Auld Indeed

All dates since January 1, 2000 have seemed unreal to me. I was born near the middle of the last century (1952) and, although intellectually I know this to be silly, to this day it feels to me as though the current year should be written Nineteen-something-or-other. I still sometimes hesitate when dating a check or document lest I start the year with the wrong two digits.
 
Though I seldom can put a specific date to recollected conversations, I can assign January 1, 1970 to one, simply because the date was the reason for it. After the turbulent 1960s, a new decade seemed to offer a fresh start. (It really didn’t: culturally the “1960s” as we usually think of them continued another four years; they transitioned into the cultural “1970s” over the course of 1974 as former hippies swapped their headbands for disco shoes.) “1970” itself had a futuristic ring to it on that day, which probably prompted the dinner conversation with my dad, mom, and sister about the far distant year 2000 when not just a new decade but a new century and millennium would arrive. I remarked that I would be 47 – older than my dad in 1970. This seemed so ludicrous that we all laughed at the notion. My dad said he didn’t think he would last that long. (He did: he died on July 12, 2000 at 74.)
 
Age 47 and the year 2000 both arrived on schedule of course. While I didn’t laugh at the latter event it nonetheless still felt ludicrous. Tomorrow will be 23 (!) years later yet. Perhaps the reader can imagine just how ludicrous that feels. So, for Auld Lang Syne I’ll fire up the Wayback machine to recall life 23 years before 2000 on January 1, 1977.
 
The radio played a bigger part in my life then than it does today, so it likely was playing. Playlists are easy to recreate since the Billboard 100 offers a week by week cheat sheet going back decades on which songs were popular when. The top 10 in the US for the week of 1/1/77 were:
 
1. Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)
Rod Stewart
2. You Don't Have To Be a Star (To Be In My Show)
Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr.
3. The Rubberband Man
The Spinners
4. You Make Me Feel Like Dancing
Leo Sayer
5. More Than a Feeling
Boston
6. Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word
Elton John
7. I Wish
Stevie Wonder
8. Dazz
Brick
9. Car Wash
Rose Royce
10. After the Lovin'
Engelbert Humperdinck
 
OK, there have been better Top Ten lists before and since – but there have been far worse, too. I didn’t own any albums containing any of those songs (in that era I preferred the likes of AC/DC and Bob Seger), but wouldn’t have changed the radio channel if any of those numbers played if it meant crossing the room. I might have in my car for a couple since that just meant pushing a selector button.
 
My personal life was in a fun phase in ‘77, which is appropriate for age 24 in the most hedonistic decade of the past two centuries. My very special lady was a strawberry blonde named Angela. 46 years later it still feels wrong to post a pic without her permission, so I won’t, though she does figure in a nonfiction short story on one of my other blog sites. (We broke up in ‘79 – it was her idea.) My car was a 1973 Ford Maverick (nothing like the current Ford with that name) of which I was fond. It served me reliably wherever I drove it. Two years earlier this included a circuit around the continental US. I have only one photo of it, strangely enough, and that just by chance because I photographed a cat. I lived at home with my parents, which is normal for single 24-year-olds today. It wasn’t actually rare then, but in 1977 it did tend to encourage the judgmental question “Why?” (The reason was money, of course; I bought a cottage a few years later, which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.) I was healthy, young, strong, and stupid. I wasn’t stupid on the surface. I was bookish (then as now), intellectual, and well-educated in the liberal arts. I was stupid deep down. The full effects of that wouldn’t show up for some years, however, so in 1977 I was blissfully unaware of it.

1973 Ford Maverick in background

All in all, 1977 was quite a good year. I’d be happy to experience it again, either exactly as it played out the first time around or, better yet, with the classic “If I knew then…” advantage.
 
Now, here we are 23 years after 2000. Assuming I survive past midnight, I will be as surprised as my dad was 23 years ago on January 1. It is too early to get a read on what 2023 has in store. For me personally 1977 would be a daunting act to equal, never mind exceed. But I’ll totter on and give it a try. Happy 2023! (I didn’t even hesitate on those first two digits.)

 

The Clash – 1977

 

Better Watch Out

Many of the superficial seasonal traditions – notably Christmas trees – were introduced into the United States by German immigrants in the 19^th century. One that didn’t catch on, however, was the myth of Krampus, the malevolent companion to Santa Claus. It is not clear why. There is certainly no aversion on these shores to scary stories. One need only look at the way Halloween took off far beyond its Celtic origins.  Santa himself has an ominous side. “You better watch out,” as the song warns us. Yet there is a difference between the prospect of getting a stocking full of coal (a threat often made but seldom implemented) for being naughty and the prospect of being beaten by birch sticks by a horned goat creature and then kidnapped.
 
