Following up on our recent discussions of the different dimensions of fame (see here and here), I thought something could be gained by looking carefully at a narrowly defined subset.
Here’s Wikipedia’s list of notable people from Niles, Michigan. Wikipedia lists them in alphabetical order:
Joanna Beasley (born 1986), musician
Fred Bonine (1863–1941), held world’s record in the 100-meter dash from 1886 until 1921; became internationally known eye doctor who saw over one million patients at his office in Niles
Jake Cinninger (born 1975), musician, Umphrey’s McGee
Greydon Clark (born 1943), film director
John Francis Dodge (1864–1920), automobile industry pioneer
Horace Elgin Dodge (1868–1920), automobile industry pioneer
Edward L. Hamilton (1857–1923), U.S. Representative from 1897 until 1921. Served as chair of the United States House Committee on Territories from 1903 until 1911.
Thomas Fitzgerald (1796–1855), U.S. Senator and probate judge
Tommy James (born 1947), musician, Tommy James and the Shondells
Ring Lardner (1885–1933) Sr., satirist, short story writer and sports columnist
Lillian Luckey (1919–2021), All-American Girls Professional Baseball League player
Michael Mabry (born 1955), graphic designer and illustrator
Dave Schmidt (born 1957), Major League Baseball pitcher
Diane Seuss (born 1956), poet, finalist for Pulitzer Prize
Michael D. West, (born 1953) founder of Geron, now CEO of BioTime
Aaron Montgomery Ward (1844–1913), founder, Montgomery Ward
Some of these people are obscure, once-famous or, in some cases, never-famous. I could care less about the former chair of the United States House Committee on Territories. But a few of them stand out:
Fred Bonine: I’d never heard of the guy before this, but, hey! of all the people on this list, he seems the most impressive to me. Holding the world record for 35 years . . . how is that even possible? And then to see a million patients—that’s really something. If I had to pick one person to represent Niles, Michigan, it would be Fred Bonine.
I was curious about this world record so I noodled around on Wikipedia . . . “In 1886, Bonine set a world’s record with a time of 10.8 seconds in the 110-yard dash. The record stood for 35 years until it was broken in 1921 by Charley Paddock.” 10.8 seconds, that’s not bad! How were things going at the Olympics? In 1896, it seems that the winning time was 11.8 seconds, which seems kinda slow, actually. It didn’t go below 10.8 until 1912. But then we can list the 100 meters world record progression (which Wikipedia amusingly refers to as the “Men’s 100 metres world record progression”), which starts with a bunch of guys doing it in 10.8 at many different places, from 1891 through 1903, then it drops to 10.6 in 1906 and 10.5 in 1911. Bonine’s not listed at all, even though 110 yards is actually a slightly longer distance than 100 meters! Whassup with that! Maybe Bonine’s 10.8 was clocked by someone with an itchy stopwatch finger, I have no idea. I’m kinda thinking he didn’t really do it in 10.8 seconds, but who knows?
Anyway, to continue: the Dodge brothers probably have the most famous names in the list. I doubt many people really care now about their pioneering work in the auto industry, but oldsters still remember their names on millions of cars. When I was a kid we had a Dodge Dart. It was a piece of crap, typical American car always breaking down, and with a hinky three-on-the-tree gearshift.
Ring Lardner—yes, I knew he was from Niles; it was a line in “Here’s Ring Lardner’s Autobiography,” which I will copy here in its entirety, because, why not:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who cares that in March, 1885,
I was born in the city of Niles,
Michigan, which is 94 miles
From Chicago, a city in Illinois.
Sixteen years later, still only a boy,
I graduated from the Niles High School
With a general knowledge of rotation pool.
After my schooling, I thought it best
To give my soul and body a rest.
In 1905 this came to an end,
When I went to work on The Times in Souse Bend.
Thence to Chi, where I labored first
On the Inter-Ocean and then for Hearst,Then for the Tribune and then to St. Lews,
Where I was editor of Sporting News.
