When Stars Align & Shine

THIRTY TWO YEARS ago, when I was a far younger man, my father's time on earth was inching away.   We did not know it at the time, so well he hid it, that he was fighting an unseen disease set to claim his life on earth within the year.  

My family and I were overseas, living and working in a country he had mainly known through the horrors of war.  His visits to us with my mother, Gerda, to see Austria and their German homeland in times of peace and prosperity brought us closer than we ever realized at the time.  

Today my father's passing in July 1990 is etched in our family's remembrance like a treasured Van Gogh. While our days together were much too short, he lives on in ways I could not have imagined. Memories of him now are the heaven within me.  

My longing words to him on Father's Day in 1989 remain alive to me, and hopefully a beacon of love for all the families he held so dear.

Three Wishes for a Star

Too far apart
to see each other grow
they sit in favorite easy chairs
wishing it were not so...
they think about old family times
when both were younger men,
and in some longing magical way
they wish
those days could come again...

A son nears forty, a father sixty-nine
together in thoughtful solitude 
accompanying the passage of time:
“I miss you, Dad,” he whispers,
wishing upon a star
“Me too, son, me too,” he hears him say,
from somewhere not too far –

It's a happy holiday isn't it
when two men think as one
sitting in favorite easy chairs

a father and his son...

I Miss Al McGuire

WHAT'S UP with college basketball?  Basically a sport you can play for free on playgrounds has become almost unwatchable on television. 

I was among the faithful who were glad to see March Madness back on track, after a year lost to Covid safety.  The scenes took me back to 1977 when my alma mater Marquette, then the Warriors, beat North Carolina to win the tournament in Al McGuire's last game as coach.  He cried as the clock ran down, overcome with his team becoming the best in the country. 

Al's gone now, and so is the veneer of equal competition.  March Madness is a lucrative televised event, customized for sports bars, with its own set of rules and suspenseful scenarios.  It's become such a money pit -- generating more than $900 million for broadcasters and institutions not players -- that colleges see little room for change.  Yet change is what we need:

What's with all the timeouts? As veteran sports reporter John Feinstein has counted, tournament basketball teams each get ten "media" timeouts in addition to the four each team gets by NCAA basketball rules. That's 12 timeouts in 40 minutes of timed play.  The televised game is stretched so long that you cannot only grill brats during timeouts and commercials, you can go out to buy the buns.

What's with all the video reviews?  Added to the timeouts are the invariable reviews of balls tipped out of bounds, charging or blocking fouls, or any number of other "close calls".  Few of them look close in slow-motion replay, yet referees still take an inordinate amount of time to make a decision.  Meantime, players and coaches can catch their breath, talk over strategy, visit the rest room. We can go out for brats.  

What's with the half-time show?  Rather than run a string of commercials that would eliminate the need for game-time media timeouts, viewers are treated to the Ernie, Ken and Chuck show, or something similar.  They're fun and knowledgeable guys, but way over the top in self-promotion and inside jokes.  Not much analysis or insight, beyond the stat sheets which any viewer can review.  Use the halftime -- you guessed it -- to grill more brats.

What's with the coaches?  Some of the highest rated coaches -- Michigan State's Tom Izzo, for one -- literally freak their players out with their frenzy, shouts, shoves and WTF's.  This approach might work when your team is stacked with future pros (unlikely since less than 2 in 100 make it).  But the gung-ho, tough-guy approach fizzles badly when your players are just trying to do their best, and come up short.  The coach looks like a jerk who cost his team more than the game.  

What's with the team rankings?  Men tournament teams are seeded by an NCAA committee of mostly male college athletic directors and conference commissioners.  This year they were infatuated with teams that bit the dust early. Like those from the Big Ten.  The Sweet 16 now left standing are those who "upset" the favorites.  In reality, the teams left to fight it out are those with coaches who don't need a timeout every two minutes and confident players who can actually shoot and defend as a team.  I know this from seeing Gene Hackman in "Hoosiers".

