Why Matt's A Good Guy!

OK, I don't post as much as I should, I know it-you are absolutely right. Shame on me! But when something comes along that moves me-I have to share it.

I truly believe, and it's proven to me the more I walk on this orb, that we are a lot more similar then we let on. Or that we want to believe. Here's an example why I think this:

Tells Us What We Don't Know

Tuesday night, another woman didn’t listen to the experts. Hillary Clinton got off the canvas after taking a hard punch in Iowa and won the next round in New Hampshire. I don’t care about your interest or affiliation with American politics. You still have to tip your hat to Senator Clinton and her victory in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday night.

Tom Brokaw, the retired news anchor wondered aloud on MSNBC, last night about listening to the “experts.” He said, to Chris Matthews directly and the media in general, that they have to “temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding:

Brokaw made that assessment based upon the fact that the media had all but written the Clinton campaign as crippled, due to the large margin of Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa, the apparent disarray of the Clinton team and the polling done on the New Hampshire voters. Yet, when the voters emerged from their vote, the outcome was decidedly different from the predictions. The predictions of the pundits, that is. A closer look at the poll data showed them to be fairly accurate in their estimates.

The American media has based its coverage of national elections, not on what a potential office holder stands for, but the coverage is about the race itself. The reporting is exclusively who is ahead and who is behind. Reporters don’t try to establish the candidates’ policies, but try to catch them in “gotcha” moments of mistakes in what they say or about the events in their private lives. Questions are not focused on foreign policy or the national budget. Candidates are allowed to preach. The candidates talk about "change" as if it were substantive. Reporters dutifully transcribe the message, but not the blueprint. It takes too much effort to pull the curtain away from the wizards. Political coverage is asking how much a candidate spends on their haircut.

I’m sure all the candidates, no matter their political party or how they placed, are taking pleasure in the political pundits' blunder in New Hampshire. Settling in their seats as they head to the next series of events in this long trek to the White House, I’m sure every one of them thinks to themselves with a wry grin, “Gotcha!”

Monster (skier) of Lake Storsjön

Last year I tried to cross country ski for the first time. It looks so easy on the Nordic Track videos. I had visions of me gliding through the Scandinavian countryside, healthy and invigorated. My experience, however, was like my brain and my legs were on two different frequencies and I made about 20 yards when two attempts at a steep incline of about the size of a step on your front stoop were not only unsuccessful, but the resulting fall led me to hang up my skis and retreat to the coffee shop.

While the American TV sports coverage was all about football, here in Sweden it was skiing, both the downhill and the (dreaded) cross-country events. The cross-country event was the two-year-old Tour de Ski and is modeled on the Tour de France of cycling. Races this year were held in the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy over eight days. The event is a combination of cross country ski races. The overall results are based on the aggregate time for all events, as well as bonus seconds awarded on sprint and mass start stages.

Sweden was cheering for Charlotte Kalla, who was competing in the Tour de Ski for her first time. A feisty 20 year old, Charlotte hails from Östersund, a city of 57,000 residents. Östersund is famous for its cross-country ski trails and Storsjöodjur, the Great Monster of Lake Storsjön. The hometown girl, Kalla, has been competing internationally since 2004. She has been steadily improving her stature and in her ski sponsor’s bio it says she is “stubborn and goal focused.” Her gusty performance this weekend proved those words true and made her an overnight sports hero.

Over the course of her Tour de Ski, she had a pole break in a sprint race, costing her a possible win. In the race on Saturday, while attempting a move to the lead, she clipped her skis with another racer’s skis which caused her to fall and lose time and position. Getting back on her skis, she screamed a word that would have been bleeped on American TV (or maybe not as it was in Swedish) and preceded to literally chase down the leaders. While the experts were expounding on the error of this tactic, Kalla blew by skier after skier until she finished second, only 36 seconds behind the Tour de Ski leader going into Sunday’s grueling final event.

