miss pee-tunia

we watched her birth. the product of turbo and trixie. one of three of the cutest little basset puppies you've ever seen. petunia was the runt. and when the three of them reached adoption age and we placed ads to sell them, well, junior, a dead-ringer for his daddy, was the first to go. next was freckles. a cute little lady with very unique markings. almost like a brown spotted dalmation/basset. we could have placed petunia as well, but scooter, a freshman in college at that time, asked if he could have her. "i'll be moving into my own place soon. and i'd love to have her." of course, that pleased us greatly. and we quickly agreed. well, things don't always work out as intended. a few short months later we packed up and moved from flagstaff to oklahoma city. scooter and petunia in tow. along with, of course, me, hon, turbo, trixie, and family felines, lily and buster. and also not according to plan, scooter didn't move out into his own place right away. so his pup, petunia, became part of the large pet family. it was really fun watching petunia grow up with her mom. playing, romping. in stark contract to her father, petunia was loud and boisterous, impish yet loveable. and all along cute as a bug's ear. before scooter really had the opportunity to move out, hon had decided there was no way we could separate mom and daughter. petunia was ours. so three bassets it is. and three closely related but dramaticlt different basset personalities. turbo, almost stoic. serious, focused. trixie took on the alpha role. no doubt she was always in charge. and then petunia. the clown playful, biligerent, but the cutest look and the cutest way of approaching one. it was petunia that started the howling choir meets. at any random time she was inclined to start howling, inciting the other two to follow suit. they just couldn't help but. over the years this howling, baying choir serenaded tens of family members and friends with their resounding chorus of "happy birthday", all led by miss petunia. petunia was the first to greet me every morning. as i'd sit up to get out of bed, there she was. arrg-arrging at me. then rolling onto her back in hopes i'd spend a moment or two rubbing her cute little belly. i almost always did. wish i had done more of it. when she wanted human attention, she got it. sometimes getting up in your face if you were sitting, sometimes running around you when you were walking down the hall, just to dtop, drop and roll in front of you arrging boisterously insisting you give her that much cherished belly rub. she never changed in all that. even up through saturday. she worked us with her cutesy demeanor, insuring we would lavish her with the attention she craved. but sunday that stopped. around noon it was apparent that she wasn't normal. she was pacing, panting, and her stomach was constantly constricting. she wouldn't sit nor lie down. it was pacing and standing only. and panting. and she wouldn't eat. not even a treat, which she'd never before refused. we assumed that she had the classic basset malady. that being a digestive tract clogged somehow by something she'd ingested that she shouldn't ingest. when walking her, rubbing her, didn't work, we loaded her into the car and drove to the e.r. vet clinic. we expected x-rays, and knew they'd divulge the nature of the blockage. assuming all the while that, as has been the case with her and her mom on prior occasions, that meds over the course of a day or two would fix the problem. good as new in a day or two. we were wrong. the doc returned with the x-rays saying "there's nothing wrong with her stomach. but there is a very troubling abnormality." she then showed us the x-rays and it was clear that there was a rather large tumor which was likely attached to her spleen. surgery was an option, but one would generally expect that a tumor this size would have spread farther. there were two other options . . . . one which we didn't really want to consider, or even hear. the other was bring her home with pain meds, steroids, hoping to give her comfort enough to spend whatever time she had remaining being some sort of her normal self. of course, that's the option we chose. we brought her home. tried to feed her. gave her meds. but even the pain meds were failing to relieve her pain. she still couldn't tolerate sitting or lying down. she was hurting. and we knew. we called scooter, and knowing the inevitable outcome, he chose to come and visit her one last time. it was quite an emotional time for us all. and we fully expected that the meds would eventually coax her into sleeping. then we felt that, with some rest, she'd feel better. but there was no rest. no sleep. her pain was too much for her to bear. we took her back. the staff at the vet clinic was wonderful in their compassion and care. they outlined the course of action, and at almost exactly at 3:00 a.m., petunia felt relief from pain. and we were heart broken. this too shall pass. or so they say. but man, it's hard to love an animal and then have to let them go. i know most all of us have experienced this. but that still doesn't make it easy. and yes, it will pass. eventually. but right now we feel empty. a part or our existence is missing. rest in peace, miss pee-tunia. and thank you so much for the untold hours of entertainment you provided.

my day - april 26, 2012

where shall i start? the cold? yeah, that's it. the cold.

the cold started in earnest monday afternoon. i tried to write it off as allergies at first. and at second. and even at third. to say that i was in denial was an understatement.

by middle of the night monday/tuesday, it was a cold. my face ached. my whole head felt heavy, drowsy and plugged up. and i got little, if any, sleep. so i did what anyone else would do. i called in sick tuesday morning and stayed home. and tried to sleep. but still had the same issues and slept very little. but that's the nature of the cold. i'll deal with it.

i was able to sleep fairly well tuesday night, so felt certain working wednesday would be no big deal. and it wasn't. well, it was trying. i was pretty tired. not really alert. but i got through the day. and i came home wednesday night and rested, slept some more, and expected myself to be back nearly to normal this morning.

sometimes things just don't work out as expected. i got up this morning sneezing, coughing, sneezing, coughing. and then i sneezed and coughed some more. and this was before i had my coffee and oatmeal. after that dandy breakfast? more of the same.

but dedicated to the task, i went to work. early. and surprisingly i coughed and sneezed a lot. in fact, i have a great idea here for those who may be fitness committed. if you want to develop six-pack abs, come on over and breath some of my air. i guarantee this coughing will, after a few days, develop better abs than any workout regimine. enough of that. oh, yeah, i stopped at a drug store on the way to work to see if i could find some nose tampons. they didn't know what i was talking about. was i dreaming that? such a great idea for times like these.

so i'm working away. pretty busy. and bev, a co-worker, is moving from one cubicle to another, and bev, as has been the case the last 8 times she's moved, ask me to move her "personal bulletin board". this is not a cork board as we know them, but a semi carpet covered board, perhaps 18 inches by 5 feet, that we all have. you can tack notes on them, or, as bev does, tack on pictures of every child, grandchild, great grandchild, husband, dog, boyfriend, and yes, even friend, she has ever had. that said to support the fact that bev's bulletin board will weigh at least 2-3 pounds more than an unburdened bulletin board.

but bev's a good ol' gal. she's brought in brownies before, and cookies, and makes this fabulous dish she calls scalloped corn that i have to try sometime. so i'm nothing but happy to help her move her bulletin board. normally.

let me tell you about my back. i first destroyed my back lifting something in 1983. since that time it seems that every 3-4 years i do something that, while it doesn't seem stupid at the time, feels that way afterward. and even though it's been a few years since i've had any major back issues, well, today was my day. and i blame it partly on bev, partly on kd.

now kd's a supervisor in another area of our building. she's a friend. and while transporting bev's bulletin board i stopped by kd's desk and visited for a minute. then i did something wrong. i picked up the bulletin board again, while it's standing, mind you, upright. i don't have to bend. and it doesn't weigh enough to really be lifting. but something in the lower right side of my back sent an immediate message to brain, "oh, %^^&, something just went wrong."

it wasn't terrible. it hurt sharply for a bit, then the pain diminished and i carried the board to bev's cube, hung the blasted thing, and went back to work. on the way, however, i stopped and told a couple of witnesses that i'd hurt my back, just so someone would know if i woke up in the morning unable to move.

well, i guess big companies don't work that way. one supervisor said you need to go to e.r. (not the emergency room, i later discovered, but employee relations.) oops.

so i go to e.r. talk to the e.r. director. and he calls our workers' compensation insurance carrier, reports the injury, then fills out this form and tells me i have to go to this urgent care joint, concentra, today to be checked out. really? today? ok.

i went back to my desk and worked a lot. real hard work. i worked really hard today. and about 2 p.m., when i finally stood up, well, back hurt worse than i'd expected it would. so i checked out and headed toward this concentra urgent care joint.

