Racing: A New F1 Champion, Probably

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(FORMLA 1)—The tracks of the three major racing series we follow are cold and silent, not to feel the heat and the rumble for a couple of months.  But Formula 1 ended the racing year with a memorable event—and the way it ended hasn’t ended it.

One race. Last lap.  Two drivers tied in the championship standings fighting tooth and toenail for the championship—one to set a record for most titles and the other in search of his first championship trophy.

Lewis Hamilton had the lead going for F1 championship number eight until a late crash brought out the caution car. Max Verstappen was running second but behind five lapped cars but race stewards allowed the five lapped cars to go around the safety car and take positions at the back of the field during the caution.  Verstappen stopped for tires during the caution while Hamilton stayed out and the two were side by side for the restart.

Ride with the two drivers in this video from Formula 1—

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.side-by-side-verstappen-and-hamiltons-final-lap-shootout-for-drivers-title.1718961184355366048.html

Hamilton jumped into the early lead but on the fifth turn of the sixteen-corner circuit, Verstappen snatched the lead for the first time in the entire race.  Hamilton tried to take it back on the ninth turn but couldn’t get it and Verstappen won by more than two seconds.

Although the victory celebration began on the track and later on the podium, Vertappen had to wait four hours before F1 officials dismissed claims by Hamilton’s Mercedes team director that the last lap had been started improperly.

FIA race director Michael Masi made the decision to allow the five lapped cars to unlap themselves on the same lap that the race was resumed. Some observers say Masi’s decision, after strong lobbying by Verstappen’s Red Bull team leader, was contrary to the rules.

Although stewards rejected the Mercedes protest, Mercedes has indicated it might appeal the verdict. It has 96 hours after the end of the race to file that appeal.  But as we write this, Max Verstappen is considered the race, and championship winner.

There are reports, however, that the controversy will cost Michael Masi his job. The FIA, the sanctioning body of F1, will meet December to elect a new president, replacing Jean Todt,who is stepping down after twelve years.  A decision about Masi’s future could be made then.

(INDYCAR)—-INDYCAR lost Al Unser Sr., last week.  Unser, who died last Thursday, was the second four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500, a feat accomplished previously only by A. J. Foyt. He was 82 and had been fighting cancer for the last seventeen years.

Unser ran his first 500 in 1965 and is one of the few drivers with back-to-back victories (1970-71). He led 190 of the race’s 200 laps in his first win. He also won in 1978 and got his final victory in 1987 when he became the oldest winner in Indianapolis 500 history.  Since then, Rick Mears and Helio Castroneves have joined the “four-time” club.

Although he had left the 2021 race to fly home before Castroneves became the fourth four-time winner, Unser took a break from his cancer treatments to fly back to Indianapolis for a special photograph July 20 of the four four-time winners with the Borg-Warner Trophy at the yard of bricks (L-R: Foyt, Unser, Mears, Castroneves).

Unser led more laps than any other driver in the race’s history. His 27 starts are the third-most in race history. He retired in 1994.

His older brother, Bobby, was 87 when he died last May. Bobby won the 500 three times.

Al Unser Jr., won the race twice.

The Unsers opened a museum in their hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico to house the cars they raced, the cars they collected (including the cars the Unser family achieved its earliest fame with by winning races to the top of Pike’s Peak), and the plaques showing the nine “Baby Borgs” they won at Indianapolis—plaques showing miniature versions of the famous 500 trophy—and hundreds of other awards.

Al Senior was at the museum often and would meet visitors and share his memories and his visitor’s memories—as he did a few years ago with this writer.

(NASCAR)—Richard Petty has sold controlling interest in Richard Petty Motorsports to Maury Gallagher, the owner of GMS Racing.  The company will be rebranded Petty GMS Motorsports with Petty remaining as Chairman—and the face of—the company. The team will field two cars next year with Erik Jones driving the 43, Richard’s old number that he carried to seven NASCAR titles—and Ty Dillon bringing the number 42 back to the track—the number Richard’s father, Lee, campaigned with in the early days of NASCAR and with which he won three championships.

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With cars in the garages, engines and tires cold for the winter, this column is entering its off-season, too.  We’ll resume whenthe roar returns.                                                                                                      (photo credit:  Chris Owens, INDYCAR)

 

It’s the Time for Friends

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(The Christmas season is a time when we think of, and gather with, family and friends, the one time of year when we might pause even amidst the consuming activities of preparing and celebrating to consider the values of friendship and to cherish those especially close to us regardless of whether they are relations.  Dr. Frank Crane found himself in just such a reflective mood many years ago as he sought to define—-)

THE FRIEND

A friend is a person who is “for you,” always, under any suspicions.

