I can’t decide which is worse. The fact that “The Boss” is on the cover of the latest issue of AARP Magazine…
… or the fact that the AARP Magazine is mailed to my home address every two months.
Time is NOT on my side, no matter how much I try to deny it.
Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuce is now oooooooooold. Eddie Van Halen and Neil Peart are gone, along with dozens of other rock heroes of my youth. I’ve gone from Rage Against the Machine to “Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”
How did this happen? When did this happen? Who am I and what am I doing here?
I suppose there’s no sense lamenting it. Father Time is undefeated. May as well embrace my senior status… and my AARP discounts!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go impart some words of wisdom upon the youth of America.
Hall of Fame baseball pitcher Bob Gibson passed away Friday night, after battling pancreatic cancer. He was 84. As fate would have it, the book I’ve been reading over the past week is a collection of essays by the great sportswriter Roger Kahn.
And I was smack dab in the middle of the Bob Gibson essay when I heard that he passed away. The best years of Gibson’s playing career were mostly before my time (hard to believe when I’m so old), but I remember my dad telling stories about his baseball prowess. What I didn’t know until I read the Roger Kahn profile was his backstory. He grew up in a four-room shack in Omaha, Nebraska, the youngest of seven kids. His dad died three months before he was born. His mom worked at a laundry. One night during his childhood, a rat bit him on the ear while he was sleeping.
He loved basketball, and his dream was to play college hoops for Indiana University, but they rejected him because they had already met their “quota” of Black players. Instead he starred in basketball and baseball for Creighton University in his hometown. And when he graduated, he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals AND the Harlem Globetrotters, playing sports year-round to earn the princely sum of $8,000.
Most of the obits mention Bob Gibson’s competitive nature, and how it manifested itself on the mound – how he’d hit batters to keep them from digging in against him. You’d probably have a bit of an edge too, if you grew up poor and fatherless, and were denied opportunities due to the color of your skin.
We think we’ve come so far in race relations since the 1960s, but when you read the excerpt below from Bob Gibson’s 1968 book, it’s easy to see similarities in the way he was perceived back then, and the backlash that Colin Kaepernick received in 2016, or the “shut up and dribble” comments directed toward LeBron James earlier this year:
“In a world filled with hate, prejudice and protest, I find that I too am filled with hate, prejudice and protest. I hate phonies. I am prejudiced against all those who have contempt for me because my face is black and all those who accept me only because of my ability to throw a baseball.”
From Gibson’s book From Ghetto to Glory
In another essay from The Roger Kahn Reader, written during the Watergate era, Roger Kahn sums up “sports is life” nicely… and his words still ring true half a century later:
“Sports tells anyone who watches intelligently about the times in which we live: about managed news and corporate politics, about race and terror and what the process of aging does to strong men. If that sounds grim, there is courage and high humor, too… I find sport to be a better area than most to look for truth.”
The truth is Bob Gibson is a Hall of Famer. The other truth is that his path there was a lot rockier due to his circumstances. And the saddest truth of all is that a fatherless child from the ghetto is probably no better off today than Bob Gibson was when he was born in 1935.
A few years ago, we installed 23 solar panels on the roof of our house. Actually, “we” didn’t install them – Third Sun Solar, an Ohio-based company, was our partner in the project. (And by “partner” I mean they did all the work, and we wrote a check.)
I’m not climbing on that roof… these days, I’m afraid of stepladder-level heights
Third Sun likes to write brief articles/case studies about current solar users, to help them promote the concept to other potential customers. I was more than happy to be a pawn in their marketing game. I mean, check out the hyperbolic headline:
I’ve never, ever been a champion of anything… I did finish 2nd in the Clarksville, Arkansas locale of the Punt, Pass & Kick competition back in 1972.
Facemasks are for wimps!
(I suppose I should mention that because 1972 was the first year for the national Punt, Pass & Kick competition, and because Clarksville was (and is) a podunk town, there were only two contestants in my age bracket. So in this case, “second place” was just another name for “last place.” More on that in another blog post… I love reliving humiliating events.)
Hmm, where was I before I started my sports stardom reverie? Oh, yeah, solar panels. The full Third Sun puff piece is here. It won’t win any writing awards — but at least they spelled my name correctly, so I won’t be confused with the evil kid in the Omen movies.
