy and Harper sat on a nearby bench. Eventually both of them were laying down on the bench. And then Harper was dead asleep on the bench. Travel takes it out of a girl! Probably this has something to do with the Bonine she took to avoid travel sickness on the train. (We have a nice collection of photos of Harper sleeping in various places during the vacation.) Leaving the garden, we stopped for gelato before our long hike home. One of my favorite stretches of Florence was the Via Romana running along the northwest edge of the gardens down a long hill to the Ponte Vecchio — a bridge over the Arno River with shops lining the edges. The Via Romana has an incredible array of shops and restaurants and all kinds of activity. 

Out like a light.

Impressive as the selections were, we were a little beat for dealing with a restaurant that night. So, we went to a grocery store not far from us. It had an impressive amount of stuff in a not very big space. It must be a challenge to supply these cities with such narrow streets and fairly cramped spaces. Being this old, the cities simply weren’t designed with cars and trucks in mind. That said, the streets of Florence were, by and large, less cramped than the streets of Rome.

Our apartment in Florence wasn’t quite as swanky as our apartment in Rome, but  we didn’t need a lot. This one had a small balcony with a view of the Duomo which was a really great view as we drank our wine and ate our meat and cheese to wind down the night. There were a lot of street noises. We were above a bus stop and, just generally, there is a lot going on. The ambulances are pretty frequent. And, at least on Saturday night, there was a happening party on a rooftop terrace a few buildings down from us. Sounded like they were having a great time. Also, they liked Led Zeppelin.

Next time: Michelangelo’s David

Italy Trip – Part III: Castel Sant’Angelo, Spanish Steps, Villa Borghese Gardens, Piazza del Popolo

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On the Road to Castel Sant’Angelo

Castel Sant’Angelo

We all slept in after our Colosseum tour. By the time we woke up and got moving, it was lunch time. We didn’t have any timetable that day, so it was all good. We ate lunch at a cafe (salmon pizza for me!) before heading out over to Castel Sant’Angelo which you could see from the terrace of our apartment. Before we entered, Harper browsed one of the ever-present merchandise stands to see if there was anything she wanted. She had received some surprise money from grandma before the trip and was wasting no time in finding something she liked. She got a jaunty sun hat that served her well throughout the rest of our trip — there being no lack of sun.

The castle started as a mausoleum for the Emperor Hadrian on the west bank of the Tiber but was turned into a fortress for the Popes. In particular, Pope Clement VII holed up there when the forces of Holy Roman Emperor (“neither Holy nor Roman nor Empire”) Charles V sacked Rome. Pope Paul III, in particular, seems to have spruced the place up “to ensure that in any future siege the pope had an appropriate place to stay.” Cole and I had fun noting the many places where “Paulus III” was inscribed (e.g. fireplace mantel pieces, doorways.) We also joked about the “minimalist” design. I will gently describe the decor as “busy.”

Near the top of the castle, there is a little bar with outdoor seating. Amy snagged us the best seats in the place — a table with a great view of St. Paul’s cathedral. At the top of the castle, there are some ridiculous views of the city and the Vatican. As we made our way back down and out of the site, there was a running fountain that I used to fill up a water bottle. (In a number of places in Rome, you’ll see running fountains. It’s my understanding that the water is generally potable.) From then on, I raved about the quality of the “castle water” which turned into a running joke about how I would never drink anything else — the kids came up with a plan where we could send them in (admission being free for the kids) to secure my castle water. The repeated flights to Rome might still get a little expensive.

Spanish Steps

On the Spanish Steps

From there, we walked about a mile to the Spanish Steps. There are 135 steps that climb a steep hill, originally intended to link the Bourbon Spanish Embassy with the Trinita Dei Monti church at the top. The Steps are, of course, a popular tourist attraction where I heard many different languages being spoken. As I was listening to the many languages of people enjoying the Steps together, I had the not entirely original thought that the average citizens of the different countries often have more in common with each other than they do with the leaders of their respective countries. The conflicts, such as they are, have more to do with those leaders than they do with ordinary people. (As it happens, this was a theme in some World War I literature, suggesting that the German soldier and the British soldier would just as soon have a beer together as kill each other. It was the upper classes who had a beef with one another.)  The Spanish Steps’ impact on World Peace is debatable. What’s not debatable is that it’s valuable real estate where the nearby gelato stand feels comfortable charging an arm and a leg for subpar service. A block or two away and the prices go down and the quality of service goes up. Lesson learned! Cole declared that he was going to “sit the heck out of those steps.” And so we did. We found a nice step in the shade and did some people watching. The whole trip was full of fantastic people watching.

The smoke in the background by the Vatican is not a return of Charles the V sacking the city — apparently there was an auto junkyard that caught fire.

