Older Than We Thought

Somebody exploring a Greek cave recently found a human skull estimated to be around 210,000 years old (we automatically accept that "experts" know how to determine the age of skulls, don't we?) What's amazing is that the deceased cave dweller was not supposed to be there for tens of thousands more years  Ain't that a kick in the head?  Now we have to update all those anthropology text books. (sorry kids, you can't use last year's edition.  Pony up for a new one).

Not only that but a leading anthropologist now tells us Homo Sapiens started talking millions of years ago rather than 200,000 or 300,000 that most experts believed to be the case. (Isn't 100,000 years a pretty generous allowance for pin-pointing?) How do they know when the first woman told the first man he should try to remember to lower the seat ring on the squat rock?  I obviously have a good deal more research to do to flesh out these bare bones.

But before leaving the subject of how our oldest ancestors got it together to form the marvelous social order we have today, consider the way another leading anthropologist proposes our earliest forbears domesticated themselves: he posits that they cooperated in killing individuals who were determined to be incurably violent.

That's our quick audit of the last couple or three million years of Homo Sapiens's striving, and we still have considerable work remaining to achieve a truly humane society.  Way too many incurably violent tribesmen remain out there.

Train Talk

Waiting for your MAX train to arrive, you might take the time to read a posting inviting riders to observe certain courtesies to make everyone's trip more enjoyable.  Down the list is one that states:  Do not speak in a loud voice that would disturb other riders.

Going home on the Blue Line, crowded  car, late afternoon.  Two men, middle forties, in heated argument.  Loud.

Fat guy (FG): If you'd listen more and talk less it would make you smarter.

Skinny guy (SG): Oh, right.  Listening to you would make a post dumber.

FG: Whenever I'm telling you something, you talk right over the top of what I'm saying.

SG: Listen to yourself sometime and you'll hear why.

FG: That does it...I say something and you give me three paragraphs. (Turns and works his way toward rear of car.)

SG: That's it...go find two or three people who'll get up and make room for you to sit down.

Amused looks on faces of many riders, including mine.

Don't Ask For Whom the Gurney Rolls

The gurney rolls for thee.

We, the residents of Russellville Park, are familiar with the sight of that brightly painted van and its pilot-fish fire engine arriving with its discretely silenced siren.  Many of us here have had occasion to be the honored guest rider in that specially equipped limo, and so it touches a compassionate chord when we see it. Remember that clueless ditty we sang as kids:

"Did you ever think as the hearse goes by
And maybe someday you and I
Would take a ride in the same old hack
And we wouldn't be thinking of coming back."

And on and on.

Add ambulance riding to your list of aging joys.

All the people we consult with about our shared situation tell us over and over: don't fall down. But sometimes we do fall down and here comes the gurney. Or lots of other events have the same result and away we go.  Word of mouth spreads the name of the latest rider.

We are fortunate to have the highly professional caregivers who transport us to the medical facility that will take care of whatever is ailing us.  With their tubes and wires they know their business.  But my plan does not include calling on them for transportation.  I think I will just catch #15 over to Gateway Transit Center and then hop aboard #19, which has a stop right at the Providence ER. Must remember to take my wallet.

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.