In all seriousness (OK, semi-seriousness), if you’ve never considered a solar installation before, do some quick research on the ol’ interwebs. (Use DuckDuckGo!) And if you’ve considered solar previously, take the next step and get a free evaluation. Third Sun was great – very helpful at every step of the process. I’d highly recommend them. And I’m not the only one:
From this site, which has a very handy and easy-to-use solar calculator
The price of panels has dropped significantly over the past few years, and you still get a decent tax credit (26% in 2020, 22% in 2021). We also got an EcoLink loan from the State of Ohio that knocked 3% off the loan rate (taking it down to 1.34% back in 2017).
Maybe you, too, can bask in the glorious glow of being a solar champion.
Yes, I’m a 55-year-old man who still loves reading comic strips. And I’m not ashamed of that at all. (Mainly because I don’t read the crappy strips like Marmaduke. I have more discerning tastes.)
This Modern World, a weekly political comic strip by Tom Tomorrow (a.k.a. Dan Perkins), is consistently funny and thought-provoking — a tough combo to pull off.
I used to read This Modern World in the local alternative weekly until budget cuts caused the paper to drop it. Now I subscribe to Sparky’s List, Tom Tomorrow’s subscription-based weekly email that includes the weekly strip as well as some notes about the work and other musings on life. It’s $10 for six months – a bargain at twice the price. If you don’t care to spare the ten spot, you can check out each week’s strip Mondays on the Daily Kos or Tuesdays on The Nib.
Make fun of me all you want for reading the funny papers. I don’t care, I’m still gonna read ’em. You may think it’s a waste of time, but I sure don’t.
Several times over the past few weeks, I’ve done a kayak/bike ride combo. I lock up my bike near my kayak destination (#1 below), then drive upriver, launch my kayak (#2), paddle down the river about 4 miles, lock up my kayak and pedal back to get my car. (Actually, it’s my son’s SUV, because his has a roof rack and plenty of room to stow the bike.)
The fact that the starting and ending points are near breweries is merely coincidental.
The launch point and the destination are both along the same bike path, so I don’t have to dodge cars on my bike ride. And the bike path extends far beyond the kayak launch point, so I can tack on more bike miles if I want. It’s a nice way to spend a weekend morning.
I also bought a $20 waterproof speaker, so the past couple of kayak rides, I’ve been able to listen to music as I paddle along.
If you count the steps I take hauling the kayak to/from the river, it’s basically the same as the Ironman Triathlon. Or the old man equivalent.
Brett Newski is an indie musician. (Or, per Wikipedia: Brett Newski is a North American nomad, songwriter, illustrator, and folk punk guitarist from New Berlin, Wisconsin.) Times are tough for musicians these days, especially the nomadic types. Brett played a very entertaining house concert at the home of my friends Dave and Jacqui, back in the Before Times when house concerts were still a thing. I sure miss those days.
Brett’s newsletters aren’t the cut from the same cloth as most musician’s. They’re deeper, wider, not so much music-centric as life-centric. A recent one really hit home for me – I think you’ll find some wisdom in it as well:
If there’s one thing we can agree on as people, it’s that politics really suck.
I don’t care how divided we are right now, deep down we want to be buddies.
It breaks my heart to see us at odds based on what political team we are on.
We have more in common with our fellow citizen than we do to Trump or Biden.
The old white guys in the control tower of politics want us to be at odds. If we are at each other’s throats, it makes it very easy for these old white guys to run the show.
Right now, the big guys are winning. They’ve got us emotional and angry and scared and confused. That’s what they want. But we don’t have to keep drinking their poison.
A small boost to healing is this…
Seek out those on “the other side” and chat them up, but not about politics.
If you see a man in a red Trump hat, chat em up about sports or recreation or the nice park you’re standing in together. If you see a purple-haired fedora wearing liberal, chat them up about Modest Mouse or community-farming or whatever feels right in the moment.
I did this for 3.5 hours on the beach yesterday. I swear it injected positive echoes between the 10-12 people I talked to. Those echoes will reverberate into their future interactions too. It’s a spiderweb of productive energy. Maybe this sounds tiny and insignificant, but it beats sitting in the car, absorbing more news, and getting more fearful toward our fellow people.
Deep down we all want to be buddies.
It’s easy to get trapped in your own news bubble, your own Twitter-verse, your own echo chamber. But understanding starts with reaching out. Let’s find the humanity in our fellow humans.
You can sign up for Brett’s newsletter here. His new album is here on Spotify.
Death is part of life. But it’s tougher to wrap your head around it when it comes “too soon.” Carl Reiner was 98, and had dinner with Mel Brooks every day for a decade… I think most of us would slot that into the “he had a great run” category. On the other hand, there are those who pass in their prime. We all know them (Hi Mom!).
