Remembering what was is not a bad thing

Sergeant Shriver died the other day at age 95. He was an honorable fellow who took on many unpleasant but noble government-type duties in the 1960s and 1970s. President Kennedy tapped him to start and run the Peace Corps. He did great work for President Johnson, too. Later, he ran for Vice President. All in all, a very good man.

For the last several years of his life, he battled Alzheimer's disease. Understandably, on the few occasions he was seen in public, he didn't look anything like the handsome man I remembered as a kid. I shuddered when I saw those pictures.

The other day, most of the pics ran in accordance with stories about his life, were from the 1960s and 1970s. But one network (I can't remember which) ran a terrible shot taken a few years ago. His hair was messy and he looked confused. It is, sadly, what often happens with patients who suffer from Alzheimer's. I had that old feeling. Wy do this to a good man? Did we really need to see this picture? Of the literally thousands of pictures of this public man, what was gained by running one that showed him in a less than complimentary light.

A year ago, Lynne and I were in California for a few days. One morning, we drove up to see an old woman who was a longtime friend of Lynne's family. She lived by herself near Yucaipa. She seemed to be doing okay for a woman of her age. We had a wonderful visit. I asked Lynne if she wanted to take a picture with the woman to bring home to show to her sisters. Lynne sighed and said no. She had a good picture of her already that she was taking home with her. The woman we were looking at now was not the woman she knew as a kid. She preferred to remember her that way.

It was a kind and thoughtful gesture. We are entitled to remember things our way.

The fact is we will grow older. We will not look as good as we did when were younger. Fine. But we are also entitled to our dignity. And when (or if) the time comes when we don't look so good, well. we can only hope folks with cameras will be judicious in their choices of pictures.

In my mind's eye, for example, Rocky Colavito, a terrific ballplayer for Detroit in the 1960s, will always be a sleek fellow with a full head of coal black hair who had a great arm and swung a solid bat. He will always be 30 years old.

Colavito is now 77 years old. A little part of me would love to sit and talk with him about his days in Detroit (and Cleveland). However, another part of me has no desire to see a current picture of him ... or worse, see him in person. I am afraid to discover he has a pot belly, is bald and wears coke-type glasses.

If so, it would be too heartbreaking to know.

Like my wife wishes to remember her old family friend, I want the Colavito in my mind's eye.

Anybody think that is a bad thing?

Thanks, Jon. That was well said.

It has been three days since our nation's sensibilities were shaken ... again. The terrible business that occurred last Saturday in Tucson still seemed unreal ... even to those of us who have gone through a series of assassinations that robbed us of some of the country's brightest and best.

What happened in that store was bad enough. What happened next -- the bad reporting and the sadly predictable blaming of each side for the acts of a madman -- probably surprised no one.

Take the reporting first. Yes, it was a Saturday afternoon -- when the TV version of the backup catchers were on duty. That still doesn't excuse the cable folks who reported people were dead when they weren't. I could only imagine Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Walter Cronkhite and all the brilliant journalism teacher (like my college prof, Father Whalen) shaking their heads in disbelief as they watched from above. TV cable news offers little journalism these days. Instead, they are entertainers with political points of view ... and those points of view seem to always come first and foremost before giving us the facts.

As for the blame game, what did we expect? Did we really think that Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck would miss a chance to nail those who disagree with them with a form of blame? Did we really think that a gasbag like Ed Schultz or the many bloggers who lean left would resist the urge to blame this on the wild, biased rhetoric Fox spins out? The answer, of course, is no. Most of today's talkers are interested in only one thing -- getting attention for themselves. Getting attention gets them ratings. Ratings translate into money. The rest of it is simply collateral damage ... something they can find a way to ignore.

It is likely most of the talkers wouldn't know Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman who was shot, from Frank Gifford, the former football player. (Well, some of them might know Frank is married to Kathie Lee.) Nor would it matter to them. The names are interchangeable. It is the policy and the ideas -- whether they be conservative or liberal -- that seem to matter most.

Because this happened on a Saturday afternoon, it took a while to get the network anchors in action. When they got on the job, a form of sanity returned to the airwaves. There is a reason why guys like Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the cable bombthrowers don't work for ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS. (Some of them used to.)