The final stage was held in pursuit style in freestyle technique, with the overall Tour leader starting first and all other competitors starting after according to their time behind in the overall standings. After a short lap of the Val di Fiemme stadium tracks, the course meandered down the valley to the base of the Final Climb. Two and half kilometers and 425 vertical meters up the Alpes Cermis later the first athlete across the finish line would be the winner. With all the energy expelled on her second place finish on Saturday, the pundits did not hold high hopes for Charlotte winning on Sunday.

Charlotte caught Virpi Kuitunen from Finland a third of the way up the Final Climb, and then made a decisive break with one kilometer to go. She accelerated quickly and Kuitunen had nothing to answer with. She crossed the finish line and collapsed, winning by a spectacular 36 seconds ahead of the second place Finn.

Arriving back home in Sweden, the smiling Charlotte was a national hero. Her picture was on the front of every newspaper, and the TV stations were falling all over themselves to get an interview with the ski star from Östersund. The city fathers, in a burst of civic pride gave Charlotte a piece of land in recognition for her heroic effort that put the city on the international map.

By listening to her heart, body and a indomitable will to win and not to what the “experts” said was what made Charlotte Kalla a champion.

Re-setting the Bar

Kajsa Bergqvist is the premier female Swedish high jumper. She has been a champion in world class high jumping events, winning an Olympic bronze medal, a gold and two bronze medals in the World Championships and two gold in the World Indoor Championships. She holds the current world record for the indoor high jump and is the Swedish record holder in both the indoor and outdoor women’s high jump.

Track and Field is a very big sport in Europe and the premier athletes are better known and respected then rock stars. The events are carried on European TV all summer long and are sponsored lucratively. The top tiers of European athletes are wealthy and connected, but not as much as the American professional athletes. Nonetheless, there is a lot of incentive to compete.

So, when Ms. Bergqvist announced this past Monday that she was retiring from high jumping, it was surprising. There were many who thought that her slump towards the end of last year was temporary. She just turned 31 this past October and though a veteran, probably had at least a year left to continue competing as a world-class athlete.

If she had an entourage of sponsors, a manager and advisors, perhaps she would have been pressured to stay on. Kajsa was just married on this past New Year’s Eve and in her retirement announcement she felt she was entering a “new phase” in her life and no longer felt motivated to keep competing, even after last year's long break away from the sport.

We so often criticize the athlete who hangs on past their prime, staying around only to collect a check when the skills have eroded. When that happens, we then shake our collective heads in scorn and forget the events that dazzled us with their skills. So I'm tipping my hat to an athlete who was honest to her fans, her sport and most importantly, to herself by getting out of the game when the time was right.


Way to go, Kajsa Bergqvist!

No Wimps...please!

The Iowa caucus is over and the winners are Barack Obama, the freshmen Senator from Illinois and Michael Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. We could debate the qualifications of each man, but the reality is that neither one has enough credentials to give a high school debate team a good workout.

I know that the purveyors of news in the United States like to break down the American elections to the level of Seabiscuit against War Admiral. It would seem that the last two national elections for the President of the United States has proven the error of that kind of coverage. Living in Stockholm, Sweden, I've been spared the countdown to election coverage, but it is incredulous that America is forced to choose from these pretenders for its next president.

Obama has been preaching his mantra of bringing the country together. He said in his victory speech, "We're choosing unity over division and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America." However, no one has ever asked the follow up question, how is he planning to do it? How does a man who has never done anything for the State of Illinois but be elected propose to pull the United States out of its morass of difficult problems and the loss of its prestige overseas?