What's with all the brackets?  More than 70 million brackets -- including millions generated by computer programs -- are filled out, and this year all of them got busted in the first or second round -- including the brainiac behind "bracketology", the supposed rocket science of predicting winners.  Sports apps, websites, casinos, and Warren Buffet want you to fill out brackets multiple times, alone or in pools.  In turn, they profit and entrants can have fun.  But treat the official bracket challenge like the championship game.  One official entry, one official winner. 

All this opened my eyes wider to the women's basketball tournament.  It looks and feels like a throwback to a faster paced, less commercially manipulated game.  Instead of halves, there are four quarters, for example, with media timeouts sandwiched in between. And it's still played horizontally, where technique is everything.

But then the women's tourney is not marketed as March Madness.  It's treated as a stepchild by the NCAA, which decided the tourney did not warrant the trademark, financial backing, or even equal gym facilities.  Guys get Technogym, women get yoga mats.  A player's Twitter feed spotlighted inequalities, and put the NCAA on notice.

Change is going to come, for the men and the women.  Maybe even before Marquette wins another basketball tournament.

Postscript:  Al McGuire died from leukemia at 72 in 2001, after successful years as a college basketball analyst and speaker.  He told his players to graduate, and then to work for six months as a bartender and six months as a cab driver to better prepare themselves for life.  As for himself, he said he retired from coaching because he didn't want to spend the rest of his life "running around with guys in short pants."

Marquette paid McGuire less than six figures as a champion in 1977.  Marquette's recently fired coach earned millions, and made a mess of the university's basketball tradition.  I take it as a good sign that the new coach is named Smart.   

I Believe It's Only Make Believe

I BELIEVE that Conway Twitty was the greatest country singer of all time. He sang "It's Only Make Believe" like he really believed it.  For awhile:  "Myself I can't deceive...I know it's only make believe..."

My drift to Twitty was triggered recently by headlines that a space laser caused the wildfires in California,  and that the armed attack on Capitol Hill "was not new or unusual" -- the latter courtesy of Tucker Carlson, who I have come to believe has to be the greatest living pundit on the planet.  I further believe millions of people mistake his opinions for actual "news" and piggyback on them.  Which can only mean we should not be surprised if the Capitol is violently attacked repeatedly down the line. Because it's not unusual.  (Sorry Tom Jones)

The reverie posited more:

-- I believe eating pistachio gelato with potato chip scoops helps to control diabetes.

-- I believe my next door neighbor eventually will follow the law and leash her big dogs, so they do not end up startling my grandkids playing in our garage.

-- I believe you need at least a bag of lentils to make a good lentil soup, with neatly sliced frankfurters adding a nice hearty touch.  Plus some bacon.

-- I believe getting a pedicure is a good way to meet people or catch up on the news.

-- I believe right-wing extremists and left-leaning crazies are secretly working together to either tear down this country, or make it exceptionally greater than it's ever been.

-- I believe the UFO my friends and I reported to authorities in 1969 had something to do with the California wildfires.

-- I believe Packer quarterback Aaron Rodgers and Tampa's Tom Brady are not only GOATS but openly Bay brothers.

-- I believe walking 10,000 steps a day has surpassed eating an apple as a medical proverb.

-- I believe what's good for General Motors is good for the country.  Especially if they build only electric cars.

-- I believe there is a conspiracy among satanic forces to take down conspiratorial QAnon before the coming storm.  I heard this from a golf partner unexpectedly assigned to my cart.  Turns out he keeps a transistor radio set to ultra-conservative talk shows. Tennis anyone?

-- I believe naturalized citizens should be given their firearm of choice along with their copy of the US Constitution at the citizenship ceremony. 

-- I believe young people charged with non-violent crimes should be sentenced to three years of tutoring, and then assigned to the US Peace Corps.

-- I believe the more you hear lies, the easier it gets to believe them.

-- I believe Frankie Laine sang "I Believe" as he watched a flower grow during a rain shower.  "Above the storm the smallest prayer will still be heard."

I believe someone is humming along. 

Signs of the Times

ON THE DAY commemorating the invention of a favorite game -- basketball -- I was informed that a b-ball buddy of mine had died from complications of Covid-19.  Yes, we still play basketball at our old age, but have put the game on hold for nearly a year for safety reasons.

