The bus crossed the 7th street bridge and I peered over the rail through an open window at the eddies of a muddy river, swirling coffee relentlessly shaping the bank of naked earth. On my first day of junior high ringing bells punctuated my hourly class schedule. This change in my academic life assaulted my […]
Did Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks offer a sincere handshake to Michael Crabtree in the heat of the moment and was his comment, “Hell of a game, hell of a game!”, real? Only Richard Sherman can answer that. He seems like a nice guy, postgame rant notwithstanding. It did make me think that youngsters […]
I love to watch athletes compete…any age, any level…just lay it all out there and try, find a way, play better than anyone ever thought you could. Runners best their career time, diving shortstops covered in dirt, cross-country runners busting the tape with nothing left, talking to their legs and ordering them forward by sheer […]
Tonight the Red Sox, my favorite Junior Circuit team, and the Cardinals, my favorite all-time baseball team, square off in Game one of the 2013 World Series. Don’t tell MLB, but it’s really just the Championship of the U.S. since we don’t invite the rest of the world or other planets. Anyway, in 1967, I […]
Golf balls litter our course like orphaned Easter eggs. There is a bucket of balls sitting on the first tee and I’ve noticed my Dad and Mom and Karen whacking shots from the first tee to points distant. They hit balls with corporate logos, balls beaten into shapes more closely resembling eggs, neon lime balls […]
One of the most memorable rounds of golf I’ve ever played, I played angry. And it came on the heels of an exchange with a man we called Sweet, even though decorum and his given name, Edward Muir Sweet, demanded we call him, Mr. Sweet. The elimination of the honorary title, Mr., was not an […]
I sat on my hotel bed the night before the opening round and read about notable players including a golfer from Shreveport named Hal Sutton who had already won the Western Amateur that summer. I’m playing with Hal Sutton who would win the PGA in 1983 and was Ryder Cup captain later in his career. […]
Francis Chan put hands over his face and agonized about whether to speak the unspeakable to a traditionally proud and spiritually cloistered group that appeared from his stage perch decidedly gray, liver-spotted hands enshrouding the candle lit flame that once was a raging bonfire. He was speaking to me and to my elders and leaders […]
As John Welch’s arm exploded through the safety glass just above the brass push bar he realized the race had been won and the battle lost. Our third and fourth grade classes routinely made the sixty yard sprint across the playground from the north wing to the south wing of Limestone School rewarding the win, […]
I’ve always loved baseball. Even though it’s a team game, I found solitary ways to embrace it’s poetic rhythms. I was a baseball Walter Mitty, transported to Busch Stadium in St. Louis. I straddled the mound glaring at the batter with annoyed disdain. I emulated Bob Gibson, throwing a rubber baseball against the brick wall […]
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