BTW, 90 years ago my dad actually got a coal-filled stocking as a kid, either because my grandparents thought it would be amusing or because they were making a point. A toy tractor was also in the stocking which softened the effect somewhat. I still have the tractor.

To this day, although Krampus continues to be popular in Germany and Austria, most Americans still don’t know who he is. A fair minority does however. The stories began to get some traction starting 20 years ago, culminating in the 2015 Christmas-horror movie Krampus. Enough now know of him in the US to make Krampus-themed cards, tee shirts, ornaments, and games marketable. A quick look on Amazon will reveal a remarkable array of goods.

The origins of Krampus are far older than Santa Claus, who can be traced to Nicholas, the third century Anatolian saint. Krampus pretty clearly derives from the half-human half-goat creatures (fairies, satyrs, fauns, and demigods) who predate even classical mythology. The best known version of the goat god is the mischievous Pan (cognate of the Rigvedic Pushan), who often was associated with Dionysus. Pan, like satyrs generally, represented the natural wild side of human nature, full of all its lusts. Accepting this side of ourselves was regarded as better than suppressing or denying it. He was generally worshipped in the wild or in caves, not in temples. In Athens on an Acropolis otherwise filled with ornate temples, there is simply a cave for Pan on the north slope. Today he is a major figure in modern Neopaganism including Wicca.
 
Over the centuries Church and political officials have made efforts to suppress Krampus mythology but without effect. He apparently is too much fun. Now he is too much a part of pop culture to go anywhere. There is a way to appease him. It is traditional to leave out milk and cookies for Santa. (This may account for his waistline.) Krampus, as one might expect, likes stronger fare. He prefers schnapps.
 
I don’t expect a visit from him this this year any more than I expect one from Santa. There are no kids in my household and neither takes much interest in adults. But in case I’m mistaken, if there is a choice between a birching from Krampus or coal from Santa, I’d rather have coal, especially if it comes with a tractor: John Deere preferably, with a full set of lawn care attachments.
 

Trailer for Krampus (2015)

Inconspicuous Consumption

“The pandemic is over,” so we’ve heard. Yet, three years after the first cases appeared in North America covid continues to stalk us. Some jurisdictions (LA among them) consider reinstating mask mandates and other restrictions as new cases rise. I won’t discuss the merits or flaws of previous and current responses. Enough talking heads do that and, despite what they say, the argument is never entirely “about the science,” for even when people agree on the purely medical aspects of the disease, they still disagree on policy due to differing values of the tradeoffs involved. I won’t join the finger-wagging on any side. But I am reminded of another endemic scourge that in the 19^th century for a quarter of the population was (sooner or later) a cause of death: tuberculosis (TB for short) or “consumption” as they commonly called it then. I don’t know if it offers any lessons on covid, but it at least puts the matter in perspective.
 
Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Symptoms include formation of tubercles, especially in the lungs, leading to coughing, fever, expectoration of (sometimes bloody) sputum, and difficulty breathing. It has been around throughout recorded history, and probably far into prehistory. Tuberculosis has been found in Egyptian mummies several thousand years old. It is described in ancient Indian and Chinese texts – and later in Greek and Roman ones. It is found in pre-Columbian Peruvian mummies, indicating it was carried across the Siberian land bridge 15,000 years ago (if not earlier). It remained widespread throughout ancient and medieval times. To this day about a third of the global population carries the latent infection asymptomatically. Those with weakened immune systems are most at risk of becoming symptomatic, but the disease can appear in an otherwise seemingly healthy person. Unlike covid, it hits the young harder than the old. Unhygienic conditions common in urban settings (especially before the 20^th century) tax immune systems, and so unsurprisingly are associated with a higher risk for the disease.
 
In his paper A New Theory of Consumption English doctor Benjamin Marten in 1720 conjectured that the disease was contagious even though it didn’t spread as rapidly and reliably as other plagues. He was proven correct in 1882 by Robert Koch who isolated the TB bacillus. The term tuberculosis had been invented by Johann Schoenlein in the mid-1800s, though the disease continued to be called consumption by much of the general public well into the 20^th century. 19^th century physicians developed a treatment for TB: rest, fresh air, and sunshine, preferably at high altitudes. (This isn’t far off from the prescription of Galen, the Roman medical author who was also the personal physician of emperor Marcus Aurelius: he recommended the fresh air and sunshine of a long sea voyage.) Sanatoria popped up in places like Colorado and Switzerland specifically to treat TB patients. This wasn’t really a cure. The patients remained infected. Many of them died in these facilities, but others did see their symptoms abate to the point where they could resume something close to normal lives.