He never investigates you…

He likes you just as you are. He does not want to alter you.

Whatever kind of coat you are wearing suits him. Whether you have on a dress suit or a hickory shirt with no collar, he thinks it’s fine.

He likes your moods and enjoys your pessimism as much as your optimism.

He likes your success. And your failure endears you to him the more.

He is better than a lover because he is never jealous.

He wants nothing from you, except that you be yourself.

He is the one being with whom you can feel SAFE. With him you can  utter your heart, its badness and its goodness. You don’t have to be careful.

In his presence you can be indiscreet, which means you can rest.

There are many faithful wives and husbands; there are few faithful friends.

Friendship is the most admirable, amazing, and rare article among human beings.

Anybody may stand by you when you are right; a friend stands by you even when you are wrong.

The highest known form of friendship is that of the dog to his master.  You are in luck if you can find one man or one woman on earth who has that kind of affection for you and fidelity to you.

Like the shade of a great tree in the noonday heat is a friend.

Like the home port, with your country’s flag flying, after long journeys, is a friend.

A friend is an impregnable citadel of refuge in the strife of existence.

It is he that keeps alive your faith in human nature, that makes you believe it is a good universe.

He is the antidote to despair, the elixir of hope, the tonic for depression, the medicine to cure suicide.

When you are vigorous and spirited you like to take your pleasures with him; when you are in trouble you want to tell him; when you are sick you want to see him; when you are dying you want him near.

You give to him without reluctance and borrow from him without embarrassment.

If you can live fifty years and find one absolute friend you are fortunate.

For of the thousands of human creatures that crawl the earth, few are such stuff as friends are made of.

Notes from the road

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(Abandoning the quiet street for a few days in search of adventure.)

Our recent trip to Colorado, via Kansas of course, featured a munchkin toilet, a Ferris wheel inside a store, a revelation of what’s in a cheeseburger (or so it seemed), and a place where dart-throwing is a game for sissies.  And, oh yes, we DID see some mountains this time.

We drove across Kansas, which we kind of like to do.  The Flint Hills in the eastern part, the wide open sky and countryside, the windmills lazily—most of the time—creating electricity, the scattered houses and small towns on the high prairie on the west side.

Whenever we make that trip, we cannot help but compare I-70 in Kansas to I-70 in Missouri.  We were at peace on the highway in Kansas. It’s smooth, quiet, and features FEW billboards.  We all know about I-70 in Missouri, a butt-ugly disgrace of sardinesque traffic cans that cram cars, trucks, bigger trucks, campers, RVs, pickups, motorcycles and Heaven knows what else into a tight space at 80 mph, with elbow to elbow billboards advertising everything from Ann’s bras to somebody’s porn shop.  Driving on I-70 in Missouri is a tiring slog through mile after mile of advertising sludge.  Crossing into Kansas generates an instant feeling of freedom.

If you make it to Goodland, about 18 miles short of Colorado, and if you stay at the Quality Inn, do not let the clerk give you Room 102.  It’s a nice room for normal-sized people.  But if you have to use the bathroom—-

That’s our tablet in front of the toilet to give you an idea of the scale of the fixture. The tablet is 8.25 inches tall. The, uh, facility must have been purchased from Munchkin Plumbing just down the road from Dorothy’s farm.  It’s good for a pre-schooler, probably. But for adults?

We will not elaborate. You can use your imagination.

Goodland’s a nice, small town known for having the largest easel painting in the world.  In fact, it’s a Van Gogh painting.  Van Gogh was never in Kansas but he was famous for his five paintings of sunflowers.  And we know what the state flower of Kansas is.

The easel is 80 feet tall (That’s Nancy underneath it for perspective) and is visible from the highway as you come into town from the East.  It’s on your right and easy to miss from a distance.

Kansas has two things that have come to symbolize the state, other than sunflowers.  It has windmills, 3500 of them.  And grain elevators.  One of those in Goodland reminds us of a great ship of the plains waiting to load its cargo.

A lot of first-time travelers to Colorado are disappointed when they don’t see mountains as soon as they cross the state line.  It takes a while before they start to rise against the western horizon. The traveler begins to see them about 45-50 miles from Denver.  But in July, we couldn’t see them at all from there and they were only vague shadows in the western forest fires smoke when we were as close as four or five miles.  Here’s the picture we used in our July 31 entry. It was taken from six miles away:

But the day after Thanksgiving, we drove out to the same area, or close to it:

Or, looking south:

It never quite looked like Colorado in July.  But it sure looked like it at Thanksgiving.

