Rob Engelsman

Ralph

During the summer between junior and senior year of college, I was interviewed as a potential profile in a publication at Ithaca College. The interview went well and as the piece continued to move towards publication I was given a peek at one of the drafts to make sure everything was technically accurate. I don’t remember if the story had incorrect statements in it, but I do remember, and will never forget, a line in the lede that called me “a renaissance man of modern media.” It was some highly over-dramatic writing, but hey, it was about me so I was thrilled.

It turned out that the piece was never actually published, so such over-the-top praise didn’t fall on deaf ears, it just fell on no ears. I used to joke with friends that the world just wasn’t ready for my “modern media renaissance” that I was obviously undertaking and conducting. In fact, I use the line as joke now in my biography on this site. It’s a call for my potential, but also an awareness of how ridiculous that praise can be.

In that light, it was with a heavy heart I found myself reading this line in an article about my grandfather, who passed away on Thursday afternoon:

“Mr. Engelsman, a Navy veteran, was a true Renaissance man, passionate for his community and his many friends.”

I couldn’t help but smile. I mean, the guy beat me to being Renaissance-y by two generations. And on top of that, it was actually an accurate statement! The nerve of some people.

—————

Ralph Engelsman was a loving father, uncle, husband, tennis player, Rotary member, mayor and grandfather, to name a few. I was too young to appreciate much of his politicking, but his way with words and his measured approach to situations big and small always stood out to me as traits he must have used often as mayor of Madison, NJ, from 1988 to 1991. The article I linked to above breaks down his career with quotes from both sides of the aisle that mention his care for Madison, his ability to look for common ground on issues, and the knack he had for getting things done. The word “mentor” pops up multiple times, and my grandfather was certainly someone that seemed willing to give informed opinions and advice.

I regret not getting more chances to use that mentoring, but whenever we spoke about my search for colleges, my classes and accomplishments at Ithaca, and my eventual job at the school, you could tell he wanted the information because he hoped to see me happy and successful. My time spent with him growing up with Easter egg hunts in the backyard in Madison, or traveling in Paris, or even just talking over a meal, have helped me be happy. His varied approach will always remind me to engage in many things I love, to nurture my passions, and to be the best person I can be.

—————

It was drizzling a little and some people had put coats on. I had graduated Ithaca some two and a half hours earlier, and my party with friends was in full swing. We had debated, amongst the graduating seniors, whether or not to set-up our usual party games. For this memory alone I’m thankful we did.

There was a beer pong table outside the back door of the apartment (or Beirut for the purists out there). At first it was just the college kids that played, but then we were able to coerce family members to get involved. I forget how exactly it happened, but we got Ralph to the table. He had a floppy baseball cap on and a light jacket because of the drizzle, and I don’t think he 100% got how the game worked, but he smiled as he stepped up to play with my dad. Two generations, father and son, with a third generation looking on close by. He hit more shots than anyone expected, and was gracious when it came time for a different team to play.

His smile, without the beard he’d worn many years before, was unmistakable, as was his joy for me on my special day. Ever the Renaissance man, he had found a new trade. It may not have been as useful as the others throughout his storied career, but I’d like to think that beer pong game is something he remembered fondly for the final year of his life.

—————-

My grandfather passed away this week. He collapsed while visiting his alma mater Amherst College. It was sudden. He was still quite active, though he had slowed just a little. He loved Amherst, his college of choice; he loved Madison, the town he helped lead; and he loved us, his family. He wished us happiness and success, and led by example. He was 82.

Open Doors

When I wrote a local newspaper column in high school, I would sometimes let people pick out random topics for me to work into my writing. It was partially a challenge to see how much I could bullshit on one topic or another, but when I started stacking the suggestions it became a puzzle to solve. Where do these seemingly random pieces fit? And how could I make them connected as part of a coherent piece?