And thence to Boston, where later a can
Was tied to me by the manager man.
1919 was the year
When, in Chicago, I finished my daily newspaper career.
In those 14 years—just a horse’s age—
My stuff was all on the sporting page.
In the last nine years (since it became illegal to drink),
I’ve been connected with The Bell Syndicate, Inc.,
I have four children as well as one Missus,
None of whom can write a poem as good as this is.
Ring Lardner’s one of the greatest writers who’s ever lived! In some sense. Let me say that Lardner’s on the efficient frontier of writers. There’s no better writer of sports fiction, but it’s not just that. Lardner is just special, in some way that’s hard to specify. But I’d trade 10 Damon Runyons for one Ring Lardner, and Damon Runyon is part of our national patrimony. It’s like . . . ummm, how’s this? Many years ago I recall reading an interview with Paul McCartney, and he said that some days he’d wake up and think, “I’m Paul McCartney,” and just reflect on how amazing that was. (McCartney wasn’t presenting this as an ego trip; it was more that he remains astounded by his persistent fame.) Anyway, that’s how I feel about Lardner. He’s Ring Lardner, and that will always be amazing. Ummmm, I better explain this to the non-Lardner-fans out there: the above poem is nothing so amazing. It’s more that, if you’ve read enough Lardner and you know his amazingness, you’ll enjoy the poem as it will remind you of many of his facets.
OK, to continue . . . I’d never heard of Lillian Luckey and I guess I’ll never think about her again, but she was “Listed at 5 ft 1 in (1.55 m), 126 lb (57 kg), she batted and threw right handed.” And she lived to the age of 102! She might be the person on the list who had the best stories.
I’d say Aaron Montgomery Ward was the most consequential person on the list. He practically invented the mail-order store, changing how Americans lived and shopped. He’s the only person on the list who seems to have had a unique historical niche.
And this reminds me of a story. When I was in college at MIT, it was possible to apply to summer jobs through the career center. One year I applied for a summer job at some actuarial firm. I didn’t really know what this was, but I knew they used probability and statistics, a subject that I enjoyed. In the interview, the guy was talking enthusiastically about his boss, a man who, according to my interviewer, “practically invented hedging.” The interviewer started telling me about some scheme his boss had come up with to avoid paying taxes. It sounded kinda creepy to me, but I don’t have a lot of principles, so it’s not like I stalked off in disgust. I just kept on with the interview, trying to sound enthusiastic. I didn’t get the summer job, which in retrospect is kinda funny: how many applicants did they have with perfect grades from MIT? But maybe he was able to detect my lack of interest, I dunno. I never really followed up to find out who the guy was who practically invented hedging.
Tommy James: You may not recall this name, but . . . he wrote the song Crimson and Clover. You’ve heard that! As a matter of fact, that’s what motivated this post: I heard Crimson and Clover on the radio, looked it up on wikipedia to find its story, then clicked on the name of the songwriter. His page said he was from Niles, Michigan, which rang a bell—the Lardner poem!—so I looked up that city to see who else was from there. And here we are.
So what has this little study taught us about fame? Not so much, I guess: we already knew that fame is multidimensional: there are different ways of being famous. Montgomery Ward is a mostly forgotten name, but in some sort of integral of fame over time, he might be the winner here. Dodge is even more famous, but I’d say it’s thought of more as a company than a personal name. Ward is that way too, but Dodge even more so, as Ward has some personal reputation as a pioneer in business. Tommy James was personally famous only for a short time, but his song has been well known for many decades now. Ring Lardner was a famous journalist back in the 1920s and is now an obscure historical figure, but I’d guess that people will still be reading some of his stories, long after Ward etc. are just historical figures. And Lillian Luckey and Fred Bonine illustrate how you can be locally famous. I think some of this discussion is improved by its narrow focus. Going down the ladder of fame like this gives us some clarity that is lost when comparing biggies such as Norman Lear, Henry Kissinger, and Queen Elizabeth.
P.S. More here.
Review: I started reading this post hoping to learn about the invention of hedging, and while I was disappointed on that front the other content more than made up for it.
I didn’t realize the Dodge brothers died in the same year.
From their Wikipedia page:
> John Dodge was once quoted as saying, “Someday, people who own a Ford are going to want an automobile”
In the spirit of sports, that’s some pretty solid smack talk.
“Alfred Winslow Jones (9 September 1900 – 2 June 1989) was an Australian investor, hedge fund manager, and sociologist. He is credited with forming the first modern hedge fund and is widely regarded as the “father of the hedge fund industry.” (Wikipedia)
There’s a connection to both Columbia and survey research: ” In 1941, he earned a doctorate in sociology at Columbia University. He then completed his doctoral thesis, Life, Liberty and Property, a survey of attitudes toward property in Akron, Ohio.”
“Hedging” is way different than the “hedge fund” industry. “Hedging” began in the 17th century (https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/42054/the-meaning-and-origin-of-hedge-your-bets) so I doubt Andrew had any chance to meet the guy who invented it. And might AW Jones & Co been described at some point as “actuarial?” Probably not. I suspect puffery. Although to be fair, if it was actually a hedge fund, the “scheme to avoid taxes” might have been the carried interest exemption.
“Bonine’s not listed at all, even though 100 yards is actually a slightly longer distance than 100 meters”
This not correct. 100 yards are 91.5 meters.
A typo by Andrew, I think. He wrote earlier that Bonine’s record was in the 110 yard dash (100.6 metres).
Maybe he was thinking of 100 nautical yards. (/joking)
Typo fixed; thanks.
> typical American car always breaking down
Does anyone here work on cars?
I have a pet theory that a car that breaks down a little would be from a mechanics perspective, much better than one that always ran.
The theory works out like:
1. If you want to drive a car, then the car must drive and so breakdowns are annoying
2. If you want to work on the car, then the car must be broken to justify working on it
I think there’s another branch here — like mechanic-types who try to make their cars really fast. But there’d be a limit there, like at some point it’s all spiffed out and you wouldn’t have more practical things to do. Maybe once you make a car fast enough it breaks regularly and you can be happy.
Google “triumph spitfire open hood” — my dad showed me one of these and the theory says something like this should be about as fun as car mechanics get (depending on parts supply, I don’t know). It’s a British car so it probably breaks a lot and it has that fantastic pop up hood so it looks like it’d be easy to work on.
I think this theory holds for RC stuff — a lot of the fun is when stuff breaks and you go repair it. I had an RC truck where one of the shocks broke and I had to go get a new shock and fluid. And I had an RC airplane where I lost control and saw something fall off way up in the sky — I think it was the battery pack or something but it was pretty funny (I guess it wouldn’t have been funny if it beamed somebody but in this case it was a big, open, empty field). I don’t think there were many times I ran the battery out on the airplane before something broke — the truck was quite a bit tougher. The airplane might have been more fun for the trouble.
I work on my own cars (and helped my dad on my parent’s cars growing up), and I prefer cars that don’t break haha.
However, I once had a friend who was a body mechanic, and he was the only person that I knew who enjoyed a good hail storm.
Maybe most people that work on their own cars are doing it because of practical/economic reasons — certainly makes sense. I think this fits in the first category. The car is for moving! But then the second category should have a different word than mechanic, if most mechanic-energy is focused towards moving.
My neighbor works on his car all the time. Well, obviously not literally all the time, but I don’t think there has been a two-week period in the past ten years that he hasn’t spent some time under the car or under the hood, except when he was away on vacation. When I ask him what he’s working on it always makes sense — “I noticed this coolant hose is getting stiff so I’m replacing it before it cracks”, that sort of thing — but his car gets probably 10x as much mechanic attention per year than any car I’ve ever owned. He clearly just likes working on his car. If a reason to work on it isn’t obvious, he’ll look for a non-obvious one.
> If a reason to work on it isn’t obvious, he’ll look for a non-obvious one.
That makes sense. A friend helped me set an ssh tunnel up on my computer once. He leans pretty heavily into security stuff; I guess it’s like a hobby to him. He configured my ssh tunnel to only use the fanciest encryptions and whatnot — it all seemed very unnecessary and I woulda taken anything that worked, but I think he enjoyed all the minutia (and I was very happy to just watch and listen instead of wrestling with it myself).
For Tommy James I go with “I think we are alone now” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkMFLUXTEwM
That was almost like an anthem, along with the Animals “We Have to Get Out of this place” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3mgapAcVdU, but maybe that is mid-60’s Philadelphia.
> For Tommy James I go with “I think we are alone now”
Oh wow, yeah that song rules, didn’t realize this was the original. Re: fame, if these people were famous, and then Tiffany got famous singing the same thing — that seems good! Maybe there should be an award here — it’s like how far can you skip a rock.
This probably happens a lot in music though. Like the Johnny Cash cover of Hurt is famous. Johnny Cash was famous before Hurt, but then maybe it’s more impressive that he’s famous for the Hurt cover cause it kinda has to stand against all his other fame.
I cast my vote for Mony, Mony. https://youtu.be/pkMgs3lFwkQ
I’d forgotten how many top notch songs he wrote.
What about famous people from Watervliet?
(Note: Probably only funny if you’ve driven that corridor of I-94 hundreds of times)
Leland Stanford.
Excellent .
But I was referring to Watervliet, MI, which shares exit #41 off of I-94 with Niles, MI. Not much of a joke, really – but I just drove by it yesterday on my way from Minneapolis to Ann Arbor.
Andrew –
> When I was a kid we had a Dodge Dart. It was a piece of crap, typical American car always breaking down, and with a hinky three-on-the-tree gearshift.
That’s why they make horse races. I remember the Dodge Dart, in particular with a slant six engine, as a great car (as I recall at some point they discontinued the model and then it was crap after they brought it back again).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Dart#Engines
I am mildly curious to know reliability stats for modern cars. I assume this is proprietary data though, and even then probably takes a lot of work to have decent visibility into it.
Is there a big manufacturer reliability gap? Or are all cars the same now? What were the gaps like in the 90s? In the 80s?
The Slant-six had a great reputation.
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/chrylsers-slant-six
Somehow, I feel like there are so many different models now, from so many manufacturers, and everything changes so quickly – that particular engines don’t really even get reputations much.
As for manufacturer reliability gap, my impression was that Honda and Toyota were at the top of the heap, with Mazda and Subaru next in line – with Jeep the worst. But Google tells me that according to Consumer Reports that’s not exactly right:
https://www.kbb.com/car-news/consumer-reports-lexus-makes-the-most-reliable-cars-lincoln-the-least/
But who nows how reliable Consumer Reports reliability rating is, or what the ratings really translate to?
> there are so many different models now
True, but I think there’s some sharing of drive trains and chassis? I don’t even know what a drive train really is. I know the word though, and I think they get shared!
I think I remember from the McNamara documentary him talking about the release of the Ford Falcon. I don’t think it would register with me now if Ford released a car with a new name, so maybe things are just different.
Re: consumer reports, Lexus is Toyota so maybe not so far off?
Oh wow, found this line in that first article:
> an overhead-valve engine that would power everything from the Valiant to intermediate and full-size Mopars to trucks to vans to motor homes, tractors and marine and industrial equipment.
If it ended up in all these places — wow that is pretty impressive!
In the further annals of Wikipedia spelunking… when reading that list, I saw Ring Lardner (1885–1933) and thought, “What!? Was M*A*S*H originally set in WWI or something?” After consulting the relevant Wikipedia entry, I looked at the list again and then noticed the “Sr.”
“My Baby Does the Hanky Panky” and “Crystal Blue Persuasion” should be mentioned as other iconic Tommy James hits.