On the Republican side, the bible thumping former preacher turned politician has used the well-oiled machine of the Christian fundamentalists to win in Iowa. Like Obama, Huckabee does well telling his story in the cozy confines of the living rooms, VFW halls and church basements of Iowa. He is personable and he mirrors the hopes of God fearing folk. "Values voters spoke loudly tonight in Iowa," said Greg Mueller, a GOP strategist. "Huckabee also demonstrated an authenticity; he ran as a genuine candidate. Now, he's got to use that bully pulpit to broaden his populist appeal in New Hampshire." Huckabee's thinking seems to be that if the voter just believes strong enough and we can keep the sinners and heathens in check, the good ‘ole USA can return to the glory days of William Jennings Bryant. Or, at least, back to the days before the farm wasn’t being turned into a Wal-Mart strip mall because of all those foreign immigrants. The former governor's lack of any sophistication on the way the world works, either in politics or natural science is a warning. He is less capable of performing the duties of the President then George Bush. And this country cannot afford to have that happen. A Huckabee administration in the White House would be for the country like Katrina was for the Mississippi Delta. The United States has a lot of damage to repair on the world stage and saying, "There is a higher father that I appeal to" on U.S. foreign policy has not worked too well in the immediate past.

To me the lesson of Iowa is very simple. Obama has galvanized the young voter and the progressive grass root Democrats. The vote was not so much for Obama as a vote against the status quo. Like Howard Beal in the movie “Network”, the massive Democratic turnout told the Party’s leadership that they are mad as hell and they don’t want to take it anymore. They want the Party to do something different and they want it done immediately. The only entity that has a lower approval rating then the President is the Congress.

The congregations of the hinterlands are single minded, motivated and they can mobilize for their candidates and causes like the Christian soldiers in the songs. The outpouring of the fundamentalists for Huckabee in Iowa shows that they are ready for the fight in 2008. The only way that the Democrats can overcome the stranglehold that the Christian nationalists have on the elections is to mobilize the progressive side of the Democratic Party.

The good news from Iowa is that Barack Obama won. There is the smidgen of hope that the Democratic Party might, after all it's misjudgement and capitulation in recent years, will have the good sense NOT to nominate another cupcake "moderate" who will try to placate the voters by saying “We’re just like the other guys, only nicer.”

Home For A Time

I was shopping in the outdoor Christmas market in Kungsträdgården Park in downtown Stockholm. It opens about four weeks before Christmas and the booths are supposed to carry genuine Swedish hand crafted gifts. But every year, it seems the items are less handcrafted and even less Swedish.

I have a silly notion that because I live in Sweden, the gifts I send to the folks back home should be, you know, Swedish. Something they cannot find in some store called “Northern Lights” in a suburban mall. I hold out until the last minute, hoping against hope that I’ll meet some artist or crafts person that will have a garage full of the gifts I am looking for. Some year it will hit me that I have to buy that stuff in the summer when I am traveling through some area of Sweden where these artists actually practice their craft.

I was under the gun to get something for Mom. After walking up and down the promenade between the booths, trying to decide what to choose, I settled on a linen bag full of silicone that heats up in a microwave or freezes in a freezer. It is used to apply therapy to knees, joints or other hurting parts of your body. My mom has had sore knees for a while. I thought that this bag of silicone, wrapped in a homemade linen sack with runes of the ancient Vikings on the cloth would be a step up from the frozen pea bag she was using. Weighing in at 1.2 kilos, it was about the weight and length of a good-sized Jersey submarine sandwich. Hopefully, it would be less than a small fortune to ship back to the States.

I was leaving the market, with my silicone sack in a plastic bag, shivering a bit against the mid December damp and cold. I needed to go home, wrap the gift, take it to the mailing shop, find an envelope that would work and get it off in the post today. I was trying to decide what bus to take home when coming towards me on the promenade was an older man with a camera around his neck.

The man was a perfect fit for the holiday season with his chubby shape, round face with high cheekbones and round rimless glasses. He had a close-cropped beard that was whiter than gray and it gave him the look of whom else, but Santa Claus. He came up to about my shoulders in height and he had a down jacket that was open in spite of the cold dampness of the day. His stocking cap was centered on his head, and looked like an inverted ice cream cone. Over his shoulder he carried a small canvas sack.

As we approached one another our eyes met and he smiled slightly and approached me. When this normally happens I prepare myself for the next few uncomfortable minutes of conversation. My Swedish is terrible and I have learned to say, in something near Swedish, how sorry I am that my Swedish is horrible and does the other person speak English?

