tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70062469749860883962024-03-13T10:49:09.885-07:00The Blue LineGreg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-77441420298056875372020-12-07T17:23:00.000-08:002020-12-07T17:23:34.886-08:00A Whole New World<p>One of the countdowns I was dreading would have been the seven month run up to my pending retirement, scheduled for either June 4th or July 1st, whichever was most expedient. I had already started the countdown. With the anticipation starting to slowly build, I began dreading the time when it would be so close, that it would become a dripping water torture.</p><p>Unlike some "career" people, Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality for instance<span style="color: #5f6368; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"><b>, </b></span></span>I was <i><b>not</b> </i>the job." Long ago, I had programmatically made my job so efficient that I would tell people that it was very much like firemen down at the firehouse. We waited for fires so that we could rush to put them out. The rest of the time we were just perfecting our art, polishing the equipment and inspecting it to make sure it was in prime, working order for when it was needed.</p><p>An odd thing happened during my countdown. My company moved my department's functions to the mother ship in Minnesota. No more fires to put out in Hoboken. Instead of a seven-month countdown, it became a 7-day countdown. Suddenly, the future started last Monday.</p><p>Since my last day on the job was a Monday, and that was last week, today was the first Monday that I would have that feeling of nowhere to go and nothing pending to do.</p><p>And it felt great. Time to take an assessment of where I came from to this point and where I want to go. Really, a whole new world of possibilities.</p><p>Gentleman, start your engine.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-45910185280174215532020-12-07T15:49:00.002-08:002020-12-07T15:49:52.105-08:00Back in the Saddle Again<p> The feeling of a giant stone lifted off my back washed over me after I uploaded the last of 3.7 GB of files to the printer. The Hockey book was sent into cyberspace. It felt good immediately but after a good night's sleep, the feeling became wonderful. I think when you are in the middle of an intense project, one that goes on seemingly without end, you have no idea what it does to you. </p><p>You forget any other longer-term projects. The order of importance of those "off stage" to do items fades and jumbles. Things you thought important to do next, switch places with "I'd-like-to-do-that items." And if you need real proof that your brain works on problem-solving off stage in your subconscious, I had one of those moments of clarity. A long-time problem of how to draw up a schedule using a program, a task that was daunting because of how irregular a calendar is, suddenly popped into my brain. And, very typically, it came to me while I was in the shower. Don't most of your great Ralph Kramden ideas happen there? Mine do.</p><p>That was also a signal to my brain of how much open space there is in my cranium now that the nonfiction writing gremlins had departed. That was a scary thought. Because of the immediate head-clearing catharsis of finish, my subconscious was now wide-open. I shutter to think how much it must have been working overtime .</p><p>Today, I did something I haven't done in a long time. I sat down at the piano. Recently, I did entertain thoughts that when I retire next June, I would take the piano back up in earnest. </p>Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-35265713154940456392020-06-02T17:32:00.001-07:002020-12-07T15:47:11.816-08:00Stepping Out of the Shadows<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">Tonight, I was running my routine 5K around the lakes I live on in the
mountains of northwestern New Jersey. I carry my cell because it has an
excellent stopwatch app. My older brother called to tell me he was contacted by
a person that played on our ice hockey team in Reading in 1964. That meant I
hadn't communicated with this person in 56 years. Facebook has a way of
reuniting people as well as dividing them with thoughtless and vicious posts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Facebook was taking too
much of my writing time. My brother told me this person was setting up a
private Facebook page to reunite the skaters and hockey players who were
involved in the McKellen's Ice Rink in the early 1960s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Reluctantly I went back
on Facebook to contact this person and, while there took a casual stroll through
the nonsense. I see just how much time Facebook can control―if you let it. I
also realized how much time I had saved not being very active the past two
years. Even this blog has suffered because of the massive writing project
I took on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> Now I am happy to say, the
writing of that 636 page nonfiction is done. All the files went to the printer and right now I am awaiting the printed, final version. I am also holding my breath that there is not some massive and embarrassing mistake. Thankfully, my younger brother read and reread the book so the chances have been minimized. He was meticulous and relentless. If he saw something , he spoke up, which is exactly what you want in a reader.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">I've been
in publishing since 1974 and putting the tools I've acquired along the way is
very rewarding and creative.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> The book is at the printer and I expect it will ship by the end of ext week at the latest. It will be in time to go under the Christmas tree.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;">The people who will help market and sell it are
holding off the roll out until after this ships to the hockey community. Yes, the virus affected yet one more thing. But that's okay, because the book is finally done and it is just a matter of time until it is in everyone's hands.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> But meanwhile, I have just
restarted my other writing projects and I am amazed at the fresh perspectives I
am experiencing on my China rock and roll novel. China is even more relevant
now than when I started my novel. My other project involves my high school experiences
working on the Apollo Program. And now Space is back in the news. I am sure that
I will soon become a "writing Gumby" all over again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> There are so many things that completing this book has opened up for me. I will enjoy
reconnecting to my skating past and hope others will enjoy my memories, which I
will share. </span><span style="font-size: 18px;">At least this long stroll through the tunnel is nearly over. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">There are times when you need to step out of the shadows. </span></div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"> And this is one of them.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-47737626082181753032020-02-29T08:46:00.000-08:002020-02-29T08:46:08.332-08:00Busy Guy Seeing the Tunnel Light<span style="font-size: large;">With all the new forms of social media and ways to get notice of your writing out in cyberworld, there are not enough hours in the day. I am also still in the workforce, credited with 35 hours a week, considered full-time employment. Writing was a sidelight. But being just 15 months from full retirement in my "day job," I am nearing the point where I can devote my energies towards full-time writing.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Since my last post, I have been working on a 102,000 word manuscript, a novel about rock and roll in China, a 604-page nonfiction about ice hockey, and in the process, trying to keep up 4 websites, several gmail accounts, and I let this blog lapse.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The blog, besides being a forum to market my stuff, is a writing outlet I immensely enjoyed (I'm allowed to use one quantifying adjective here). The problem was I created such deadlines for the other two writing projects that I abandoned all other care and maintenance of my enterprises to finishing those projects. Only now that I see the end in sight for the one, can the domino effect help me with the others.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">First the nonfiction is finished within 60 days. Then the efforts made to revamp the China book and put that in motion, and then I go back and patch up my blogs and websites. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I do understand as a writer you need deadlines. Otherwise nothing progresses. Once the silver stake has been hammered into the nonfiction, my day-to-day life will return, then my writing life will return.</span><br />
<br />
<br />Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-57911563699579754982016-11-03T19:34:00.002-07:002020-02-29T09:44:43.778-08:00Hershey ― Chocolate, Bears and the Arena<h1 align="center" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">How old were you when you remember the first time you experienced
something or ate a particular food? As a high school freshman, I remember
eating cheesecake for the first time on an Easter break vacation in Fort
Lauderdale. My grandfather told me I’d like it and I’ve been eating cheesecakes
ever since, but like that first time, plain, not smothered in strawberries or
cherries. I think my preference for a cheesecake without toppings, but creamy,
heavy as a brick, sink-to-your-toes cheesecake dates to that first dessert eaten
in the land of palm trees.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Hot
chocolate always reminds me of hockey games in the Hershey Arena and the
Hershey Bears. Their uniforms, you see, were chocolate brown. Five minutes
outside town, the smell of chocolate permeates the car windows. The street
lights are made to look like giant Hershey Kisses. As a child, I always wished
I could have a Hershey Kiss that big. How appropriate the local hockey team is
chocolate brown, the exact same shade as a Hershey bar?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My earliest
memories of Hershey Arena was a hockey game and my Dad getting me hot chocolate
between periods. The Hershey Arena had its own version of hot chocolate―not so milky and a bit
watery―to this day
that is how I like to make my hot chocolate―not the Swiss Miss, saturated, sweet version. I
drank hot chocolate at the source. Anything else is just not hot chocolate. How
appropriate to drink my first hot chocolate in the Hershey area―during a hockey game?
Chocolate, for me, doesn’t get any better than that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Of course,
Hershey has its competition and detractors. The British moon over Cadbury and
the Swiss and Europeans think Nestle is the best. I prefer American
chocolate. The first chocolate tasted by Europeans was brought back over the pond from the Americas, so isn’t
everyone else an imitator, or certainly a Johnny-come-lately? I also learned recently that Hershey, when he was developing his chocolate, kept it low sugar so that it retained a slightly bitter taste. That made it different than the European variety, distinctive and a taste that had to be acquired. He defined the taste of American chocolate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">My parents
bought those bags of chocolate bean shells that Hershey sold and used them in our flowerbeds as mulch. As
a kid, how great was that when it rained and your whole house and yard smelled
like chocolate?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Playing those games at the Hershey Arena was special.
For starters, the boards had Plexiglas. We were used to the smaller rinks with
chain link fences above the boards. In our tiny rink in Reading, there was
nothing but a pipe just above the boards. The rink was in a cinder block
building that had once been a garage. The smallish windows in black iron frames
were protected by Venetian blinds. In the heat of battle, during those Sunday
night league wars, errant pucks found their way through the Venetian blinds.
Considering that glass was cheap at the time, and those windows could not be
larger than eight inches by ten inches, we must have destroyed a lot of glass
because I remember reading the annual expense report and marveling at the $144.00 expense for the season in
glass pane replacement.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">(above) The rink today on Essex Street in Reading. The side windows have been cinder blocked in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">There was one game during the year set aside
for fathers versus sons. The fathers were telling us the week leading up to the
game that they had uniforms. I suppose it got into our heads that they must be
good and we were a bit worried. At game time, the fathers came out in their “uniforms.”
Our coach was wearing his red striped pajamas. The owner of the rink, short “Tuffy”
McKellen, all 5’ of him, (he just made the 5’ minimum height requirement of the
army and was assigned to the Military Police</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">―</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">you’d think that’s where his name came from but the real reason was
that he fought for his corner to sell newspapers and earned the name “Tuffy.”) was
dressed in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit complete with ridiculous hat. </span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">One
friend’s dad wore diapers. Just diapers. I remember thinking what would happen
when he got checked into the Venetian blinds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">The Hershey Arena games were also special
because they were played before games of the AHL (American Hockey League) which
was one level below the NHL and had the Buffalo Bisons, the Springfield (MA)
Rifles, and the Quebec Aces. People were filing in for the NHL game and for once we
had a crowd watching us play. The arena held more than 7,200 hockey fans although when
our game ended there were probably only a few thousand in the stands. But it
was a thrill to play in an arena with Plexiglas, real official NHL nets, and
doors to the players’ bench.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oF3Rh0EQviU/WBvypQnPhdI/AAAAAAAAA0M/EgMhzSBNVE8v8sh9BD3jMHdB0MTMyzyJwCEw/s1600/card00190_fr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="202" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oF3Rh0EQviU/WBvypQnPhdI/AAAAAAAAA0M/EgMhzSBNVE8v8sh9BD3jMHdB0MTMyzyJwCEw/s320/card00190_fr.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Yankee fans remember the steepness of the seats
in the upper deck of the old Yankee Stadium. I’d bet the seats in Hershey Arena
were steeper. After our game we got to stay and watch the Bears play. I
remember one of our team members spilling a Coke and it showered out about 10
rows. I never remember spilling any of that precious hot chocolate.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-89206982907838482352016-08-14T11:40:00.000-07:002016-09-10T05:07:52.872-07:00Where Did I Leave Those Guys II<div class="bodytextII">
Some time ago when I was between writing projects, in a
blog article, I wondered out loud where I left several characters. The two I
used then were from a magazine short story that was published about two years
ago. I submitted a draft from some exploratory writing for a possible future
novel and the magazine ran it. The scene was from the Revolutionary War.</div>
<div class="bodytextII">
<br /></div>
<div class="bodytextII">
Living in Ringwood, I am aware of the strange historical
connection among three places, four if you count West Point. They are Ringwood,
Ho-ho-kus, and Tappan, New York. Ringwood was the home of Robert Erskine, Scot
immigrant who took over management of the then world-famous ironworks. Soon
after the war broke out, Erskine double-crossed his British investors and supplied
the Revolutionary army with cannons, munitions, and was one of a few local
ironworks to cast the giant iron chain that was stretched across the Hudson
River to prevent the British traveling north. Running through town is the
“Cannonball Trail” the Ho Chi Minh trail from Ringwood to West Point, the
secret munitions highway supplying the army.</div>
<div class="bodytextII">
<br /></div>
<div class="bodytextII">
Robert Erskine was not only a close friend of George and
Martha Washington, he was one of the general’s secret agents who also worked on
the logistics of moving the army and most likely his reports passed from
Washington to General Henry Knox, Revolutionary army quartermaster.</div>
<div class="bodytextII">
<br /></div>
<div class="bodytextII">
Benedict Arnold fled from the Hermitage in Ho-ho-kus where
he was staying when Major John <span style="background: white; color: #252525;">André</span><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span>was captured carrying plans of Arnold’s to hand over
West Point. He was tried and hanged in Tappan, New York. Washington wanted to
make an example of him because, earlier, the British insisted on hanging Nathan
Hale instead of exchanging him. <span style="background: white; color: #252525;">André</span>
was higher ranking, more popular, accomplished and the British master spy for
New York. The very day <span style="background: white; color: #252525;">André</span> was hanged, </div>
<div class="bodytextII">
Washington was at Robert Erskine’s deathbed. Erskine was dying of pneumonia he
caught, riding on a rainy day.</div>
<div class="bodytextII">
<br /></div>
<div class="bodytextII">
I’m willing to guess short stories lend themselves to
leaving characters out there walking around and doing what they do. Even in a
finished novel, the story ends but presumably the lives of the characters go on
doing something other than getting themselves into the predicament that your
novel resolved. And since I write fiction and nonfiction, a supposedly career
no-no, I have an almost unlimited amount of wanderers out there.</div>
<div class="bodytextII">
<br /></div>
<div class="bodytextII">
The thing is, they might be done in your short story or
expository writing but, in the back of your brain, they are still doing all
sorts of stuff. Your brain’s subconscious occasionally breaks into the
conscious with a request to find them or wonder <i>where are they</i>?</div>
<div class="bodytextII">
<br /></div>
<div class="bodytextII">
A quick and
incomplete roll call of my guys is hilarious. They are spread out everywhere. I
have guys on horseback returning from Ho-ho-kus, I have two young newlyweds
waiting for their home to be built, an entertainer in a bar watching his guitar
career slip away, five guys in a rock and roll band traveling across China on
their way to the Chinese version of Woodstock, two Princeton researchers trying
to figure out the handwriting, possibly Erskine’s, written on some letters they
found in a trunk lid, and several grad students looking for the missing moon
rocks brought back from the Apollo missions 11 and 17. What a collection.</div>
<div class="bodytextII">
<br /></div>
<div class="bodytextII">
I know at least what Bruce is doing right now—relaxing now that his
world tour is finished. That also reminds me—I wonder what Ciu Jian is doing and where exactly he
is right now, Beijing, Lijiang, a gues<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>t at NYU, who
knows? </div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-91291555844470219482016-08-11T13:56:00.000-07:002016-08-11T13:56:16.906-07:00YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT WILL BE WALKING DOWN THE STREET<div class="Style2">
There is currently a popular TV show called <i>Pawn Stars</i> where the hook line in the
introduction is Rick explaining why working at a pawn shop is interesting. The
line is “…the best part―you never know what’s going to come through that door.”