Villa Borghese Gardens

Seeing the Spanish Steps was the end of our planned itinerary for the day. I noted some nearby green space on the map which turned out to be the Villa Borghese Gardens, so we headed there. Rome is a place largely devoid of vegetation. The place is almost entirely stone of one kind or another. Cole kept having a sore back that I think was due to doing so much walking on such hard surfaces. So, the Villa Borghese Gardens which has some green space was a nice break from the stone. There was an overlook onto a divided highway that Cole and I found hypnotic, having something to do with the pattern of traffic climbing a hill with the ever present scooters and motorcycles weaving in and out of the larger cars. But that wasn’t the main attraction at the gardens. Rome being full of cool stuff situated among hills, there is never a shortage of spectacular views. The Gardens provided yet another one at the top of “the Pincio” which is the Pincian Hill, close to but not one of the original Seven Hills of ancient Rome. We didn’t explore the Gardens with any thoroughness because we were distracted by another shiny object.

Piazza de Popolo

Down below the Villa Borghese Gardens, from the overlook, we saw the Piazza de Popolo which is *huge*. The middle is dominated by the Flaminio Obelisk, an obelisk carved in Egypt sometime in the 1200 BC range during the reigns of Seti I and Ramses II. It was brought to Rome on the command of Augustus Caesar in 10 B.C. Torn down and broken into several pieces, it was re-erected in 1589 during a re-urbanization plan of Pope Sixtus V. (The overlap between modern Rome, papal Rome, and imperial Rome was always creeping up on me. Each of those stages is hugely significant on its own, but seeing them layered one on top of another represents a depth of history I’m not used to.) On opposite sides of the plaza are statues of Neptune and Dea Roma (which I originally took to be Minerva). We noted with some irony that Dea Roma’s fountain was more impressive than the God of the Sea’s fountain.

The face of a girl who is happy about her order.

We finished the day at a restaurant recommended by our friends called La Fraschetta Romanesca on the Trastavere side of the river.  The store front is relatively small with limited seating on the ground floor, but then you go downstairs and it really opens up. Harper was *very* excited by her meal when it came. The whole family enjoyed the meal. (I followed up my salmon pizza from the afternoon with salmon penne.) A half liter of wine was only $6 while a similar amount of water was served up for $5 — so you do the math on what to drink! Aside from seeing the amazing sites of Rome, this really was quality family time. Being in a new place with language barriers all around and none of the distractions of day-to-day life probably had us more focused on one another and gave us plenty to talk about. 

In any case, the dinner at La Fraschetta Romanesca  ended another busy day in Rome. I think we did pretty well for ourselves without a formal itinerary.

Next: Day 4 – Travel to Florence and the Boboli Gardens

Italy Trip Part II: The Vatican and the Colosseum

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Day 2: Vatican City and the Colosseum

St. Peter’s Square

Vatican City was a short walk from our Apartment in Trastavere, and we had plans to go to the Vatican Museums. Getting the kids moving early in the morning with the time change and the day of travel before was a bit of a chore, but we persevered. Because we were going to what is, after all, a religious place, to show respect, we dressed in our Sunday best (even though we don’t happen to be religious ourselves.) In any event, bare shoulders and bare knees are verboten. (There is at least a bit of irony to this inasmuch as there are any number of depictions of naked people there.) 

Ready to see the Pope

Amy had secured tickets for us online for entrance to the Vatican Museums. This was a great move because the lines to get into the place looked extensive. It was a self-guided tour where they gave you a little device where you would punch in the number of the exhibit, and it would give you information about the exhibit. Ultimately, we used the devices some but not very much.

It’s probably sacrilegious somehow, but we took a bit of a theme park approach: get the big ride first. So, despite all manner of interesting things on the way, we went fairly directly to the Sistine Chapel. It will come as no surprise to anyone that the place is amazing. No pictures are allowed. The guards are pretty constantly enforcing that rule and shooshing people to keep the noise levels down. The “get there early” approach worked. The Chapel was relatively uncrowded compared to how it would be later in the day. We grabbed some breakfast at the museum cafeteria and then went to explore the rest of the museum in a more leisurely way. There is a hall with maps of

Enjoying a historical, wall sized map mural with my kids. As one does.

sections of Italy all along its length. I can’t stress how much I love maps. The family thought they lost me.

Amy and Harper really enjoyed the art collection in the Borgia Rooms. The place is just so big though. You could spend a long, long time enjoying all it has to offer. Eventually, however, the kids’ feet started hurting, so we called it a morning. (I want to stress that this was not a matter of the kids being unduly delicate — according to my iPhone, we would end up walking something like 12 miles that day.) Before we left, however, we picked out some postcards and send them to the grandparents postmarked from Vatican City. (They have a little post office in the museum.)