“Ah, English,” said my gnome like stranger, “Where are you from?” After my answer of the United States, our conversation then became a monologue. My now new friend began a crash course history of his working adult life. The man was a professional news photographer and he had visited the United States taking photos at the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. Upon my answering his question about what part of the United States I came from, he told me about the vacation the news syndicate gave the reporters and photographers in Florida after the Lake Placid assignment.

He then launched into a history of the United States covering the last fifty years. How the only Olympic games to make a profit were in Los Angeles. Surprising me, he then rattled off every assassination attempt on Presidents and other American dignitaries, including the perpetrators. A strange thing for anyone to remember, I thought.

My new friend asked me where I lived and what I did for a living. I responded that I was a freelance writer and lived here in Stockholm. “What have you written?” he asked. I said I had written some articles for magazines and that I had written a book. “What book!” he exclaimed. As the fates would have it, I had a copy of The Swedish Golf Experience in my bag. I had brought it to a meeting I had earlier that day. The book is a collection of essays and photographs of golf courses in Sweden. As a photographer, he admired the photographs and seemed pleased that I had shared it with him.

Regretfully, our meeting had to come to a close. I thanked the man for his time and began my farewell. He asked if he could take a picture of me holding the book? He took the camera off his neck, a film cartridge style with automatic winding that was state of the art twenty some years ago. He snapped a few shots, posing me in exactly the way he wanted. He seemed genuinely pleased to be at work, clicking away. We shook hands, and I wished him a God Jul. He said he had to give me something.

Ignoring my protests about needing anything from him, he reached into his sack and pulled out a small book. The book, "Vinterdag", really no bigger than a pamphlet, was a story by the Swedish artist, Roland Svensson. Svensson is renowned for his drawings of scenes from the Sweden archipelago. My friend excitedly paged through the book, struggling with his English to impart the information contained within. Pulling a pen out of the same bag the book was in; he asked how to spell my name. Realizing that my protests were falling on deaf ears, I patiently gave him the letters. He then inscribed a salutation, "To Jene from ..." and signed with a flourish, "press photographer Hanst Dehlskon." I had never met this man before and now I knew about his past and he knew enough about me to want to take my picture and give me a remembrance. What made this casual meeting in a city park so special?

On the way home, carrying the gift from Hanst, I wondered about him. Was he a gregarious man who walked the city striking up conversations with receptive people? Or, was it the opposite, a lonely old man who just needed to talk with someone? Are there people in this world who need to talk to strangers for, as Springsteen wrote, to receive that human touch?

I really hoped for the former over the latter. I wanted my press photographer to be a gregarious, world traveler who regaled the fortunate ones that he would choose with his tales of adventures with famous people in exotic locations. I imagined Hanst sitting in his living room, surrounded by his kids and grand kids, enjoying the warm glögg and family Julbord. I watched in my mind’s eye as he leafed through photos taken of events he had witnessed and documented with his camera’s eye, remembering the stories behind the events he had photographed.

I don’t want to give the impression that I am telling this story as a life lesson. I don’t expect you to now get some insight into life, and begin to seek out lonely people to strike up conversations on city streets. I rarely do this myself. Herman Hesse has said, “One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.” There was something that made that man’s path cross mine on that December afternoon. I should do that sort of interaction more in my life. Because, as rare as I have those spontaneous conversations, more rarely do I ever regret them.

Speed Bumps in the Highways of Life

There are words that a man hears that lets him know he has reached another stage in his life. They divide a man’s life as surely as a ruler is divided into equal parts. Though childhood is a part of anyone’s life, it is not really begun by a statement from someone. It’s reinforced, though, by people saying things like, “Hey, kid, Come over here!” or the one that starts, “When you grow up…” You can insert your own finish to that phrase. Childhood will be an indefinite time in one’s life, as each individual will define their own status as a child. “You’re acting like a child” and “That was a juvenile thing to do” may occur at any time in your life. And men, to many women in your life, you will always suffer from some form of Peter Pan-ism, whether it’s that red sports car or spending Sunday with your pals watching football instead of antiquing in the country.