it was close. and that's convenient. in a strip mall that's been on the decline since 1979. no matter. i'll see a doc, get assessed, probably a prescription or two, be on my way. and that's sort of what happened.

i should state here that the names that follow have been changed to protect the identify of a couple of . . . . people.

so miss vickie, who obviously majored at smiling at the university of medical reception talents, greeted me, handed me two clipboards with documents to complete. and i did. and i took them back to vickie. and had a seat. and shortly miss vickie summoned me to the counter once again. what's your company name. i told her again. she can't find it. well, perhaps she couldn't spell west. or more realistically, i assume she was typing in the full corporate name rather than simply searching out all the "west" listings. ultimately she found it. and i sat again

a couple minutes later, miss vickie summoned me to the counter again. did i tell you my back was hurting pretty bad by now? again i hobbled over to her. and she said she'd forgotten to ask for my i.d. presented, back to my seat. and vickie summoned me again. "here's your i.d." does she understand what a bad back is?

in rather short order i'm taken back to the exam room. now the e.r. director had told me this visit would take 30-45 minutes. well, by now it's been 35 minutes, and i'm just getting there. and nurse peggy, a nice girl only 23 years old, greets me, checks my b.p. (that's blood pressure for you non medical types), (120/68), my temp (99.2 - i've got a cold, remember) and pulse rate (87). i seem all good. and she asked my age. and i told her. and she looked back at me over her shouder in shock. she said "i thought you were 50!" i sure enjoyed this part of the visit.

so nurse peggy hands me something paper with elastic on one side, two holes on the opposute, and said "take off your pants and put these on." they're not very fashionable. "but we might have to x-ray. or, the doc may need to examine your groin." ah, maybe not. but i shed my britches and donned the paper shorts nonetheless.

shortly there's a knock on the door (why do they knock. even if you're undressed, they're doctors. they've seen naked humans before.) and in walks doctor han. suddenly this idea of a groin examination is somewhat intriguing. she's not a bad looking gal, maybe 30. but really, at my age i feel like i'm looking at the female doogie howser. but she did a credible job examining me. asked the right questions - i've had back injuries before, remember. and overall does a nice bit of work. then the diagnosis . . . pulled muscle this time, not spinal. wow. after her explanation i agree with that. on to the treatment . . . 800 mg ibuprofen, 3 times a day. and flexoril "have you ever taken flexoril?" yes, i have. muscle relaxor that makes me very drowsy, for 24-36 hours. "well, it sometimes makes you drowsy. take 3 times a day as needed." huh? makes me drowsy? 3 times a day? and . . . work? hey steve, if i'm napping . . . . . it's workers' comp, remember?

and then the curve . . . "and physical therapy". now i've been through physical therapy, several different people, places, protocols, many times. and no, i'm not gonna do that. i can do these exercises at home and not waste an hour 3 times a week for six weeks. and, if it were skeletal, maybe. but muscle pull? don't think you wanna stretch that so much, do ya? i asked where? she said, "here." ah, another profit ploy. i declined. she said that i needed to see him once to be evaluated, workers' comp almost requires that. almost?

she further stated that he can probably see me right now. ok, we'll do that. so out i go to the counter where miss vickie checks with the pt dude and says "he says he'll be with you in 30-45 minutes." and i say, "you got the wrong guy. do you know what it's like to have a hurt back. i hurt. i'm not sitting here waiting for your guy to free up, in pain, so no. so i ended up agreeing to an appointment next week. that i think i'll cancel.

then miss vickie hands me two prescriptions. now i've been down this workers' comp road before. and i know that when i go to the pharmacy and present these prescriptions, the counter lady is gonna say "nothing here about workers' comp." so i mentioned that to miss vickie, and told her i needed something to evidence that claim. she said the rx sheet was all i need. i studied it, saw that i was probably right, so set out to the pharmacy.

alas, just as i suspected, my friend at walgreen's said "i have no evidence of workers comp for this." i know. can we call this concentra joint? "yep." and she calls, gets miss vickie, and miss vickie says she had nothing to offer besides the prescription. i'm getting a bit irritable.

so i called the office. talked to mister e.r. director, and he provided me with the name and phone number of someone to call at the insurance company. my friend, the pharm tech, called, talked to the guy, he gave her a different number, she called there, they said "we'll have to call you back."

if i could have kept from laughing at the absurdity of the entire matter, i'd have been really incenced. but i told my friend that i'd just come back tomorrow and settle it. but before i hit the door she paged me and had gotten the call back. prescripton authorized. i should ask her name. she's always very nice.

so here i sit. drugged on flexoril, in mild pain, planning what i'm gonna say when i call concentra tomorrow. open for suggestions.

ode to facebook

after resisting the suggestion for several months, i finally succumbed to facebook something like two years ago. and i was immediately stricken. it was fun to have easy access to chats with friends, family. just as neat was getting reacquainted with old friends. classmates. folks from your past. and if you're not careful, facebook can captivate you. you can spend entirely too much time there.

i think that's probably something that happens to all of us. we have fun, we spend hours at a time. then the interest starts to wane and we ultimately get back to a normal existence.

but that doesn't mean we give up facebook entirely. it's still entertaining. but mostly these days i spend maybe half hour in the morning, half hour, maybe longer, in an evening, kabitzing with "friends" on facebook. it can be fun.

and facebook has provided an entirely different meaning to the word "friends". heck, i have "friends" i don't even know. some of them i'd really like to know. they're really nice people. they're witty and entertaining. and i often think that one day i'll run into some of them in real life.

case in point: while not entirely unknown to me, hubert lives in northern california. we knew each other as kids. his brother and i were great friends, and hubert was the little punk that we couldn't shake. well, we found each other on facebook somehow, had some fun exchanges, and ultimately other "friends", as well as family members, became such great friends with hubert that our daughter asked him to perform her wedding ceremony. so, after 40 some years, hubert and i met again. and he and his wife, brenda, are two of the nicest people i know. what a treat it was having him with our family during that incredible occasion.

there's frankie in florida, cheryl in washington, kim in new york, and many others that i would really consider actual friends - if we ever met. there's jeff, an old (oops, shouldn't say "old" in reference to jeff, but i'm sure he'll understand) high school classmate who's great to chat with. and many others. then add in a good group of people that are real friends, those i really know, that also enjoy facebook diatribes and it can get to be way too much fun.

there are a few. fortunately, a limited few, that get annoying. and i've just figured out that i can "unsubscribe" to them. i don't see their posts, and they don't even know i'm not viewing. sad to say i've done this to a few. i get a little tired of those that post tons of political rhetoric. even those that pretty much share my political opinions. i just don't need to see it all. then there are those that are just bitter at the world. i got tired of seeing all that as well. i just enjoy the light-hearted conversations. you're not gonna persuade me to believe your political stance is better than mine, your religious beliefs are better than mine, your nascar driver is faster than mine, by arguing your case on facebook.

and arguing? yeah, i've done a bit of that. and i regret doing so. arguing your point on facebook, even when you're right (of course i am), gains nothing but ill will. i've stopped that. again, it's the light-hearted i enjoy.

now we have the impending "timeline" threat. like it or not, come january 5th your profile page will be changed to the timeline format, so may as well change to it now. wait, on january 20 you'll automatically be changed to timeline. and if you don't do it yourself before that, facebook will select your picture arrangement, or some such nonsense. no, it'a gonna happen on february 5. oh, now it's february 15. and guess what. it still hasn't happened.

and there are tons who've said that if facebook forces them to switch to timeline, they'll switch to . . . google plus? is that it? or some other social media venue. of course, those threats have been voiced every time facebook has changed anything. fortunately, they all seem to re-think their position and most, if not all, have stayed. and i'd guess that when, or if, the timeline transition occurs, most or all will accept it and move on.