Tonight, I decided to revisit that game. I solicited Twitter for some suggestions. They were pretty lame, but I promised I’d credit those who gave ideas and such. So, our five must-have pieces were:

1. @cmccreesh says it’s been a year since graduation.

2. @marleysmom said hot dogs.

3. @sarahpaol said the beauty of veggies.

4. @jpalochko said “Look at some headlines and then write a story from that.” Seems doable. So I hit up Google News and the top story was “Inside Fumbled Facebook Offering”.

5. @meghanswope said a lot of things. It was a very long response. But she said the word “retrospective” at some point so I think that’ll do.

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The passenger seat is a very familiar place to me. You see, I’ve never had my driver’s license (although I did recently get my permit) and the right side of a car has become as natural to me as it is in countries where people drive from the right side. I am used to the positioning of my body to the window on the right, the different locations cars place handles, the weird stuff friends bury in glove compartments. Many times my first introduction to someone has been moments before I hopped into their car for a ride to a bar, a friend’s place, a dinner. That takes a lot of trust, and maybe I’m dumb for trusting so easily, but it also has helped me become far more creative (how will I get to this place) and a bit more resourceful (what do I really need). 

We throw the idea of trust around like it’s a chew toy these days. This website needs your permission to do this, or this politician says they will do that thing you’ve always hoped would be done. Our lives, our information, our privacy, are all being trusted to ideas and organizations much larger, richer, and more powerful than us. Is that what’s best? It’s hard to put such a thing to the test, but isn’t that what Facebook just did last week? They went public, looking for investors to trust that their money will return with dividends and success. It was with much fanfare, and appears to have started with a bit of a stumble. Investors don’t seem to be trusting Facebook with their money as much as teenagers do with their prom pictures. Time will tell how that shakes out.

We also trust a lot these days in tradition. Memorial Day weekend is for barbeques, with hot dogs and burgers. Our social services are trusted to do the right thing, even if they make the news far too often for the wrong choices. We tend not to question tradition, because it’s so engrained that changing it is an uphill battle.

I graduated college almost exactly a year ago, and it was a traditional ceremony - the 116th of its nature for the school. When I committed to this college as a senior in high school, it was with the trust that I would be able to face the world as I left the door four years later. Those years come at a price, of course, and not just in the wallet. It was a calculated risk, or as much of a calculation as you can make when you’re 18. It was a leap of faith. A leap I cherish every moment of to this day, but that doesn’t mean it turns out that way for all of us.

I’ve mentioned before that leaving college felt like running into a brick wall. It’s something you can’t properly warn against, nor would I really want to. When covering senior week and commencement this year, I consciously tried not to define the littler moments too much. Everyone has the recognition. It could happen weeks in advance, or in a quiet moment with a friend a few days after graduation actually occurs. It’s a moment that no one ever forgets because it’s the moment you know whether or not the leap of faith worked. It’s how you know the trust was worth it, or not. 

There are a lot of things I don’t do that a 23-year-old should, like driving a car, working out and eating a good share of vegetables consistently. There are also a lot of things I’ve done that I never thought I would, like running a radio station, studying abroad and finishing the entire first season of Smash unironically. The difference between those I have done and those I haven’t? I opened the door. Sometimes pulling the handle is the hardest part, especially when that leap of faith puts a lot on the line with you in the driver’s seat.

I’m gonna eat more vegetables and even some vegetarian food this summer. I’m also getting my driver’s license and starting to run. My hand has been on the handle for a while now, and I think it’s time to open the door on the side of the car that lets me take some more of that control.

What doors do you need to open this summer? Let’s leap together.

The Great Census Debacle of 1890

Man on camera. A more-disheveled and haphazard version of Brian Williams. He looks up from his desk, which appears to be held together by duct tape and luck.

Good evening and welcome to LineDate, the unauthorized internet version of Dateline. I’m Rock Flathead.