I usually feel that way walking down any street in Manhattan.</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
I’ve already written about coming out of the subway and having
El Exigente, himself, hand me a free cup of coffee. That was weird, funny and
memorable.</div>
<div class="Style2">
On the street in Manhattan I almost never bump into celebrities.
People tell me all the time, “Yeah, Robert Redford walks his dog over on Park;
I see him all the time.” I could probably trip over the dog leash before I’d
recognize <i>The Natural</i>.</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
I did accidentally run into Simon and Garfunkel but it wasn’t too
much of an “accident.” The night the duo reunited for a concert to benefit a
deteriorating Central Park in New York City, I was making my way towards the
grassy area where the audience would sit. The area was north of the stage and we
entered the park from the south. After cutting across an open field we came to
the road system which brought vehicles to the back of the stage. As we crossed
the narrow macadam stretch, a limo pulled up, almost running us over. The door
opened and out popped Simon and Garfunkel. They looked in our direction and
smiled at us; we were the only humans in evidence.</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
On the other side of the structure they were entering 250,000
fans waited for that night’s concert. It had rained much of the day but stopped
in time for the concert that September 19, 1981. The Mutt and Jeff duo
immediately proceeded up a steep embankment towards the stage. We walked in
parallel to them about 20 feet away. They went into a stage opening, while we followed
the fenced off area around to the front for the concert.</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
A few years before that, Harry Chapin nearly collided with me
on a Central Park path but he was walking towards the Wolman Rink for a concert
and I was alone on a path to the back of the stage area. I said “High Harry” in
surprise and he smiled back and said “Hi.”</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
For whatever reason, I missed the performance of Jackson
Browne, James Taylor Joan Baez and Bruce when they attended the disarmament
rally in the Park on June 12, 1982. This wasn’t too far removed from the No
Nukes performances so I guess I assumed it would be the same cast of characters
and I must have had something important that day. My memory escapes me. </div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
But New York streets remind me of the Pawn Star’s adage. Except
I’d change it to New York City is exciting because you never know what might be
coming down the street.</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
When I worked at 90 Fifth Avenue, the nearest cross street was
14th. It was one block north of the old Lone Star Café. I worked there in the
Chelsea section from 1994 to 2000 and the Lone Star closed in 1989. I did make
some excellent salads at the bar that replaced it. From the vaulted ceilings, I
could imagine how good performances must have been there. The bar was immediately
at the entrance on the right as you entered the cavernous hall. At the end of
the 40-foot bar, the vaulted opening divided into an upstairs level that
wrapped around the open space, providing spectacular views of the band which
was set up across from the bar.</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
That particular day, I was walking south on Fifth Avenue looking
for lunch, noticing a stiff breeze blowing north from Greenwich Village. The
sidewalks are wide there, maybe 30 feet, and tumbling over and over, as I got almost
to the door of the former Lone Star, and rolling towards me was a piece of
paper. I remember crouching like a sort of shortstop and fielded the piece of
paper like a baseball as it tumbled into my grasp. It was a twenty dollar bill.
That was an “only in New York” moment for sure. Lunch money coming to me, a
pure definition of “found money.”</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
But, back to bumping into celebrities―the one time I could not
have cared less about a celebrity was when Fabio did a commercial shoot in the
Vidal Sassoon salon on the first floor of my office building. I remember
several women saying how they didn’t care at all for Fabio, his flowing hair,
his amazing physique, whose various poses adorned the covers of all the
romance, bodice-ripper paperbacks, but that still didn’t stop them from
crushing themselves at the large windows trying to get a glimpse. I suppose if
Giselle <span style="background: white; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Bündchen</span>
walked down the street in a silver dress I’d probably be there.</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style2">
In one of those other-world street incidents, I was walking
down a street in Miraflores, a suburb of Lima, Peru, on a clear April day in 1988.
My wife was pushing one of those twin canvas baby strollers. We had just
adopted triplet infant baby girls. They were so small that two took one side of
the twin stroller and another along with those mounds of baby necessities took
up the remaining space on the other side. They were tiny, even at three months
old. The street was pretty much empty when we saw four young men, most likely
in their young twenties, walking side-by-side up the walkway. They greeted us
and were passing when we all realized we spoke English and immediately they
stopped.</div>
<div class="Style2">
<br /></div>
<div class="Style1">
</div>
<div class="Style2">
I asked them where they were from and they answered “New
Zealand.” They knew immediately from our American accent where we were from but
politely asked anyway. So I said “New Jersey.” A very happy, excited surprise
crossed their faces. “Do you know Bruce?” Note, not “Springsteen” but “Bruce.”
My wife rolled her eyes again. No matter where we went, there was some sort of
Bruce magnet. Sometimes I did the magnetizing myself when conversations turned
to music. This time, I was completely innocent. We were an 8-hour flight, more
than 3,500 miles from New Jersey and serendipity brought fans of the Boss
together in an unlikely place. I told them some of my concert experiences and
how my roommates in college knew him at his early stage. I could have spent the
entire afternoon there but the squeaking wheels of the baby carriage announced
that the fun was over.</div>
<br />
<div class="Style1">
<br /></div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-46745896849867447202015-11-21T08:52:00.000-08:002016-11-05T10:45:57.051-07:00It All Starts On A Pond<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I believe in one commonality in ice hockey and it is
this: It all starts on a pond. There are marvelous ice hockey indoor palaces
and you’ll find them in places like Marlboro and Boston, Massachusetts, Blane
and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Hackensack, New Jersey. On a good day the ice
is very skate-able, at least for the first 15 minutes. There are no winds,
perfect lighting, and sometimes you needn’t wear gloves.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WB9R8WhI1y8/VlCgNaGCY8I/AAAAAAAAArw/Vl26tVe_6q4/s1600/181820_452588444802401_918684535_n%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="111" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WB9R8WhI1y8/VlCgNaGCY8I/AAAAAAAAArw/Vl26tVe_6q4/s400/181820_452588444802401_918684535_n%255B1%255D.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-size: small;">The perfect black-ice freeze on Erskine Lake</span></span> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Nearly every hockey player worth their salt, began
skating outdoors. I can’t quite put my finger on that feeling you get outdoors that
never happens on indoor rink ice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Maybe, it conjures memories of growing up. The
finest skating seemed to come in the gloaming. You sensed you would be called
for supper any moment. By now your toes were numb, you nose frozen from
breathing single-digit-temperature air. And while you are playing, hunger and a
growling stomach do not even enter your mind. That will come as you unlace your
skates and wonder when your toes will feel normal again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">There are many differences between the outdoor
experience and the indoor rink. Don’t get me wrong, I think indoor rinks are
marvelous and having more of them growing up would have been fantastic as well
as wildly convenient. Just don’t tell me that skating and playing hockey indoors
comes anywhere near the basic experience of natural ice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Think of the most annoying time wasters of your
life: Standing in the checkout line at the super market when only two of eight
cashiers are open; waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles just to
turn in your old license plates, when the nine people in front of you have various
time-consuming issues; and lastly, the longest five minute you’d spend
anywhere—waiting for the Zamboni to complete its rounds, wondering how he just
missed that last thin strip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hRrL9RezQvs/VlCjSL-ysCI/AAAAAAAAAr8/m0A1pJ3REMw/s1600/IMG_20140109_122541_401.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hRrL9RezQvs/VlCjSL-ysCI/AAAAAAAAAr8/m0A1pJ3REMw/s320/IMG_20140109_122541_401.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Skating my Olympic circles</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">At night, nature’s breezes, resurfaces your marks.
The endless air stream wears down the creases and the surface becomes perfectly smooth again. If you get lucky, the water finally tightened into
that first ice on a windless evening, making the surface incredibly smooth and
the color, a darker shade of black than the puck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">The NHL schedules an outdoor game for every New Year’s
Day. Some venues make attendance in person a less than optimum experience. A
friend of mine was at the game played in Fenway Park a few years ago. The snow
during the game and his low seat at a strange angle to the rink, made watching
the game a miserable experience. His experience was limited to “being there.”
But, listen to every player in that game and they cannot believe how much fun
playing outdoors can be and how it returned them to their roots<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>.
Many of these players hail from Saskatchewan and Manitoba where they started
skating on a pond as a child.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">So that is why to come full circle in a history of
Bergen Catholic Ice Hockey, I start with a pond. It always starts on a pond.</span><span style="font-family: times new roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-21946400193785791792015-08-15T07:39:00.002-07:002015-08-17T18:01:35.677-07:00Memories Can Be Harsh<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Casually reading
about the presidential candidates stumping Iowa, readying themselves for the
coming election, I was struck by two things. Candidates, eager to mix with the
hoi polloi of voters, attend summer state fairs where the most vile and
calorie-laced comfort food is de rigueur and various games of chance and skill
lure the un-skilled, previously skilled and never-had-any-skilled participants.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Naturally, I was
sent tumbling back in my personal memory because of something one of the
candidates did. He spied one of those radar guns that record how fast a
baseball can be pitched.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think in a
person’s mind how fast he or she can throw a baseball is nearly always much faster
than the speed that person is physically capable of achieving, usually
light-years difference.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I remember an
incident when, as a newspaper reporter, I was covering the campaign of a local
candidate for county freeholder. Montvale had a summer fair and surprisingly
one booth had a radar gun. Today, radar guns are incredibly common, if not apps
on smart phones. Back in 1978, (I know, I know, when dinosaurs like me roamed
the earth) a radar gun was not so common. This was probably one of those
horribly inaccurate police versions which routinely clocked brick walls at five
miles over the speed limit. (My editing self cringes at the expression “over”
the speed limit because, technically, it should be “more” than but what person
has ever had the experience of that state trooper ambling up to your
rolled-down window and saying “Sir, I think you’ve driving more than the speed
limit allows?”)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">In those days,
we did not have Pete Sampras rocketing tennis balls at 120 mph but we did have
Arthur Ashe. Non-players, need to know something about his style of play. He
had a cannon of a serve. Instead of volleying back and forth to gain position,
he game was mostly rocket serve that produced an ace and failing that, a couple
of quick, hard volleys and the point was either gained by a hard return or lost
when he hit it out. All or nothing.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TWByDWTd744/Vc9OZ68i9KI/AAAAAAAAAoQ/vYMBxs44X2E/s1600/5537275d53281.preview-699.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TWByDWTd744/Vc9OZ68i9KI/AAAAAAAAAoQ/vYMBxs44X2E/s320/5537275d53281.preview-699.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> The serve only needs to catch part of the line </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">My mother
dragged me out on the court when I was 12 years old and wearing all whites and
tennis shoes was a requirement of walking on a court. It’s something known as etiquette.
(Isn’t that a word foreign to millennials – please scratch that if it sounds too
snarky.) Tennis seemed polite in those days. In mixed doubles, you were
supposed to lighten your serve when serving to the female, etc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FN3ULc7f8gI/Vc9IaVEXMkI/AAAAAAAAAnk/GdbXYNNE3zc/s1600/Bancroft.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FN3ULc7f8gI/Vc9IaVEXMkI/AAAAAAAAAnk/GdbXYNNE3zc/s1600/Bancroft.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> My first racquet was a Bancroft </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">My serves even
through high school were somewhat patty-cake compared to what I became. A
second serve, following a failed hard serve, was usually a spin serve, made
harder by slipping an “Eastern Forehand grip.” I was at the top of the second
tier of players on my high school team. The top was Brien Duffy who had all the
serves and speed. I simply tried hard to perfect the service taught to me by
Brother McPadden who’s main objective was to avoid double faults by making sure
the serve got in the box—hang the speed.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wmh3u1dnlDg/Vc9I6-g9WhI/AAAAAAAAAns/loP9wpOtHyo/s1600/Wilson%2Bt-2000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wmh3u1dnlDg/Vc9I6-g9WhI/AAAAAAAAAns/loP9wpOtHyo/s1600/Wilson%2Bt-2000.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> Wilson T-2000 steel racquet </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The summer after
I graduated, I changed all that. I traded my wooden racquet in for steel and
completely revamped my serve. My new serve had the racquet striking the ball at
the absolute highest point, directly overhead like a Juan Marichal <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>or Mel Stottlemyre baseball pitch. When I was
making contact at that highest point, the tips of my sneakers were either
barely touching the court or they were one to two inches off the surface,
depending how high my toss had been. I worked to perfected that serve all that
summer. When we vacationed for a week in Maine, I found the local college,
wrangled my way on to the court, and served ball after ball, even launching a
few balls into the ocean, which came to within a dozen feet of one corner of
the court.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y_MECmKuXI4/Vc9K-QObRRI/AAAAAAAAAn4/W3PM4rpOIlQ/s1600/ashe%2Bserve.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y_MECmKuXI4/Vc9K-QObRRI/AAAAAAAAAn4/W3PM4rpOIlQ/s1600/ashe%2Bserve.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Note Ashe's toes at the top of his serve </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The combination
of steel, trampoline effect, and height produced a laser of a serve. When I was
on, I could serve three to four in a row into the service box. When I was off,
my success rate was more like one in three. Instead of following a failed first
serve with a less fast, or spin serve, I would simple try another rocket. If I
double faulted on one point, the following point was usually an ace. Most
tennis players couldn’t handle two lasers in a row, one whizzing by their ear
and the next one taking a divot out of the court.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">One advantage of
attending a small college, I reasoned, would be the ease of making the tennis
team. So hanging up my ice skates and going south to Baltimore I could cushion
the disappointment of no hockey with at least the solace of playing college tennis.