We went to Loveland one day, to a place that seemed to be a cross between Bass Pro/Cabella’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods.  We saw a woman walking around with her cat in her backpack, which had a clear plastic cover and air holes to give Puff air.

Can’t see the cat?  Look at the lower right, just above the right air hole and you’ll see two yellow eyes.  Several folks had their dogs with them. Not service dogs.  Just dog dogs. It’s part of Colorado’s laid-back culture.

The place had a Ferris wheel right in the middle. Big sucker.  We haven’t been on one in years so we rode it and got a good look at both stories of the store.

We expected Colorado to be Colorado in late November and early December—a few years ago we ran ahead of an ice storm all the way back home as far as Salina holed up for the night while the storm passed and then came the rest of the way to Jefferson City on a cold, wet day with cleared roads but ice and freezing rain on the trees and roadsides.  So we packed appropriate cool or cold weather clothes.

It was in the 60s or low 70s every day but one.  The day before Thanksgiving it was a raw, gray day in the low 40s. There were even a few tiny snow things in the air.

We had an eye-opening experience on the way home to Missouri. We stopped for lunch at a famous fast food place in Burlington, Colorado and learned:

Wow!  And all this time I thought those things were 100% ground beef!

Here’s another discovery from Kansas:   There’s a bar in Topeka that doesn’t seem to have much interest in dart-throwing.

 

Kansas was a place where a 6-foot-tall scowling temperance crusader named Carrie Nation stormed through the doors with an axe in her hand and started breaking up bars.

I don’t know if I’d want to spend much time in a place where there’s a lot of drinking going on and people are throwing axes.

But, you see, there ARE interesting places in Kansas.  Just don’t get in the way of an axe or, if you have bad knees, check into Room 102.

 

Racing: A Fierce Finish Shapes Up for F1

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(FORMULA 1)—The intensity of their rivalry has been building all season and their rivalry is white-hot as Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen prepare to slug it out in the final race in Formula 1 next weekend. It’s the last race of the year for the three big-time series we follow.

Hamilton’s third straight win, at the new Saudia Arabia course, has drawn him into a points tie with Max Verstappen with everything on the line next weekend in Abu Dhabi.

Only once before in the sport’s 72 year history have two competitors entered the final race tied in the points. Emerson Fittipaldi and Clay Reggazoni went into 1974’s last race tied. Fittipaldi finished fourth in the race but Regazzoni had handling problems and finished 11th, a lap down, giving Fittipaldi his second Formula One title.                  .

The Saudi Arabia Grand Prix included numerous yellow lights and two red-light stoppages, bumping, shortcuts through turns, a nose-to-tail collision between the two top competitors, and a penalty that forced Verstappen to give back the lead to Hamilton with six laps left. Verstappen was not able to threaten Hamilton the rest of the way.

The front wing of Hamilton’s car was damaged when Verstappen suddenly braked on a straightaway.  Verstappen said after the race he did it to obey race stewards’ demand that he let Hamilton pass him because of an improper short-cutting of a corner that let Verstappen keep Hamilton out of the lead.  Hamilton said nobody had told him Verstappen was going to suddenly brake.

Hamilton drove the rest of the way with a damaged right front wing and turned the fastest lap of the race despite it.

(NASCAR)—NASCAR has crowned its first minority Cup champion—Kyle Larson, the grandson of Japanese internment camp inmates during World War II, also is the first graduate of the NASCAR Drive for Diversity program to win the championship.

In his extraordinary season, he won ten races, the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 top post a double-digit victory total. Larson demolished the record for most points in the playoff series previously held by Martin Truex Jr.  He led more laps (2,581) than any driver since 1995. In leading 28% of the laps in all of his races, he became the first NASCAR driver to get to that mark since Missouri’s Rusty Wallace did it in 1993.

At the championship banquet, Larson paid tribute to his wife, Katelyn, who helped him survive his suspension from Cup racing for most of 2020: “We didn’t know where our lives were headed but you always kept the family strong,” he said. “We packed up the motor home and hit the road for months at a time with our crazy children while we tried to figure those things out…Those hard times made me a better person and made us a stronger family.”

He also told team owner Rick Hendrick, who took a chance on him when the suspension was lifted, “This year you taught me so much about respect and how to treat people.”

Larson’s championship was the fourteenth for Hendrick Motorsports.  Hendrick also has more Cup victories than any other team in NASCAR history.

(INDYCAR)—McLaren Racing has increased its commitment to INDYCAR by increasing its ownership share in the Arrow McLaren SP racing team.  McLaren has taken over majority ownership of what has been Smith-Peterson Motorsports. Sam Schmidt and Ric Peterson will remain on the team’s board of directors. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Bown will be the Chairman of the five-member board.