Tonight we have an exclusive inside look at a very old and completely irrelevant story. It is not a light story, and you should know up front that we did not delight in covering it. It took weeks to develop the narrative and come out with a result, and it certainly isn’t pretty. Airing the story was debated for minutes as our managing editor tried to find something more enjoyable. We even considered skipping this week’s episode and sending you via link to Panda Cam. But, eventually we decided no one else would be bringing this past plight to light, especially since NBC started returning our calls with pre-recorded promos for Smash. If you are faint of heart, or hard of hearing, we suggest that you go back to the Panda Cam. I’ll wait.

Dallas, Texas. It’s hot. It’s dry. It’s not the location of our story. No, our story takes place in the land of 10,000 lakes: Minnesota. The Twin Cities to be exact. You thought Gangs of New York was out there? Ha! Wait until you learn of the Great Census Debacle of 1890 (a phrase never before capitalized until now)…

The Mississippi River finds its beginnings at Lake Itasca, just off state route 200 in Lake Itasca State Park, just south of the sleepy town of … Lake Itasca. Very original, these northern Minnesotans. Follow 200 to 71 south to 10 south and you’ll be driving for about four hours. Those directions also drop you in the middle of the a powder keg waiting to explode.

Minneapolis and St. Paul. St. Paul and Minneapolis. Bound by location, they shall never be separated in name or thought. What a pity, then, that for much of their history separating is about the only thing they’ve wanted to do.

Flashback to the late-1800s. The midwest is growing, and Minneapolis and St. Paul together are becoming a major part of the upper midwestern fabric of America. Nonetheless, a rivalry between the two persists. A rivalry so bad that the entire Mississippi River is all that kept them from killing the other.

1890 was a census year for the United States, and the Twin Cities had separate census bureaus. At a time of such growth in the nation, the final tallies from cities all across America were published and paraded about. Chicago claimed 1.5 million people. St. Louis, Missouri, was forced to recount. And in Minnesota, the crosstown rivalry finally came to a head.

Early reports saw Minneapolis’ population surging past that of St. Paul, which angered St. Paul residents. Some investigated, and become enraged to discover potential fraudulent practices being carried out by their terrible neighbor town. Thousands of fake ballots appeared to have been submitted by the bastards of Minneapolis. So what did the good people of St. Paul do? They got warrants and arrested seven Minneapolisians for fraud.

The court dates began on June 20, 1890, with United States Commissioner McCafferty at the helm. It was, importantly, held in the United States grand jury room of St. Paul. The Minneapolite defendants in the case cried bull, claiming that it would be impossible for McCafferty to be fair since he hailed from St. Paul. McCafferty, like the good St. Paulian he was, threw out their concerns and arranged a court date for August to continue the case.

That’s when shit got crazy.

The very next day, United States district attorney (and Minneapolis resident) Hay announced the he absolutely refused to prosecute his brethren. To make sure he knew they were serious, 200 prominent St. Paul residents, including mayor R.A. Smith, marched their way to Hay’s office and waited for him to give them a good reason to not continue the prosecution. They even presented him with a petition. Hay responded to them, saying, “I must refuse to prosecute. I could, perhaps, explain what I am doing if there were fewer of you here, but I decline to talk to a delegation of your size.”

The verbal bitch slap heard around Minnesota continued. “All the matter that I have received I have sent to Attorney General Miller, whose advice I am seeking. I have no money to defray the cost of prosecution, but the evidence of alleged fraud shall not leave my hands.” Okay, so the first part was far more “fuck you” than the second, but still. Good on Hay for being practical, I guess.

Eventually the crowd was persuaded to leave, and they returned to Mayor Smith’s office (which must have been fairly large to fit the 200). There, a special committee of St. Paulians was formed, and they rushed to Washington to yell the ear off Attorney General Miller. The next day’s New York Times ran the headline, “They Want Hay’s Scalp,” surely the “Remember the Maine” of Minnesota headline history.

