March Madness - Final Four

Ducks make the final four today for the first time in my lifetime. I have to admit I felt a little apprehensive beforehand knowing they were playing Kansas who had been steamrolling everyone in their path to that point. But Jordan Bell was an absolute stud from the first minute of the game defensively and with rebounding reminding me of past dominating performances by past big men like Bill Walton, Anthony Davis, Pervis Ellison .... to name a few that I've seen and have always had a visual imprinted in my memory. He was everywhere and going after every shot!! He was the provider of second chances!! Several pinpoint passes leading to baskets. That and some big shot making by teammates, but Bell was the one who seemed to have total control of the situation and led the way. Like he was saying, No freaking way are we losing this game!!

So now, why not just go ahead and win it all?? Until getting to this point, I never really thought that as being possible. That would be a feeling that the state hasn't known for awhile. Especially for people my age or older who have been watching Oregon and Oregon State college basketball for half a century or longer. I always enjoyed the sound of "Sweet Sixteen" and "Elite Eight" but "Final Four" ..... that's a dream!!

The Ducks football team has made it to the national championship game twice this decade. The OSU Beavers have won it all in baseball twice in the 2000's. But basketball has always been my favorite sport. This is what I've been pining to see.

I've been following them since the late 1960's Stan Love, Billy Gaskins, Bill Drozdiak, Leaping Larry Holliday days through the mid 70's Ronnie Lee, Greg Ballard era then the Luke's and Fred Jones period in the early 2000's, Aaron Brooks, Terrell Brandon and everyone in between and after.

Cherry Blossoms In Bloom

A little chilly and a few rain drizzles but enjoyable afternoon wandering in the park checking out the cherry blossoms in full bloom. A fascinating season each time around which is always too short lived. So I make a point to be there every year!!

Among all the people walking about enjoying the afternoon and taking photos, these two ladies approached, introduced themselves, asked my name and asked me to take their photo. Happy to be able to do something for someone. I must not have appeared to be too anti-social looking. It occurred to me that maybe they chose me because I looked too old to make a get-away sprint with their cell phone.

Freshman Mistakes

I hate when the people who are paid to talk and analyze televised college basketball games proclaim, "That's a Freshman mistake." Fifth year seniors make the same mistakes. The only reason why it may happen more frequently with a Freshman is that there are not many upperclassman remaining who are actually seeing time on the court. All the good ones have long since left college hoping to find someone who'll pay them to play. And if someone has statistical proof that dumb mistakes happen more frequently with Freshmen, it's certainly not majorly exclusive to them.

And another thing .... Where is this list of egregiously naive errors that fall into the category of Freshman mistakes? How do you distinguish the Freshman mistakes from all the others? Walking around campus for forty-five minutes searching for the way back to your dorm, that's a rookie mistake. Forgetting to attend your Psychology 101 class .... I'd consider that also to be a Freshman mistake.

Congrats Bro!!

My brother's name in the local newspaper for deserving recognition of twenty-five years of safe driving for UPS. But just maybe (as a radio voice once said: "for the rest of the story") they should have dug a little deeper into his early underage teen years when without my knowledge, he had a copy of my key made and went joy riding one night at 2:00am with my car, ended up being chased by the police and crashed into a tree.

And I'm pretty semi-sure that if brought up with my siblings, no one would recall this little historical instance (due to selective memory) except for I.

Not that I'm still bitter or anything about something that took place forty years ago. I had my own fifteen minutes of newspaper fame long ago (including laughable embarrassing photo wearing later half of the 1980's style lenses). But why couldn't he have made off instead with the family car, my dad's pickup truck or my sister's car? How was I going to cruise the gut without my car?

It's In The Delivery

Quote of the day ..... While watching the Yankees - Phillies exhibition game, after Greg Bird hit his second LONG home run of the day in the sixth inning and accounting for all the runs scored to that point in a 5-0 Yankee lead, John Kruk working for the Phillies TV crew in his typical understated dry humor voice: "So far he's the player of the game." I had to chuckle.

Practice Not Always Making Perfect

When home alone I occasionally attempt to read poetry out loud but can never seem to get through more than a couple lines without stumbling and bumbling. Messing up words. Coughing, choking and clearing my throat at random moments. Pausing at spots where I should keep reading and vice versa. My eyes moving faster along a page than my brain and mouth. Always something. There goes any small amount of confidence I might have had for standing before an audience on an open mic occasion.

It would lose all meaning!! Especially for the listener. It would become tedious and painful.