McLaren Racing, founded by Bruce McLaren in 1963, has twenty Formula 1 Championships and three Indianapolis 500s. It will expand into Extreme E racing next year, an all-electric off-road series.

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And light 70 candles for Rick Mears, who hit the three score and ten mark last Friday. Mears won 29 of the 202 INDYCAR series starts. He started from the pole in about one-in-five of those races.  He is one of four drivers in Indianapolis 500 history to have his face on the Borg-Warner trophy four times. Eleven of his Indianapolis 500s starts came from the front row, six times from the pole.  Half of the times he started P1 he finished there.

(Photo of Kyle and Katelyn Larson from NASCAR/Chris Gaythen-Getty Images)

 

Of Me I Sing

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(Many of us are too modest to display our singing talents in public, preferring to save our performances to times when there is water flowing about us.  But The Carpenters advised us many years ago:

“Sing, sing a song.  Sing out loud.  Sing out Strong.  Sing of good things not bad. Sing of happy not sad….Make it simple to last your whole life long.  Don’t worry that it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear. Just sing, sing a song.”

Long before the Carpenters were born, Dr. Frank Crane considered a similar sentiment—)

THE INWARD SONG

The poet speaks of those

“Who carry music in their heart

Through dusty lane and wrangling mart,

Plying their daily task with busier feet,

Because their secret souls a holier strain repeat.”

It would be interesting to have the statistics of what number, out of all the human stream that pours into the city every morning coming to their work, are singing inwardly.

How many are thinking tunefully? How many are moving rhythmically? And how many are going, as dead drays and carts, rumbling lifelessly to their tasks?

It is good that the greater part of the world is in love. For love is the Song of Songs. To the young lover Nature is transformed. Some Ithuriel* has touched the deadly commonplace; all is miraculous. The moon, the dead companion to our earth, the pale and washed-out pilgrim of the sky, has been changed into a silver-fronted fairy whose beams thrill him with a heady enchantment. Every breeze has its secret. The woods, the houses, all men and women are notes of that sweet harmony that fills him.

“Orpheus with his lute made trees,

And the mountain tops that freeze,

Bow their heads when he did sing.”

Every man is an Orpheus, so he but carry about in him an inward melody. There is for him “a new heaven and a new earth.”

This world is an insolvable puzzle to human reason. It is full of the most absurd antinomies, the most distressing cruelties, the most amazing contradictions. No wonder men’s minds take refuge in stubborn stoicism, in agnosticism, in blank unfaith.

There is no intellectual faith, no rational creed, no logical belief. FAITH COMES ONLY THROUGH MUSIC. It is when the heart sings that the mind is cleared. Then the pieces of the infinite chaos of things drop into order, confusion ceases, they march, dance, coming into radiant concord.

Marcus Aurelius, that curious anomaly of the Roman world, perfect dreamer in an age of iron, was rich in inner music. The thought in him beamed like a ray of creative harmony over the disordered crowd of men and events.

“Welcome all that comes,” he wrote, “untoward though it may seem, for it leads you to the goal, the health of the world order. Nothing will happen to me that is not in accord with nature.”

None but so noble a mind can see a noble universe, a noble humanity, a noble God.

What a drop from such a level to the place of the mad sensualists and pleasure-mongers who only know

“To seize on life’s dull joys from a strange fear,

Lest losing them all’s lost and none remains!”

What a whirl of cabaret music, what motion and forced laughter, what wild discord of hot viands, drugged drinks, and myriad-tricked lubricity it takes to galvanize us when our souls are dry and cracked and tuneless!

Have you ever had the feelings of Hazlitt? “Give me,” he said, “the clear blue 50sky over my head and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours’ march to dinner—and then to thinking! I laugh, I run, I leap, I sing for joy.”

Whoever does something that makes the souls of men and women sing within them does more to make this earth habitable and this life tolerable than all the army of them that widen our comforts and increase our luxuries.

*Ithuriel is one of two angels sent by the archangel Gabriel in Milton’s Paradise Lost  to find Satan, who is in the Garden of Eden.  He is found in the shape of a toad, speaking to a sleeping Eve in an effort to corrupt her. Ithuriel touches him with his spear, causing Satan to resume his true form, after which he is taken to Gabriel.

 

Notes From a Quiet Street

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(being miscellaneous unconnected topics flitting through an aging mind)

This was The Quiet Street a couple of weeks ago. . Soon it will be a quiet ugly WINTER street. Just skeletal trees—the walnut tree on the right already had denuded itself. Snow now and then that turns to dirty slush. We are nearing the time of discontent.  The inner curmudgeon, who hides when it is warm and the trees and yards are lush and green, is beginning to emerge.