The first day I was passing the gym’s trophy case and noticed that Loyola had
won the Mason-Dixon tennis championships about 18 of the past 20 years and my
heart sank at the very real prospect that I was not making that team. Through
luck, hard work, good fortune and help from a good friend, John Davis, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was finally able to make the varsity by my
junior year but that’s an even further digression.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X59Q7v3fqYE/Vc9MxHq_N5I/AAAAAAAAAoE/ixY64q-ujVU/s1600/1963-tennis-team_sepia.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X59Q7v3fqYE/Vc9MxHq_N5I/AAAAAAAAAoE/ixY64q-ujVU/s400/1963-tennis-team_sepia.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">The 1963 undefeated Loyola tennis team </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Back to that
summer fair in 1978 and the radar gun. In my mind, I was capable of 120 mph Arthur
Ashe serves. By 1978, I was five years post college tennis and not a regular
player anymore. As with all former athletes, you think that after a few tries
to “knock off the rust” you are capable of duplicating any feat you routinely performed
when you were at your peak.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I went through
the motions normally used to loosen up my shoulder. Think of those cutaway
shots during a baseball game when they announce a pitcher warming up in the bull
pen. He stands up and immediately you see him <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>stretching out his shoulder. I served two or
three balls with a hard overhead—not my lunging, all-out, earth-scorching motion
(please, there were young children watching) and signaled I was ready for the
radar gun.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">BOOM, the
familiar sound of the ball exploding off the racquet strings. I turned expectantly
to the gun expecting to make Arthur Ashe jealous and was crushed to read “70
mph.” That had to be a silly mistake. BOOM, second try: “76 mph.” BOOM, third
try: 79 mph. That radar gun must be defective. Young children’s eyes be damned,
I followed with the scorched-earth laser launched with my tippy toes inches off
the ground. BOOM, “83 mph.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">My mind conjured
up a stream of alibis. I didn’t have my steel racquet. I hadn’t picked up a racquet
in months. I didn’t have the proper time to warm up (The truth was that by my
forth hard serve, I was already fatigued.) It was over: my foray into old man’s
tennis at the ripe old age of 26 was beginning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Today, reading
that article about candidates throwing baseballs and eating comfort food at the
summer fair was enough to trigger those memories. I had a wry smile on my face
when I read the candidate saying (after his throws) “my shoulder is ready to
fall off.” I’ve been there and, yes, I was shocked to learn I wasn’t immortal.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">There was one thing
about those politicos rubbing elbows with the proles, the riffraff, and the
great unwashed. I would still be competitive after all these years in one category:
consuming vast quantities of outrageous (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: x-small; font-variant: small-caps; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">think pork chops on a
stick, deep fried Snickers bars, corn dogs</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">) comfort food. That’s one ability that, after
all these years, has not eroded. </span></span></span>Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-18061819540267481282015-05-02T09:48:00.001-07:002015-05-02T10:06:55.864-07:00The Lost Moon Rocks, Dr. Gast and His Wonderful Wayback Machine<!--[if !mso]>
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For
many people, 1967 was the “Summer of Love.” For me, a high school sophomore, it
was the summer of the Moon. Even though most people who considered flying in
space at that time were living in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco,
a small number were actually doing it from Cape Canaveral. When the US screamed
Telstar into orbit to compete with Russia’s Sputnik, my imagination was
captured and I became infatuated with Space.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Alan
Shepard, John Glenn and Walter Schirra, all daring astronauts of the Mercury
team, were still my heroes when I moved from a small town in Pennsylvania to
Hillsdale, New Jersey, a bedroom suburb of New York City. That move introduced
me to the urban-planning invention of the 1950s, the cul-du-sac. Mine had nine
homes on it and housed an eclectic collection of personalities and exotic
backgrounds: a former New York Yankee first baseman, Moose Skowron, a Norwegian
ski jumper, a man working on NASA’s satellite tracking systems in Spain, an
international importer, a professional jazz guitarist who had played with the
big bands of the 1940s, his wife, a professional commercial jingles singer most
known for her rendition of the “Winston Tastes Good” [like a cigarette should]
song, and the late Dr. Paul Gast, a professor of geology at Columbia
University. Dr. Gast would turn out to have the most influence on my future. As
we moved in, Moose moved out and, within a couple of weeks, the good doctor
moved in.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
My
older brother, Phil, and I babysat for Dr. Gast’s three small children. When
bottle-washing jobs turned up at the laboratory that he supervised, we were
both offered summer jobs. Surrounded by international scientists, I was
in heaven working at the Lamont Geological Observatory on the Palisades in New
York, a key research facility of the Earth Institute of Columbia University.
That summer, one of their quests was to prepare a contamination-free lab to
handle the moon samples, assuming that men actually walked on the moon’s
surface. By 1967, the space race gap had narrowed between Russia (then the
USSR) and the United States. NASA was preparing for moon rocks even
though the astronauts had not yet attempted their first space walk or a
rendezvous either in earth orbit or lunar orbit, very necessary techniques they
would have to master before attempting to land on the moon.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Although
the scientists at Lamont were preparing for the unknown, basically, the objects
would be just rocks. The technique Dr. Gast developed for dating rocks,
particularly extraterrestrial ones, was to use a gigantic, Peabody-Sherman
“wayback” type of machine. Technically it was a rubidium-strontium uranium-lead
radiometer but to me, it was “the wayback.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
The
machine filled a sizable room. A beam of electrons was shot at a metal filament
to measure the isotope ratio of these elements extracted from the samples.
Since radioactive isotopes have known rates of decay, this data could determine
the age of the rocks. Back then, the common form of dating anything was
Carbon-14. For moon rocks, the rubidium-strontium uranium-lead method was the
“gold” standard. * My job was to make the tiny metal band filaments. I had to
keep up with all the filaments that Dr. Gast burned through, melting samples
with a light beam way before Darth Vader and Luke dueled with light sabers.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n5wFfSrdg5U/VUT-lqBnjkI/AAAAAAAAAkk/0bDdu6pn8sE/s1600/301_2468.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n5wFfSrdg5U/VUT-lqBnjkI/AAAAAAAAAkk/0bDdu6pn8sE/s1600/301_2468.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H23rNzEPXGw/VUPTmY2yodI/AAAAAAAAAjo/qphKf-cgIiM/s1600/301_2467.JPG"><span style="color: blue; mso-no-proof: yes; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="mso-ignore: vglayout;"><br /></span></span></a></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;">
Dr. Gast's lab room minus the wayback, 48 years later.</div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;">
The wayback stood where the cartons line the wall. </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
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Dr.
Gast was a cranial, soft-spoken man but he was absent-minded like a professor.
Most days he ate the sandwiches his wife packed as soon as he got to the lab
because he frequently forgot about lunch. When it rained, it was a nightmare
for me because Lamont Observatory was actually a campus with outlying buildings
of seismology, oceanography, a library, a cafeteria, a machine shop and a core
samples storage warehouse spread out over 170 acres of treed, hilly terrain. On
a busy day, Dr. Gast might visit all of the buildings and leave umbrellas,
raincoats and probably a sample or two along the way. It became a scavenger
hunt for me to retrieve them, usually in the pouring rain.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
</div>
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One
morning I was shocked to find him standing in the midst of hundreds of metal
and glass parts with the wayback machine nowhere to be seen. That pile of parts
<b><i>was</i></b> the wayback. He explained how he took it apart once a year to
clean and since he designed and built it there was no manual. Not to worry, the
plans were all in his head. A week later I was leaving for the lab in the
morning and my brother and I spotted Dr. Gast in his driveway with his head
under his car’s hood. We asked him what was wrong and he said that he had no
idea why his car wouldn’t start. But the man was brilliant; his brilliance just
didn’t apply to internal combustion machines.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
At
that time, Americans had as much of an idea of what we would find on the moon
as Dr. Gast had about what was under his car’s hood. NASA was worried about a
lot of unknowns. The moon’s surface could be 50 feet of accumulated rock dust
and the lunar excursion module might sink out of sight on landing. There was
also one side of the moon that always faced away from earth. In 1967, the lunar
orbital flights would confirm that the dark side is made up of the same
material as the side that we see all the time. No secret Russian space
stations, no little alien men, and no green cheese. When you’re a high school
teenager you have no idea if adults are kidding or just plain stupid. They were
not all kidding about expecting green cheese to be there. The lunar orbiter
passed around the dark side of the moon and destroyed a lot of myths. The
reality was just more rocks.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
What
if those rocks were some weird form of radioactive matter, like a kryptonite
for Earthlings? Or maybe those rocks were able to carry some disease that had
wiped out a lunar population and atmosphere billions of years ago. When the
first astronauts who walked on the moon surface returned to earth they were
quarantined for several days. Just in case, Dr. Gast was setting up a white
room in the geochemistry building for studying the rocks. It had an airlock
with positive pressure (air blows out when you open the door instead of being
sucked in, along with dust particles). The room also had a sticky doormat that
took any residue off the special white slippers they wore, and everything in
the room was white. I got in there a few times that summer and if I had put
down a blank piece of white paper anywhere, I swore it would have become
invisible. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gj6wjXhUNfc/VUT-sQ6OZcI/AAAAAAAAAks/Ed9tjYvLRyA/s1600/301_2471.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gj6wjXhUNfc/VUT-sQ6OZcI/AAAAAAAAAks/Ed9tjYvLRyA/s1600/301_2471.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FSoVR5dEEts/VUPSlmtvPGI/AAAAAAAAAio/RYqaGjkhK1w/s1600/301_2472.JPG"><span style="color: blue; mso-no-proof: yes; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="mso-ignore: vglayout;"></span></span></a></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;">
The entrance to the Geophysics building as it appears today.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Several
times during that summer I was asked to collect the dusty filter from the white
room’s air vent system and the dust was melted down onto a filament for the
wayback machine. A light beam blast later, it would be analyzed to see how
clean they could make the room. Special preparations were made for these
once-in-a-lifetime rocks. For scientists, and especially geologists, this was
their Super Bowl. With mortars and pestles, they were poised and could not wait
to get their hands on these rocks so they could weigh, crush, examine them
under a microscope or blast them with light beams from the wayback machine. Dr.
Gast even had a say in developing the bags and tools the astronauts would carry
to collect these nuggets.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Watching
these scientists working happily each day at the lab, I realized that I might
never have this much fun in my lifetime again. I wanted to be a scientist so
much that I ignored all my low trig scores and hung in for three semesters in
college as a physics engineering major until I read the handwriting written on
the blackboard wall, mostly in undecipherable Greek letters and equations, and
switched my major.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w-M1GY_EDxE/VUT-xtsnJgI/AAAAAAAAAk0/8-YFBK2gDBs/s1600/301_2463.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w-M1GY_EDxE/VUT-xtsnJgI/AAAAAAAAAk0/8-YFBK2gDBs/s1600/301_2463.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-sLPXXAf4loo/VUPS5N0Sw5I/AAAAAAAAAiw/qks0Q_vZWrI/s1600/301_2461.JPG"><span style="color: blue; mso-no-proof: yes; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="mso-ignore: vglayout;"></span></span></a></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;">
The door to the Moon sample room, today.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
One
day, Dr. Gast called me into his Spartan office and gave me a special errand. I
was to go to the Oceanography building and make high quality copies of several
8” x 10” black and white glossy photographs. I was to keep them in the manila
envelope until I got there, copy them, and put them immediately back in the
envelope and show no one. He handed me an envelope and I was off. When I got to
the copy machine nobody was around. Good, no questions. I had been sent to make
copies several times before so my presence in the building was not unusual. I
took the photos out and one look and I was stunned. The first shot was the
earth rise taken from the moon, depicted in dazzling brilliance, clearly
captured as the lunar orbiter emerged from the dark side of the moon. The
rest of the photos were crater close-ups. I was to learn years later that Dr.
Gast was determining where the oldest rocks were likely to be and that would
determine where to try the first landing.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Being
a teenager, I made a separate copy for myself, folded them and stuffed them in
my jeans pocket. The next day those two pictures were on the front page of the
New York Times.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Forty-three
years later, I still love space and astronomy. The moon still has a special
fascination for me. Buzz Aldrin will look up at the moon and wistfully remind
himself that the peak of his personal career was forty-one years ago when he
walked on that distant surface. I will look at that same moon and remember when
I pilfered those pictures, worked in the moon sample room and welded filaments
for Dr. Gast’s wayback machine.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
A
more recent reminder was a newspaper report that many of the moon rocks
presented as good will gifts to each US state and 135 foreign countries have
been misplaced. These<span style="color: #ff6600;"> </span>samples, so rare and
important at the time, have now been lost. Apparently, they have become almost
like forgotten items in a governmental garage sale. The last count tallied 94
countries and nearly 18 states missing theirs. Some are suspected of having
been sold on the black market for up to half a million dollars.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
A
determined effort is being made by some University of Phoenix grad students to
locate the missing rocks and from time to time there will be reports of a shard
found here and there. I am saddened when I consider that such an effort was
made back in 1967 to make sure these rocks were collected, quarantined and
studied and now these rocks are missing. I wonder how something of such rare
value can be tossed aside like those cheap rock collections sold at tourist
traps or in museum gift shops.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
astronauts of Apollo 17 who personally carried those gift samples to us
governors and the heads of foreign governments don’t remember presenting every
one of them. Understandably, their mission became a blur in the redundant
presentations spread out over a three-month goodwill tour but I would like to
think if an astronaut had pressed one of those samples into my hand that I’d
remember it for the rest of my life.</div>
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<br /></div>
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People
generally assume that certain historical objects must be owned by the US
government but over the years many objects have found their way into private
collections. Malcolm Forbes displayed many historical objects from his private
collection in a small museum in his magazine’s headquarters on 5<sup>th</sup>
Avenue near 12<sup>th</sup> Street in Manhattan. For instance, Forbes has one
of the four signed copies of the Japanese surrender, signed on the deck of the
USS Missouri at the end of World War II. Forbes also has Abraham Lincoln’s
stove pipe hat and opera glasses from the night of his assassination. Thrown in
for dramatic effect was the sleeve that the doctors cut off Lincoln’s coat when
they were trying to find the source of his wounds. In the basement of Ford’s
theatre in Washington, other objects are displayed from that historic night,
among them, the frock coat Lincoln wore, minus the left arm coat sleeve.
Strange objects find their way into private collections.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Forbes
had another room in his museum dedicated to objects, which once had importance
at the time of their presentation that now, had been rendered so meaningless
that many could not even be identified with their presenter or receiver.
Bronzed paddles, Tiffany silver replicas of buildings, mounted antler hooves
with ambiguous inscriptions, all have since lost their meaning having probably
resided in the darkness of a closet, forgotten for decades. Apparently, many of
these moon rocks have met the same fate or found their way into private
collections. Illegally, too, since they were presented to official government
representatives.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
At
the time, these rocks must have been extraordinarily cherished. That astronaut
who walked on the moon just gave me a piece of a rock he found there. I am
amazed and blown away with the opportunity that I have to be in this place and
time to personally receive this piece of history. I will remember this moment
forever. As an impressionable teenager, the “space race” enthralled me,
impressing on me that I was living in an extraordinary time. Somehow we lost
that sense of awe from the 60s, swept away in the high tide of information,
technology and myth busting.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Admittedly,
these “Goodwill Rocks” are tiny, the size of a pinhead, but unlike Forbes’
trinkets, these grams from another world are mounted on a plaque that carries a
narrative of the presentation and a small replica of the recipients’ flag.
