Burn The Game Film

The Oregon Ducks have had glorious days playing football since that first game against the northern powerhouse Albany College whom they took to the woodshed, 41-12.  When good old boys sit around and fish out particular plays from long-ago games, one contest nobody wants to remember is the Liberty Bowl of 1960 (I have trouble making my fingers work here).

Playing in Bowl games is important to football programs because it is a valuable recruiting tool to show young prospects that your program is successful.  So when Oregon was invited to play in the second year of the Liberty Bowl against Penn State they agreed even knowing it was not really a prestige venue.

As an administrator in the Student Union I was  assigned to look after Oregon's rally squad of six girls for the trip.  We arrived in New York early on game day and since we did not have to be at the Philadelphia Memorial Stadium until the middle of the afternoon, I agreed to accompany the girls on a short walkabout in the Big Apple before taking the train down to Philly.  When we returned to the Penn station where we had left our luggage in lockers, we discovered two of the ancient storage units wouldn't open.  The locks, somehow, were jammed.

Desperate times, desperate measures.  I sent the girls on the train while I stayed to get the lockers opened.  I gave them money for cabs in Philadelphia, not knowing that the city had, the night before, experienced the largest snow storm in decades and everything was shut down.  The stadium was a giant bowl of snow ice cream, the seats covered under enormous drifts.

Meanwhile, back in New York, I began a frustrating quest to find help getting into the jammed lockers. It was the middle of the third quarter before I got to the game to find the two non-uniformed rally girls crying.  The playing field had been cleared of snow as well as a few seat benches at the top of the stadium.  There were no fans.  Bobby Darin, who was hired to sing at half-time was sitting with the few Oregon fans on the cleared benches. I thought I heard him humming, "Please, God, get me out of here."

Penn State 41. Oregon 12.

It was getting late by the time we arrived back in New York.  "OK, girls, we're running low on money so vote on this: A couple of rooms for the night or we go to The Village Gate and see Nina Simone in which case we spend the night trying to sleep in chairs at the United Airlines boarding gate. Six to 0 for Nina.

The high point of the entire disaster for me was at the Salt Lake City airport on our way home.  We were all seated next to the crew cabin in our game day clothes, when the pilots left before a new flight crew took over.  As the lead pilot went by us he told his co-pilot, "Tell them to check the framis (whatever the part was) on number two.  It didn't look right coming in."  When the new crew came in, one of our girls caught the Captain's sleeve and said, "I think you should check the framis on number two.  It didn't sound right when we were landing."  The pilot jumped back and just looked at her in shock before going into the cabin.

                                           

Tuna Time

Do you know the emotional experience of joyful anticipation fighting for dominance over intense sadness? Let me tell you:  I opened my next-to-last 1/2 pint jar of tuna fish this morning to prepare my noon meal. You must understand something about the contents of that little jar to appreciate the feeling of joy I experience knowing I will soon be savoring a gastronomical event so rare that you want to share the moment (but not the tuna fish) with friends.

The sadness comes from knowing there is only one jar left to last until the run next fall of those  Pacific Ocean Albacore treasures. And, God forbid, there are rumors that tuna may be an endangered species that might be hard to find this year.

The tuna fish I write about will not be found on the shelves of your favorite market.  No, no.  My tuna is lovingly processed by family members from fish purchased off a dockside shop in Astoria, Oregon. The secret to the superior taste starts with that fresh from the ocean tuna fish.  Then the hand trimming that ensures that only prime pieces of the fish go into the jar that has been prepared with a teaspoon of lemon juice and a pinch of salt.  Nothing else.  The canning process cooks the oil from the fish and supplies the needed fluid in the jar (jars in storage are turned upside down every month or so to keep the contents refreshed by the oil).

Once you have eaten this tuna it will make the store-bought offering a disappointing come down.  But now I must go prepare my grilled tuna sandwich with the necessary embellishments: a little chopped onion, a little chopped pickle, a little mayo, a few small chunks of cheddar cheese to melt in the grilling.  Lock the doors, take the phone off the hook...it's tuna time.

Home Front Warriors

I was 16 the summer of 1946 when I contributed to the defeat of Hirohito and Hitler by finding employment in a box factory in Grants Pass, Oregon.  The wooden shook we manufactured was used to assemble ammunition cases as well as boxes for fruit and other products. With most of the able-bodied men still coming home from overseas, factories hired younger workers like me. What an upgrade from that lousy paper route.  At 87-1/2 cents an hour that came to $7.00 a day. Yowza!

There were probably six or seven students hired that summer and my friend Larry Aschenbrenner was one of them.  Larry was always alert to finding ways to make boring work environments more interesting and although I never had evidence that it was he who devised the great flush incident,  I'm pretty sure it was.