so to my facebook "friends" who might read this . . . thanks, it's fun. hope we can enjoy each other for a long time to come. oh, and to the 2-3 who unfriended me . . . it's ok. no hard feelings. i am curious as to why (well, i can guess why one of you did), but it's ok. i'm just having fun.

it's that time again

february 26. the 2012 edition of the daytona 500, the great american race. and i, for one, one of many, in fact, anxiously await this event every year at this time.

the daytona 500 is like no other race. well, passive race fans will say the july daytona race is pretty much the same, the two races at talladega. but none of those carries the tradition, the pomp, circumstance and excitement of the daytona 500.

then some will claim that the indianapolis 500 is far more exciting. well, no doubt it commands more attention. the daytona 500 is popular with a much smaller segment of the american public. it wasn't even mainstream til 1979. and still and yet, pretty much only nascar fans will tune in and watch flag to flag coverage.

well let me tell ya, if you're one of those that doesn't watch, you should. if you've ever enjoyed indy car racing, formula 1 racing, in fact, any kind of racing (even drag racing, jones) the daytona 500 will blow you away the first time you watch.

indy cars cruise around the brickyard at an average speed of 220 miles/hour. that's fast. but are those really cars? they more closely resemble airplanes without the big wing. the wheels are exposed, the cockpit has no lid, and for these and many other reasons the cars just can't race close. fast, yes. but with no fenders, if two of them brush sides? destruction.

nascar's daytona 500 is totally different. 43 cars racing 220 mph going into a turn with a front to back separation of . . . . . well, nothing. they bump. they touch. they even push. the aerodynamics of that much speed mean the two cars essentially hooked together in a "draft" will go faster than one car. so the trick is the car behind races barely touching the bumper of the car ahead. of course, therein lies the trick. barely. because if they touch too much, off center, or not just exactly right . . . bad results.

and these two cars, plus 20 or more other pairs, are racing attached to one another while off to the right side, or left side, or sometimes even both, another pair of cars is racing 3-4 inches away from their fenders. hopefully. frequently that 3-4 inches of open space disappears. that generally leads to a wreck. not always. but when it does, and if those cars are racing near the front of a 43 car field, the cars behind have to be able to stop, turn, veer, spin, or take some evasive action pretty darn quick. at 220 mph you cover a lot of ground in a very short time. and if they don't stop, turn, veer, spin, or take some evasive action, the end result is apt to be a pile up involving 20 cars. or more. it happens.

i've done a little stock car racing. not at 220 mph. not in a $200,000 specially constructed speedster. but even in my type of racing it was pretty stressful racing and rubbing. and while, to us, bumping and shoving wasn't likely to cause a big crash, it caused anger. which caused retaliation. which was likely to cause a big crash. it's sure gonna stimulate the flow of adrenaline. and excitement. and it's tons of fun.


TONY STEWART CATCHES SOME AIR IN THE DAYTONA 500

but these guys at daytona?

go to youtube. search something like "daytona 500 finishes". watch a few. specifically the 79 race. then tune in on february 26. allow yourself at least 45 minutes to watch the thrill of the speed, the danger of the closeness, and the beauty of the pageantry. unless you're weak of heart, or just not a sporting fan, you're gonna enjoy.

well, that changes things

april 9, 2011. i stand behind the alter watching the back side of scooter's head as he watches his beautiful bride walking down the aisle. toward him. incredibly gorgeous in the wedding gown. but then, she's a gorgeous girl to begin with.

i cannot even imagine the sense of pride scooter felt. i can, however, fully comprehend the pride that coursed through me. my son, the one i thought i'd never have, the one i thought i might lose when he was 7, had really grown. he's taking a bride. and one day he'll likely be watching as his own son ties the proverbial knot as well.

anyone who's read any of my blog posts, the corny ones, the emotional ones, even a comical one or two, knows that i have a special relationship with scooter. but even then i was shocked when, a few weeks after announcing his engagement, he came to me and asked if i would be his "best man". what? my son asking me to stand up for him? i was stunned. yeah, i've always considered him my best friend. but the boy has lots of friends, his age, or nearly. what would make him ask me? never mind. i didn't want to ask that for fear he'd change his mind. that moment, when he asked me that question, stands among the proudest moments of my life. my short, full, life.

i immediately accepted. what an honor. my son's best man. what greater tribute can a son pay his father?

so i was there. up close and personal as scooter and tracie exchanged vows. it was an extremely emotional moment. somehow i managed to maintain my composure. got through it with just a hint of bleary eyes. i was nearly as proud of myself as i was of him.

and then came the reception. and not too far into it, the father/daughter dance. didn't impact me, did it? well, yeah, somewhat. i've been through that before. the first time, adri, the song was "daddy's little girl". i didn't know the words. and figured i'd simply cruise through a dance. by the end of the first verse we were both sobbing.

then came tori. and the same song. i was more prepared. still had a breakdown, but not nearly as severe as the first time.

but watching tracie and her dad dance brought a lot of that back. and i wasn't totally re-composed when the music stopped, started again, and the dj announced the groom/mother dance. and bette midler began singing "wind beneath my wings". did you ever know you were my hero? crap, i nearly lost it then. but i was in a dark corner. not an eye in the joint was on me.

so i got through all that. it was good. it was nice. lots of friends and family. wish more could have been with us. but those that could be there were there. and then it was over. scooter and tracie were whisked out to a limo, off to a hotel, and flew out early the next day for a fun filled honeymoon in san diego.

and through it all, i've been fine. but today scooter comes home from the honeymoon. they fly in any moment now, in fact. and for the first time i've had the startling realization that, when he gets home, he's her best friend now. no longer mine.

it is what it is

i often wonder how the silly cliche's we use today ever originate. personally, i think for a long time most started with oprah. women watch her show, and phrases like "don't go there", "don't even go there" seem to be used, abused, in too many dialogs.

when my kids were i high school, the annoying term was "like". boog would come home from school and say something like . . . "jessica and i were like walking home and this guy like whistled." and as was my attempt to curb her from continuing the speech habit, i would ask something like . . . "was he "like whistling"? or was he really whistling?" after dozens of these attempts, i think boog was able to pretty much strike the "like" from her daily vocabulary.

thanks to oprah, again, my opinion, my wife and others all too frequently would use "don't go there/don't even go there". my developed response to this phrase was . . . "i'm not going anywhere. i'm standing right here before you talking. where do you think i'm going?" with slightly lesser results, but i try.

now the most over-used phrase in the american english language, in my humble opinion (imho, as i've learned, is the way that's expressed on facebook. i'm not a fan of abbreviating, so i'll fore go that.), is "it is what it is". huh? duh! what is that supposed to mean?

literally, "it is what it is" is a true statement of fact. everything is what it is. why bother stating that?

but what is generally meant by those that use/abuse the phrase is "that's the way it is and it can't be changed, so just accept it". i hear it so much at work, at play, at home, in the mall, it nearly infuriates me. it is what it is, my ass.

how many of us have seen that, just perhaps, there may be a better way of doing a certain task. at work. at home. in the grocery store. and all too often when we suggest that a procedure, a method, can be improved, we're simply told, "it is what it is". which really translates, in most instances, to "that's the way we've done it for a long time and i have not the time, the energy, or the know how to change it". but who's gonna admit that.

for some crazy reason i remember a news broadcast i saw way back in 1968. bobby kennedy was giving some kind of campaign speech. the one statement that struck me then, that sticks with me now, is this: "some see things as they are and ask why. i dream things that never were, and ask why not?" if more would adapt that kind of attitude, we'd never again hear the dreaded "it is what it is".

snow day

THIS IS LOOKING SOUTH FROM OUR FRONT DOOR (THROUGH THE GLASS STORM DOOR, I DIDN'T GO OUT.) DECEIVING AS THERE IS NOT MUCH SNOW ACCUMULATED ON CARS. HOWEVER, WINDS GUSTING TO 60 HAVE MOVED THAT SNOW INTO THE YARDS AND STREETS. THE DRIFT NEAR THE MAILBOX IS PROBABLY 15 INCHES. GUESSING THAT THE DRIFT IN THE CUL DE SAC IS 18 INCHES.