I guess I'll never make a living with recording books to audio. You have to have a little smoothness in your vocal delivery. I can't get through a paragraph. Sometimes back-to-back sentences is a challenge. I am lacking in finesse. I end up putting emotion and emphasis in the wrong places. When I'm reading aloud there's no chance for tears of happiness and joy when Lassie leads the rescue party to the little lost boy and girl at the bottom of a excavation shaft.

How did I ever pass reading class in my early grade school years? As I recall I used to look forward to my turn to read before the class. And I always held my own if not outperforming my classmates. I could really read a page to others back then. No one asked permission to go to the restroom when I was reading. I was a natural!! Despite my shyness. So what happened? I mean I can still read in silence without any difficulty but out loud? ..... That's become like wrestling alligators and grizzly bears.

Weekend Notes

• It's funny ..... Everybody around here complains about the rain but when it's September or October and it's been dry for two or three months, everyone runs to get a look when the rain returns. 
• People who tailgate (while driving not the pregame parking lot football partiers) should be immediately banished to the deepest bowels of hell.
• Pet peeve .... Numerous people in the park, walking and gazing into their cell phones. A silent group of three .... friends? Side-by-side, each exclusively attentive to whatever was on their phones. In my mind, going against the purpose of the walk. How about getting away from the phone for a few minutes? Lift up your head and look around your world!
• Revelation .... Listening to then Classical radio station is not the worst thing in the world.
• Song Lyric .... "We were young and we were improvin'" .... Mellencamp.
• Watching the NCAA basketball tournament. So many little things in the course of a basketball game that can add up to influence the final result. A second's hesitation in footwork, a quick glance away from the ball that leads to a fumble and turnover or missed defensive assignment, a fingertip on the ball changing the path of a pass. Confidence vs. uncertainty. A blink of an eye lapse in judgement or intensity. And unless a team is just overpowering, so many of these games can swing one way or the other on just a few factors. It's so true that every possession is important. So many things that I see besides the obvious.

Time Flies By

It seems that time flies by not only when you are enjoying whatever you're doing but also when you are incredibly, insanely busy .... even if it's not so enjoyable. Anything that keeps you from watching the clock.

Moments of Doubt

I have this issue that's been causing frustration. I seemingly can't perform some general function at work without walking away and moments later beginning to have doubts. Did I really lock that door and turn out those lights? Did I hit the send key for the email I composed? The questions repeat. The voices get louder!! Once the doubts set in, I have to go back and check. Occasionally a third time. Just to make sure that the door is really locked. Or whatever the situation of the moment required. And 99.9% (or more) of the time, the double-check was not needed. This little dance plays out far too often. I'd love to just turn and walk away, secure in the thought that I had successfully followed through on matters ... with no voices casting doubts, and just go home.

Onset of dementia? I don't think so. This has been my operational mode for over thirty years since I was charged with opening and closing the facilities of various local public schools used for youth sports programs. I've always wanted to be certain and just the slightest amount of uncertainty would build until I had no choice but to turn around and check again

Efforts At Art

So is it proper and ethical to take a photograph and then use editing filters to enhance and change the original with added or lessened colors. etc., before presenting to others as your artistic effort? Isn't art, like other things, in the eyes of the beholder?

Monday Notes

• So I've been challenged to a game of HORSE by a Facebook friend who I've previously only exchanged greetings with twice in the local record store. Now I'm fighting all my inner leanings of continuing down the path towards authentic hermit status. I'm well aware that according to the experts, for my general good health sake, I need to develop new friendships. But that's a scary thing for me. What if he's better at HORSE than me? What if he wants to put some money on the line? What if he wants to get a beer afterwards?
• Oregon weather in early March ...... One day it's snowing, then two days later, sunny with temperatures in the mid-60's followed by a downpour of rain with wind the next.
• Who knew that there was a webpage where you could find out where the Girl Scouts were selling their cookies locally on a specific day and time. It doesn't much matter though if they are sold out at each visited site of the mint cookies. I've been walking around for three days with ten dollars in my pocket, designated for just that treat.
• Still waiting (hopefully) for someone to question my honesty and request that I provide identification when I attempt to obtain discounts by declaring senior status. Maybe it's not going to happen. I ran into an ex co-worker this weekend who told me that my hair is "turning all fu&%ing gray." And he was never thought of as the observant type.
• I don't consider myself a snob or prude but is it too much to ask that people tone down the trashy appearance and behavior when out in public? I see way too much of it. I prefer dignity.