Their shtick wouldn't pass muster there.

Ironically, it was Jon Stewart, who works for Comedy Central, who offered the proper perspective n how we should view this situation. His opening monologue on Monday was one of the best speeches I have heard in a long time. (The link is here: http://tv.gawker.com/5730178/watch-jon-stewarts-poignant-speech-on-the-arizona-shooting.) It ranks up there with Ronald Reagan's speech the day of the Challenger disaster and Bobby Kennedy's speech the day after Martin Luther King was killed.

Stewart came out and said what many of us felt. The time has come to simply admit madmen were just that ... nothing more, nothing less. Furthermore, there have been madmen before and there will be madmen in our future. We simply cannot escape them.

But we can do something to limit their access. We can quit using rhetoric that gives them ideas. We can have civil dissent, dammit. It's isn't sexy and it doesn't produce ratings. More than ever, however, it is what we need to do these days.

Thanks, Jon, for injecting a note of common sense. After two days of bluster and blame, his should be the only cable comment we should be listening to.

Farewell, Foul Ball King

It was a small story neat the bottom of the page. "Ex-Manager, Player Steve Boros dies."

Sigh. Another blast from the past was no more.

Viewed in the overall scheme of things, Boros was no big deal. He only played a couple of seasons. His career batting average .242 was no great shakes. He hit a mere 22 home runs in 422 MLB games. He was an adequate fielder but nothing special.

But you never forget your first great love. And my first great baseball love was the 1961 Detroit Tigers. I remember them all -- from batting champ Norm Cash to sub Dick Gernert (whose only hit that season with the team was a pinch-hit home run against the Angels). The Tigers kept pace with the mighty Yankees most of the season, finally giving way in the last two weeks of the year. They finished the season with a gaudy total of 101 victories but eight games out of first place. Today, that would earn you a playoff spot and a chance at redemption. In 1961, all it got you was a handshake and a sincere wish to win more games next year.

Boros was the regular third baseman on that team. He was justifiably overlooked on a team that had two superb starting pitchers (Frank Lary, Jim Bunning), a dependable third wheel in Don Mossi and a solid finisher in Terry Fox. The outfield of Rocky Colavito, Billy Bruton and Al Kaline was top notch. (Charley Maxwell, the first backup flychaser, was no slouch, either.)

The infield was Cash, speedy Jake Wood at second base, the erratic but exciting Chico Fernandez at shortstop and the plodding Boros at third base.

Of all those players, Boros seemed to be the one who was cursed with the most dreaded of all baseball ailments.

He had potential.

He looked bigger than his listed height of six feet. He seemed to have broad shoulders. He was not a fast runner. But he didn't strike out much and drew a surprisingly high total of walks.

Oddly, I can't remember any of his hits that season. What I do remember, however, was that he hit some of the longest foul balls I have ever seen.

I can't place the date but I distinctly remember a Saturday afternoon that year when he hit three balls that went all the way over the left field roof at old Tiger Stadium. Naturally, they were slightly left of the foul pole and counted for nothing more than a loud strike. It may be 49 years ago but I can still see Boros simply sigh and resolve to do better next time. My memory is he didn't get a hit after any of those mighty blows. (In the 87-year history of the old ballpark, only three balls ever went over the left field roof in fair territory. Harmon Killebrew, Frank Howard and Cecil Fielder did the honors.)

To the unerring eye of a rabid eight-year old baseball know-it-all, it seemed that Boros was on the verge of joining Colavito as a 40-home run man. If only he could straighten a few of those balls out, the Tigers could catch Mantle, Maris, Whitey Ford and the rest of those hated varmints from the big city Yankees.

Of course, it didn't turn out that way. Boros only hit five home runs the entire season and finished with a .270 batting average. The next year, he showed more power (16 home runs) but the batting average fell to .228. (By then, I was 10 years old and infinitely more knowledgeable about baseball. I simply knew Boros was never going to amount to much. I suspect I said so to anyone who asked me ... or even if they didn't ask.)