they're calling it a blizzard. perhaps worse than the christmas eve blizzard in 2009. worse because of the extreme cold temperatures. it's 8:32 a.m. real temperature is 9. wind gusting 40-60, meaning when you apply finnegan's finagling factor, the resulting wind chill is somewhere between 15 and 20 below zero. at that rate, frostbite begins to occur in 18 minutes. good to just stay inside.

the oklahoma city metro area has now had, depending on the exact area, between 7 and 12 inches of snow. roads are extremely slick. aided, no doubt, by the short period of freezing rain just before the snow started. not the best conditions to be driving through.

this kind of weather isn't really foreign to me. having lived in flagstaff for 18 years, i've traveled successfully in conditions like this, or worse even. but here it's a little different.

been watching the local news broadcasts all morning. just heard that the city has 25 snow plows. huh? for a city this size? flagstaff had near a hundred. of course, the frequency of these storms is much greater in flag. not a lot of need for them here. but that explains why very few roads are plowed. only major thoroughfares. and then, early on they only plow those that are designated "snow plowed routes".

what that means to me is that the neighborhood streets are pretty snowy. our cul de sac has drifts that i'd guess would be 18 inches deep. consistent level of 6 or so inches. and, as mentioned, i've driven in much worse. so most likely, driving slowly, cautiously, i have no doubt i could make the twelve mile drive to work. why then, have i declared it a snow day?

well, while i have a real high level of confidence in my ability to drive through these conditions, i'm not so sure about the other's guys ability. and having watched the "on street" tv reporters, it's abundantly clear that there are a lot of inexperienced foul weather drivers out there. and they can cause problems for others just as much as for themselves. further, again as evidenced by the tv reports, there are a lot of idiots out there. you know the type. they drive four wheel drive suv's and have an air of omnipotence. good traction justifies higher speed. and they appear to scoff at the cautious drivers as they speed by.

i lived in flagstaff for 18 years. i've seen these "idiots" before. i had an 8 mile drive to town on i-17 for several years. it always tickled me to see a nice, new escalade zip by my two wheel drive pickup on the freeway. more times than not, within a couple of miles i'd see that escalade in the median. buried in the deep snow. sometimes rolled over on its side. sometimes upside down. that four wheel drive grip will cause over overconfidence, you see. and what they don't realize is . . . ok they have greater traction. but when it comes to turning, stopping, they're no better than the rest of us. and their cockiness is rewarded by a crash.

so considering those people are out in good numbers, i've chosen to stay home today. well, that, together with the fact that the governor had declared a "state of emergency". both the governor and the mayor are asking all non-essential workers to stay home. don't risk the drive. i think that's a good idea. and i consider my work "non-essential".

the governor felt so strongly about this that she declared this state of emergency at about 4 p.m. yesterday. shortly there after our company vice president sent a mass email to all employees - asking us to be cautious, but do everything we can to get there. huh? is he kidding. i'm a loyal employee. i have a very good work ethic. but i'm a bit appalled that he would ask us to endanger ourselves in these conditions. wonder if he drives a four wheel drive suv.

august 13, 1987

i'd never been an emotional being. i think that was true with most of my generation. parents were children of the depression. raised in a practical fashion. around the home there were no open displays of affection. no hugging. no kissing. certainly no crying.

but it all changed.

i'd had kids before. two daughters. plus one that came already birthed. that was neat. but back in the day the father wasn't really a part of the birthing procedure. we simply hung out in the labor room, foolishly trying to offer up some kind of comfort to the wife as she's agonizing in labor pain. intermittently moaning, groaning, and swearing at us because it's all our fault. but when the actual delivery got close, they'd whisk mother away to what they then called the "delivery room" and send the expectant fathers to the "waiting room" to smoke, swill putrid coffee from a disgusting looking vending machine, and pace nervously.

but that had changed a lot by 1987. the hospital offered what they called the "birthing room". furnished lavishly with a hospital bed, sofa, various medical carts, and one of those tremendously comfortable hospital recliner/mini-bed things. and in the birthing room the father, family members, friends, casual acquaintances, even the homeless, were welcome to drop by and stay for as long as they wished. but what this really meant was that the father, me in this case, actually got to witness the birth.

yeah, we still endured the swearing, offered little comfort, but tried. (by then we'd gone through classes which attempted to turn expectant fathers into quality care givers. doubt it worked well in many cases.) but we were given deserved breaks when other friends and family members would drop by. but in our case, mostly it was hon - the expectant mother, me, the expectant father, and my second daughter, tori - the expectant sister. nice little family unit.

in the months prior to birth we had settled on the fact the new comer would be a boy. we had no scientific evidence. we didn't do the ultra sound thing to be sure. in fact, i wouldn't do that now. i think that ruins some of the thrill. there are those practical folks that will support knowing in advance. i say those folks have no spirit of adventure.

and knowing the child would be male, we'd picked names. as i sit here now i cannot even recall having picked names for a girl. had he been a she we may have been in trouble. but we had determined that our newborn son's name would be michael weldon nix. a decision that would soon have a dramatic impact on me, as weldon was my dad's name. and naming my kid after him was quite an important decision as dad and i had not been best of friends for all my life. but we'd really mended that in the previous few years, and we wanted to honor him with a namesake.

well, as the delivery really got under way i began to realize that this was a much more difficult task than i'd ever imagined. for me. i knew it was tough on mom. but she had doctors attending her. and meds. i had nothing. ok, things, when they really started happening, happened quickly. and there was a lot of birthing going on in that hospital that morning, so somehow they lost sight of giving hon the block or whatever they did. so in truth she suffered through the experience au naturale. but then, so did i.

i found myself growing a little dizzy. light headed. i had to sit. i finally couldn't watch. but tori was truly focused. as was hon. and tori was watching intently and giving me the play by play. and i was trying not to be sick. and then she said "here's the head, dad." and i moaned, perhaps louder than hon.

and in another moment, 11:21 a.m., the doc lifted out a baby. a screaming . . . . baby . . . . boy. and that was the very moment that i turned to an emotional being. there were factors contributing to this. i watched (almost) my baby being born. that's really the most amazing experience a fella can have. add to this the fact that it's a son (baseball, slot cars. we're gonna have some guy fun. no barbies or cabbage patch for this kid.), then top it all off with the fact that i'm naming him after my dad. well, something pent up for a lot of years just broke loose and tears began to flow. i mean sobbing, raging tears. nothing like i've ever experienced before.

then, after composing myself, i felt it would be important to call my parents and share the news. i was incredibly happy. and when you're happy, you wanna share. so i found a bank of pay phones (for you younger folks, these were land-line telephones that you dropped dimes into (dimes were money prior to inflation and now have evolved into the dollar) and got three minutes to talk before some rude operator interrupted you and said "your three minutes are up. hang up or pay up!" anyhow, these were the early "cell phones", no texting allowed.) dropped in a pocket full of dimes, and dialed my parents number.

my niece answered. she was maybe 12 at the time, a bit sassy for her own good. i blew her off and asked her to get her grandma and grampa on the phone. so they picked up. and they obviously were anticipating the precise news i was set to deliver. i got through the "it's a boy" just fine, then when i started to tell them the name, well, i couldn't. the tears welled up again, the sobs returned, and i couldn't speak. here i am, a blithering, bawling idiot standing smack in the middle of a very public hallway with lots of foot traffic, all pointing at me and giggling. i think i finally blurted out the name. comforted only by the sobs i heard from my mom's end of the call. my dad was silent. my niece, ever understanding, was laughing at me.

so the emotion brought out by witnessing the birth, the emotion brought out by telling my folks we named him after my dad, it unleashed a whole awakening in me and i transitioned into a sappy, emotionally driven, blithering idiot.