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Went to the drive-through line at a fast food restaurant the other day to pick up a large Coke and the lady at the window called me “sweetheart” twice within five seconds when she handed it to me.

Please, if you are an employee of a retail establishment, don’t call your customers “sweetheart,” or “dear,” or “honey” or any other such enderments. Especially if your customer is a curmudgeon who also doesn’t like people to wish him a good day. Be aware your customer, curmudgeon or not, is probably gritting his or her teeth as they walk or drive away.

Every now and then when somebody says, “Have a good one,” I respond, “I do.”  Not that they listen. Sometimes they personalize it: “You have a good one.” I am sometimes tempted to ask, “How do you know?” Maybe one of these days one of them will wonder what I meant.

Serves them right.

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A friend was talking about setting his clock radio on a country-western station that played such awful music that he was instantly awake and motivated into instant action—to turn off the radio.  It reminded me of hearing, during a Sons of the Pioneers Concert (with Roy Rogers Jr.) in Jefferson City a couple of years ago, one of the guys defining the difference between western music, which the Sons do, and country music. It went something like:

“Western music is about the outdoors—the trails, the mountains, the open plains, the sky, the cattle.  Country music is about the indoors—cheatin’ and lyin’ and  cryin’ and diein’.”

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We watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Washington Football Team a few days ago.  They used to be the Washington Redskins but finally decided to abandon the name after years of hearing Native Americans and others complain that the team name was a racial slur.  This is the second year the team hasn’t had a name and didn’t even have a “W” on the helmets in the game against the Chiefs.

We’ve decided the owners need some help in picking a new name.  Perhaps you have some suggestions you could offer in our response box below:

–Washington Anonymous Sources (The Washington Anons for short)

–Washington Leakers

—Washington Insurrectionists

—Washington Peaceful Tourists

—Washington Bureacrats (likely to be considered a slur, too)

—Washington Statesmen (well, somebody needs to be statesmen in that town)

—Washington Monuments

—Washington Lobbyists

—Washington Campaigners

—Washington Partisans

—Washington Deficits

—Washington Malls

What’s in YOUR head? No profanities allowed and remember children watch these teams play.

The Cleveland baseball team will be the Cleveland Guardians next year. Chief Wahoo bit the dust a couple of years ago and the team removed the “Indians” sign from the stadium a few days ago.

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A lot of today’s young people are not attracted to church because the music isn’t their kind of music.  Old Rugged Cross and Onward Christian Soldiers don’t resonate with them. The other day our pastor read the lyrics to an old favorite hymn—-and reading hymn lyrics can sometimes change our understanding of what the song (or the original poem) was all about.  I, for one, like to read hymns.

The Broadway Musical Hamilton is interesting to your vigilant observer because it displays a previously-unrealized musicality that can exist within Rap. When do you suppose church hymns carrying that Rap musicality will catch on—and whether that new kind of music will make church more meaningful to the “Nones” and the “Dones.”

Wonder what Organ Rap would sound like.

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And finally, this headline we could not resist from a few days ago:

COLLEGE COACHING VETERAN JOE LEE DUNN HAS PASSED

Passed what?   A kidney stone?  A nickel he swallowed?

Have his teams always just run with the ball?  Was it a completion?  Did get get a touchdown?  First down?

Ohhhhhhh.  It means he died. We trust that the headline was intentional because it was fitting. However…..

I have a long collection of obituary first paragraphs containing dozens of phrases that people use to avoid saying “died.”

One of my journalism professors told the class one day that “passing away” is a quarterback who hurls the ball downfield. It sails over the hands of he receiver, clears the goalposts and is last seen disappearing over the top of the stadium.

“THAT,” he said, “is passing away.”

People die.

Being Influential

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(We recognize the true movers and shakers of our communities and our nation. They are the ones who influence the policies that shape our lives. Some have money. Some rely on personal integrity. Some know how the system works and what strings to pull.  But being influential is not just the bailiwick of those who walk the marble halls of government.  Dr. Frank Crane says we all can exercise—-)

PERSONAL INFLUENCE

Of all the forces that drive human beings, the greatest is personal influence.

By personal influence I mean that force that goes out from you, simply by virtue of what you are. It has nothing to do with what you do or say or try, except as these things express what you are.

Every person sends out what we might call dynamic rays or invisible electric-like impulses which are of such nature as to affect other persons. These rays from me can make other individuals gay or sad, good or bad, and so forth.

This is the only power that pulls souls, the only wind that bends them, the only fire that warms them, the only stream that bears them along.

Emerson said that “what you are preaches so loudly that I cannot hear what you say”; which is a striking way of stating that one’s unconscious influence far outreaches in effect one’s conscious effort.