Tensions did not die down after that. No, they certainly did not. On July 22, Ed A. Stevens, the head of Minneapolis’ census taking, was arrested by a St. Paul warrant. According to the papers, his arrest was actually expected and “neither he nor the public was surprised.” We’ve gone to the trouble of recreating this dramatic moment for you.

Knock on door.

Stevens: Come in!

Door opens. St. Paulians with a warrant enter.

Stevens: What took you so long?

End scene.

Did you like that? It cost us 87 thousand dollars.

Another curious character in the brouhaha was Governor Inspector Boudinot, who apparently was striking fear into the hearts of Minneapolis residents. He was, supposedly, working in cahoots with the residents of St. Paul. Supposedly. Why supposed? Because the very day Stevens was arrested, a St. Paul detective was also arrested… for following Boudinot. Was there a dubious double agent at work in this chess match of census proportions? We may never know. But we do know one thing: Boudinot is a French name, so he probably sucked.

The anger on the river banks eventually subsided, and now St. Paul and Minneapolis are largely harmonious, save for an epic daylight savings battle in the mid-1960s. For the most part, the residents of today’s Twin Cities carry an air of unity, but we all know the tension that sits below the surface. The only question this reporter has is this: How long until the battle once again takes to the banks of the baby Mississippi?

For LineDate, I’m Rock Flathead. We’ll see you around.

This piece was based on real events that occurred in 1890. Really. This all happened and then the New York Times reported on it. Awesome, right?

History Channel Presents: Long Lost Stories of South-North-Eastern Europe

[Ed. note: In 1907, an old castle in south-north-eastern Europe crumbled to the earth. Upon removal of the rubble, a small dungeon area was found well below ground level. On its walls were scratches that appeared to be that of a man who had gone insane. But one anthropologist, Edward Finkelton, believed the scratches to be too precise for a man without his wits about him. Finkelton took extensive photos of the site and filed them away, where they were forgotten much like other old photos of random walls in south-north-eastern Europe. Last week, researchers at SNOERARL (the South-North-Eastern Archival Research Lab) caught a break in the code when one of their six-year-old children developed a chicken-scratch writing style that mirrored that of the centuries old text. (You can’t make these things up.) (Well, you can. And I did.) Now, for the first time, we present the full text found on the wall, floor and window sill of what was once the cell of King Charleton, the braver-than-most and richer-than-few.]

We can’t all be kings.

That’s what he told me as I was led away in shackles. Horace King Horace, made sure I would never be seen again. I took to scribbling on walls to keep myself sane. When they noticed that, they tortured me. So I invented my own scratchy method of writing down my thoughts. Of course, if you’re reading this that means someone at some time between you and I must have figured that out. So kudos to them, or you, or whomever it was.

Put it this way: You didn’t miss much. We won tied a war, threw a celebration, and after the partying had subsided I was broke we were broke and I was sacked. My money skills were never up to snuff, and I kicked all the intellectuals out because they were making too much noise, so I guess you could say I put myself in this position. I’d prefer, however, that you blame my parents and years of inbreeding; parents for starting the war in the first place over an insult hurled at a baptism some 60 years ago, and inbreeding because, well, it doesn’t exactly promote the most illustrious of genes.

[At this point there is a section of text that cannot be fully deciphered. Key words that were pulled from the section include “bastard”, “sister-on-sister” and “gross.”]

Either way, I’m here now wasting away in some dingy dungeon and Horace King Horace, my cousin, is king of the north and south. Greedy bugger. You look for peace and then he steps in with an olive branch of money to take it all away from you. I have to say, it was quite cunning. He knew I was short on cash the kingdom was short on cash and brokered peace because my plans for celebrations our plans for celebrations had put our cash flow over the edge. Damn Horace King Horace. Always so Horace King Horace-y and such.

[The text has now filled one wall and moved to the floor of the room.]