and today, well, here we go again. i'm not sobbing as i recount these memories. i will confess to having a bit of moisture building up in my eyes. but i'm stalling off the deeper component. maybe later, when we take michael weldon "scooter" nix to dinner for his 23rd birthday . . . nah, i'm in control.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SCOOTER BOB!

oh, and denise, i hope you bawled your eyes out when willie gene was born.

the jocks in the family

(memorial day, 2010)

spent a good part of the afternoon going through a box of old pictures and scanning them in to my computer. fun. found turbo's puppy pictures. random shots of some of our trips to the beaches in mexico. rocky point, el golfo. fun times. then found some stuff that i thought maybe i could write about. namely, the athleticism of the nix boys. i'll start with me. (and here's a picture of me in second grade - about the time i started playing baseball in earnest.)




i played little league baseball from the time i was 8 years old, i believe. thru what was then called minor league, then little league, ultimately babe ruth league - which sort of overlapped high school baseball. beyond high school, or during high school, it was called, hmmm, it escapes me. but some of us traveled from buckeye around to the neighboring towns playing baseball. i remember playing in laveen one night. baseball field down by the river. mosquitoes had a lot more fun than the players. drat.

i switched to softball, and in buckeye, kearny, yuma, played for another 20 years. love the game. love playing it. just lost my speed. and a good bit of my ability. i understand why the pros reach a point when they have to retire. and i was far from pro.

so, here's a picture i found from my initial little league team, the orioles. i was maybe between 6th and 7th grades.




so when i quit baseball, i needed some sort of jockdom outlet. and found it in stock car racing. i really didn't want to do it. but after a night of drinking way too much beer a friend talked me into driving his car the following weekend as he was going to be out of town. i spent the next week trying to maintain some semblance of manhood while backing out of the driving commitment at the same time. couldn't make it work. ended up driving. and, after a pretty big crash, which gave me cause to quit for the night, well, i couldn't as my buddies fixed my flat tire, bent up radiator and sent me back out to finish the race. i did, and i was hooked.

i raced a bit more that season - 85. then the entire 86 season, where i won a couple times and also won rookie of the year honors.

and then i quit. while i was ahead. and here's a picture of number 212, the pucker brothers racing special. first race for the car. first race of the 86 season. no dents, no dings. in the beginning, anyhow. didn't look anything like this at the end of the season.




following in my footsteps, scooter also played little league ball. but by then they had t-ball, minor b, minor a, major little league, senior league, and finally high school ball. followed later each year by fall ball. they spent more time playing organized ball than we did. but we played sandlot ball nearly year round. i think we had more fun. me, billy, schroeder, andrade, the baker boys, several others. ahhh, the times we had. oops, i digress. here are some pictures of scooter in competitive mode, along with one of he and his mentor.



so, now waiting for the next generation to kick in. rooster played some level of baseball this summer. but no games on the weekends when we were there. always next year i suppose. guess he's carrying the family jockey strap into the future.

it's a boy

well, it's official. i do have a brother. and even though i've actually had one my entire life, i have to count tuesday, april 13, 2010 as the official birth date of my brother glenn, cause that's when i actually met him. what a treat. and all these years of wishing i had a big brother to play baseball with, to help me work on my car, to just hang out with. now i gotta remember to tell glenn to bring his baseball glove next time he comes this way. and his tools.

the meet was set up by jo, and on tuesday evening jo, mac, hon and i drove up to edmond to glenn's daughter's home. glenn's daughter, i realize, is now my niece, glenda. and glenda and my nephew-in-law, mike, live not more than 20 minutes away. and on tuesday glenn, my new brother, and wanda, my new sister-in-law, were visiting my niece and nephew-in-law. made it very convenient to meet.

glenda met us at the door. i don't remember what i was really thinking before the door opened, but i guess i was wondering whether or not the new nix's would look like the nix's i already know. and when i first saw glenda, with glen standing just behind her, it hit me that i don't even know what a nix is supposed to look like. neither of them looked like dad. but then, neither do i. nor jo. nor lynda. so i quickly realized that physical traits don't mean much at all. it's truly what's on the inside.

our visit with glenn, wanda, glenda and mike was very enjoyable. it was exciting to meet to begin with. but the four of them were so cordial and pleasant it was almost as if we'd known each other for years. i guess that's what's it's supposed to feel like when family members get together.

so now that the initial meeting is done, seems very natural to just include them in our family gatherings. we talked to them briefly about virgie, our aunt and now family matriarch. at 91, virgie is a great lady who, over the years, has been the one that's kept the members of the extended family in touch with one another. we gave glenn and group virgie's phone number, and the next day jo called virgie and gave her their info as well. within 24 hours glenn and virgie had met, over the phone anyhow, and had a two hour conversation. i think they'll like each other. and glenn and wanda live close enough to virgie that they'll be physically meeting very soon, i'm sure.

so all is looking well here as far as the recently expanded nix family is concerned. and for anyone who's interested, here are some new family pictures. plus, a very old picture i just found, circa 1927, a school picture, i believe. and there, in the front row, dad and glenn's mom standing side by side. how ironic is that?

- - - - - nix

in the early nineteen forties the moral values of our society were quite different than they are today. particularly so in rural america. and furthermore, rural america was quite different than rural america is today.

back then the rural america as my family knew it centered around a small general store with one gas pump, suitably named "joe-bob's" (largely because that was the name of the fella that owned it, and wouldn't you know it? a cousin of ours, once or twice removed.), a one roomed school, all nicely surround by family farms. a closely knit group. they all knew one another. and knew one another's secrets as well.

but i should start this at the beginning of the story. october, 2008.

dad died on thursday, in the wee hours of the morning. october 23. on october 24 my two sisters and i went out to henryetta to make arrangements and to check on dad's house, since it had been uninhabited for several months. we decided to go thru things in preparation for . . . what? i'm not sure. we really weren't sorting through things to determine who wanted what, or anything like that. we were just looking. oh, for his will, which was in his safe deposit box at the bank, and other paperwork that might be meaningful. mineral rights things and such.

lynda and i were looking in dad's closet. i guess we'd gone in there initially to get his suit, things that he'd be buried in. and on the shelf of the closet i noticed the leatherette satchel thingy that contained all mom's funeral momentos. sympathy cards and such, along with the guest book. on a whim i opened up the book and began to look through the names. remembering now that i was looking for names of folks we might need to notify about dad's death.

on the second page i noticed a name i didn't recognize at all. and that was surprising as the last name was nix. i had always felt pretty certain that i'd known, or known about, all the nix people in the area. but i wasn't familiar with this name. i asked lynda, "is this a cousin or something? this - - - - nix?" and then she told me what she knew.

we had moved to arizona when i was 5. i'd just turned 5, in fact. lynda would have been 11, jo 7. so both my sisters had attended the one room school in ryal, oklahoma. across the road from joe bob's general store, gas station and dental clinic. and school aged children from as far as 8-10 miles away all attended this school with my sisters. i think by then it had grown into a two room affair. plus a gym of some sort. and a baseball field. the point is, they all knew each other, these ryal kids. and some of the other kid had teased/told lynda that she had an brother, - - - - - nix.

she said when she'd been told this she went home and confronted mom and dad about the claim. and she remembered that they seemed to be a bit upset that she'd asked. but basically, they denied that - - - - - was related in any way.

fast forward a few years. we'd moved to arizona. lynda was maybe 12 or so. mom had started working at j. c. penney's. no longer a stay at home mom. and one day when lynda went out to get the mail she noticed a letter addressed to dad from - - - - - nix. and when mom and dad got home, again, she asked who this might be. and what was the letter about? and again she felt she'd struck a nerve. mom and dad did not want to discuss it.

we had older cousins that lived in the ryal area. went to the ryal school. across the road from joe bob's super market, laundromat and barber shop. and we visited the area just about every year on vacation. fun trip to come back to oklahoma and spend a little time getting spoiled by our grandparents and playing with our cousins. lynda heard more about - - - - - nix from some of our older cousins. but she'd learned not to try to discuss him with mom and dad.