Going to the john was an acceptable reason for leaving your job, so employees would wait until work hours to take care of business.  Someone lifted the cover off the water tank of the toilet, then reached in and turned the copper tubing that refilled the tank so it pointed out under the lid. Flushing the toilet would send a jet of water shooting straight onto the person sitting there.  Early in the shift a bellowing victim with his back soaked in cold water came staggering out of the john, holding his pants up and cursing.

Since this had never happened in all the years before the American Patrol of children were brought in, we got the blame.

Smoking wasn't allowed anywhere in the plant, so the men would carry little round cans of Copenhagen tobacco.  On Fridays, to celebrate the end of the week, they would add whiskey to the tobacco making it moist. They would pinch a wad of the tobacco and put it under their lip to give them a continuing hit of the nicotine as they carried on their work.  One Friday afternoon the cut-off saw guy I pulled lumber for asked me if I wanted to try a wad of his enhanced Copenhagen?  I told him I didn't think so but he said to try just a small wad but whatever I do, don't swallow, spit.

I put the moist wad under my lip and kept pulling lumber off the moving chain as fluid built up in my mouth and then I instinctively swallowed.  I've made my share of mistakes in this life; some major, some minor, but swallowing that fortified Copenhagen juice will rank up there with the worst.  I immediately felt paralyzed, dizzy, sick and wobbly on my feet.  I knew I had to get out of there.  I headed for the exit and went through the checkin/checkout station and punched out my time card.  I barely made it to my car, where I slumped in the front seat, unable to drive.  Hours went by as the factory closed and it was after 7:00 P.M. before I was able to drive home.  If anyone ever offers you a wad of Copenhagen,  be aware, that person is not your friend.

But think of that: 87 -1/2 cents an hour. Wow.

Triage

What is the difference between that train wreck in the state of Washington a few years ago and the state of life in America today?  

Answer: Nothing. Let's pretend we are the triage nurse for both cases (Triage: in medical use it is the assignment of degree of urgency to wounds or illness to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties.)

Train wreck: Never mind why the train left the rails. Who is injured and who needs first attention?

Coronavirus America: Never mind where it came from, how do we stop it spreading and who needs immediate attention?

Train wreck: Why did this happen and what do we need to do to stop it from happening again?

Virus America: Where did it come from and how do we stop more coming?

Train wreck: What role did the engineer play in the wreck?

Virus America: What role did the engineer play in the trai...er...pandemic?

Train wreck:  Is there some device that would have prevented the train wreck?

Virus America:  Is there some potion that would cure this plague?

First let's acknowledge that our pandemic is much more serious than the train wreck but the triage steps are similar.  In the train wreck an incompetent, ill trained engineer took the train at 70 miles an hour into a curve designed for trains traveling at 35 miles an hour.  Also, a device existed that, if installed, would have prevented the train from going into that curve at that speed.

Like the train wreck, our engineer was not competent to address what needed to be done at the time it was needed.  We are still in triage step one:  taking care of the most needy.  But this whole shutdown of normal life has drawn a blackout curtain around an issue a hell of a lot more serious than the immediate inconvenience of this plague.  The looming threat of extinction of all life forms on this planet is real and, possibly, irreversible. In the current uproar over this latest novel coronavirus do you hear any voices that are taken seriously about the extinction of human beings from this planet? 

We are whistling through the graveyard,  people.  The natural disasters are going to get worse and I don't believe our so-called leaders are going to do anything more than to keep grabbing softer feathers for their own nests.  But it's not all on them.  It's on you and me and everyone else on this small planet. Winston Churchill once said (it's OK to listen to Winney because he's half American), "The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." If it's not them and not us doing anything to hold off Armageddon, that pretty much leaves the cockroaches and they don't care because they'll probably survive.

Keep washing your hands and follow the instructions of the triage nurse. 

Hobos In Blackface

In Grants Pass, Oregon multiple tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad cut through the center of town in an east-west direction, causing the north-south main streets of the town to be blocked when trains are going and coming.  One day in the 1940s, a long freight train was leaving for Portland when two of my friends, Larry Aschenbrenner and Krum (Kroom)Theodoroff, had a sudden inspiration to hit the rails.  They were 14 at the time and no thought other than "Hey, let's hitch a ride on the train!" by one or the other triggered the adventure.

Sprinting alongside the slow-moving train Krum was in front and grabbed the steps of a flat car and swung aboard. Larry caught the next flat car, so the two Kings of the Road waved to people as the train picked up speed.  On that warm summer day they were living large, each with his own private car, speeding through the countryside.

Grants Pass sits in a valley cut by the Rogue River and there are high mountains to the north and south of town. The train slowed as it started up the mountain and the boys began to discuss how they were going to get back home.  Neither hobo could come up with a good plan.  And then disaster struck: the train sped into a long tunnel, where diesel smoke from the engines filled the tunnel air and overwhelmed the two boys. When the train finally found the light at the end of the tunnel, both were  stretched out flat, gasping for breath and painted greasy black by the smoke.