As Long As It's Not Too Cold

Again watching basketball on television, forgetting how old I am and dreaming of shooting hoops at the local playground. What's the best that could happen? ....  Discovering that I still have it? The jump shot that is. That would warm my cold cold heart! Technically if I just get the slightest bit of clearance from the ground then it qualifies as a jump shot right? The worst that could result ..... Heart attack. But most likely sore ankles and knees. Or possibly being chased away by marauding gangs of anti-seniors eight year olds or teenagers. I'm willing to risk all that. I mean I'll be doing something that's always provided great pleasure. And it's free as well!!! I can't say that about visiting my local record store. (Though every once-in-awhile they give me a freebie assumedly out of extreme kindness towards seniors who can't hoop any longer.)

Visualization might prove helpful. See it, do it!! ..... and all that jazz. I've been a longtime believer. Muscle memory too! It all seems entirely doable. As long as it's not cold .... or raining. Or snowing even, which I awoke to just two days ago. There was a time when that wouldn't have stopped me, but now? It's definiely a huge factor. I've morphed over the last decade or two into a genuine card carrying wimp about such issues. Lacking any amount of concern about being a studly manly man.

False Promises

Almost every evening, I tell myself that I'm going to get my aging body up early and take myself out to a nice hot breakfast. And then almost every morning, 5:00am rolls around and I think, "To hell with it. It's too wet or cold outside and I'm too sleepy" and there's a few other excuses that occasionally are employed ..... just so I feel better about breaking my promise. And then half-heartedly listen as the alternate voices in my head argue it out. And the voice arguing in favor of going back to sleep, ALWAYS wins out!!!

But tomorrow morning, I'm really going to follow through!! .... Yeah sure you are. 😏.

YMCA Days

Things sure have changed over the years. I see these basketball players warming up before games wearing headphones. Why?? I always found the noise of a gym to be enough to provide that extra little bounce in your step. Even an empty gym. The echos of an empty gym, in their own way and in a persons mind can be as loud as 500 wildly screaming people in the bleachers.

Yesterday I went to a used book sale held in the old gym at the YMCA. Looking around that court (it sure looked small) and those walls brought the memories flooding back like they were ..... well like they were yesterday.

• Arriving at The Y and finding your membership card missing from the box. Some non-member using the facilities under your identity.
• Win and you keep playing. Lose and you sit out one or two games and wait to challenge the next group of winners. 
• Keeping an eye on your Wilson Jet. Things like that tend to find their way into less honorable people's gym bags. It was always best to have the best basketball in the gym becauise it would be chosen for use and then you'd know where it was. A ball not brand new and slick but with a small amount of wear and still very grip-able.
• "Old guys" hanging onto their youth, without the skills of their youth, by freely using what skills they still had ..... elbows, hips and knees!! I always hated those guys though if I still played, I'd surely be one of those guys.
• Driving to the basket, receiving a hard foul and meeting up with those walls just a few feet from the baseline. The wood floor felt like a bed of feathers compared to those walls.
• Skins vs. shirts. I always hated being a skin and would do just about anything to avoid it. 

Parking Hell Blues

Someone should write a Blues tune .....

Noticing less and less tolerance with advancing age for driving around downtown looking for a "good" parking spot. Downtown Salem seems to be taking after Portland when it comes to available parking. Finding myself spouting more and more often, "The hell with it!" And moving on to the next destination on my generally random weekend agenda. Even when it means not satisfying a specific food craving that's been on my mind for a week or so. I enjoy cruising in my new car but just don't want to lose any more of my life to frustrating parking issues.

Parallel parking is another of my pet peeves. If I can't easily manuever my way into a spot, I'm moving on!! And if I ever engage in road rage, someone holding up traffic attempting to inch their way into a spot will likely be the spark!!

Dream World Again

One of the strangest dreams yet .... (I know I keep saying that) ..... about a dominating patriarchal figure ..... (not my real life father, though he had his moments also) ..... and my breaking away from the influence. A dream that I partially awoke from at least twice, conscious enough to breathe a temporary sigh of relief upon the realization that it was not real, but still groggy and dazed enough that I was dragged right back into the haze. I eventually realized that a real break from sleep was needed to create separation from the dream. Now that it's been a half hour, hopefully it's safe to close my eyes again.

So I'm awake and I'm furiously documenting the visions from my sleep world and what movie is on television? ...... "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." There's a great deal of conflict in that film as well. And I suddenly hear something chillingly familiar in Elizabeth Taylor's tone. She's sounding much like an old girlfriend, not in the anger of the moment but just in the actual sound of some particular minor sarcastic and biting aspect of her voice. Something I never realized before. And more than enough to drag me back to that (apparently haunting) scene as well. At least for the few moments that I'm typing with the movie on in the background.