as lynda matured and learned more life lessons, she paused at times to reflect back on the mysterious - - - - - nix, and formed her own opinion of what really had taken place. her conclusion, of course, was that dad had likely fathered a child out of wedlock prior to he and mom getting married. then, she'd just filed all this knowledge away in the back of her mind. and hadn't really given much thought to - - - - - nix for a very long while. until, that is, october 24, 2008. when i brought it up.

to say i was stunned would be a gross understatement. how can i possibly have lived through my 39 years of life, ok, maybe a few more than that, without knowing i had a big brother. as a small guy i'd always dreamed of having a big brother. in fact, back then my idol was my cousin shorty. a few years older than i. but a cool guy. he had a guitar, a motorcycle, and eventually, a car. and when i was 10 or 12 years old i wanted a big brother just like cousin shorty. and here all along perhaps i had one and never knew it.

and now comes the perplexing part of all this. lynda knows about - - - - - nix, and that he very possibly is our brother. and i know about - - - - - nix and that he very possibly is our brother. but what now? do we act on this. oh, and jo doesn't know. should we share this info with her?

well, i went to the family matriarch. aunt virgie. and her story pretty much confirms what lynda had surmised all those years ago. seems as though dad had some sort of relationship with - - - - -'s mother prior to mom and dad becoming an item. and - - - - -'s mother became pregnant. and she told dad that he was the father. and dad denied it. and denied it. and denied it.

back in the early 40's things were different than they are today. particularly in 1940's rural america. joe bob's america. with rare exception when a young woman came to be "with child", the father would always "do the right thing" by marrying the woman. dad did not. he denied any responsibility. i don't get it. because dad was always a pretty decent sort of guy. he normally did the right thing. and we'll never know now the why's and wherefore's of the story. only that - - - - - 's mom had - - - - -, and aunt virgie said that he sure looked like dad did as a child. not as conclusive as a dna match, but pretty compelling evidence for 1940 america.

so now i'm trying to figure out what i should do. virgie pretty much let me know that - - - - - existed, and that she was pretty well convinced he was, indeed, my brother. she even had a pretty good idea where he lived. at least, in what community. no longer ryal. and joe bob's store, gas station and mini-mall had long ago ceased to be.

should i try to contact - - - - - ? and, lynda, virgie and i all pondered whether or not we should tell jo. the general consensus was not to tell jo, as she's been the one closest to dad. she's lived closest to him for the last 20 years, had always had a sort of special relationship with him, and i suppose we felt she was hurting so badly with dad's death that she didn't need another blow like this. so we didn't tell her anything - yet.

but it was pretty much left up to me as to whether or not to contact - - - - -. i was stewing over this for a few days when i got a letter. addressed to: the weldon nix children. dad's address. forwarded to me. no return address. inside a folded, plain white sheet of paper. printed on it . . .
you have a brother
- - - - - nix
- - - - - - - - - -, oklahoma

now who's written this? well, i know for a fact it wasn't - - - - -. don't ask me why. it's too complicated. it wasn't him. but someone who knew - - - - -, knew his story, wanted us to get in touch with - - - - - . so, i got on the internet and did some searching. i found a - - - - - nix in - - - - - - - - -, oklahoma. an address. a phone number. and then i considered the impact of me contacting him. would it be a good thing. a bad thing. and ultimately i decided to take no action. my logic: - - - - - knew of our existence way back before we moved to arizona. we knew nothing about his. - - - - - knew our names (if he hadn't before), where we lived, when mom's obituary hit the local newspaper. (oh, a point of clarification, he really didn't attend her funeral, someone else with some sort of interest, perhaps the same one writing the letter, had signed his name in the guestbook.) but for whatever reason - - - - - made no attempt to contact us. perhaps he didn't want to know us. perhaps he didn't want us to know him. maybe he was put out by the fact that dad denied being his father. or maybe he didn't know the story in the first place. but for whatever reason - - - - - nix had not attempted to contact us. why would we presume it would be a good idea to contact him?

well, friday night, as is our tradition, we went to dinner with jo and mike. well, i did, as hon stayed home not feeling so well. somehow the conversation led to dad. and something made me feel that this was the opportune time for me to tell jo about - - - - -. so i did.

she was stunned. she even thought i was playing some kind of a real bad joke on her. so i brought her home and showed her the evidence. and she's hurt, probably, that we kept the information from her. she's mad that we felt it necessary to protect her. and i guess that's all justifiable. but as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions . . .

aside from the hurt/anger jo felt at being kept in the dark, she went through basically the same thought processes i had gone through a year and a half earlier. and she came to a different conclusion. she wanted to write a note to - - - - - and let him know that we now know about him. and tell him if he has any interest in meeting us, talking to us, or whatever, well, she'd give him her phone number. and she sent that note out today. we'll see where the story goes from here.

but being protected from all this, along with jo, are dad's grandkids. by way of explanation, i don't think any of us have ever felt that dad should win any father of the year awards. he was busy being a provider when we were kids. he didn't seem to take a lot of interest in us kids. i'm sure he loved us. cared about us. but, he didn't show the love. he was the product of a different generation.

however, when the grandkids came along, dad did become the leading candidate for the world's greatest grandpa. an honor he likely would have won many times over. now we have to share the legend of - - - - - with the grandkids that have always felt this guy was the greatest thing since sliced bread. and hope it doesn't shatter their image of the world's greatest grandfather. and i'm sure it won't. just a big surprise to each and every one of us.

so, the story's out. there it is. perhaps this is chapter one. or maybe it's the epilogue. i guess the next chapter is up to - - - - - nix.

the passion we call baseball

it's hardly a sport. really. not to the passionate. because what it truly is is a passion. (i'm thinking that although it looks a bit weird, it's ok in the grammatical sense to use two "is" 's together in a sentence.) something we live, breathe, enjoy.

and the first indicator we get that winter's ending (well, aside from the daytona 500) is the start of spring training. followed very shortly by the beginning of the baseball season. the crack of a bat hitting a pitched baseball. the smell of leather from a new baseball glove. the echo of an umpire yelling "play ball". the glare of the sun coming off the top rail of the fence. it's springtime. it's baseball time.

i became a fan early on in my life. seven or eight years old. for some occasion my folds gave me a baseball bat. and a softball. looking back the softball really didn't make sense. an indicator that mom picked these items out, not dad.

the bat was a ted williams model. and i was a student. i studied ted williams. not by getting on the internet and googling him. way too early for that. but i did it the old fashioned way. i went to the library, dug through the card file, jotted down the dewey decimel system sequence for the books that referenced ted williams. read them all. and i was a fan. a ted williams fan. a boston red sox fan. a baseball fan.

i remember so well that dad would take me to work with him on saurdays sometimes. he sold farm equipment, so spent most of his days visiting farmers and talking all things farming. and aside from farming, the hot topic was baseball. and i can remember more than one farm office we'd visit that always had a baseball game on the radio.

back in those days baseball was only on tv on saturday afternoon. other than the world series, of course. and whle dad and mister farmer visited and talked farming and tractors and plows and sled planters, i'd sprawl out on the office couch (there always was one) and listen to the ball game on the radio. and nap. an issue that evolved into a passion of it's own.

i started playing baseball, first i can remember, anyhow, at ate 8. minor league little league, i guess it was called. nothing like t-ball. clifford and i hadn't invented that yet. at 8 years old we were actually pitching and hitting. and fielding. and running. and keeping score. not like the little league minor leagues of today.

i played on the giants. and we won the championship in our league that first year. sadly i was away on vacation when the awards were presented and never received my individual plaque. shucks.

but the best years of our lives back then came when we reach 10 years old. then were allowed to play in the genuine little league. ages 10-12. tryouts, probably in march. some actually didn't get selected. i did.

teams were put together. and once you were on a little league team, you stayed there until you graduated, at age 13, to pony league. which became babe ruth league, which became senior little league, which became, hell, i don't even know what it is now. but no doubt, the best years were the little league years. the orioles.

i can still vividly remember going with the coach to the equipment room. a small storage shed on the little league property where all the equipment was stored. it wasn't affordable for all teams to have their own bats, balls, catching equipment. 3-4 sets of all this was shared by the six or eight teams. and the shed wasn't air conditioned. heat and leather conspired to give that room a really interesting smell. a little infield soil blended in. the smell reeked of baseball.

our teammates became our friends. our teams became our favorites (althought he orioles never supplanted the red sox, they became second, or maybe third behind the cardinals.) but little league was a mere portion of our young baseball lives.

ever see the movie the sandlot ? well, back in our day we had essentially the same thing. we had neighborhood makeshift baseball fields. started out to be my back yard. a bit too rectangular, as a liner down the first or third base lines didn't have to travel very far to become a home run. but there was a nice outfield fence, which made our home runs quite dramatic. schroeder was even strong enough in those early years that he could blast one over our fence, across the alley, and into the neighbor's grape arbor. and the neighbor was nice enough, and probably enough of a baseball fan, that he had no problem with us scaling his fence to retrieve the balls. never occured to us at that point that a schroeder home run ball might be sold on e-bay for a tidy profit. besides, our supply or baseballs was limited, so we continued to use even the most accomplished of them. and for days, weeks, maybe months at a time we had to play with a ball that was kept in tact by electrical tape. duct tape was relatively undiscovered back then.

we eventually moved our baseball field to a huge vacant lot across the street. me, schroeder, billy, mike, the baker boys, probably more, built a pretty nice sandlot field here. we piled up a mound. creating a makeshift dugout in the process. we fashioned a home plate from a quarter inch sheet of plywood. don't remember what the plywood had been in its first life, but i do recall that it was painted tan. we fully intended to paint home plate white, but somehow never got around to it. didn't really matter. rarely did we have enough players at any one time to have a catcher anyhow, so there was never a play at home plate that required a slide. just made the field look cool.

oh, and our field really lacked one important item. grass. it was dirt. and in the early spring, weeds. by mid-may the weeds were gone from the infield area. trampled. they still grew sporadically in the outfield. not so much traffic in one particular spot out there. well, with the exception of where the left fielder stood. and a second one, just a little farther out, where he stood when schroeder came to the plate.

yep. those were the days. and some of my fondest memories. but part of being a person is that you have to grow up. and grow out of little league. and get jobs and such. but i think those of us who were passionate baseball fans back then continued to be so even now. and i'm fortunate enough to have a son that seemes to have inherited my love for the sport. great to be able to share that. and to a degree, to re-live my best years again through his little league experience.

but wait. some claim baseball's a boring sport. ho-hum. a pitch. nothing happens. again. batter will hit one out of every, oh, four pitches? somewhere. not a lot of action. mosly in-action. the person that makes this assertion isn't a baseball fan. and to become one all you have to do is catch an arizona diamondbacks game broadcast when joe garagiola joins them in the booth. (one thing i really miss about living in arizona) (by the way . . . this will surprise any of you who tout football as a much more exciting sport: a group of fans kept statistics on all football games broadcast on tv this season. average tv time for a game was just a hair over three hours. play, time outs, commercials. of course, the clock time for an nfl game is 60 minutes. the surprising discovery here was that the total time where there was some action on the field was 14 minutes. 14 minutes out of three hours. i'm guessing baseball has more action than that.)

joe puts drama in every pitch. heck, he goes deeper than that. he studies the catcher's sign and speculates as to what the pitch will be, where it will be located there, and why the pitcher and/or catcher would choose to locate it there. he scans the defense and explains why the center fielder might be shifted toward right center, or the third baseman might be guarding the line. he watches the runner and gives you the indications he sees that the fella might run, might not. he explains, in short, that there is strategy involved way beyond throwing a ball and hitting it.

pitchers and catchers show up for spring training next week. the rest of the teams the following week. i can't wait to have the games begin. play ball.

basset bitches and the brambleberry bush

they got out. the girls. breached my almost nearly not quite impenetrable fence. escaped to freedom. i don't get why they want to escape. there's nothing out there that's gonna taste any better then the beneful premium they get fed twice daily when they're safe within the confines of friendly nixdom. but they're basset hounds. and, they're female. and take it from one who's spent a good deal of time around bassets and an even gooder bit of time around females, they're totally unpredictable. apt at any moment to go sailing off on a whim.

so they got out yesterday. mid afternoon. just as we'd gotten back from the sojourn to wally world. unloaded. put away. and just as i was settling into the recliner to relax and watch the second half of the vikings game. not a big football fan, but looking forward to watching this game. favre makes an interesting story. like to see him do well to silence all the critics. and more than i'm a favre fan, i'm an anti-cowboy fan. dates back to tom landry. roger staubach. exacerbated by t.o. with apologies to one of my two favorite nephew-in-laws and my son-in-law, i detest the cowboys. and i know that the vikings and favre are winning, so i'm ready to settle and watch the cowboys bleed.

but before reclining in my recliner i peeked out the patio door. and there, past the back yard. across the outback (if you've read anything i've written here you're well familiar with the outback), and among the skeletal remains of what were, back in summer time, shrubs, bushes, trees, i see two white-tipped tails. basset tails. female basset tails. namely, trixie and petunia.

i hollered at hon to grab some leashes and i raced across the yard to catch the bitches (it's ok to call them that, they are, after all, female dogs) (oh, but don't tell them, as we're not sure they understand they're dogs) before they get down into the creek area. sadly i was too late to keep them from fording crap creek. (named for its smell, not a pretty one.)

by the time i got creekside the girls had already scaled the bank on the far side. not too far ahead of me. but bassets are rather short critters. they can roam through the underbrush under where the brush is. below the branching out branches of the bushes and small trees. i'm taller than that. i have to fight my way thru the dead vegetation. my progress is slowed accordingly.

i reached crap creek just moments after their crossing. in short order i found a rather formidable branch/log, down and spanning the creek. i stepped on it gingerly, it seemed substantial, i decided to try to balance-beam it across it. but as a safety measure i also grabbed the overhanging branch above which pretty much spanned the creek as well.

at about step number two i heard a bit of a cracking sound. my first thought was something analogous to "uh oh". but not quite "uh oh". and before i could take any evasive action at all, my left foot plunged down thru the now broken fallen branch/log and into the brackish - i wanna say water, but can't be sure - of crap creek. ok, a wet foot. wet ankle. wet calf. but not so bad. onward. but . . . another cracking sound? yep. and i didn't have time to formulate many thoughts as the branch overhead broke loose, smacked me in the head, and floated with me down into the very essence of crap creek. i hit, i guess, on some sort of uneven surface, as i quickly lost my balance and found myself lying on my left side. a foot deep in crap creek.

the smell hit me first. then the cold. then just the god-awful situation itself. my clothes are wet. i'm probably at least sort of injured, and my back's bad to begin with. and i still have to get out of this toilet and catch the damn basset girls.

so i pick myself up, somehow manage to crawl out of the slippery slope of the south bank of crap creek. quickly scanning the territory, i spot the white-tipped tails about twenty yards ahead. undaunted, i move onward.

i didn't know that barbed wire grows in vine form. i'd always viewed it as simply an industrially manufactured product. but right about at this moment in time, as i became ensnared, i realized that the original barbed wire, and no doubt the most effective barbed wire, grows. in vine format. along the slippery sloped banks of crap creek.