Huts for TB patients in Colorado

It wasn’t until after World War 2 that TB cases began to plummet with the invention of effective antibiotic treatments, which not only cured the ill but thereby reduced transmission to others. (Those with latent infections do not transmit the disease.) By 1980 the chance of getting TB in North America and Europe had become small, but in that decade a spike occurred. Those with HIV were susceptible to TB as were those with diabetes and other stresses on the immune system. Worse, new strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis appeared that were resistant to standard antibiotic treatment.
 
Today in the US the number of cases is still modest by historical standards but far from negligible. According the CDC there were 7,882 reported cases of TB in 2021, a rate of 2.4 per 100,000 (historical rates were orders of magnitude higher) though the agency acknowledges there probably is significant underreporting. Latent infections are estimated at 13,000,000, which is low by world standards but still a huge population in absolute terms.
 
The good news from this history is that it is indeed possible to reduce and control a longstanding dangerous endemic disease. The bad news is that it is nearly impossible (when not just plain impossible) to eliminate it. The bugs fight back. Sometimes all we can do (as individuals – I do not speak to public policy) is judge our risks and act as we see best.
 

Maria Muldaur – TB Blues

Moving Experience

I’ve moved my share of furniture over the years: most of it belonging to other people. Not professionally: just helping out. We all receive calls for help of this kind from friends and family, but simply because I always have owned a pickup truck I probably have gotten the call more than most. One of the more memorable lifts was for a friend back in the 90s who moved from NJ to an apartment in lower Manhattan. Getting the absurdly heavy fold-out sofa-bed up the stairs (it wouldn’t fit in the small elevator) was the highlight. I was on the lower end and again can feel the strain in my thigh muscles as I think back on it. “Is this sofa framed with plutonium?” I asked. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he answered. Somehow we got it up to the fourth floor.

My Ford and I c.1984

My current Chevy

One of the few advantages to turning 70 (see last post) is that folks hesitate (not completely refrain, but hesitate) to ask for this assistance. “We’d better not give the old guy a heart attack,” they think. “There might be a liability issue.” Just last month a friend borrowed my truck but didn’t ask for my help loading it. I nonetheless lent a hand unloading it at the final destination, but no more than that. In truth I could have done more, but I saw no reason to say so. Fortunately, at 70 when you say “I’m tired,” people take you seriously whether it is true or not.
 
The word “furniture” comes from French “fourniture,” meaning “equipment.” We regard “equipment” as stuff other than real estate, which by definition is anything “attached to or under the soil”; equipment is the stuff on or in the real estate. It is therefore movable, at least in principle. In French the word for “furniture” is not “fourniture” but “meuble,” which derives from Latin “mobilis,” which actually means “movable.” (The word for “furniture” in Latin on the other hand is “supellex,” but there is no need to chase derivations any further.) In any case, it seems likely that friends have been helping friends move furniture far enough back into history for mobility to have become part of the very definition.
 
The very earliest furnishings might not have been movable – for which reason I balk at calling them furniture. At the Neolithic site Skara Brae in Scotland, for example, in excavated private houses dating to some 2500 BCE there are Flintstone-like stone dressers, shelves, and beds. They are really built-ins (I sure as heck wouldn’t try to move them) and so part of the real estate. But more portable furnishings turn up very early in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China. They include nearly all the basic types of furniture still in use today: chairs (in a broad sense including sofas and benches), beds, dressers, chests, shelves, tables, and cabinets. No doubt a friend with an ass (I refer to the equine) was commonly called upon to help move them. Lightweight folding chairs, which can be carried easily, date back thousands of years. There are surviving examples of them from Egyptian tombs and depictions of them from both Assyria and ancient China. Styles and quality of furniture varied greatly from place to place and time to time but the fundamental forms and functions have remained the same.

Built-in furnishings at Skara Brae

Furniture (leaving aside the special case of antiques) is very expensive to buy new, but often resells for only a few cents on the dollar (when buyers can be found at all) even if it is barely used. For this reason some people frequent estate sales and yard sales as the sole sources of furnishings for their houses and apartments. It is a cost-effective practice, though of course the buyers need a friend with a truck to move the stuff from the site. From now on, though, if I happen again to be that friend, I’ll let them do the loading and unloading themselves. I’m tired.
 
 

Madeline Kahn – I'm Tired (from Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles)