What it Was Was Football

Football has been in my life ever since I started high school, moving from the small country grade school in Jerome Prairie to the big 1,500-student body in Grants Pass.  It took only a short time for me to realize that in my new environment, football was King.  Admitting to being socially ambitious, I committed to the freshman football team and it was a serious commitment because football practice was after school and there were no activity buses.  It was a mile and a half walk from the high school, through Grants Pass to the Redwood Highway, where I could hitchhike the seven miles home. I usually hitched but more than once I hiked.  The last two years I had a car.

Playing football in high school definitely had its rewards. Girls became easy to talk to. Every Friday you wore the white dress shirt under your letterman sweater, rubber band holding the bottom shirt button to the top button on your fly.  Then that trot with your teammates onto the field surrounded by your cheering fans beneath the Friday night lights.

In college I moved from the locker room to the grandstands and while it didn't match the thrill of playing the game,  it came close.  Oranges injected with vodka.  Girls who loved football (or said they did).  Watching really good players (Norm Van Brocklin) play the game I loved.  As good as it gets.

Then, later, actually being paid to work where football was produced for the alumni.  In the eye of the hurricane that is big time college football where,  during the season, you produce a new show every week and it better be good because there are multi-thousands of coaches warming those seats who know the plays to call better than the play callers listed in the program.  And they have all seen professionals play the various positions so they expect nothing less from those wearing their colors.  They're on scholarship, for God's sake.

It's a violent game and I don't know how much longer we can tolerate all the injuries.  But let's wait until I've slipped out eternity's waiting door before we let the game clock go to double zero.

Harvey's Leap

Wherever you are today, resolve to give some random human being a big New Year's hug and say to that person, "Congratulations on making it one fifth the way through the physical and psychological matrix of the 21st Century."  That is no small accomplishment. And for those of you who might consider yourself in my squad of life-sloggers, it's time to make a bucket list if you haven't already done so. Remember, Marilyn Monroe is no longer with us.  I'm making a suggestion for your list that you might find appealing because of the sheer audacity of the event that is known in the environs of Grants Pass, Oregon, as Harvey's Hundred-year Leap.

It occurred in 1988 as a part of the celebration of Grants Pass High School's 100 years of service to Grants Pass and Josephine County since starting with four students in 1888.  The high school has always been a uniquely special institution for the community and the weeklong celebration reflected  the community's love for their school.  The most dramatic event was the Saturday parade through the city with class floats, some with elaborate decorations, that carried the classmates of that graduation year. The last float was actually an open convertible draped with a banner proclaiming the class of 1912 and carrying  a lone 94-year-old survivor waving to the crowds lining the street..

The parade ended at the fairgrounds, where the closing ceremony would be held.  The entrance pavilion held a huge one layer birthday cake that covered four tables and occupied the center of the room. Georgann and I were near the cake when we heard something behind us that sounded like chanting and rhythmic hand clapping.  It seemed to build in volume: "Harvey, Harvey, Harvey, Harvey, Harvey,Harvey..and suddenly here came Harvey, slicing his way through the crowd, passing us,  running toward the cake and then, with a mighty leap, hurling himself face down, arms outspread like wings, into the center of the cake.

Now that's a hard act to follow, so nobody did.  Realists acknowledged that the cake had been there for a number of days and probably had few prime cuts while many other celebrants were less charitable.  But Harvey had his 15 minutes of fame and you can still view his take-off spot today although there is no memorial plaque.

Put Harvey's historic launch on your bucket list and then go see the Oregon Caves.

Hubble Views the Past

I found pictures from the Hubble telescope on You Tube and sat entranced as those incredible displays of deep space filled the screen, backed up by space music probably generated from galaxies rubbing against each other. I highly recommend the experience, going to where only Captain Kirk and his starship crew has gone before.

It is mesmerizing as you gaze into the canyons of time while real time in your room slips away.  And even the dimmest bulbs among us must have some variation of this thought: WOW!  Something must be going on out there.

Yes, William, something is.  The obvious first reaction is; given what my eyes are telling me about that vast mysterious void of stars and warped time,  should I really give a rip about things that overwhelm me in my boring daily life?  The answer is, yes. Deciding what to make for dinner.  Deciding what to wear. Must I go to work?  Regardless of the awesome spectacle of black holes colliding, what we are seeing happened millions of years ago and we are not in danger of getting sucked into the maw of that violence.  Life goes on down here inside the Milky Way Galaxy and taking care of life's minutiae is part of the deal.

The second obvious reaction is; Who or whatever put this whole complex together and made up the rules? One other thing: Were mosquitoes absolutely necessary?

Solving the mystery of the second question has led to tribal warfare from the beginning of tribes to the current alignment of nations.  "Accept my God of love or I will have to kill you."

 Most space scientists believe our universe was created from a cataclysmic explosion of a sand-grain-sized remnant of a collapsed universe.  Nobody has a proveable theory about how that exploding mass of matter received the codes that would create plant and animal life on a small, insignificant planet orbiting a minor sun in what we have named the Milky Way Galaxy.

Buy a telescope and develop your own best scenario.  It will probably be as close to the truth as all the others. Working with the slide rule I kept from my mechanical drawing class in high school and my children's space-capturing telescope, I have determined the age of our universe to be 13.82 billion years, give a few weeks one way or the other.  I'm still working on Who programmed in the song, "Itsy  Bitsy, Teenie Weenie, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini."

"Lightning" Ray Lampkin, Jr.

I stopped watching boxing (and all those awful spin-offs) years ago. The only point of the "sweet science" is to inflict serious physical damage on the opponent. But I saw a TV promo for a coming boxing event and it triggered a memory for me of "Lightning" Ray Lampkin, Jr. who I knew more than 44 years ago. A very likable young man.

After the Portland Storm football team crashed and burned, putting me on the bricks,  I spent a short time writing sports features for the Portland Oregonian's Sunday magazine.  Lampkin was one of my early assignments.  Many people were not aware that Ray was the number two lightweight fighter ranked next to World Boxing Association (WBA) champion Roberto Duran.  Six months before my interview with Lampkin, in 1975, he had gone 14 rounds with the champion before being knocked out.  When he went down his head bounced on the floor of the ring like a basketball.  The effects of that beating were still apparent when we talked in Ray's living room. Something about his eyes was a shadow out of plumb.

Ray took to boxing early as a kid growing up in his Northeast neighborhood and he would see his fists as tickets to fame and fortune.  Talking about the Duran fight he told me the champ was only one of his problems; his corner was completely disorganized.  After a round he would come for a precious couple of minutes rest and his stool wouldn't be there. And then, in the late rounds, his handlers ran out of water.  Corner chaos.

"I'm getting half-killed out there," he told me, "and everything in my corner is all (expletive) up."

But he thought he would recover and be all right and all his support people thought so, too.  Of course, Ray was their meal ticket, so getting him well was important. Lampkin did live to fight again but the wattage in the lightning was never the same.  At the end his record was 32-6-1.

In 2013 at age 65 Ray was bowling with friends when he suddenly keeled over with cardiac arrest. Two brothers in the next lane were quick to spot the problem and they started chest compressions until medical help arrived.  They saved Ray's life and it was his most serious challenge since that long ago night in Panama, climbing into the ring with Roberto Duran.

A Happy Song

In this season of good cheer and giving of gifts to loved ones and friends, it is appropriate for me to give something to all my blog readers to show my appreciation for their interest in my scribbling.

In the days ahead there will be parties where people gather and, possibly, lift a cup of good cheer.  Or two. And what is cup lifting without song where everyone joins in?  So, my gift to you all: A drinking song (any tune works).

Oh, they had to carry Harry to the ferry,

They had to carry Harry from the shore.

They had to carry Harry to the ferry,

For Harry couldn't carry anymore.

This song is special because it can be tailored to lots of people: Mary, Terry, Carey, Larry,Sherry and on and on.  Merry Christmas.

Zapp App

If you believe national polling (why wouldn't you?)) almost as many Americans believe Donald J. Trump is a gifted shepherd of the national flock as those who believe he is a Macy's Christmas parade dirigible untethered from his moorings.  Whichever view you have of our apparently elected president, one fact cannot be denied: he has created a hugely precious life-app available to every American; rich or poor, gender of choice, black, white, other: ALTERNATE REALITY.

All of us have had some occasion where we said something or done something that, reflecting on it later, we thought, "Oh, my. I wish I hadn't said that. Or done that."

Elaine: (that night) "Good God, Harold, what possessed you to tell that awful joke at the dinner table?"
Harold: "Yeah, and spilling my wine in Helen's lap wasn't too cool either."

But now Elaine and Harold are saved by the new life-app: ⧬
Pull it up and stare into the center and repeat, "That didn't happen" for thirty minutes and, voila, --it never happened. The beauty of alternate reality.  Zapp, it's gone.

Or, on the way home, you think of the killer response you could have used on Mr. Life-of-the-party's put-down of you. Pull up the life-app and staring into the center repeat your come-back line for thirty minutes. Zapp, he's crushed.

Charles Darwin, somewhere, is smiling. Another upward step in our evolving climb to perfection.

Schadenfreude In Yesteryear

The German word in the title translates to taking pleasure from the misfortune of others.  At lunch with my life-long Oregon State Beaver friend, Dick Bayless, he recalled a poem I sent him many years ago that memorialized a basketball game his alma mater played that would, if won, lead to a shot at the national championship.  OSU's great Terry Heisman Baker played on that team.  The game was on a Friday night and I had the poem composed and mailed from Eugene to be on Dick's law office desk the following Monday morning.  It's too long to reproduce here but I've copied a few  verses to give you a flavor of my take on their game.  My schadenfreude.  So let's mosey down Memory Lane...

The Beaver fans were cheering when the Provo news came in,

The Benton County Bandits had come up with a win.

They grabbed a jet for Louisville, they knew they couldn't fail,

And joy flowed through that happy crew, from cockpit to the tail.

It's Friday night in Freedom Hall, the Beavers take the floor,

Then on comes Cincinnati and the crowd lets out a roar.

The ball goes up at center, the game is under way.

No Benton County Beaver will 'er forget this day.

Now Baker goes to fore-court, then watches in dismay,

As Cincinnati slickers deftly steal the ball away.

This scene will be repeated each time Terry starts to act,

It's as if the Heisman Trophy was strapped upon his back.

Mel Counts fouls out too early, while Pauley's hitting four,

Poor Terry's got a goose egg and Peter's little more.

Two Beaves are hitting only one, and two have hit but two,

With Jarvis scoring only five, what will those Beavers do?

Things are looking hopeless, the Beaver's plight is grim.

Continuing disasters, balls bouncing off the rim; 

Then inspiration hits the team, the scheme they choose is bold,

In Freedom Hall, before the world, the fabled Beavers fold.

Of all the great disasters, Pearl Harbor and the rest,

Columbus Day, the Alamo, Dunkirk's bloody test;

Of all these terrible set-backs, at one the memory sticks:

Cincinnati eighty, the Beavers...forty-six.

Did I send a copy to Terry Baker?  Do you think I'm nuts?