Accordingly, no one was particularly upset when the Tigers shipped him to the Chicago Cubs and inserted a shopworn fellow named Bubba Phillips at third base. (Later that year, they called up a rookie named Don Wert. By the end of the season, he was the regular third baseman. He stayed in that role for the next seven seasons and is best remembered around town as the guy who singled in the winning run the night the Tigers won the 1968 pennant.)

But our first loves always stand tall in our memory. They will always be 25 years old or so. They will always have a smile on their face.

So it is that Rocky Colavito will always be the original Italian Stallion, a limber hitter with a gun for an arm in left field. Al Kaline will always be the mechanically sound fellow who ate fast balls for lunch and missed nothing in right field. Norm Cash will always seem to be lunging off balance as he swatted a ball into the upper deck in center field. Jim Bunning will always seem to be falling into the third base dugout as he threw a nasty curve ball past a hitter for strike three.

And Steve Boros will always seem to be standing tall and resolute as he walked back to the batter's box, determined that the next time he hit the ball, it would go three feet to the right of the foul pole for a home run.

That is the way I saw it in 1961.

50 years later, nothing has happened to make me change my mind.

R.I.P. Big Steve

A Christmas story

Once upon a time, there was a 12-year old boy who lived in Detroit and was a big hockey fan. It was the days of the six-team National Hockey League. Although it was a competitive league, the Montreal Canadiens were the gold standard. They won five Stanley Cups in a row from 1956-60 and seriously contended just about every year they didn't win.

The hometown Red Wings? They made the playoffs just about every season but couldn't get over the hump, even losing in the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row.

The boy knew all this and a lot more. That’s because he listened to just about every game -- the only way for a youngster to follow the team. At the time, there was no local television of Detroit games. On Saturday nights, when he could convince his mother to switch away from Lawrence Welk (which aired at the same time), he would get to watch “Hockey Night In Canada.” But Detroit games were blacked out. (Playoff games were televised on tape delay at 11:30 p.m. Try explaining that one to your mother.) Olympia Stadium, their home rink, was usually sold out. Even if he could find a ticket, the rink was located in a "bad" area of town, a place his mother wouldn't dream of letting her young son visit.

The only time the lad ever saw his favorite team play came when Detroit played a nationally televised Sunday afternoon game from Chicago, New York or Boston.

Christmas, 1965 came with the usual trimmings. As was house tradition, the lad and his brothers were allowed to open one gift when the family came home from Midnight Mass. He scouted the horizon in advance for possibilities. There was the usual thin box from Aunt Marcie – handkerchiefs. There were big boxes (toys, he hoped). There were square boxes that he knew from experience were clothes.

Then he spotted something unusual. In the corner of the pile of gifts was an envelope with his name on it. Since it wasn't stamped or addressed, his mind began to race. What kind of gift could be in an envelope?

For some reason, he reached for it as a first choice. His mother stopped him, saying "Save that for Christmas Day.” When you tell a kid that at the holidays, you drive the interest level up astronomically. Fearing he might miss out on another gift, the boy reluctantly obeyed.

A restless night was spent wondering what could kind of gift could be in an envelope? Why couldn’t he open that one first?

Morning finally came. When the feast of gifts was nearly complete, the boy was left with the envelope. Go ahead, said his mother. Now you can open it. The boy opened it and stared in disbelief. It was two tickets to see the Red Wings play, of all teams, Montreal at the Olympia the next night. His older brother Johnny was going to take him to see the players he knew so well but had rarely seen.

His joy was such that the boy never noticed the location of the seats. The tickets were stamped "Standing Room” – a concept he knew nothing about. "Oh, it will be fine," his brother assured him.

For once, Christmas dragged as he eagerly waited the next night. The Olympia was a wonderful mystery. The boy knew the building was red on the outside but that was it. Walking in the door, he was struck immediately by the large scoreboard hanging over the center ice. It was an old clock with smaller clocks for the penalties. In the final minute of play, it changed colors (green to red is the way the lad remembers it.)

"Where are we sitting?" the boy asked his brother.

"We're not," he said. "We have standing room."

"Where's that?"

"Wherever we can find a place. Quit asking questions.”

The two walked around the building for a long time, looking for a place to stand. As game time neared, they still hadn't found a place where they could see the ice very well. The pair wandered into the balcony. At that point, an angel appeared in the form of an usher.

"Where's your seats, boys?" he asked gruffly.

We showed him our tickets. "Can't stand up here," he said. "Standing room is downstairs."

The boy began to cry. "This is my first game ever and I can't see anything," he said.

The usher stopped waving people to their seats. "First game, eh?" he said. "There is one place you can stand but you can't tell anybody I told you about this."

He took the two boys to a corner of the upper deck. There was a small platform with a spotlight – the kind you used to see when the circus came to town. "Stand here," he said. "Nobody will bother you. It's kinda high but you'll see everything from there. I like watching the game from here myself."

The usher was right. The players looked like ants in the far corner of the ice but you could see everything.

The Red Wings and Canadiens didn't disappoint. It was a terrific hockey game. Detroit attacked Montreal goalie Gump Worsley constantly but couldn't get a goal. Montreal did the same to Detroit's Roger Crozier but couldn't score themselves.

The game was still scoreless in the third period. The clock changed colors for the final time.

This wasn't possible. How you could you go to a NHL game and not see a goal?

Then it happened. A shot came from the point that Worsley could only knock down. Alex Delvecchio swooped in and batted the loose puck into the net.

The boy jumped so high he nearly fell out of the alcove. He had no idea how much time was left but it was clear it was the final minute of the game. The Wings ran out the clock and took the 1-0 win.

The boy has probably seen 1500 hockey games in his lifetime. But he remembers that one as if it happened last night.

Since then, the boy has received many envelopes as gifts. They have contained cash or gift certificates – very good things, indeed. But he still cherishes the memory of that first envelope. It wasn’t until four decades later he learned the official value of it was four dollars – two dollars per ticket.

To the boy’s way of thinking, however, it was, indeed, priceless.

Starting over (happily)

It was the phone call I had been waiting to hear for the past 26 months.

"You start Monday at 8:30 a.m," the voice said. "Minnesota Department of Education in Roseville. You need directions?"

I told the voice I would happily look up how to get there. Turns out to be about 10 minutes from the house.

Since October 2008, I have been semi-employed. I made phone calls. I sent emails. I sent letters. I sent resumes. I sent updated resumes. Sometimes you got a form email saying they had received your stuff and was reviewing it. Many times, I simply never heard from the company. I would call and sometimes get a real person to tell me they had my information. Much of the time, however, the best I could do was leave a message that would never get returned.

I had come close a few times to getting back to fulltime work -- been a finalist at least twice that I knew of. But something always seem to happen.

I would get a phone call, a letter or an email saying somebody else had the job. Sometimes I got a reason. Most of the time I did not. Didn't matter, though. The result was the same as when nobody called at all.

I understood this wasn't personal. I understood why someone with less experience would get hired for a job. I would listen to the great thinkers and talkers of our time opine that anybody who really wants a job can get one. The people saying this were usually folks with nice, comfy gigs already. They hadn't sent out the letters I (and many others) had sent. They may even believed what they were saying.

I worked at staying positive. (Most days, I was.) I worked at being creative. I worked at part-time gigs. I prayed. I asked friends and family to keep an eye out for me and let me know of any openings they heard of. To the many people who did just that, I say "Thank You" for your kindness and patience with me.

I was told early last week the MDE was getting ready to hire for an open position and that I had a real good shot at it. For two days after, I stared at the phone every time it rang. On Thursday, the call finally came. I felt like someone who just snagged a prom date with their dream queen (or king).

Now comes the hard part. When you have been off for 2+ years, you eventually lose an edge. Your skills get a little rusty. Oh, I have done plenty of writing. I think I know what they need and feel confident I can provide it for them. But it will require getting back on the horse. It will require getting used to the routine of getting up early, cleaning up and getting into the office by 8:30 a.m. five days a week. It will require discipline, getting to know new people and a new job.

That is all easier said than done. Bad habits are easy to make. They are also hard to break.

There is one last thing: I am thrilled (and grateful) beyond words to be back working again. Some people I don't really know that well are putting a lot of trust in me. I am flattered by that and anxious to prove them right. The new job starts in 9 1/4 hours. So now I need to get some restful sleep.

I hope I remember how to do that.

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed

The weather folks have been in an uproar lately. Last Saturday, we got socked with an unexpected ice storm that reduced highways and byways to large skating rinks. Took me damn near two hours to negotiate the short distance from the Metrodome in Minneapolis to the Como area estate.

Thanksgiving is on us tomorrow. The Voices of doom and gloom are howling about an expected 1-3 inches of snow around town tonight. 1-3 inches? As a kid growing up in Detroit, we prayed for 1-3 inches of snow on Thanksgiving Day. (Rarely got our wish. It was usually either cold rain or a brisk sunny day.)

So we have a (mini) snowstorm descending upon us. We are approaching our third Thanksgiving without fulltime, gainful employment. My neck is stiff today. The Detroit Lions only have two wins. The Republicans, giddy over winning most fo the election races earlier this month, are promising to roll back everything any Dem ever accomplished because ... they can. Seems like a perfect time to say, "Bah, Humbug" and move into the prenatal position on the couch with remote in hand.

Except that there is a helluva lot to be thankful this year. When people say "Well, you got your health," they ain't kidding. A longtime friend of my wife passed away late last night. He was 59 years old. The cancer was first spotted less than a year ago. A good friend of mine -- a fellow of similar age -- has cancer in his eye. Had a setback recently. Another family friend is spending Thanksgiving Eve at the Mayo Clinic trying to find out just what the hell is wrong anyway.

There are other stories like this, too. And so it goes.

But the fact is there really is a lot to be thankful this year. When one goes through trials and tribulations, one learns that little victories count just as much as big victories. So, when you sell a small, satiric article to MinnPost.com (as I did the other day. it was a casual about the Vikings, who got hammered on Sunday and fired their coach the next day, slipping down to the level of the Lions. Read it. I thought it sang.), you enjoy it. When you get a fair settlement for your car being stolen and you are able to buy a good used car from a person you trust, you smile a bit longer. When you learn a friend was really able to pull a big surprise off and visit her parents in another state, you are happy for them. When the family dog greets you like he really is happy to see you, you can't help but smile and rub his ears. And when you have a kid in a class you are teaching who has been nothing but trouble for you suddenly relax and be civil in a place where you never expected him to, you are filled with goodwill.

It's all in what you make of it. There are plenty of big things in life that need attention. Recovering from heart stents and getting a fulltime job ranks high on that list.

But we tend to focus on the little problems and often make a big deal out of something that is small potatoes. So, when your partner in a football pool changes a pick and that costs you a possible win for the week, you shrug and just be happy that you have such a friend. You have a drink together. You laughingly tell her never to do it again. And then you move on.

You look forward to such events as Thanksgiving dinner at your sister-in-law's place. Not only is she a helluva cook, she is terrific company and a great, giving, caring human being. Yes, it's not the same without her mom being around. But the last thing Colleen would want is for anybody to mope. There's simply too much living and laughing to be done.

I guess what this means is we all can find things to grumble about. Some of them are even legitimate gripes. But tomorrow is the one day of the year where we are supposed to forget about that crap and reflect on the things we are truly grateful for. At least that is my intention.

After all, there are 362 other days (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day get passes, too) to mull over those problems.

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.

Moving on ... slowly

The car adventure is about to come to an end. Naturally, there were a few last bumps in the road but the end is clearly in sight.

After 3 1/2 weeks, the 2003 Alero was officially declared MIA. Farmer's told me the amount they were willing to give me for it. It was a fair figure and I accepted accordingly. The check was headed in the mail when the fun really began.

The day the check was due, I got a phone call. Seems the car had been found and was now residing the City of St. Paul police impound lot. Ironically, this call came on the same day I was due to have lunch with my wife Lynne and our friend Steph. It was supposed to be a celebration of sorts, an official acknowledgment my short personal nightmare was ending.

But there was the matter of the lost sheep. After lunch, Lynne and I headed to the police impound lot, one of the most depressing places I have ever visited. It is out on the edge of downtown. You take a few back roads that twist to and fro and you suddenly come across the place. There is no parking lot. You find a spot and hike to a back door. Then you have to climb up a set of stairs that reminded me of the movie "Psycho". Once upstairs, there is a guy behind a glass window so think a tank couldn't pierce it.

When we arrived, the poor fellow was catching hell from a fellow whose car had been towed there. The fellow was none too happy about it but whipped out his checkbook. The clerk informed him that this is a cash or charge place - no checks allowed. The guy threw a charge card at him, scribbled his name on a slip, and, after invoking the deity in a rather uncomplimentary fashion, stormed out.

We explained our presence there. We just wanted to look at the car. Hell, I didn't even have the keys anymore. They had been mailed back to Oklahoma City. After the clerk behind the tankproof window figured out I was serious about this mission, he sent me in the car's direction. There it was, lying in a ditch of sorts. There were scrapes on its head and toe. It was clear the miscreants who took it had tried to take the wheel coverings. Fortunately, they were not proficient in their field. Their efforts yielded only a few bruises. For some reason, they had apparently tried to take out the front window. They failed there, too ... unless you count the fact the rubber that holds everything together was no longer solidly in place.

The inside looked unchanged. Whatever they tried to do, they drove it as was and apparently didn't touch a thing.

I noted all this and called Farmers back. Tyler, my claims rep, listened in a state of disbelief. "I think this is the only the second time I have ever run across this," he said. "It's your choice. You can have the car back or keep the check and move on."

I pondered for a second. I loved that car. But god knows what these people did to it and god knows what may happen down the line. The devil you don't know is a scary thing. I took the money and ran.

Well, that settled one half of the problem. No I had to go another car. We checked out a couple of places. Lynne's cousin, a helluva good guy, worked at one of them. He had a couple of used cars that would be OK. I would have liked to make a deal for a new one but working part-time the past two years had not helped my credit history much. I could make a deal but the payment would have been ghastly.

My neighbor, also a good guy, opened a car place a while back. We went out there. I drove a car I instantly liked - a 2011 Malibu. But I was wary of what the financial terms might be. I haven't closed the door on that one yet but it is looking doubtful.

As it turned out, my new vehicle was almost within eyesight the whole time. A former boss of Lynne's lived on the street behind us. This woman has also been a longtime friend. As part of a new job, she also got a nifty company car. It mean her previous vehicle, a 2002 Escape, sat unused. She was willing to sell it to me if I wanted it. I had never driven anything that size on a regular basis. Took it for a spin and liked it but wanted to check out my options a little more.

While I am thinking about it, Lynne's friend said I could borrow it for a week as long as I behaved myself and gassed it up. Fair enough.

I went over late in the day to drive the car the one block trip home. Unfortunately, it took an hour and half to do so. You see, there is a ridge in her driveway that goes up three feet or so. When I backed up the car, I sent the tires dangling over the ridge. The car could neither go to or fro. It was in no danger of going anywhere in fact. 3 second after I had taken possession of the car, I was unable to drive it.

This is not a good start, I thought.

Sighing, I called AAA. The woman was polite but took some convincing this actually happened in the middle of the city and I wasn't hanging on for deal life on a country road somewhere. When the tow truck guy came, he suppressed a smile and went about his business. It took some moving of wood planks back and forth but the car was extricated from the mess I had placed it in.

Lynne's friend arrived home to this scene. She smiled, too. She told me I wasn't the first person to perform this feat. Lynne called, too, to see how things were going. I tried to explain it over the phone to her. She, too, was disbelieving. "I'm coming home right now," she said and hung up the phone.

When she got over to her friend's house, the rescue operation was going great guns. Lynne's friend took her inside and said it really was no big deal - it could happen to anybody.

My wife is a good, strong woman. She understood this could happen to anybody, She just wished I wasn't the anybody involved.

The AAA guy, however, knew his stuff. He expertly guided onto his back. The car was duly lowered into the street. I tipped him generously and roared off the block needed to get the car home.

And this is where we stand at the moment. I am leaning towards the 2002 Escape and will likely decide in a day or so. After our interesting start, however, I wonder what is up next.