Why am I even writing this? Well, good question. As I said before, I would like to keep myself sane and a daily few hundred scratches in a floor certainly help the time go by. (And trust me, this takes time. We’re talking a word every three or four days depending on how I’m feeling. I rest on Sundays. Not because I’m religious, but because the first time I rested was a Sunday and I fell into a pattern.) I would also like to believe that this text will one day change history, or help verify it. I’ve always been a man of great fact and would love for my name to continue forth as one of great fact-worthiness. Parlor games will hopefully include riddles about me and my illustrious days as king. Illustrious day, really.

Did I not mention that? I was king, trust me. There was a whole ceremony and everything. But it was only for a day. Eh, half a day. But still, I was king. My older brother helped broker the peace and then took ill. He passed the morning the celebrations were to begin. He’d planned a modest parade. I became king and substantially raised the ceiling of the party, and blew through the debt ceiling, coincidentally. I mean, it wasn’t just a peace party anymore. I was a new king, and wanted to show my people how awesome I was. 

According to my right-hand man, we went broke a short time after I demanded we ship some elephants up from the south. (My right-hand man, for what it’s worth, didn’t actually have a right hand.) For one, he told me that bringing in a bunch of elephants apparently couldn’t be done in a day. And two, just mentioning the idea apparently cost me every penny I had every penny the kingdom had. By nightfall Horace King Horace was in my city bailing me out and throwing me in jail for gross incompetence. (You know what’s gross? He married his aunt.)

I’m running out of space, and this has taken substantially longer for me to write than for you to read, so in conclusion, fuck you Horace King Horace and that elephant you rode in on. I knew they could get here in a day. (The lesson? Never trust a right-hand man who lacks a right hand.)

Yours, in a code that surely will never be broken, 

[Here begins a massive lineage of Horace and Charleton’s family, including a series of prostitutes, who were the only non-related members of the lineage. The text wound up to the window sill, where the signature completed.]

King Charleton, the braver-than-most and richer-than-few.

Chips

The court was terrible. Just awful. It was a bunch of cinderblocks laid into the ground to roughly form a basketball three point arc. Except it was much smaller. Maybe thirteen blocks by thirteen, with a few random extras forming a semblance of a extension past the foul line. Grass grew up between the blocks and had to be weed-whacked often. The metal pole was solid; the wooden hoop was not. It was old, with paint chipping off and chunks completely rotted. It wasn’t much, but it was my backyard basketball court.

When my parents got divorced, I spent a lot of time on the court thinking and shooting a basketball at the broken hoop. I remembering being in sixth grade and going out back to throw the ball at the backboard just for the satisfaction of the paint chips and wood pieces falling off on impact. Sometimes I wouldn’t even use a basketball. It’d be a kickball, football, whatever seemed right when I went down the two steps into my garage and picked. I wasn’t angry - I don’t think I really could understand anger then - but I was definitely frustrated and annoyed. One time I refused to leave my house to go with my dad, and just kept shooting hoops out back until I finally broke down. 

Eventually the backboard deteriorated pretty significantly and the metal pole was removed from the ground. Now, some lawn furniture sits on the cinderblocks like a little patio. When I remember the court, it’s fondly, as as a place to unwind from the day or defiantly stand up against a situation I didn’t understand. I can see the paint and wood chips flying off at impact, practically in slow motion. Each hit was my Occupy, my barricade, my self-preservation. 

We all have our version of the backboard, although they can change with the times. I started writing more creatively, especially in high school, and now sitting down with a new note akin to this is what keeps me sane. There are dozens I’ll probably never publish. Just as I would deliberately choose different things to throw at the board from the garage, I now choose my words with intent. The new wood chips pile up in the form of untitled musings; a living documentation of the emotions and thoughts I was previously incapable of encapsulating coherently.

The things we do to release a little steam probably change as frequently as the things that build the steam do. Harnessing that energy into something is a challenge we all grapple with. Knowing others are grappling, too - that’s what makes it all exceptionally easier.

(I still suck at basketball by the way. I blame the old wooden backboard. It had no give.)