It would be well if we would keep this in mind; it would save us a lot of futile busying.

For instance, reformers bent on saving the world should not be so hot and impatient seeing that there is no real saving that ever has been or ever will be done that is not the result of the influence radiating from good people.

Laws are dead and wooden, but when a man incarnates a law it begins to work on other men. The “Word” is of no force until it is “made Flesh.”

It is the personal influence of a teacher that affects all the real educating of the pupil. The wise man understood this who said that the best university was “a log with Mark Hopkins on one end and me on the other.”

I sometimes doubt if any real good has ever been done by didactic teaching or preaching. All the moral maxims in the world are poor beside one strong, sweet, normal life. And a good woman is worth, as a guide, the most select list of “virtues and their opposite vices.”

To create such a character in fiction as “John Halifax” or “Jean Valjean” or “Little Nellie” or the man in the “Third Floor Back,” is to exert a lasting and potent uplift agency, better than a thousand sermons.

It is fascinating to many minds, the idea of “doing good” and “working for the Lord,” and devoting one’s time wholly to inducing people to become better; but it is not practical. The only way to improve mankind is to be something that inspires them; your argument and exhortation are of small avail. Just as the only way to dispel darkness is to shine, and the only way to electrify iron is to be a magnet.

Goodness is a contagion; we must “catch” it, we must have it and “give” it.

When you say in your creed that you believe in God, your declaration is of no help to you or to others unless what you mean is this: That you believe in the inherent potency of goodness, that it will live down, outwear, and destroy evil; that justice, cleanliness, honesty, and kindness will win in the long run against fraud, dirt, lying, and cruelty; and that persons who are upright and altruistic get more joy out of every minute of their lives than idle, sporty, and self-coddling folk; and that there is altogether a vast tidal or subterranean movement in the human race toward health, strength, and beauty.

Therefore why worry over what you will say or do, since it makes no matter? Simply BE right, and then say whatever comes to your mind, and do whatever comes to your hand, and you cannot fail to do the most possible toward helping along.

The Dark History of Missouri’s first Thanksgiving

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Today’s the day.

Your obedient servant hates to be at home for much of Thanksgiving Day. Working in the newsroom on Thanksgiving morning was a refuge.  The Missourinet always worked holidays because news happens on holidays, too (a major oil spill at Christmas during the Ashcroft administration, for example), so the news staff split the day with one person on duty in the morning and a second one working the afternoon.

The reason for seeking refuge in the newsroom?   To avoid the hours of agony of smelling the turkey being cooked.  Better to get home about 1 p.m. so the torture would last only a short time.  Giving thanks on Thanksgiving Day for the opportunity for newsroom refuge all morning was never publicly expressed but was an unspoken message from your servant to his ultimate master.

Missouri did not formally celebrate Thanksgiving until 1844.  And there is a tragic part of that story.

Governor Thomas Reynolds, a Kentucky native who had been the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois and after that, served three terms in the Illinois House.  He moved to Fayette, Missouri and quickly was elected to the Missouri House where he immediately became the Speaker.  After a few years as a circuit judge, he became our seventh governor in 1840. His greatest achievement as governor was eliminating imprisonment for debt.  And on October 16, 1843 he proclaimed the official celebration of Thanksgiving in Missouri:

WHEREAS, it is considered right and proper that we should gratefully acknowledge the goodness of God, displayed in the preservation of our lives, our civil and religious liberties, and our republican institutions, and for every blessing, temporal and spiritual, which we enjoy, and

WHEREAS, the protection of the State from invasion, insurrection and intestine commotion, and the citizens from pestilence and plague, equally demands a return of thanks to Him whose arm has brought this protection;

Now, THEREFORE, under a full sense of obligation and duty, and in accordance with the request of various religious denominations, I, Thomas Reynolds, Governor of the State of Missouri do by this public proclamation recommend to the people of the State, that, without any distinction of sect, denomination or creed, they observe Thursday, the thirtieth day of November, next, as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God, for his favor extended to us nationally and individually. “Duly signed and sealed under date October 16 1843.

What was the first Thanksgiving like in Missouri?  Amitai Etzioni and Jared Bloom, in their 2004 book, We Are What We Celebrate: Understanding Holidays and Rituals, offer William J. Hammond’s account in the Missouri Republican:

It was the first Thanksgiving Day observed in this state…and you may suppose the most was made of it…There was all sorts of frolicking…

In the morning the…Churches were thrown open for religious exercises and all were crowded to overflowing. The afternoon was observed by the gathering together of all the members of families…as I had no fireside to go to…nor no relation to talk with…the afternoon was spent with me walking like a lost sheep waiting to be gathered into the fold. But the afternoon would not last always, and night came, and with it, my time for fun. There were Methodist Sewing Societies, Presbyterian Tea Parties, and Balls in abundance and it was some time before I could make up my mind which to attend. I finally decided to stick to first principles and go to a Methodist Sewing Society.