The rock is in a plastic bubble next to the date of the presentation. I
admit that all these years later, as a people we have become <span style="color: black;">blasé </span>about technology because it’s an integral part
of our daily lives. Today, the work of all those vacuum tubes in Dr. Gast’s
wayback could be easily done by a hand-held calculator. I’ve learned that the
typical graphing calculator used today in most high schools could duplicate all
of the electronic functions in the Apollo command module.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Things
were so different then. I clearly remember riding across the Lamont campus on a
brilliant morning that summer in an open jeep from World War II driven by Jack
Diamond, another rock-studying scientist, when the Doors’ “Light My Fire” came
on the radio. He grinned, and said, “Those are very suggestive lyrics.” It was
a very different time. A time and rocks forever lost.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Landmark
events indelibly mark our memories and we recall years later where we were when
the impression was made. I was in seventh grade when our principal, tears
streaming down her face, burst into our classroom and stunned us with the news
that President Kennedy had been shot. Six years later, by the time Neil
Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins had been strapped into their Apollo
command module that Friday in July, 1969, I had probably finished tossing the
last items in the family station wagon for the trip to a Maine beach house for
the week. There were a number of parallels.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
My
brother met his future wife in college as a sophomore and his fiancé's parents
had a charming but Spartan cottage on a small peninsula on the southern coast
of Maine near Kennebunkport, called Biddeford Pool. The oceanfront structure
was separated from the surf by about 100 yards of tall, waving dune grass and
walking that deserted, pristine shore line was both therapeutic and cathartic.
I was either too young or had too few issues to take full advantage of the cathartic
properties but a walk for a mile or two in either direction while only meeting
a handful of people allowed plenty of time for thinking.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
I
remember working at my summer job in the golf course club house and seeing the
Apollo rocket lift off and then the boss barking at us to get back to work.
While the astronauts were starting their 60 orbits and 240,000-mile journey to
the moon, I was working my last day before going home, sleeping, and putting
the finishing touches on the vacation packing.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
To
get to Maine was a process of deciding what to take without overloading the
family Chevy; all five of us and our stuff had to fit, allowing for our comfort
over an 8-hour drive. We were traveling into the unknown; we had never before
stayed in a tiny Maine beach house.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
The
journey was smooth but cramped and we were delighted by the sight of the cute
red cottage and the chance to stretch our legs, the drive made longer by the
excitement of anticipation. The entrance door opened into the tiniest of foyers
and immediately into the galley kitchen with a counter open to a small dining
room that transitioned into a Lilliputian living room, a fireplace anchoring
the far end. On one side of the knotty pine-paneled room was a large window
that displayed the ocean and dunes as a neatly detailed picture. On the small
table, just to the side of the window, a tiny black and white television set
with rabbit ear antennae stared back at us. I didn't recall ever seeing TV sets
that small but we were on vacation in Maine so network programming wasn't the
foremost thing on our minds.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Sparse
technology in either the kitchen or the bathroom would be more of a problem. I
recall being relieved because I knew that this rustic retreat at least had
something to view the lunar landing, not sure what exactly that viewing would
be.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
At
some point, that Maine television was finally turned on and after seeing the
reassuring TV spokesman, Walter Cronkite, at his table explaining things with a
collection of plastic models, we settled back for what we thought would be an
exciting evening of watching men finally walk on the moon.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Nobody
had told us until Walter confided that we would not "see" the landing
and that once the craft touched down, the astronauts would sleep for six hours
before actually getting out and walking around. We thought that this would be
just like Flash Gordon. The rocket touches down, they turn off the engine, open
the door, scramble down the ladder, and with space guns pointing in several
directions, they take a look around.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
What
we really got was different by huge measures. On the screen was this gray
drawing of nothing, really, sometimes a vague shot of the Lunar Excursion
Module (LM) with its spidery legs and other times dotted flight lines showing
where they came from. These shadowy drawings were presented with a soundtrack
of the radio transmissions from Houston to the LM, now descending to the lunar
surface from 60 nautical miles above. For all we knew, these crude clever
artworks were probably gray on color TV sets and why in the world do you use
nautical miles in space?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
The transmission went exactly like this:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CC:
That's affirmative.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">LMP:
Like - AGS to PGNS align. Over.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CC:
Say again?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">LMP:
Like an AGS to PGNS align. Over</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CC:
Roger. We're standing by for it.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">LMP:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>...quantity...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CC:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Eagle, Houston. You are STAY for T2.
Over.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CC:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Correction, you're - -</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">LMP:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Roger. STAY for T2. We thank you.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CC:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Roger, Sir.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CC:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Tranquility Base, Houston. We recommend you
exit P12. Over.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CDR:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span> Hey, Houston, that may have seemed like a
very long final phase. The AUTO targeting was taking us right into a
football-field size - football-field sized crater, with a large number of big
boulders and rocks for about... one or two crater diameters around it, and it required
a ... in P66 and flying manually over the rock field to find a reasonably good
area.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CC:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Roger. We copy. It was beautiful from here,
Tranquility. Over.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">LMP:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We'll get to the details of what's around
here, but it looks like a collection of just about every variety of shape,
angularity, granularity, about every variety of rock you could find. The
colors - Well, it varies pretty much depending on how you're
looking relative to the zero-phase point. There doesn't appear to be too much
of a general color at all. However, it looks as though some of the rocks and
boulders, of which there are quite a few in the near area, it looks as though
they're going to have some interesting colors to them. Over.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CC:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Roger. Copy. Sounds good to us,
Tranquility. We'll let you press on through the simulated countdown, and we'll
talk to you later. Over.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">CDR:<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Roger.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
The techno-geek speech was exciting. We were
listening to conversations that we had no idea what was being said and, in that
moment, wrapped up in probably the most dramatic exploration experience since
Columbus clanked ashore wearing equipment as heavy as these astronauts. This
was about as exhilarating as it could get. In comparison, none of the networks
were there on San Salvador Island in the Caribbean to interview Columbus and he
had no ability to twitter anyone so we'll be left guessing as to what really
happened.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
That
touchdown was stunning and exciting, a lot like few other moments that just we
supposed couldn't be happening, similar to beating the Russian hockey team in
1980 with Al Michaels screaming into the microphone.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
Back
on the moon, our guys assured us that there were no little green men and no
evidence of any green cheese anywhere; we were staring out at what was called
"magnificent desolation" and the endless expanses of gray, with dots
of distant craters and boulders was fascinating, especially to all those viewers
who thought a trip to a Maine beach was a big deal. This was heady stuff. The
next day 60 percent of the world news coverage concerned the landing.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
The
first day, we were treated to cartoon pictures and plastic models juggled by
Cronkite, a bit like Andy playing with Woody and Buzz Lightyear and we were
entranced. The promise of more than that type of viewing brought us back the
next day when the astronauts would actually leave the vehicle on the first
ever, Extra Vehicular Activity- EVA. They took hours to get dressed, longer
than your high school prom date, but Armstrong eventually made it down the
ladder to plant his paw print and we were riveted, watching all this unfold.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
The
first descriptions satisfied years of pent-up curiosity and at about the 28th
gray rock being described probably 30 percent of that world audience went back
to the killing and famines and whatever the particular horror the day was and
rest of us continued be frozen in front of the tube.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
I
imagined that people were sitting in front of their sets like it was fourth
down and inches, yelling at the coach to go for it; just pick up the damn
rocks. What if something weird like a solar flare up or that
monster-in-the-sand's fin could be seen? They would have had to scramble back
up the ladder, get back in the LM, blast off and get out of there with having
anything to bring back.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
That
weekend, I walked the extremely wide expanses of the beach, trying to wrap my
mind around what had just happened, looking for different shades of sea glass
and shells, occasionally popping them into a pocket, eventually discarding the
first pretty ones for even more pretty ones. I had some ideas in back of my
head what I would do with them when I got back to New Jersey but they
were rather vague plans, easily discarded a day after returning from vacation,
when my attention was recaptured by the daily routine of working and living day
to day. Eventually those highly- regarded-at-the-time objects would be
located in a forgotten part of the rock garden. Where those shells were forty
years later, I couldn't tell you. That was another parallel I had with Neil and
Buzz. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: .5in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<sup>________________________________________________________
</sup></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<sup>*</sup>Strontium
determination made by the mass spectrometric isotope dilution method” – a more
technical reference to the special method developed by Dr. Gast describing the
technique of identifying isotopes.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
Note: Dr. Gast
later ascended into NASA heaven in Houston as he assumed leadership of the
geo-science management of the Manned Spacecraft Center in preparation for the
Apollo Mission as chief scientist of the Apollo Lunar Science Staff.<br />
<br />
The Forbes Museum on 5th and 13th Street has been downsized since 2010. It was full of amazing items. For some reason, they chose to take some of the most fascinating items out of the museum, as of this post in May, 2015. </div>
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<br /></div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-1585080736939529002015-04-18T17:45:00.001-07:002015-04-18T17:45:24.053-07:00Born to Root for the Home TeamFor some time, I have believed that baseball is the one sport that
cosmically assigns loyalty at birth. Two caveats: This belief is not
based upon any advanced sociological study done at Berkeley or gleaned
from a Stamford doctoral dissertation. Even though ice hockey fans will
be upset that I don’t include their sport among the majors, I think more
of hockey as the exception that sheds light on the rule rather than
providing convincing proof of my theory’s veracity. This belief has been
formulated generally from various sessions in the shower where much of a
guy’s core beliefs and values take shape before that first cup of
coffee in the morning.<br />
<br />
A corollary to this theory is that as a young fan, should you move
out of the area of your birthplace, you cannot transfer your baseball
loyalty completely to your new habitat. I have seen it done for football
and basketball but rarely baseball.<br />
<br />
Why is that? I’m not entirely sure it has anything to do with
baseball being the America’s national pastime and a uniquely American
experience. Football has threatened in recent years to usurp baseball’s
place in the national consciousness and could slowly become the new
national pastime.<br />
<br />
Please note: Soccer, the other “football,” fades out of American
consciousness within a few weeks of the end of FIFA’s World Cup, usually
as soon as we can get the buzzing sound out of our ears. The rabid fans
will return every World Cup, growing in numbers a few each time.<br />
<br />
Some universal questions will forever go unanswered and some
fundamental baseball laws continue unchallenged, for instance, “there’s
no crying in baseball.” To these add that you are born to root for the
home team. You may move, but your birth home is forever your baseball
home.<br />
<br />
I was born in Laureldale, a suburb outside Reading, Pennsylvania. Reading is a little more than 50 miles from Philadelphia, so that makes me a lifetime Phillies fan. By that same reasoning, I should also be a 76ers basketball fan and an Eagles football fan. For me, ice hockey gets a bit complicated.<br />
<br />
Growing up in the 50’s and early 60”s, there were no Philadelphia Flyers. The Hersey Bears, an NFL minor league affiliate, played in Harrisburg, a good hour’s drive from Laureldale. The nearest NFL team, the New York Rangers, was more than 100 miles up the road, and with cultural barriers
to Reading that made them seem light years away. Oddly enough, ice
hockey was my favorite sport, with baseball and football being in a
close tie for second place. Accidental forces that occurred before I was
even born brought ice hockey to Reading years before the sport became
nationally and regionally popular. As far as fan loyalty, I was like a
cell phone far from a signal tower.<br />
<br />
Leila and Tuffy McKellen, both veterans of the original travelling ice shows of the 1940s and 1950s, the Ice Capades and the Ice Follies, settled down in Reading after their professional skating careers
were over and had a son, Gordie. They turned a nearly square parking
car garage into a small skating rink and nurtured their son’s skating
skills until he outgrew patch skating at the tiny rink, and began
travelling to the larger rinks in Philadelphia. Eventually, as the Men’s
National Champion, Gordie represented the US in the Olympics at Sapporo
in 1972. Before all that, when I was cutting my sporting teeth, Tuffy
maintained the tiny Reading rink and Leila gave lessons and one day
decided to put an ad in the paper advertising the formation of a youth
ice hockey team. My mother noticed the ad, thought her sons might like
to give it a try, and we were hooked. Eventually, the McKellens moved to Lake Placid and my family moved to New Jersey.<br />
<br />
As a young boy, infatuated with hockey, the Stanley Cup far exceeded
the World Series. My schoolmates had no idea what the Stanley Cup was.
But every Easter time, my brothers and I would lie on the carpet in the
living room where the radio dial could be twisted just right to pull in
the broadcast of the playoffs. We strained our ears at times to separate
the static from the crowd noises and an excited announcer calling the
game from either Montreal or Toronto where the finals tended to be in
the early 1960s. My team loyalty was melded into place by my admiration
of Toronto’s Davey McKeon, a smallish but fast center. His number 14
would adorn the different uniforms that I would wear my entire life and
now still becomes part of my computer passwords. Eventually, he would
retire and when the NHL expanded from the original 6 teams, the
Philadelphia Flyers were born.<br />
<br />
I loved the Flyers. I enjoyed their Stanley Cup campaigns. I was
proudest when they became the only American team to beat the Russian Red
Army team when they toured the US and Canada in 1976. I went down
bitterly when their glory years came to a gradual end in a Stanley Cup
final against the great Gretsky teams of the Edmonton Oilers. Those Flyers
were a team of personalities, intimately known to me. One by one they
were traded away. And then a funny thing happened. Eventually, the team
became a team of unknowns and I found myself drifting away. When the
Rangers traded away their last goon in 1994, I was able to make the fan transfer to the Rangers
side just in time for them to win their first Stanley Cup since 1941.
During that time between drifting and transfer, the New Jersey Devils
were born. I now find that I consider myself a “student of the game” and
really could care less who wins when the Devils, the Rangers and the Flyers
play each other. I had the odd reverse experience of going to Stanley
Cup games sitting in the infamous blue seats in Madison Square Garden as
a Flyer fan and travelling to the Spectrum in Philly as a Ranger fan.
Both were strange and uncomfortable experiences, sitting as a loyal
minority in a highly hostile environment.<br />
<br />
Hockey had been my most intensely loved sport both to play and to
watch and after 50 years could produce no enduring loyalty. I was not
born into a team probably because my hockey roots were sunken in barren
soil. I think intense personal involvement in a sport does not create a
barrier to transferring loyalty. Ice hockey for me is the acid test, the
ultimate proof.<br />
<br />
My grandfather, an avid Eagles fan, retired to Florida. I was shocked
at how fast he became a Miami Dolphins fan. Dallas fans are living
proof that Texas residency is not required to be rabid members of the
‘Boys Nation. Route 195 divides New Jersey into Giants fans to the north
and Eagle fans to the south. My friend lives on that border and says
it’s a whole lot safer to be a Dallas Cowboys fan. The magnificent
succession of Super Bowl campaigns of the Pittsburgh Steelers created an army of fans around the nation much like the longstanding success of Notre
Dame created a “Subway Alumni” in New York City. My good friend,
Harold, moved to Atlanta from Long Island twenty years ago and all his
emails were concerned with the Atlanta Falcon’s playoff hopes during the
Giants’ unlikely run to the 2008 Super Bowl.<br />
<br />
By birthright, I ought to be a 76ers basketball fan. I moved to the New York metro area just as the Knicks
were building to championship stature. The sight of Willis Reed limping
out to play the seventh game of that 1970 championship series forever
inspired me to become a Knicks fan. I enjoyed the Sixty-Six Sixers but I
was probably more of a Dr. J fan when Philly won the championship in
1984 than a true Sixers’ fan. Today I can enjoy watching the Nets and I
can easily root for the Knicks to beat the Sixers without the slightest
tinge of guilt. No problem of loyalty transfer in basketball for me. The
passion for me to actually root for an NBA basketball team is gone.<br />
<br />
So that might make me a “front-runner” – a pejorative name that no
sports fan likes to be called. But following a baseball team that became
the first professional sports franchise to record 10,000 losses,
wouldn’t that be contradictive if not impossible? My earliest baseball
experiences were all negative. Little League baseball didn’t come to my
town until I was about 11 and you had to make the team to play. I got
cut. When I played my older brother, I always lost. When he and I played
some friends, we always lost. The pro team we watched on TV nearly
always lost. I finally made the little league team and rode the bench
the entire season. Finally got in to play one inning and got one at bat.