On the way back, we walked around St. Peter’s Square and then stopped into the little grocery near our apartment and braved the language barrier to acquire more meat, cheese, and wine. We had a snack and rested awhile before venturing out again later in the day for a night tour of the Colosseum.

Sending some mail.

On our way to the tour, we very randomly ran across a fellow lawyer from Lafayette. He and his wife were meeting up with his son who lives in South Africa. Rome was kind of a mid-point for them. I had no idea he was there. We were walking down one street toward the Colosseum. He was walking up an intersecting street from a church they had just visited. I kind of squinted, thinking there was no way it was him. But, sure enough it was. I called out, “Hey Jeff!” causing him to do a double take of his own. Small world!

We had time to grab a quick pizza at a place near the start of our tour. It looked like it was going to be a bit of a tourist trap, but the pizza was unexpectedly good. Probably the best I had the entire time we were there — it was a sausage and mushroom. I regret that we only got one. Dining is usually a slower affair in Rome, and we were under a time crunch to get to our tour on time. They got it out to us quickly, and the family inhaled it. We could have handled a second one!

The Colosseum at dusk.

 Our tour began at Trajan’s Column.  This is probably as good a time as any to mention that Italy has a lot of columns. If there were ever a column-based conflict between the U.S. and Italy, we would clearly lose. The U.S., in short, is on the wrong end of the Column Gap. The family had a lot of fun quoting the “Mike’s Marblopolis” SNL skit pretty much any time we saw a column. (“Ya GOTTA get yourself some . . . mawble cawlums!”)

At the beginning of the tour, we were all given headphones and a transmitter that allowed us to hear the guide without having to crowd her. The tour guide was, I believe, an archaeologist of some type. She definitely had strong opinions about the National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II. I don’t know if she actually used the phrase “white monstrosity,” but that was the general thrust of her comments. It’s a massive pile of “corpse white marble” that tore up a big chunk of Capitoline Hill and covers up a fair amount of the Roman Forum which could otherwise be unearthed.

Inside the Colosseum.

The tour took us past the Capitoline Museum which she recommended as having material of comparable importance to what you find in the Vatican without anywhere near the crowds. From there, we made our way to the Colosseum. It’s a massive and fascinating structure. I think it held about 80,000 people. They unearthed a great number of elevator shafts and our guide described how slaves used pulleys to haul animals, gladiators, props, and a number of other things up the elevators. This was about the only reference to slaves I happened to come across while we were in Rome — which is a little disappointing since so much of imperial Rome was made possible by the extensive use of slaves. Under the Colosseum, it was dark and there was a balancing act between light – which required use of some pretty foul torch fuel — and being able to breath. Also, there was a lot of wood used for the floor of the Colosseum, meaning there was a non-trivial chance of getting caught in a fire. 

 At one point, walking in the Colosseum on a warm night at the end of May, watching my children soak it all in had a pretty significant emotional impact on me. I was (and am) profoundly grateful that I had the opportunity to take them on this trip. I don’t know what they’ll ultimately retain, but watching them in that moment will always be something special for me. Shortly after that, there was a quote from Lord Byron on one of the displays that hit home:

I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering, — upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum’s wall
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome.
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin

Rome had been a city of a million people and, after the Empire collapsed, had a population reduced down to about 30,000. Cole and I had a good conversation about what that must have been like — living in a place where you are daily confronted with evidence of a previous civilization where there were a lot more people who could accomplish things far beyond your capabilities. There was also a period where, apparently, rival families warred for control of the Colosseum.

Our guide told us that, as with a number of monuments in Rome, the deterioration of the Colosseum abated when someone turned it into a Christian holy site. Without such protection, monuments and other sites had a way of disappearing. In the case of the Colosseum, such protection was secured when Pope Benedict XIV endorsed the view that the Colosseum was sacred because Christian martyrs had been persecuted there.  Per Wikipedia, “there is no historical evidence to support Benedict’s claim, nor is there even any evidence that anyone before the 16th century suggested this might be the case.”

We Massons are thinkers. 

After the tour, we walked back and grabbed some gelato on the way. The daily gelato stops became a happy routine for us. By the time we got home, we had walked something like 28,000 steps for the day. Amy and I finished the night with wine on the terrace. Then I crashed hard, sleeping until 10:30 in the morning the next day. I’m probably overthinking that night’s sleep, but it seems to me that after an extremely busy April and May, the effort required to square away work enough to go on vacation, the effort of getting packed for vacation, the flight, the early morning at the Vatican, and the thousands of steps the day before, my body was serious about getting some sleep.

Next time: Part III – Castel Sant’Angelo, Spanish Steps, Villa Borghese Gardens, Piazza del Popolo.