Gagging and coughing, they were terrified to see up ahead another tunnel.  It was too much for Krum who stood up and bailed, rolling head over heels down a bank.  Larry chose to ride it out and in he went to that inky hell.

The town of Glendale is about 35 miles north of Grants Pass and the train would stop there to pick up cars of lumber. Larry was rescued and his parents were called to come for him.  The train station arranged a rail runner to go for Krum, who was bruised and blackfaced but still in one piece.

Would it surprise you to learn Larry Aschenbrenner is the son of a Methodist minister?  When we were young he was the stereotypical preacher's kid with serial acts of mischief, all harmless. Then, after graduating from the University of Oregon's School of Law,  that Methodist upbringing kicked in and Lawrence Alden Aschenbrenner devoted the rest of his life to serving the interests of those less fortunate citizens left behind by societal injustice.  At great personal risk he opened a law office to defend African Americans in Jackson, Mississippi at the height of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and '70s. Larry's book, Civil Rights Lawyers In The South...The Untold Story has just been published and is available on Amazon.  It's a deeply moving account of the role volunteer lawyers from the North and West played in The Civil Rights movement.

Pre

The reward I cherish most from my years associated with the University of Oregon's athletic department is the friendships I had with some of Oregon's greatest sports legends.  No star was brighter than Steve Prefontaine. He would often drop into my office to read my weekly issue of Track & Field News before going to his daily workouts. No CPA had a better grasp of the dollar- and- cents value of his favorite activity than Pre.  He would open an issue and see a full page ad selling tee shirts with his picture on them and scream, "Look at these bastards selling me for big bucks. They're not out there running around Spencer Butte in the freezing rain.  It's not right."

He wasn't wrong.

We had plans to build a new grandstand on the west side of Hayward Field and we came up about $25,000 short of being able to start construction. Athletic Director Norv Ritchey devised a plan for funding that shortfall: we would create a Restoration Meet featuring our wunderkind Steve Prefontaine in a 1,500 meter race against the Bowling Green sensation at that time, Dave Wottle.  The kid who ran wearing that billed cap. Ritchey gave me the assignment of putting the meet together with a five-week deadline.

Pre was the first hurdle.  He was scheduled to leave for the summer track season in Europe a week before our planned meet.  My offer included a round-trip ticket to Frankfurt, Germany and a chance to run in a race he would probably lose.  You get an insight to Pre's character when he agreed to do it in a race that was far short of his distance dominance.  But he did it for his fans and the new grandstand.  Next, Dave Wottle.

I knew Wottle would be at the NCAA championships that were being held at LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana so I went there with Oregon's track team.  Oregon track coach Bill Dellinger, an ex-Olympian, helped me contact Dave Wottle's handlers and we struck a deal with the same round-trip ticket to Europe.  Wottle would later take an 800m Olympic gold medal in the Berlin Olympics.

I put together a number of other events with athletes from all over the nation who still needed to qualify for the coming Olympics and our meet could help them do it. The Restoration Meet turned out to be a huge success.  The final event, the 1,500 meter race brought the fans in the packed stands on both sides of the field to a standing, roaring, state of frenzy as Wottle and Pre came flying down the last straightaway. It was Wottle by a cap bill.  One more race that still haunts that mythic arena.

After the meet I walked with Ritchey and Pre back to the locker rooms in Mac Court.  Ritchey, who was thrilled with the meet's success, said to Pre, "It's a wonderful thing you've done for your school, Steve.  You paid back every bit of scholarships you ever received."  Pre, who was never at a loss for words replied, "S--t, I did that the first race I ever ran as a freshman."

Don't Look

Watching TV can be harmful to your sense of well being. That's not an original observation but it is a true one. Here I see this live report from Wuhan, China, the site many experts believe to be the source of the coronavirus from its wet markets.  "Wet" is a euphemism for blood and the picture I saw of a worker cutting up body parts of some animal in this massive tub of blood was enough to drive one to carrots, cabbage and kale.

And so the killer virus.  It's difficult to dismiss the suggestion that this is just evidence that nature has always sought balance for species over-populating themselves.  COVID-19 is selective in its spread to those who have serious health issue as well as those who have become old. Isn't that the logical way to thin the herd?

Too few of our leaders are blessed with the gift of critical thinking. They could learn from this pandemic that among their fellow human beings we have lost, thousands should not have been selected for disposal. There is no cure for getting old but we all accept that as a firm life rule.  But social inequities that lead to many of the health conditions that make the person vulnerable to the virus can be corrected.  How we achieve fair and equal governance should be as important as finding that serum that will foil this edition of the plague.

My reading of history is not encouraging for belief this latest viral attack will make any lasting course correction in the pursuit for a more humane society. But all we can do is try while always taking care to follow that guiding principle: Illegitimi non carborundum (Mock-Latin for:"Don't let the bastards wear you down".)