i'm wearing sweat pants and a long sleeved t-shirt. growing barbed wire likes sweat pants. and long sleeved t-shirts. it grabbed me and hugged my and cuddled with me. oh, and i should also point out that the half inch long barbs on the organic form of barbed wire are razor sharp. not only do they delight in snagging your clothing, they like to create deep lacerations in your skin. now i can't imagine what it would be like to traipse thru this growing thicket of barbed wire without long sleeves. or without long pants. for even covered as well as i was - well, by now i'm not only covered in what had been a nice layer of cotton clothing, but a healthy portion of whatever scum is suspended in the water of crap creek AND an ever increasing amount of type o positive that's now oozing from various areas of my appendages - this crap is nasty.

but i think i've used the term "undaunted", and i continued to be "undaunted". i'm on a mission to rescue my girls before they reach the major street a couple hundred yards east of where we were.

i spotted them again. now they're back on the north side of the creek. nearing the outback once again. so before they have a chance to go elsewhere, i have to get there. i grab my cell phone from my pocket and push speed dial 3, so i can let hon know they're headed back to the outback. my cell phone from my pocket, the same pocket which, moments earlier, had been bathing in the murky waters of crap creek. did i ever tell you about putting my cell phone thru the wash? well, that was a different phone, in a different pocket. and after the spin cycle that phone just quit working. and now i'm thinking i have much the same scenario with this phone. but surprisingly, it worked. hon answered, i gave her latitude and longitude readings for the dogs, and hung up just before i slid 20 feed down the south bank and back into crap creek once again. but just me feet this time.

i managed to circumvent the growing barbed wire without too many more cuts, scratches, abrasions, and climbed up out of the north bank just in time to see hon leashing up the little darlings. not the term i used to describe them at that point, but . . .

funny thing about all this, seemingly they were done roaming and heading back to our yard. and perhaps for no good reason, i'm covered in frigid shitty mud, blood, and who knows what else. my back's worse than ever. i've lost at least a pint of blood, and as i discovered a little later, i developed a softball-sized bruise on my left buttock.

it ain't easy being a basset lover.

oh, and yes, sorry mark. sorry chris. the vikings killed the sissy cowboys. and i missed the whole damned thing.

ode to college sports

big news on the college sports front - usc is likely to be penalized for allowing some athletes to receive payola, of some sort, while playing football/basketball for the trojans. namely, reggie bush and o j mayo.

well, there's a surprise. reggie bush came out of high school as part of a very average, middle class family. and somehow while he was attending usc his family was able to move into a veritable mansion somewhere near the campus. maybe, just maybe, he or his family were receiving some money from some unnamed source. ya think?

i'm not as familiar with the o j mayo story, but seems as though something similar occurred with him while he spent his nba mandated "one and done" year in college at usc.

these instances of abuse of the system were so severe that even the irs saw fit to get involved. now, suspension looming, forfeiture of scholarships, perhaps return of the heisman trophy by bush and maybe even the bcs national championship awarded to usc a few years back will be revoked. and pete carroll has decided to get the hell out of dodge and take the helm of the nfl seattle seahawks.

shame on usc and their entire sports program. shame on athletic director mike garrett. shame on . . . but wait, does the ncaa think for one minute that we're gonna believe this is an isolated incident? are we expected to think that usc is a bunch of underhanded, conspiring, glory driven fanatics who will do anything to excel in big time college sports? ok, yeah, they are.

however, they're certainly not alone. i doubt there's a college football program, a college basketball program, maybe even a college baseball program, that gets any serious recognition that isn't violating the spirit of the "amateur athletic" rules.

even smaller colleges, those to which we pay little attention, do questionable things for their players. i personally knew a player who was attending college on a scholarship. and for the four years he was there he took a job with the college to help support himself. his job: turning the lights off every night at the tennis courts. critical that they be turned off by midnight. very important job. and to make sure he did well at the job, the college installed automatic timers on all the lights so they would automatically turn off at the assigned time. i guess he was paid, in essence, to look out the window of his upscale apartment near midnight to make sure the timer was working. don't think the ncaa would ever give this matter any attention.

but the pressure to win at the big name schools prompts all programs to cheat. my best guess would be that if the ncaa really wanted to investigate, they'd find enough evidence to levy suspensions on all major college programs. tendering payment, in one form or another, to players on top college teams is the rule rather than the exception.

is this all bad? depends on your prospective. if you're an alumni of a given school you want to turn your back on the matter. if you're a sooner fan you want to point fingers at the texas program. but the bottom line is simply this - college sports, particularly at the major college level, is not amateur. these players are given lots of perks even in high school. labron james, as i recall, being raised by a single mom who worked in low paying jobs, was somehow able to drive a hummer when he was in high school. he skipped college in favor of the nba, but heck, doubtful his lifestyle could have tolerated the pay scale of college basketball.

i have to ask myself why these violations of ncaa rules are made such a big deal. if the ncaa truly wants college sports to be amatuer they need to really start enforcing their rules. not just making an example of one of the major programs now and then.

MMIX - the good, the bad, the ugly

okay, obama was sworn in. good? bad? or ugly? as i try not to coin politically here, i'll leave that up to you. i will say this . . . i'm disappointed in his fulfillment/lack of fulfillment of certain campaign promises. and i'm not sure where we, as a country are headed. but perhaps the biggest news of 09 - obama.

and on the subject . . . the ongoing dispute about his right to become president of these united states of america. was he or was he not truly born in hawaii? i'm kind of tired of hearing the discussion. he's in office. matter closed.

michael jackson died. as did farrah faucett. i preferred farrah 10-1 over michael. although there was a time when michael became almost as pretty as, oh, diana ross, he never got close to farrah in appearance. and right or wrong, i choose to think farrah had more character than michael. so i'm tired of hearing the michael jackson hype as well. he's gone. just like elvis. i don't need to know about family manipulations or attempts to control his estate. he's gone. just like elvis.

the lakers won the nba championship. i didn't like that. i don't much like the lakers. mostly i don't like kobe bryant. he's an egocentric ball hog. glory hog. and the worst part of it is . . . he's also damned good. makes shots no one should be able to make. and that pisses me off even more. i just don't like the guy. as far as i'm concerned, the lakers pretty much rival the yankees in terms of hatred. who do i want to win the world series? anyone but the yankees. who do i want to win the nba title? anyone but the lakers.

who do i want to win the nascar championship? anybody but baby jimmie johnson. or the bigger evil, kyle busch. and i lost that one, too. lakers, yankees, baby jimmie. i had a bad sports year. wonder who won the super bowl. don't really remember. steelers? that wasn't so bad. wait. yes it was. i believe they beat my arizona cardinals. not my favorite team, but a group of my former home boys. didn't mind the steelers so much. just would have been a better story to have seen the cardinals win.

there probably was a hockey championship of some sort. i didn't really notice.

other news? probably. right now i remember mostly the blizzard of 2009. that's the most recent event. but we've already beaten that up pretty badly, so i'll let it go.

but even though i had a bad sporting year on aught nine, overall, not so bad. got me a metal detector and found lots of "treasures". got myself a new, self-propelled lawn mower. visited kids here and there. had a new grandson. mostly, life was good.

joined facebook and re-connected with some old friends. none that i've seen. but we've communicated electronically. that's been fun.

got a new laptop. that's a good thing. new laptop is loaded with vista. that's not particularly good.

trip to colorado for my nephew's wedding earned me a damn speeding ticket. cop got the wrong guy. but i couldn't convince him of that. that was bad. very bad.

oh, scooter moved away from home. into his own apartment. took a lot of getting used to. for me, not for him. i had to learn to talk to my wife again. it was either that of the dogs. for conversation i generally prefer the wife. and maybe that's why we seem to have a better relationship. we talk more. we know each other more. kind of like old times. that's been good.

and scooter still comes to visit frequently. not like he moved across the country or anything. just across town. so that's ok, too.

well, i've meandered on long enough and said mostly nothing. those of you who read this . . . i apologize for it's lack of insightful content. but i got bored. nothing on tv after the thunder game. too early to go to bed. writing this is a good transition. maybe next post will be better. tune in next week.