I admire my friends who have lost a loved one “too soon” yet have managed to look beyond their own pain and anguish and create something that will benefit others.
My old radio friend Steve and his family – their 17-year-old son Patrick took his own life this year after battling depression for years. They’ve started a nonprofit in the Chicago area:
The wife and daughter of a local musician and videographer, who have started a fund in his honor to aid organizations that treat mental illness:
The family of a Xavier grad who recently died of Legionnaires’ Disease at age 55:
The family of another Xavier grad, Kim, who died of a heart attack two summers ago at 52. Her siblings (two of whom also went to Xavier, and the third sibling married an XU grad) have started the Kimberly Ann Collins Memorial Scholarship fund to aid students in need of financial assistance at Villa Madonna Academy, the Northern Kentucky school that Kim attended from K-12. They held a fundraiser this past weekend, despite the fact that their dad passed away from COVID a month ago.
In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Marc Antony said “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” Kudos to the folks who are proving ol’ Billy Shakes wrong on that, and making sure that the good lives on, even after their loved ones are gone.
Life is eternal and love is immortal, and death is only an horizon, and an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.
From a prayer written by William Penn, later included in a poem by Rossiter W. Raymond
Hugh MacLeod gets it. He (and others like him – Austin Kleon, Seth Godin, et al.) do their best to bring out the best in us. Hugh’s 2009 book Ignore Everybody (And 39 Other Keys to Creativity) is quite inspiring. His blog, which features a sketch of his and some musings on life, is highly recommended. Sign up and each post will go directly to your email inbox.
This Monday’s post was an excerpt from Ignore Everybody. It’s about how each of us is born creative, but our creativity can be stifled over time.
Reconnecting with that “wee voice” as Hugh calls it, can add color (colors, actually) to your life. It’s not a “nice-to-have” — it’s a “need-to-have” for your soul.
The wee voice didn’t show up because it decided you need more money or you need to hang out with movie stars. Your wee voice came back because your soul somehow depends on it. There’s something you haven’t said, something you haven’t done, some light that needs to be switched on, and it needs to be taken care of. Now.
Hugh MacLeod, in Ignore Everybody
“Don’t let them take away your crayons” is a message we need to hear over and over. Because so many of our societal “norms” (including our education system) are designed to steal them away from us, and because our “adult” brain is very good at trying to overrule our inner creative child.
They’re only crayons. You didn’t fear them in kindergarten, why fear them now?
My kids started school this week – two in college, and two in high school. Everyone’s “remote learning.”
I’ve been buried in my basement for five months now, doing the ol’ “working from home” thing during the pandemic. It’s boring. It’s monotonous. It’s drudgery. (Don’t get me wrong, I do feel fortunate to still have a gig in a cratered economy.) But yesterday when I went upstairs and saw three of my kids staring at computer screens, my heart sank. They looked like mini-versions of me, zoning out during a boring meeting.
“Said no actual human ever.”
It’s one thing for an old man like me to be a Zoom Zombie for work. But school should be more lively, and more life-affirming. Their days should be filled with laughter, broken lockers, lunchtime sandwich swaps, PE in a gym with a freshly refinished floor, soccer practice, juvenile jokes (they still get those at home). They should be passing notes in class, and passing their friends in the hallway.
I know (or at least I hope and pray) that this is a temporary situation. And it’s the right call for their physical health. But this is making them old before their time.
OK, time for a guessing game – if you saw this photo in the Sunday newspaper (anyone under 40: you’ll have to Google “newspaper” first), what sort of business or service do you think it would be advertising?
Airline perhaps? Vacation destination? Megachurch? Political ad?
If you guessed “cemetery” go to the head of the class… and then walk out of the class and immediately schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist, because clearly you have issues if you see a family jumping for joy on a sunshine-drenched beach and think of death.
But yes, it’s true, that photo was part of an ad for a “burial package” at a couple of Cincinnati-area cemeteries.
Help me understand how you can make a connection between that happy family and a burial package.
The “WE STAND WITH YOU!” line is creating some cognitive dissonance too… no one in the photo is actually standing.
I guess they’re going with the “sell the sizzle” approach. It reminds me of those old print ads for Newport cigarettes.
The headline was “Alive with pleasure!” because that sounds so much more appealing than “Dying of Lung Cancer.”
The cemetery ad has ruined things for me. I love the beach, but now when my kids ask if they can bury me in the sand, I’ll get scared that they really want to bury me.
Kevin Sullivan on Life advice from a man who lived it: “A good one Damian. Bring our lens into focus after the long weekend or our long life journey.” Jul 7, 09:38
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