The one which I attended was held at Mrs. McKee’s…At an early hour quite a company was assembled…All passed very pleasantly until about 8 o’clock, when Miss Mary took a particular spite against the Piano and commenced hammering it, with vocal accompaniment, which frightened me considerably and I sloped. The evening not being far advanced, I…[gave] the Presbyterians a pop by going to their Tea Party; they had a splendid supper, good speeches were made by several gentlemen, and I regretted that I did not go there first as I never spent my time more agreeably.

Governor Reynolds did not live to celebrate the first official Missouri Thanksgiving that he had proclaimed. On the morning of February 9, 1844, after breakfast and a prayer, Reynolds retired to his office at the first Executive Mansion.  He put a rifle to his forehead and pulled the trigger. He left behind a note: “In every situation in which I have  been placed, I have labored to discharge my duty faithfully to the public; but this has not protected me for the last twelve months from the slanders and abuse of my enemies, which has rendered my life a burden to me. I pray God to forgive them, and teach them more charity…Farewell.”

Walter V. N. Bay, who wrote a history of Missouri’s early judges and lawyers, said, “At the time of his death his prospects for distinction were greater than those of any man in the state, for his finial habits, pleasant demeanor, and unquestioned integrity had made him exceedingly popular, and it was a mere question of time as to his elevation to the Federal Senate.”

Bay, however, suggests “truth and candor force us to state that many of [his] friends attributed the suicide to a very different cause…To be more specific, they believed it grew out of his domestic troubles.”

He is buried in the Woodland-Old City Cemetery in Jefferson City, not far from the grave of Governor John Sappington Marmaduke, whose father, M. M. Marduke, finished out Reynolds’ term.

While there was much “frolicking” in Missouri on that first state-declared Thanksgiving Day, there undoubtedly were several people who recalled the governor who had so little to be thankful for that life was no longer possible.

(Photo Credits:  Missouri Encyclopedia/State Historical Society of Missouri; Bill Walker (tombstone in Woodland Old City Cemetery, Jefferson City).

Racing: Back to a Pre-pandemic NASCAR

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By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(NASCAR)—NASCAR is going back to its long weekends.

Practice and qualifying, which have been casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic for most of the last two seasons, will return in 2022.  NASCAR had eliminated practice and qualifying for most races because of the need to cut back on the number of people at the track during the social-distancing era.

But qualifying is being changed to the knockout format.

Much of the new format is designed to give more broadcast time to FOX, NBC and other broadcast partners.

The announcement has come as NASCAR heads for its championship week, which starts in Nashville a week from today and goes through December 2.  The week not only will recognize NASCAR champions in its three touring series, it also will honor champions in three ARCA series, NASCAR’s Modified Tour champion and the Weekly Series national champion.

NASCAR has held special awards ceremonies for forty years, beginning in New York in 1981, continuing in Nashville in 2009, and moving to Nashville in 2019.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen has become the hunted.  Lewis Hamilton has become the hunter—and shows signs of being a relentless one.

Hamilton led from start to finish in the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix to finish 26 seconds ahead of Verstappen, his second straight win over the F1 points leader.  The win cuts Verstappen’s points lead to just eight, with two races left on the schedule.  Mercedes team leader Toto Wolff says the previous race’s penalties that relegated Hamilton to the last starting position, from which he charged to victory, “have woken up the lion.”

“He’s absolutely on it—brutal, and cold-blooded,” he said.

Hamilton was 19 points back after Verstappen had won two straight races.

Two-time Formula 1 Champion Fernando Alonso snagged the final podium finish, his first since 2014. F1’s statisticians say his 105 races between podium finishes is a record and says he’s only the third driver older than 40 in the last 35 years to have finished in one of the top three positions in a race.

F1’s season finishes with races in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.

(INDYCAR)—Put the name of Alexander Rossi in the racing history books as the only driver to win an Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 24 hours, and the Baja 1000 off-road race.

His “wild ride” (his term) victory in the 54th Baja, the most prestigious off-road race in North America, came at the wheel of a highly-modified Honda Ridgeline was shared with three other drivers and a navigator. The race is 1,226 miles long, from Ensenada, California to Lapaz, Mexico. He described the ride as “equally chaotic, awesome and terrifying.”