But you can pretty much define that you have reached adulthood when a member of the club you thought you were still a member of says, “Thanks, Mister” or you are introduced to someone younger than you as “Mr. Smith” or whatever your last name is. My thought is that you should now consider yourself an adult and will be looked upon strangely when you try to get in to the under-21 club.

The second road sign in life’s relentless journey is when you’re at some trendy nightspot enjoying the evening. Just doing the things you might have been doing for the last couple of decades, like having a drink, enjoying the music and the electricity that only a really good crowd can generate. As your eyes wander the room, watching the social world interact in front of you, your eyes land on a particularly beguiling segment of that observed society. As you are admiring the view, your eyes meet and she gives a shy smile and excuses herself from her group and begins to head in your direction. Your reaction mechanism goes into operation. You smooth your hair (or think you do), suck in that gut a little (I’ve got to start going to the gym, again) and smile that capped smile of yours. “Excuse me”, she starts, “but can you tell me what time it is (ready?), SIR ?"

The dreaded word has been spoken to you. There goes the pretense of your present. Forget about the gym, she just called you a word you used to only utter to your elders. As they say, one door opens; another one closes. In your case my friend, hello middle age goodbye young adult hood. You know you’re cooked. Young women no longer consider you a mating possibility, unless you have starred in a few motion pictures or can pay the stars of motion pictures. But in that case, you are not the attraction of who you are as what you can do. Nah, the only thing you have to look forward to is the kid with acne who after asking you what show you want to see, gives you the “over 50” discount on your tickets.

Why I write these signposts for you, dear reader is because I just received the next to last jolt in the road of life. Over the weekend, I took one of those little steps for a man that lead to big time aches. I stepped in a small indentation in the road, my knee buckled and two days later it had swollen up like a grapefruit had been stuffed down my leg to the knee joint. Usually in these cases (it’s happened before) I use the “Twin I” cure, ice and ibuprofen. After a couple days of a walk that could make the “Minister of Silly Walks” bit in a Python skit, some moans and groans and some awkward positions in the bathroom, things get back to normal. I will admit here that the recovery periods have been slowly been getting longer and longer. In this case, the normal cure wasn’t working and, indeed, was getting worse. Much to the relief of the Viking Princess, I finally relented and entered the Swedish Socialized Medical Treatment again.

For those of you who feel that having a medical system where people are all equal in getting medical attention is a bad thing, yes, it is crowded. Yes, you do have to wait your turn and that turn is defined by how close to death you are, how your bleeding will affect housekeeping and how contagious you are to the rest of society. Not necessarily in that order. But you will be taken care of by good health technicians who are in this profession because they can help people. And it is heartening to see that the old are treated with care and respect. There is humanness to this system that you don’t find in the states and you don’t wait any longer than you would at County General, USA.

Anyway, back to the knee. After consultation and x-rays, I was wheeled into a treatment room where Christian, my attending doctor told me that there were no breaks and said he could see from the x-rays that there had been previous trauma. And there has developed, because of that trauma, osteo-arthritis. But I was not to worry, as I need to continue my activity, as that actually was good for the containment of the arthritis. We drained the swelling and wrapped me up and that he said the following phrase. Drum roll, please! “You are not to worry,” Dr. Inngul intoned. “This is quite common when the parts of the body…(Cymbals ready?)…Start to get OLD.” (Crash! Boom! Bang!) Well, I have to admit; it wasn’t that traumatic, though I must have winced, as the Doc was quick to explain that he didn’t know how else to explain it in English. It was OK, I told him. I joked that he really knew how to hurt a guy.

Yet, there was a feeling that passed between us that we both knew, even though we had just met that day. It was something recognizable, almost DNA-like that something was said that was not a happy event. There was the shudder of recognition where one man realizes that he has become something the other guy knows he is going to be. A little closer to the edge of no return than you want to be. Like road signs on the highway, you might not like to see them but you know what they mean.