Bob was in his late 70s and competed with us in Wilmington's senior basketball league and in the annual North Carolina state tournament. He had a wicked mid-range jump shot, once perfected while playing at Florida State back in the day when leather balls were stitched and bloated.  

Off the court, Bob was a far-right-conservative who assumed that all of us ballers saw the world just as he did.  We didn't.  Nonetheless, he put us in his email group, posting and reposting messages he found humorous, enlightening or appealing.  Not all were received as he might have hoped.  The last message in late December 2020 entitled "He did it his way" reminded us of his fervent political views:  "It was an honor to have been alive these past four years," the message read. "God bless America."

Seminole Bob played his game until the very end.  He just couldn't compete against what he could not see.

Whatever our politics or religious leanings, our basketball group plans to pay our last respects to our teammate.  We don't know what kind of service we'll see.  Nowadays loved ones fight the brave fight and succumb, sometimes alone and sometimes with a few family members. Not like in the "pre" days, when pews were filled and eulogies paid tribute to the fallen ones.

Today. as I have come to learn,  the message that friends and family too frequently see on Legacy sites and pages of local funeral homes frames the mourning: "Due to the Covid-19, a celebration of life will be held at a later time." 

Game day postponed.  RIP Seminole Bob.

Image credit:  Google Doodle of James Naismith.

When Good People Get Played

MY FATHER & MOTHER, God bless them, grew up in 1920's and 30's Germany, when people were being told the worst about their neighbors. When propaganda targeted their heart strings, slippery slogans and lies dulled their senses to fact and truth, and uniformed officers and emboldened mobs intimidated their daily lives.

My parents were German patriots, they were God-fearing, and they loved their country, seeing better days ahead. Regretfully they were played. Played by people in power for their own ends.

The better days ahead numbered far under 4400. Within 12 years, by the time my parents entered their 20's, the Germany they knew had become the Germany on a warpath that nearly killed them. By year 12, war bombs had demolished their towns and homes.  War camps and graveyards, refugees and rubble crystalized damage done for all to see. Hospitals in cities and churches in Dorfs commemorated soldiers and citizens sacrificed for the cause. 

My thoughts drifted back to those horrendous times when the Trump rioters broke into our nation's Capitol on the 6^th of January. In Germany the attack on the Bundestag – the country's Parliament – in February 1933 had been instigated by the man sworn in as Chancellor just four weeks before. To solidify his base. He was bent on restoring Germany to his idea of "greatness" whatever it took.  

In Washington, DC, the shocking insurrection took place four years after the election of the man who vowed to make America great again. His position, frenzy and vicious voice incited a crowd of supporters to show strength, to take back “their" country and "stop the steal". To overturn results of a democratic election he called rigged because he lost.

Trump and his powerful enablers played millions of Americans like so many other authoritarians have  over time. We may be taught to love our neighbors yet often are swayed to hate them. 

It's important for us to remember the magnitude of what has happened, and why. The Capitol crowd was on an inspired mission, so much so that the riotous mobs did not even care to hide their identities, their hate, or their arms. Even now, a good many remain proud of their deed, showing no remorse or understanding. More than a few sought their minutes of fame. Schadenfreude.

The scenes underscore how millions of people were pushed over the edge by a sustained barrage of lies about the past, present and future. Taken on a ride by drivers drenched in fear who became ever more dangerous and threatening. They, like Trump, must be held accountable under the law. 

Much has been said about the politics of it all, Democrats and Republicans at each other's throats for much too long. But January 6th was a wake-up call in my view.  Some have called it a turning point, the day when the Trump fever broke in all its fury and ugliness. 

In the corporate democracy in which we live, where Inc. after your business name equates you with a person, the future will remain all about donors and money.  Many politicians with divisive, hateful messages may find it harder and harder to play their game.

But not all.  Already, the disgraced outgoing president has assembled a political action group sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars.  The Trump fund was built before the Capitol attack with money from faithful families and powerful corporate interests. You can guess who controls it. 

Photo credit: Reuters