He also used the words “insane” and “really cool” in describing his drive in the daylight and the dark and the ocean fog—and in the dust from hundreds of other vehicles in the race.

Rossi’s overnight stint covered 251 miles and built his team’s lead to 100 miles.

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This year’s Indianapolis 500 winner, Helio Castroneves, who returns to fulltime driving in the INDYCAR series next year, is not abandoning the sports car racing that he has done for the last couple of years.  He’ll drive Meyer Shank Racing entries in both open wheel and sports car races in 2022, running the full INDYCAR schedule and picking up stints in MSR sports cars in the four endurance races on the IMSA circuit.  He’ll try to be a repeat winner in the Daytona 24. He was part of the winning team with Wayne Taylor racing this year.

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When we talked with INDYCAR President Jay Frye in August, we talked about the hybrid powerplants coming to the series in 2023. But Frye suggest it will be a long time, at the least, before the internal combustion engine disappears from INDYCAR.

But if electric-only cars are far off in the series, electric car drivers might not be.  Two Formula E teammates from Europe will test INDYCARS on December 6 at Sebring.  Stoffel Vandoorne and Nyck deVries, teammates in the Mercedes EQ Formula E program will be in cars from the Arrow-McLaren and the Meyer Shank racing stables.  DeVries won the Formula E championship for 2020-21.  Vandoorne was second in the 2019-20 Formula E Season and ninth in the most recent season.  Mercedes is withdrawing from Formula E.

(Photo Credit: Bob Priddy)

 

THANKS AND GIVING

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(Thousands of people will not gather around a sumptuous Thanksgiving table this week.  They will be serving a meal to many thousands more who cannot afford even a modest Thanksgiving table at home—or even afford a home.  Or a table. Perhaps, says Dr. Frank Crane in this column from the first year of the Woodrow Wilson administration, those who are serving and those who are being served understand the day the most)

LEARN THANKSGIVING FROM THE HAVE-NOTS

The President has proclaimed the annual day of Thanksgiving.  Probably that comes to you as a joke. ”What have I to be thankful for?” you ask and then begin to run over the list of your grievances.

But go and see the have-nots, and maybe you will learn something, if you are not a hopeless whiner.

Visit the have-not nations.  Live a while in Russia or Mexico, have your opinions suppressed, your property confiscated, your life threatened, all without justice; perhaps then you may get a few thrills when you look at the American flag.

Return in your mind to former ages. Feel how it seems to have the nobility despise, curse and rob you and treat you as a dog; to have a state church clap you in prison or roast you in the public square for daring to think; to have solemn magistrates condemn your mother to be hanged as a witch; to have your daughter outraged by the lord of the manor and your sons killed fighting his battles.

If your skin is black, go back…and live among the have-nots of Liberty, and be sold in the market place as chattel.

If you are well, turn to the have-nots of health to the hospitals where the crowded prisoners of  pain would give the world to walk and eat and work as you now do. Go to the dim chamber of the invalid and listen to the consumptive’s cough, the dyspeptic’s groan, the ravings of the fevered and the suffering and smitten. Then, if you are anything of a man, come out and hire someone to kick you for complaining, ever.

The have-nots of sound; observe the deaf and dumb not to gloat over your advantages, but to realize what music and the voices of people and the gift of speech mean to you.

Watch the pathetic faces of the have-nots of light; and, seeing the blind, learn to be humbling grateful toward the fate that grants you the light of heaven.

Do you know the have-nots of love? Consider them and if one heart ever so simple loves you, be thankful.  Mark the deserted wife, her dreams shattered, her heart broken, her children fatherless, and the burden of care upon her shoulders; and if you have a husband that’s half decent, be thankful.

Go to the wrong, betrayed husband; look upon him; and if  you have a faithful wife who believes in you and is glad because of you, be thankful.

Little girl, little boy, have you and mother that hugs you up and a daddy that’s proud of you? Think of the have-nots, the boys and girls whose mother is still and gone or whose father is no more, and be as thankful as you can.

Have you children?  Call to mind the have-nots, the mother whose loneliness is most bitter of all, the loneliness is that most bitter of all, the loneliness of empty arms, of a breast where once cuddled a curly head.

Then think of the worried, wretched, remorseful, perverted of those whose conscience stings them and if you have the comfortable self-respect of decency, be thankful.

Visit, in your mind, the wide realm of the dead. You have the unspeakable gift of life. You walk in the sun, and breathe the sweet air, and get the message of the trees, the mountains and oceans; for you the flowers blow, and the snow falls, and the hearth light burns, and children’s voices sound and the light of love kindles in someone’s eyes.

Be thankful for life.

Think of the have-nots and reflect. Who am I that I also should not also be among them?