I struck out in three pitches.<br />
<br />
I don’t think intense futility breeds fan loyalty. In my case maybe futility mixed in with some success might because the Phillies
got into some World Series games and won some championships. Being a
Chicago Cubs fan could disprove that theory because their near success
comes about once a generation. I have never met a Cubs fan who was not
passionately loyal to them. Usually when asked how anyone could be a
Cubs fan, I am never surprised by the answer that they were born there.
I’ve come to expect it as the only sane response. Until recently, Boston
Red Sox fans could have been a good test case. They were extremely
loyal but had never actually won anything. A study of their loyalty
would be tainted by the David and Goliath nature of their rivalry with
the Yankees. Don Quixote was loyal to an impossible dream, too.<br />
<br />
There are many Brooklyn Dodger fans and New York Giants fans that have never followed their teams when the franchises moved to Los Angeles
and San Francisco. Those fans morphed into Met fans at about the same
time that they migrated from the New York boroughs to the New Jersey
suburbs during the 60s. Given my baseball upbringing, I can sympathize
with my friend, Joel, who is still in mourning for the Dodgers going west, more than 50 years ago. The West Coast Dodgers have enjoyed some wonderful successes; the Brooklyn Dodgers only once. Joel would never consider moving to Los Angeles.
His home is still in Brooklyn but the team he was connected to at birth
is 3,000 miles away. That’s a long, umbilical baseball cord which isn’t
irrefutable proof, but next to my own personal story, the best
explanation I can formulate during a five-minute shower.Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-84750784410819148812015-02-19T16:36:00.000-08:002017-10-23T06:26:08.756-07:00Remembering Lake Placid - Do You Believe in Miracles?<blockquote>
"Eleven seconds, you've got ten seconds, the countdown going on right
now! Morrow, up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe
Miracles?...YES! - <i><span class="mceItemHidden">Sportscaster Al <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Michaels'</span> iconic call</span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote>
<br /></blockquote>
The gloves were slung as high as they could be thrown, the sticks
already tossed aside and a writhing pile of red, white and blue bodies
moshed near the face-off circle in the American end as goalie, Jim
Craig, got buried thirty-five years ago on February 21,1980 in a small
town in upstate New York.<br />
<br />
My family finds it funny that everyone recognizes Lake Placid now,
the younger generation because of a horror movie that borrowed the
moniker, the older generation because of arguably the greatest upset in sports history.<br />
<br />
If you stop a baby boomer today and mention "Lake Placid" there is a
good chance they will tell you that the US Men's Ice Hockey team beat
the Russians for the Olympic gold medal, and they would be wrong.
Beating the Russians that Saturday afternoon didn't even assure the US
of a bronze medal; they would have to beat Finland the next day for the
gold. And had they lost, no medal.<br />
<br />
Growing up, before we were strafing our old high school with no
thoughts to landing, the grandest circumstance we could place ourselves
in when playing pickup baseball games was pitching in the seventh game
of the World Series on the mound for our favorite team, unless of course
you were batting. In that case, I would have been Richie Allen or
Willie Mays, but leaving baseball aside for a moment, ice hockey is my
favorite sport. As an imaginative little boy, my response to drawing up
the ultimate, over-the-top sports circumstance I could place myself
into I would not have placed me in Lake Placid, centering a gold
medal team. That was unlikely to happen: the US could never win the
Olympic gold medal again.<br />
<br />
The US had won in 1960 in Squaw Valley, in what is incorrectly called
an upset of Canada. People today don't realize just how good that team
was but at the time, winning the gold was a small blip on the world's
radar. Hockey had already been changing by the time I was playing as a
teenager and the political setting in 1980 was far different. The
Russians had invaded Afghanistan and the prestige of "winning the Space
Race in 1969" was already in the world's rear view mirror.<br />
<br />
<span class="mceItemHidden">The Soviets built a tremendous
international sports machine and their members were always near the
medal stand, no matter what sport. Their hockey team had played toe to
toe with the NHL in early exhibitions but by the mid-1970s the Russian
Red Army team nearly destroyed every NHL team they played in
exhibitions. Only the Montreal Canadians, the Buffalo Sabers and the
Philadelphia <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Flyers</span> held their own. The Rangers, for example, were embarrassed at Madison Square Garden, their All Star <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">defenseman</span>, Brad Park, looking like a revolving door watching the Russians pour past him to the goal.</span><br />
<br />
The Russian hockey team was manned by paid professional hockey
players who had been teammates, some for more than a decade. They had won 7 of the last 8
world championships. The last time they had lost a game was 1968,
twelve years prior to that night. They had just blanked an NHL all-star
team 6-0, and in an exhibition at Madison Square Garden in New York, two
weeks prior to the Olympics, beat the USA Hockey Team 10-3. Craig says
it could have easily been 20-3.<br />
<br />
My family had been traveling to Lake Placid for more than a decade
before the 1980 games. Then, most of the original venues from the games held
in 1932 were still usable and most were free. The speed skating oval
was in the center of town in front of the high school. We always thought
the long blades on speed skates were either unnecessary or silly
looking until we found that we couldn't keep our feet, tearing around
the curves at the most speed we could muster. At a certain speed,
without the long blades, you just leave your feet.<br />
<br />
You could watch the local high school play hockey at the original
arena built in 1932 and in between periods they staged short figure
skating exhibitions. The Olympic cross country course was free if you
brought your own equipment and when you passed under the pedestrian
bridge near the finish line you could imagine the then-empty spaces
teeming with thousands of spectators from all over the world. With props
like these, the imaginary Olympic scenes were so much more vivid than
what was conjured up playing pickup baseball games.<br />
<br />
One of the stranger aspects of this winter Disneyland was the secrecy
of its allure. Nobody knew about it. Whiteface Mountain was known and
revered to skiers and overnight visitors must have stayed 12 miles away
in sleepy Lake Placid, but you just didn't hear anyone talk about the town.<br />
<br />
Friends of ours moved to Lake Placid in the mid-1960s so their son
could train for the 1972 Olympics and they opened a small, unassuming
inn catering to figure skaters. We would stay there and meet all the people who were training at the various venues. Dinners were family style with whomever sat down at the same time as you were eating. If you let the French cook from Montreal know
the night before, she would prepare a box lunch to take
with us skiing at Whiteface. <br />
<br />
We went for three days skiing every year. The first day after skiing
all day and playing cards late into the night, was a tortuous wakeup.
The breakfast table had bench seating and you needed two hands to swing
your lead-heavy legs with sore hamstrings over the bench. At night we
would race toboggans out over the ice on Mirror Lake* from the municipal
ramp. You could rent a toboggan for unlimited runs for 50 cents.<br />
<br />
I can make an effective argument that Whiteface Mountain is one of
the finest skiing experiences in America. I correctly guessed that the
day after the Olympics closed, everyone would have left town and
abandoned the ski slopes. As people streamed down the New York Thruway, I
headed north in the opposite direction to Lake Placid.<br />
<br />
I was right. There was nobody. The hay bales and the timing gates
were still in place and orange plastic fencing held back ghost spectator
sections. I chose the woman's downhill course because I heard it was
the steepest and most challenging and also because it started at the
top, from fabled chair 2. Because there were no tight turns in the
downhill, there were no moguls, the little hills that torment some
skiers. The course looked like a golf fairway, smooth, very little
indentation, wide, welcoming and fast beyond my wildest expectations.
With no moguls, after only a few seconds in the fall line my skis
couldn't hold the speed, and I'd have to stop to dissipate the burn in
my hamstrings. The slope was scary fast.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" height="370" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2011/02/20/whiteface_1.jpg" width="540" /><br />
Lift line at Whiteface - 10,000 foot runs from the summit.<br />
<br />
<span class="mceItemHidden">The arena hosted a figure skating
competition, regional or national, or hockey games from pee wee to
juniors. Sometimes athletes other than figure skaters shared the
upstairs dormitory at the inn. It was fun to ask them questions about
their sport and get inside information. The most boisterous group had to
be the bobsled team who were rough and tumble and liked to mix it up in
the dormitory to the point where any moment they might come through the ceiling.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceItemHidden"><span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Intervale</span>,
the ski jumping venue, was a few miles south of town and you can stand
on the hill next to where the jumpers land, the track marked out with
small pine tree fronds stuck in the snow. One year I watched the Olympic
trials, and with my fellow spectators, crept across the hill, inching
ahead of the hill's shadow in the late afternoon. That shadow area had
to be 15 degrees colder, and it was about ten degrees to begin with.</span><br />
<br />
<img alt="" height="366" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2011/02/20/lake-placid_2.jpg" width="540" /><br />
<span class="mceItemHidden"> Ski Jumper slowing after a jump at <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Intervale</span>, Lake Placid</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceItemHidden">The bobsled run at Mt. Van <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Hoevenberg</span> is
dramatic to view in person. The run was built in the early 1920s and
was the longest run in North America even with the additional abandoned
upper half mile not included. The run was made of a dry stone wall
formed in a half pipeline shape, the usable part wearing a thick layer
of ice. There is something at the same time majestic and sinister about a
12-foot high curved stone wall presenting a parabola of ice to be
figured out sometimes at more than 120 miles per hour.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceItemHidden">
<span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord"></span><span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord"></span><span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord"></span><span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord"></span></span>
With all these activities, the town was almost an afterthought. A few
burger diners, some small boutiques and ski shops, trips to town were
more for necessities than window shopping. Our family favorite was the
ancient hardware store run by this little old lady. It was in an
advanced state of grubbiness and sold the basic hardware items.<br />
<br />
<span class="mceItemHidden">Even the picture on the boxed figure
skates, if you could see it clearly enough through the grimy windows,
was faded by the sun that somehow managed to get through. But the <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">capper</span>
had to be the aisle with the nails, screws and bolts. Originally they
were stored in individual cardboard boxes. The boxes had disintegrated
years ago and what were left were little piles of similar sizes.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceItemHidden">The hockey stick collection was a gold mine. Somehow ignored was a cache of <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Hespler</span> "<span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Superlites</span>,"
hockey sticks that were no longer manufactured. We considered these the
holy grail of sticks because they were extremely light and had a lot of
whip to them. We were astounded to find 6 sticks in the back of the
store, the only 6 sticks. We quickly bought 3. The next year we went
back and there were 2 left. That was it. The last place on Earth that
carried that model. We bought them out.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceItemHidden">My mother and my sister, Chris, made the
trip up the New York Thruway for the 1980 Olympics. Housing during the
Olympics was impossibly expensive so they were lucky to have good
friends with relatives living near <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Plattsburg</span>,
an hour to the north. My sister told me that getting in and out of the
village was a process involving shuttle buses and long lines. My mother
put her name on a mailing list set up by the Lake Placid Chamber of
Commerce as soon as they announced Lake Placid as the next Olympic
venue, so they picked out three affordable events. My sister remembers
seeing Eric <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Heiden</span> win one
of his five gold medals for speed skating, a downhill skiing event, and a hockey game
between two European teams. Everything was expensive: tickets, hotels,
meals, even slices of pizza.</span><br />
<br />
Tickets to the USA versus Russia hockey game were impossible to get
but during the Olympics, Chris said that many events had tickets
available. She said that being in the village the afternoon of the game
you could sense that something special was happening. The game was
played at 5:00 p.m. The US tried to get the game moved to 8:00 prime
time on ABC, but the Russians refused because that would have been 4:00
a.m. Moscow time. The game was aired live in Canada but on a three hour
tape delay to the US.<br />
<br />
The hockey tournament was a round robin. The buildup to the
game got bigger and bigger as the US kept turning in solid performances
and the team changed from a long shot, to a dark horse, and then to a
possible bronze medalist. When they beat the Czechoslovakia team, the
cat was out of the bag. The Czechs had been the only team to beat the
Russians in recent memory, and the Czechs usually beat everyone else.
The US team crushed them 7-3 and then waltzed through their group with
victories over Norway (5-1), Romania (7-2) and West Germany (4-2). The
afternoon of February 21, people expected the US team to at least give
the Soviets a good game, despite their hammering at the Garden when the
Russians tried to beat the US sticks into plowshares.<br />
<br />
I walked into the empty arena, where 72 hours before, the US hockey
team had won gold. The empty seats were eerie, the flags from all the
participating nations hanging motionless from the rafters, the ice empty
and ghostly. That Olympics was the birth of the "USA...USA" chant.
Looking across the ice at the far stands, you could imagine people on
their feet, waving the flag, almost hear the chant, faintly.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="" height="131" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2011/02/20/lake-placid-gold_1.jpg" width="198" /></div>
<br />
<span class="mceItemHidden">You might have guessed that the 1980
Olympics changed the town in so many different ways, both for the good
and bad. A few years later, sometime after the 1980 Olympics, I came
back to where the hardware store once stood and found a dress shop. It
was depressing. For the price of one dress I could have bought all the <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Hespler</span> <span class="mceItemHiddenSpellWord">Superlites</span> they once had for sale.</span><br />
<br />
All of the facilities were upgraded, everything now cost more, more
hotels sprung up, and a variety of new restaurants flourished. Lake
Placid was no longer our little secret. Begrudgingly, we admitted that
the good changes had outweighed the bad.<br />
<br />
For my family, who faithfully made that pilgrimage to our secret
winter hideaway, 1980 was special. Beating the Russians, winning a gold
medal in ice hockey, our favorite sport, experiencing an entire
country's Olympic love fest, and this all taking place in our beloved
Lake Placid was the sporting highlight of our life. Every year on this
annual anniversary of the victory at Lake Placid, I am still amazed that
it happened at all but if you were to ask me today, I will tell you I <i><b>do</b></i> believe in miracles...YES!<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img alt="" height="244" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2011/02/20/lake-placid-logo_1.jpg" width="207" /></div>
<br />
*The tiny village of Lake Placid is located on the western shore line
of Mirror Lake. Over the hill behind the town is Lake Placid.Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-39135832328525564402015-02-08T10:15:00.003-08:002015-02-08T10:33:24.857-08:00Imagine No John Lennon<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden"> Everyone had their favorite </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Beatle</span><span class="mceitemhidden">. In fifth
grade it was hard to figure out why all the girls in my class were (excuse the
expression) gaga over the Fab Four mop heads. Paul was just so cute and
congenial; it was hard not to pick him out of that lineup as </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">loveable</span><span class="mceitemhidden">. He was
my favorite. With his rebellious and iconoclastic demeanor, Lennon was more of
a Rolling Stones "plant" but realize that there would eventually be a
second John </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Lennon</span><span class="mceitemhidden">.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden"> One was a </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Beatle</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> and the
other was a manufactured offshoot propelled by Yoko Ono (Oh, no!).</span> The Beatles were great because of wonderful melodies and memorable lyrics.
When the writing team of Lennon and McCartney separated, both suffered
musically. Paul with Wings had good melodies and forgettable lyrics and Lennon
had weaker melodies with interesting and tortured lyrics. <span class="mceitemhidden">Of these two versions of John </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Lennon</span><span class="mceitemhidden">, I
absolutely adored John the </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Beatle</span><span class="mceitemhidden">.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iSrIrNVU5zk/VNergEW0XOI/AAAAAAAAAhc/XcrnMVOaNcM/s1600/JohnLennon04PA141210.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iSrIrNVU5zk/VNergEW0XOI/AAAAAAAAAhc/XcrnMVOaNcM/s1600/JohnLennon04PA141210.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="mceitemhidden"> </span>Early John Lennon - a Fab Four member</div>
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden"> Behind many successful men are strong and
nurturing women. Yoko would probably have to be classified as an exception, a
corollary, or a "special case." If anyone needs to know where Lennon
got his inspiration for those post-</span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Beatle</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> lyrics, they need only to play Yoko Ono masterpiece
recording of "Don't Worry." </span><br />
The band was on their way to a breakup but she added to the pressures. She
helped to strip John out of a very successful group atmosphere and set him up
for an original career, the fruits of which she now ferociously guards,
possibly keeping or delaying a lot of the music from reaching his fans. I think
the damage she may have caused might be even more.<br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden"> Imagine if she never camped out on Lennon's
doorstep each day eagerly awaiting the nightly return of the married couple so
she could place her person directly in their way. She wedged her way into his
home life, into the marriage, and then into the group. When he arrived one morning
at the recording studio, Paul was quite surprised to find Yoko set up as a
member of the band. There was a tacit agreement among the Beatles not to let
girlfriends or wives into the recording studio. That was the additional
pressure they didn't need, another one that pushed the Beatles apart and
eventually ended the fabled songwriting team and the group. However you
explain the </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Beatles'</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> reasons for breaking up, allowing Yoko </span><i>artistic</i>
input into a Beatles song—doesn't that really explain it in a nutshell?<br />
<br />
I remember one friend remarking after the breakup that it was cool because
now instead of getting one new album, you were getting four. (Okay, 3-1/2 for a
while) I will admit that the breakup did allow George Harrison to blossom much
quicker but that was too high a price to pay for wonderful music that would
have probably emerged later rather than sooner.<br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden"> There are moments in history when you remember
where you were when you heard the news. Kennedy's assassination, Neil Armstrong
walking on the moon (he was there way before Sting had a lyrical notion). In a
separate musical category, I tend to remember performance nights— Judy Collins
and Pete </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Seeger</span><span class="mceitemhidden">, Simon and Garfunkel, Jackson Browne, James Taylor—all
different nights in Central Park. I remember being in the Spectrum In
Philadelphia and Bruce Springsteen coming out alone during the intermission of
one of Bruce's typical 4-hour performances and solemnly intoning that John
Lennon had been shot in front of his apartment. We all went numb.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden"> The problem I have with imagining John Lennon, the
individual, is the difficulty I have imagining just how good the Beatles would
have been if Yoko had not worked her special magic. Understandably, the seeds
of John's premeditated murder (please don't call it an assassination) were sown
by his inadvertent off-handed remarks that the press spun way out of his
control. Maybe John gets murdered anyway by that deranged man (not mentioning
his name in print is a way of lessening his literary and historical
immortality) but the fact that he was the only </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Beatle</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> living in
a wide open, gun-happy New York City didn't help. Admittedly, George
Harrison was almost killed by a home invasion in England but the odds were far
higher that John gets killed having been dragged to New York by Yoko.</span><br />
<br />
John as an individual was just another good rock and roller—that's what Yoko
turned him into. Imagining that he didn't exist as an individual rocker is easy
if I try.<br />
<br />
So remember, when you see Yoko appearing somewhere (dressed in black) and
everyone revering her as John's widow, that she is the curator of the fabulous
fortune that she wrangled away from its proper owner. But more than that,
realize that she had a hand in dismembering, arguably, the most successful song
writing team in the history of music. That is what her dark dress and black arm
bands should stand for.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And that is not hard to imagine. It's easy if
you try.</span>Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-42580498819385878832015-01-31T12:38:00.001-08:002015-01-31T12:38:30.534-08:00Bob Dylan in China - Ballad of a Thin Man Serenading The Oppressors<!--[if !mso]>
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<![endif]--><i><b>[This article was originally published April 13, 2011 on the ezine site NewsFlavor.]</b></i><br />
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<br />
Did the Chinese government censure Dylan’s set list? -- "something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, Do you, Hu Jintao?” <br />
<br />
The Chinese government has been called many different things but “stupid”
has not been used in any sort of frequency that I remember. Why would China
invite and allow a firebrand to enter their carefully controlled country, whip
a populous they are trying to keep under their political thumb into a
revolutionary frenzy, and pay an enormous sum for the privilege?<br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">Nobody is saying anything-- not Dylan, not his
handlers, not the Chinese government—about what, if anything was censured or
cancelled off his set list. Part of the presumed agreement would be that
Chinese censors would review a set list prior to the performance. This would
not be like a Bill </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Veeck</span><span class="mceitemhidden">, let’s sneak a contract hiring a midget for a publicity
stunt onto the baseball commissioner’s desk late on a Friday afternoon, knowing
it would not be looked at until it was too late. No, this would be a highly
publicized visit. A visit by one of the most explosive </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">protestors</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> ever
cut in the traditional troubadour’s role of calling out a king, or a Caribbean </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">calypsonian</span><span class="mceitemhidden">
calling out a corrupt island government.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">This was Bob Dylan coming to Beijing. China is not
exactly on every performer’s short list of dream destinations. In fact, the
number of Western performers to play in China is a short list in itself. Prior
performers included such political heavyweights as Wham, with such phrases like
“something ain’t right,” and “you make the s</span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">un</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> shine brighter
than Doris Day” from the</span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">ir</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> hit, “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go," are not going
to throw any fright into the Chinese government. That was in ancient 1984. Did
we even dream that the next act would be the equally politically inflammatory
act of Jan and Dean? Nothing three degrees calmer than the Spice Girls would
have been considered as more </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">un</span><span class="mceitemhidden">-radical. Sorry for the “couldn’t resist” portion of this
article. I think that urge has passed and freed me to discuss the two
Dylan performances given last week in China.</span><br />
<div align="center" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span></div>
We will eventually find out if any songs that Dylan <b><i>wanted </i></b><span class="mceitemhidden">to play were cut out by Chinese authorities. I can’t
imagine that secretly </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Hu</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Jintao</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> plays “Blowing in the Wind” or cuts from the John Wesley
Harding album in quiet moments when he’s not plotting which Chinese lawyers or
architects to abduct and abuse.</span><br />
People who follow set lists from other Dylan concerts, knowing the present
form that chameleon Bobby Zimmerman is taking these days, discount the notion
that Dylan had this list of flame-throwing tunes red lined into submission by
the Chinese censors, leaving only unrequited love tunes from “Love and Theft.”
Someone at the New York Times, though, thinks he’s still working on Maggie’s
farm.<br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">Briefly I’ll throw in here a few of the lunatic
notions advanced by the sometimes embarrassing loose cannon, Maureen </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Dowd</span><span class="mceitemhidden">, who penned
a slanted column chastising Dylan for not walking out if the Chinese government
had refused to allow him to sing “Blowin’ In the Wind” and “The Times They Are
A-</span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Changin</span><span class="mceitemhidden">.” The funny part is that Dylan hasn’t played those nuggets
live in years.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">I have to admit that ever since I found out that
Dylan was playing in repressive China, my curiosity of his set list was piqued.
I think eventually Dylan will be asked about his original set list and I’m
going to venture a guess at his answer, something that Maureen </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Dowd</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> would be
utterly incapable of guessing on her own, given the evidence of her knowledge
of Dylan exposed in her Op-Ed piece. I am willing to guarantee that Bobby just
sang a few songs for no particular reason. Shocker! </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Dowd</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> always
projects deep fathomed reasons why people do things. I am not going out on any
far limb to also guess that Dylan also threw in several songs specifically as
digs at the Chinese government. Apparently no censor red lined “’All Along The
Watchtower” or "Ballad of A Thin Man."</span><br />
<br />
And borrowing on the theme that the Chinese government is not stupid,
they were allowing the digs, a way of implying to the world that they are not
the little children of 1984, using a band like Wham to showcase Chinese
benevolence. Allowing Dylan was China saying they are able to play with
the Big Boys of the world and let the Big Boy’s in to sing.<br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">One thing you must know about Dylan, and this is
obvious to me after many years of observing him: He doesn’t like being analyzed
and he hates when he’s labeled or asked a direct question about any of his
work. He will talk about his process in a vague way. He’ll talk about some of
what influences him. But getting a genuine or straight from the heart answer
out of him is like we used to say, attaching a jellyfish to a bulletin board
with a thumbtack. Remember that when he was in his protest heyday, events
around him were going horribly wrong. The assassinations really scared him,
John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Medgar</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Evers</span><span class="mceitemhidden">, Malcolm X,
and internationally </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Ngo</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Dinh</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> Diem, Patrice </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Lumumba</span><span class="mceitemhidden">, and Rene Schneider, and as if to confirm all his fears,
years later, John Lennon. He did not want to be any sort of spokesman because
he feared that someone would get him.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">Elizabeth Lynch in her article “In Defense of
Dylan in China” got it right when she said he never sold out because “he never
bought in.” Dylan was among that number of folk singers in Greenwich Village who
caught the first wave of commercial success and was criticized for not
remaining among the starving, noble </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">folkies</span><span class="mceitemhidden">. When I walk the streets in the Village and try to imagine
as it was then I find conjuring up the sense of a wide open industry extremely
difficult in the face of today’s commercialism. I imagine now that whole set
would be twittering away, have </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">RSS</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> feeds and websites. Dylan would have been a champion </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">blogger</span><span class="mceitemhidden">. Dylan
was always out for himself; fighting for a cause was a pretty foreign ideal for
him even though he eagerly wore the mantle, temporarily. In an excellent
chiding of </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Dowd</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> for not understanding that Dylan never bought in, Lynch
uses Dylan’s own words “you could have done better, but I don’t mind, you just
kinda wasted my precious time.”</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">Making an issue out of whether China censored
Dylan is just that, a waste of our precious time, especially when you read the
rest of Dylan’s set list. When has </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Zimmie</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> ever written or said anything without multiple meanings?
Where has Dylan gone soft in singing “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” in that China
concert? Read between the lines of “Desolation Row.” There may be some
people disappointed that he didn’t set off a revolution with that concert, but
there’s enough smack to go around in the lyrics of the songs he did sing. If
nothing else, he added to the conversation that we must continue, to force the
curtain of oppression in China to be risen for everyone to see, to talk about,
and to sing about. Yes, there was a small part of me that wished that he would
have deviated from his set list, obviously previewed by the authorities, and
launched into a searing rendition of </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Cui</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Jian's</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> "I have Nothing/Nothing To My Name." Dylan was
probably afraid that they would have taken him out to the Chinese version of
Highway 61, (</span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Tiananmen</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> Square no longer fits that bill) and he'd be
left to figure someway out of there if he could find any </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">beggers</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> or
thieves.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">In another wonderful counterpoint to </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Dowd</span><span class="mceitemhidden">, Jason </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Linkins</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> writes
about how Dylan sang “Ballad of a Thin Man.” Dylan bathed in a single yellow
spotlight, stared out at the crowd and “snarled” not “sang” “something is
happening here, but you don’t know what it is, Do you, Mister Jones?” That had
to be a magic moment for all those oppressed people. Dylan was calling out the
Chinese government and unlike Mr. Jones, they understood him</span><br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">.</span><br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">Not to completely kill Maureen </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Dowd</span><span class="mceitemhidden">, because she
really has to move on to write about other serious matters, Chinese human
rights violations have only occupied a nanosecond of her editorial time. This
review of hers was only a half thought out rant at Bob Dylan, pleasing (as
writer Sean </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Curnyn</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> put it) mainly her audience and the people who foot her
paychecks. If you still want to read Maureen Dowd’s mishandling of the event,
you can just </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Google</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> it. Unless, of course, you’re living in China.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="mceitemhidden"><b>Bob Dylan's </b></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><b>set list</b></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><b> on April 6, 2011, Beijing</b></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Gonna Change My Way of Thinking</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Beyond Here Lies Nothin’</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Tangled Up In Blue</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Honest With Me</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Simple Twist of Fate</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Tweedle</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> Dee & </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Tweedle</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Dum</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Love Sick</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Rollin’ And Tumblin’</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Highway 61 Revisited</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Spirit On The Water</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Thunder On The Mountain</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Ballad of A Thin Man</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Like A Rolling Stone</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
All Along The Watchtower</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
Forever Young</div>
<br />
<b>Links to articles referred to in my Dylan post:</b><br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">Jason </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Linkin</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> article: </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/11/everyone-is-understandably-mad_n_847566.html" target="_blank"><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">http</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">://</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">www</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">.</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">huffingtonpost</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">.com/2011/04/11/everyone-is-understandably-mad_n_847566.</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">html</span></span></a><br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">Sean </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Curnyn</span><span class="mceitemhidden">: </span><a href="http://www.cinchreview.com/maureen-dowd-slams-sellout-bob-dylan-in-new-york-times/2898/" target="_blank"><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">http</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">://</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">www</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">.</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">cinchreview</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">.com/</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">maureen</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">-</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">dowd</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">-slams-sellout-bob-</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">dylan</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">-in-new-york-times/2898/</span></span></a><br />
Elizabeth Lynch article <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-lynch/in-defense-of-dylan-in-ch_b_847232.html?ir=World" target="_blank"><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">http</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">://</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">www</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">.</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">huffingtonpost</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">.com/</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">elizabeth</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">-lynch/in-defense-of-</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">dylan</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">-in-ch_b_847232.</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">html</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">?</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">ir</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">=World</span></span></a><br />
<span class="mceitemhidden">Maureen </span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Dowd</span><span class="mceitemhidden"> article (</span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword">Ok</span><span class="mceitemhidden">, I relented; here is her article): </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10dowd.html" target="_blank"><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">http</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">://</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">www</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">.</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">nytimes</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">dowd</span></span><span class="mceitemhidden"><span style="color: blue;">.</span></span><span class="mceitemhiddenspellword"><span style="color: blue;">html</span></span></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-45793111202904248922014-12-27T17:45:00.000-08:002014-12-27T17:45:46.676-08:00Please Stop Improving Things<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
When the Coke machine where I work broke
down, I was delighted.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
We live in an amazing age of
consumer products with new ones entering the marketplace every day. There does
not seem to be any new product that cannot be “improved” within a few months.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
I recently fixed a friend’s laptop.
It had a virus too tenacious for normal software to screen and then eliminate.
Normally, cleaning a computer is easy but I had to contend with Windows 8. You
know, an improved Windows 7, an improvement of Windows XP, Windows 2000,
Windows ME, Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows (1.0, 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1).</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
When I first worked on a computer,
I word processed in an IBM program called DisplayWrite, version 1.0. I enjoyed
it because it was simple and straightforward. IBM improved it but by the time
DisplayWrite 4 came out, the program was, for me, unusable. IBM improved it so
much they killed it.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
But what does this have to do with
a Coke machine?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
When I was a laboratory gopher the
summer of my sophomore year in high school, I had a slew of duties at the lab
in between getting to do some really exciting projects, one which was for the
Apollo Program related to the Moon rocks we were to bring back from the five lunar
landings. As they say, “that’s a story for another day.”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among my mundane duties was acting as the
projectionist for slide shows when graduate students were required to make a
presentation. Another one was walking around the earth station’s campus retrieving
articles left behind by my absent minded professor boss, Dr. Paul Gast. He was
a brilliant scientist but when it rained he’d leave his raincoat in one building,
his umbrella in another and his galoshes in a third. My job was to go on a
scavenger hunt to find these droppings, and of course, there were more
droppings on rainy days.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
[Dr. Gast was so absent-minded that
he always ate the lunch his wife packed as soon as he arrived at work so he wouldn’t
forget to eat at lunch time. I often wonder how he remembered to do that first
thing in the morning.]</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
And then there was the job
refilling the Coke machine. One key opened the small compartment on the front
of the machine. Just below the mechanism that recorded the coin total was a
small metal box usually filled with mostly dimes and nickels. I would take the
money and give it to Dr. Gast’s secretary. The compartment was then closed and
locked and the entire front of the machine hinged open where I would reload the
Cokes. The inside of the machine had a metal conveyor belt that ran all around
the cold refrigerator section, which was at the center.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fIHpkFIiOMo/U-orutLMTmI/AAAAAAAAAeY/vCNOi2Qb6U0/s1600/CokeMachine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fIHpkFIiOMo/U-orutLMTmI/AAAAAAAAAeY/vCNOi2Qb6U0/s1600/CokeMachine.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
The machine I filled at the lab.</div>
<br />
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Each belt of the conveyor held a
Coke, the glass bottle neck stuck out through metal leaves that resembled a
camera lense. After the machine decided you paid the correct amount, it relaxed
the leaves so you could manually pull the bottle out. A silver crank lever, prominently
centered on the machine would push down, advancing the conveyor belt, moving
the next bottle into position, behind a silver door.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The whole idea of the machine was
so simple that Coca-Cola could not resist improving. Now, 48 years later, we
have the model in our pantry that has broken down. This is the machine with
about 5 rows of soda or canned drinks and when you deposit your money you will
be treated to a stupendous display of unnecessary machine maneuvers which will
take several seconds before you receive your order. First you have to feed
money into the machine but woe unto thee if thou selectith your Coke too quickly.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qCZscSmYaSI/U-or9hfkzTI/AAAAAAAAAeg/TQ1K_x3zDNM/s1600/better%2Bcoke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qCZscSmYaSI/U-or9hfkzTI/AAAAAAAAAeg/TQ1K_x3zDNM/s1600/better%2Bcoke.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The improved machine</div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The computer will not spit product unless it
takes a moment to count up what you shoved in and then displays it on the
digital readout. If you punch a selection too fast, the machine is too slow and
confused to do anything about it. The machine, mind you, has enough
electronics, which if rearranged, could perform a lunar docking procedure and
bring men back successfully from the Moon. But as assembled and configured here,
data entry at too fast a pace just confuses poor HAL.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7OX8aTdZtnE/U-osqTSlVKI/AAAAAAAAAew/LHrh5_teKzI/s1600/IMG_20140510_153052_834.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7OX8aTdZtnE/U-osqTSlVKI/AAAAAAAAAew/LHrh5_teKzI/s1600/IMG_20140510_153052_834.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Apollo 11 Command Capsule</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
at the Smithsonian</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
But let’s assume you had a
momentary pause of patience, you put the correct amount of money for the
purchase down its metal throat, and now like a stick thrown to a dog, the
machine hurriedly goes off on a jaunt for your bottle of Coke. It reminds me of
when you have a stick or ball and the anxious dog gets so excited he doesn’t know
where to go. He follows your hand as you feign a throw in several different
directions before releasing the stick or ball.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The machine goes berserk, this
plastic cupping holder races up and down the rows, searching for the selection.
Then it excitedly brings it proudly back to the tiny side door but not after
almost missing the level of the door. It jerks up and down zeroing in on the
exact level to equal the door’s opening. The Coke drops with a clank-thud on
the floor of a plastic teeter-totter which then angles out, presenting you with
your purchase. All in a mechanical expression of “look what I just did—how cool
is this?”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
I stand in awe of how much energy I
just burned to get a Coke in 2014 compared to almost negligible energy when I
bought that same Coke in 1967 (Oh, remember, they tried to improve on that Coke
in 1985 but then gave up). I realize I just witnessed enough energy being burned
to make a Prius owner blush. Moreover, this improved machine made me wait about
ten times as long to get my Coke as the Coke 1.0 version.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EI-W0QCM_7A/U-osDFaBWNI/AAAAAAAAAeo/DvoNWsuWmqE/s1600/WALL-E.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-EI-W0QCM_7A/U-osDFaBWNI/AAAAAAAAAeo/DvoNWsuWmqE/s1600/WALL-E.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
WALL-E</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
When the machine broke the last
time, the plastic arm sat in frozen animation for about 10 days before people
in the mother ship got the message that this particular machine wasn’t burning
enough electricity to light up an Iraq village. Sometime during my vacation
last week they fixed WALL-E and now we can watch a dazzling mechanical show as
we wait for our Coke to<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>be delivered,
making a journey of about 10 feet instead of moving 5 inches in under a half
second.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
I sure hope they stop improving
things. </div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-59232221627605077862014-03-16T15:30:00.000-07:002015-03-01T04:54:57.429-08:00Rocky Colavito and the Gods of Baseball<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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Like many kids, I went to my first
baseball game with my father and grandfather. I was young—seven or eight years
old—and most of that day was forgotten. More than a half a century later, some
memories still remain. Connie Mach Stadium still had poles in the stands, much
like Yankee Stadium did before several renovations. Yankee Stadium they
renovate, Connie Mack, with a much more elegant, classic entrance, they tear
down. </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tfeFZSyBaxQ/UyYcBDcAcaI/AAAAAAAAAbU/1NUWAm_X3Hc/s1600/220px-Shibe_Park_1960.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tfeFZSyBaxQ/UyYcBDcAcaI/AAAAAAAAAbU/1NUWAm_X3Hc/s1600/220px-Shibe_Park_1960.jpg" /></a></div>
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Note the poles in both Connie Mack's decks </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EHp7ZtrfiIc/UyYVwyB1EuI/AAAAAAAAAaE/zyx1-2rK9Bg/s1600/Connie+Mack+Classic+entrance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EHp7ZtrfiIc/UyYVwyB1EuI/AAAAAAAAAaE/zyx1-2rK9Bg/s1600/Connie+Mack+Classic+entrance.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qIBdqlFyTnc/UyYVvQICjJI/AAAAAAAAAZk/YdaWGFcLxUo/s1600/100_1574.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yCt0y-EtKFY/UyYV07RXtKI/AAAAAAAAAaM/LfYO9r3FZWo/s1600/Kucks-berra.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Tk1Fj_H2T_A/UyYVw0bYsDI/AAAAAAAAAZs/AvkRSeymrVQ/s1600/Carmen+and+Rocky+Colavito.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
An elegant entrance - originally Shibe Park<br />
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Pennsylvania was a national league
state, Phillies and Pirates. The Yankees were in the other league, the “Junior
Circuit,” not around as long as the National League. Now not much separates the
leagues except the notion that when your career as a fielder is over you go
to the old age farm of designated hitters in the AL, banished forever from the
league where pitchers know how to bat.</div>
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National Leaguers rarely paid close
attention to the other league except when they intersected (the years before
inter-league play started in 1997) at the annual All-Star Game and the World
Series. My family moved from Pennsylvania to a New Jersey battleground fought over by
Mets and Yankees fans. The Mets were the new kids on the block. The Yankees
establishment was pushing back. I was quite happy to be neutral in that war.</div>
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The “Big Men on Campus” in my old
neighborhood were a doctor, a dentist and a disabled WWII veteran who had an
injury that required crutches. He sat on his front porch every day and taught neighborhood
kids how to play chess. Doctors and dentists weren’t the most exciting people
and as a kid, people you wanted to avoid—think polio booster shots and tooth
fillings. </div>
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Everything in the New York metro
area seemed larger than life and more exciting. My new neighborhood had
scientists, professional musicians, a ski jumper from Norway, entertainers,
international businessmen, and Yankees first baseman Moose Skowron. Our moving vans nearly clipped each other because he was moving out at nearly the same time as we were moving in
and if you had told me we were neighbors of Moose Skowron then, I would
probably have thought you were talking about hunting and fishing. Remember, I was
from the National League.</div>
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Moose made a visit to my eight
grade class one day when he was running his morning errands. He spoke about 20
minutes and fielded questions. I remember him as being very gracious and modest,
amazing as one of the gods of baseball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
son, Greg, was a fifth-grade classmate of my younger brother, Dennis. If I turned around in my seat, I could talk to John Lopat, the son of
Yankee legend, Eddie Lopat, “The Junk Man” (called that because he threw a lot
of off-speed pitches). John introduced himself to me within a few
days of my arrival at the new school. He made no mention to me that his father
was a Yankee pitcher and none of my synapses connected the name “Lopat” to the
Yankees. He eventually invited me to go as his guest to a baseball game with
two other classmates. It was 1964 and his father at that time was a scout for the
White Sox. His 12-year major league career included being part of the "Big Three" Yankee
pitching rotation from 1951-53. When his playing career ended, he managed the Kansas City A’s and later left that organization when the A’s moved to LA
in 1967. How many kids can say they went to their first Yankee game with a guy
who pitched in seven World Series games with the Yankees?</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wTPpmGA4_WE/UyYkJ7EldKI/AAAAAAAAAcE/TP7xLEKe5YU/s1600/Mickey-Mantle-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wTPpmGA4_WE/UyYkJ7EldKI/AAAAAAAAAcE/TP7xLEKe5YU/s1600/Mickey-Mantle-1.jpg" height="250" width="320" /></a></div>
Mickey Mantle and Rocky Colavito<br />
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The Yankees just weren’t on my
radar. When we lived in Reading, after a business trip, my well-intentioned uncle
gave my older brother, Phil, a Yankees tee shirt. He stopped wearing it around
classmates under threats of being beat up. The bubble gum we bought in
Pennsylvania had few American League baseball cards, usually duplicates of
bench players for the Minnesota Twins. What do you do with three or four copies
of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Zoilo Versalles</span>?</i><span style="color: red;"> </span>The odds of getting Mickey Mantle were astronomical. To trade <i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Zoilo Versalles, who</span>
</i>played for the highly-devalued Twins, for one Mickey Mantle would be like
those photos taken during the Great Depression with Germans toting wheelbarrows
full of German marks.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FBe62xcWG0A/UyYVxZwkL-I/AAAAAAAAAaA/UHBmQvu-dvs/s1600/German+marks.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FBe62xcWG0A/UyYVxZwkL-I/AAAAAAAAAaA/UHBmQvu-dvs/s1600/German+marks.jpg" /> </a></div>
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The Zoilo Versalles for one Mantle deal </div>
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When my son, Matt, was still in
high school, I received an invitation for a group outing to Yankee Stadium so we went. My grad school alumni association put together a wonderful event,
especially for a Yankees fan like my son. We drove to Jersey City and parked in
St. Peter’s Alumni House lot just off Kennedy Boulevard. There was a cocktail
party in full swing and we mingled with alumni of all ages. Two hours before
the first pitch,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we boarded a luxury bus
with individual video screens playing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Field
of Dreams</i>. Lunch was served in the “Legends Club” and Matt was impressed.
White-gloved chefs with tall linen hats used tongs to place huge hamburgers into perfect buns. I had never seen that done to a hamburger—it reminded me of Seinfeld’s
episode eating Snickers bars with a knife and fork. On the walls, the gods of
baseball were captured in massive, life-sized oil paintings. It struck me that
one of these was Eddie Lopat on the mound. I don’t remember much else about the
game that afternoon except seeing that magnificent oil painting of John’s father.</div>
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Yankee Legend Eddie Lopat </div>
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Baseball is a family tradition, a
generational bonding between father and son. I remember one of my son’s little
league practices and shagging balls in the outfield. The other coach hit a long
fly to left center and somehow with an extended outstretched swat, I caught the
ball on the dead run, not even sure it was in my glove and then wind milled my
arms to keep from falling. I recovered my stride and then threw it in like it
was something I did every day as a matter of routine. I can remember my son’s
excited voice carrying all the way out there, “That was my Dad.” Some things
you file away in your heart’s memory bank.</div>
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Going to baseball games is all
about the tradition of father, son, and grandfather attending together, passing
the baseball torch. People who know me chuckle when I mention memories and food
because they know how I enjoy simple fare and lots of it. I don’t remember much
about that day at Connie Mack but I remember stopping at a classic diner on the
way home and sitting on a stool at the counter having a hamburger with my dad and grand-pop. I like to
think it was the 5<sup>th</sup> Street Diner in Temple or maybe the Queen Diner
on Morgantown Road, two logical places on the route to Philly from Reading, but
it was probably just a quick stop at any one of those millions of shiny
aluminum Pullman car style diners all over America.</div>
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I remember going to Reading Indians
games with my father and one game in particular when a foul ball came straight
back and cleared the backstop. We all stood up and my father, who was quite tall,
reached up and the ball missed his hand by a few inches, pretty much a metaphor
for the type of luck my family usually had. </div>
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Pop-pop umpiring a softball game in "the Grove." </div>
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My maternal grandfather, Clarence
P. Bowers, was a lot of things—an industrialist, an innovator, a politician, a
racing horse owner, an aviator, a neighbor of Al Capone in Fort Lauderdale, and
a catalyst in Reading for the grand things that needed doing. He sponsored
industrial league baseball teams. He was a pioneer in the manufacture of car
batteries, known worldwide for his innovations. He chaired the board that
developed the municipal airport—he had a company pilot on call for his
twin-engine corporate plane. He was instrumental in bringing professional
baseball to Reading, a city of about 110,000 people at the time. </div>
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Heavy cotton jersey from one of Pop-pop's Industrial teams. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B9K5Bmca2mk/UyYWL29YxvI/AAAAAAAAAag/a01cpfzgpdk/s1600/IMG_20140316_105114_055.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B9K5Bmca2mk/UyYWL29YxvI/AAAAAAAAAag/a01cpfzgpdk/s1600/IMG_20140316_105114_055.jpg" height="320" width="240" /> </a></div>
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Snazzy air holes for ventilation. </div>
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Pop-pop, as we called him,
was way out ahead of Kevin Costner. Professional baseball was gone from Reading
for several years and the outlook of getting a team back was bleak. He felt
that if Reading built a major league caliber ballpark, some franchise could be
enticed to make Reading a member of their farm system. On spec, he and others
on a board (called “The Old Timers”) started a movement to build Reading’s
stadium. It worked. The Cleveland Indians took the bait deciding to take a ride
on the Reading. That enabled the planets to align creating another one of my
encounters with the gods of baseball. Reading became Cleveland’s Single-A team
halfway through the 1952 season.</div>
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My grandfather's name is fourth from the top.</div>
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The plaque is on the wall just left of the ticket window </div>
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In 1954, the Indians were in the
World Series and there were local, Reading stars, in the series. One, Vic Wertz,
never played for Reading. He graduated from Reading High, but his path to the
Cleveland Indians took another path because the Reading Indians didn’t exist at
the time he came out of the minor leagues. Vic Wertz will always be paired with
the catch Willie Mays made in Game 1 which might have decided that World Series.
The bigger local hero* at that time was Carl Furillo, the "Reading Rifle," known
for his laser throws from right field. One season he threw out seven runners who
rounded first too wide. The Dodgers, channeling an inner Yankees’ greed, bought
the entire Reading franchise so they could acquire his rights in 1940. Baseball
disappeared from Reading for a few years after that until my grandfather helped bring it
back.</div>
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Rocky Colavito did play for one
season for Reading, on his way to stardom in the major leagues. During that
season he met a local girl, Carmen Perroti, from Temple (about 4 miles from the
center of Reading) They met in 1953 and were married in 54 and the couple makes
their home in the Reading area today. When I lived in Laureldale, my parish was
Holy Guardian Angels. Laureldale was a suburb was about 3 miles from Reading
and Temple was the next town north. After that, there were cornfields until you
reached Kutztown. Philly was 58 miles to the south.</div>
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Rocky with his wife, Carmen</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QDL55IiowRc/UyYkL-KqSPI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/ScoRqrK4s3w/s1600/Rocky+with+nuns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QDL55IiowRc/UyYkL-KqSPI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/ScoRqrK4s3w/s1600/Rocky+with+nuns.jpg" /></a> My parish was predominantly Irish
and Italians. The Germans in the area were generally Lutheran, so being a
Pennsylvania<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>German, I was in a minority
at my Catholic grade school. During the off season, Rocky sometimes attended my
church. He was the original<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Italian
Stallion</i>—tall, dark, handsome, muscular and a famous baseball player. In
the late 50’s, during my baseball formative years, he was a god of baseball—for
me—the original. Just watching him out of uniform, I felt that he stood out
among the lesser mortals. Actually he did—so tall, so young and handsome. He
could have been an iceman like his father and he still would have stood out.
But to a little boy, a baseball player… was a god.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-okpY16OBMlI/UyYjjLjl6OI/AAAAAAAAAb4/Ool1KqbZfwE/s1600/Rocky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-okpY16OBMlI/UyYjjLjl6OI/AAAAAAAAAb4/Ool1KqbZfwE/s1600/Rocky.jpg" /> </a></div>
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I wonder what the going price was for Rocky's card? </div>
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I had other close encounters with
the gods of baseball in New Jersey. One night during the summer before my
senior year in college, my parents were hosting a couple in their church bridge
group. They belonged to a small group that circulated at a different home each
month. That night they were hosting the Kucks. My bedroom was downstairs. I was
going out for the night but before leaving I did the polite thing and came up
and introduced myself and exchanged small talk before heading out. The
next day, my dad remarked that I seemed almost nonchalant when we had a former
star pitcher for the Yankees in our living room. The American League was the
other league so I had no idea that Johnny Kucks had played seven seasons for the
Yankees and was the winning pitcher of Game 7 in the 1955 World Series. In my
living room, he didn’t look like one of the gods of baseball. Years later, in
1980 when I was covering the New Jersey State high school basketball finals, I
watched his daughter, Rebecca, win that championship. Small world.</div>
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Johnny Kucks with Yogi Berra </div>
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As an adult I’d like to think that
my next encounter with one of these gods, would not turn me into a nervous,
stuttering worshiper. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t. The years reporting for the
newspaper might have taken an edge off that but I do remember getting anxious
when I interviewed people like Bill Bradley (as a US Senator, not as a New York Knick) Mario Andretti, Virginia Wade, and
movie director Jon Landis (Animal House, The Blues Brothers). And I do remember
being fascinated by getting up close with stars like Nancy Lopez, Peggy Flemming and Dorothy Hamill but
I was in my late 20’s and they were still gods to me. Now I recognize that we idolize
these people for their exceptional physical skills when they are just like you
and me except exceptionally good at what they do. What matters in one realm is
inconsequential in another and when you are young, they are gods, like Rocky
Colavito.</div>
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Tall, dark and handsome<br />
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NOTE: Scores of major leaguers played for
Reading over the years, too many to treat fairly in this space. Among them:
Whitey Kurowski, Roger Maris, Pat Burrell, Brett Myers, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Larry Bowa, Bob
Boone, John Kruk and Robin Roberts. Also Note that the American League's Philadelphia A's shared the same park up until 1954 when they moved to Kansas City, so Philly was essentially a National League and American League City. By the time I reached the age of reason, Philly was solely a National League city.</div>
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Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-3530181801619920402014-02-22T11:53:00.003-08:002020-02-29T09:20:27.691-08:00The Little Rink Around the Corner<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
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Every four years, the Olympics turn me into a couch
potato. Of course, I look forward to the skiing but I live for the ice
hockey. In my odd sports path to the mountains of New Jersey, I've take the strangest
of routes. Hockey is my favorite sport to play and the Olympics, my
favorite showcase for the sport. I have a weird, connected history there.</div>
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I sometimes imagine how different my life would have been
if my parents had raised me rebuilding car engines or sailing or cycling. But
they chose to drag me out on the ice, on a pond in Dauberville, Pennsylvania,
sometimes kicking and screaming, but always freezing in the cold. The given
with skating is to have ice thick enough for skating it has to be bone-chilling
cold. I remember the attempts, well-intended I’m
sure, when my parents tried to get us to take a sip of brandy because it would
“keep us warm”—that was like forcing castor oil on us. But I also
remember that we always refused the stuff and wound up on the ice anyway<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">—chilled to the bone</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zXaIm06aaXA/Uwj80Y7QpNI/AAAAAAAAAVA/GERqwJyMQD8/s1600/100_1353.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zXaIm06aaXA/Uwj80Y7QpNI/AAAAAAAAAVA/GERqwJyMQD8/s1600/100_1353.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The building that
housed the rink—2008 photo<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S0ssV4Riqtk/Uwj8yJLOewI/AAAAAAAAAU4/1ASiZyzBX0Y/s1600/tuffy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-S0ssV4Riqtk/Uwj8yJLOewI/AAAAAAAAAU4/1ASiZyzBX0Y/s1600/tuffy.jpg" /></a><br />
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Where we played hockey in Reading was just a few blocks
from the original Boscov’s store. Now it’s a giant chain but then it was a
short turn from the corner diner. Turn right you’re at Boscovs. Turn left and
just before you hit Albright College, you had to pass McKellen’s rink. The
McKellen’s were interesting people. Leila and Gorden, Sr.—nobody called him
Gordon<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">—</span>opened the rink in the 50s. I was
stunned to find a 1955 photo on the internet of Tuffy standing in front
of the “ice skating studio.” There was no truth to the rumor that he was a
Munchkin in the Wizard of Oz but then you couldn't help wondering when you saw his
underwhelming, less-than-five-feet-of-him-stature. But he was called “Tuffy”
for a reason. Devilishly handsome—and you never saw him not smiling—you knew,
deep down, that you didn't want to meet him in a dark alley. He
seemed to be one, huge, muscle and he gave off the aura that packed in that
smallish frame was immense stored power.</div>
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Tuffy met
Leila, his beautiful wife, when she was skating in the Ice Follies and he was
an acrobat act with his brother, Gil. They could do a hand-to-hand handstand on
ice. Let’s think about that a moment. Picture Gil on skates, his hands strait
up in the air. Now picture Tuffy upside down his hands straight down,
“standing” on top of Gil’s hands. On ice, moving. Whaaaaaat?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eCTbKvzeCtA/Uwj89P-ISbI/AAAAAAAAAVY/lDgnS7B3rQs/s1600/tuffy+and+gil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-eCTbKvzeCtA/Uwj89P-ISbI/AAAAAAAAAVY/lDgnS7B3rQs/s1600/tuffy+and+gil.jpg" /></a></div>
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In this photo they are not doing their handstand, but
that trick is listed in Ripley's "Believe It or Not."</div>
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Tuffy and Leila settled down in Reading (for God knows
what reason) and they opened a small rink. Their son, Gordie, became our Men’s
National Champion figure skater and represented the US at the 1972 Sapporo
Olympics where he came in fourth.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cLj7k7TtIbw/Uwj-_12uBYI/AAAAAAAAAWE/0J9jzNLq5CA/s1600/the+rink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-cLj7k7TtIbw/Uwj-_12uBYI/AAAAAAAAAWE/0J9jzNLq5CA/s1600/the+rink.jpg" width="316" /></a></div>
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The rink in 1955- that's Tuffy in front</div>
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Sometime in 1962, the McKellens decided to start a youth
hockey program and put an ad in the Reading Eagle which my mother saw and
immediately signed up my older brother. He was three years older at 14 and, for
a winter, my younger brother and I ate our hearts out watching Phil play hockey.
The following year, Dennis and I were primed for the “world’s fastest game” (I
laugh when I hear lacrosse called that—my apologies to my lacrosse friends). In
the rink there was a large, framed photo, of Gordie with blades on his baby
shoes. He must have been 11 months. He was being held up between his mother and
father as they squatted on the ice. I think that photo put ideas in my mom's
head. We were all on skates by our third birthday.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zCdUwhlKkCQ/Uwj86xNgZKI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/LzOJgmKS_Ho/s1600/lakeplacid+sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zCdUwhlKkCQ/Uwj86xNgZKI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/LzOJgmKS_Ho/s1600/lakeplacid+sign.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">In 1976, the sign read "future home" and we were thrilled.</span></div>
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We played from October to April, every Sunday (except
holidays) There were four teams, each with six players. Every sixth week you
had to play goal, which I hated and proved myself to be worthless. I once gave
up 14 goals, most on breakaways by John Dillingham, a 3-year older and very
skilled player. If I hadn't given up 14 goals to John, I believe
the most goals I would have yielded would have been 8-10. The goal had yellow
tape 15 inches up each post. Shots above the imaginary line were disallowed.
John <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">didn't</span> need to
go high on me—I had enough holes already close to the ice.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">During
the winter of 1963, we played every Sunday—figure about 28 Sunday games and we
also played on a road team that went 15-1-2. If you don’t count road team
practices, we played 46 games and </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">traveled</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">all aro</span><span style="line-height: 115%;">und southeast Pennsylva</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">nia. My
favorite games were the ones played in Hershey Arena and at the private
prep school in Pottstown, The Hill School (think Choate and Exeter).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Our team, with
16-year-olds and 13-year-olds trashed their high school prep team.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then we moved
to hockey’s wasteland—New Jersey. I left a system where we played about 50
times a year to a place that had two ice rinks in all of northern New Jersey
and no hockey programs. To boot, nobody seemed to know how to skate. That was
obvious the first winter we found the local ponds filled with kids who could
just barely stand up, let alone play hockey. To us, it was a joke. Kids had
heard of hockey and they owned sticks purchased at the local hardware store but
they were clueless how to dribble or carry the puck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In this waste land, taking your skates to a hardware for
sharpening was making a death wish for your blades. Skates not sharpened at a
rink were doomed to the ignorance of whomever <span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">wasn't</span> busy
selling snow shovels and nails to waiting customers. My first sharpening
at the hardware store in Hillsdale was my last and it almost cost my high
school a victory. I spent two periods scrapping the edge off my blades on the
wooden boards until I could dull them enough to get on the ice to tie and then
score the winning goal, both in the last two minutes of the game.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My
hockey-rabid family moved to a hockey wasteland and had to wait three years for
hockey to catch on. The New York Rangers were on television every Saturday
night so the locals had no excuse of not knowing the game. In Pennsylvania we
did not have hockey on TV but were lucky that the McKellens came to town. There
were lots of hockey programs in Pennsylvania in places like Hershey,
Philadelphia, Lancaster, Palmyra, Middletown, Pottstown, Wyomissing,
Conshohocken and Wissahickon - that was our road schedule. Northern New Jersey
had a rink in Westwood (small and square) and another in South Orange. The next
closest rinks were Morristown (an hour to the west), Brick Township, down the
Shore, and at Low Tor, near Haverstraw, a 45-minute drive to the north.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p><span style="line-height: 115%;">We became big fish in a very small pond. It was
like we were playing basketball, seven-footers against midgets. My younger
brother and I would go on a pond with at least 40 kids playing hockey, and he
and I could play keep away. Nobody could take the puck from us. It was weird.
This was our sport. Hockey was year-around for us. During the summer we
varnished and waxed wooden boards so we could practice “lifting” the puck and
honing our shot. A friend of ours, a very good lacrosse player, moved to
Colorado. One of his first days at high school, the football coach asked him in
the hall what sport he played and he answered “lacrosse” and the coach said,
“what’s that?” We understood that and empathized.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The McKellens moved to Lake Placid the year after we
moved from Reading. Their son outgrew the Reading rink and commuted to
Philadelphia every day to practice his figures. The McKellens opened a lodge
where they boarded skaters and other training Olympians since Lake Placid had
all of the facilities from the 1932 Olympic games still in use.
We traveled there every year for the days after Christmas until New
Year’s skiing, tobogganing, X-country skiing, and bobsledding.</span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KyZxEwpTTZI/Uwj9F_XJ9fI/AAAAAAAAAVg/2w9TV-dm2uo/s1600/bobsled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KyZxEwpTTZI/Uwj9F_XJ9fI/AAAAAAAAAVg/2w9TV-dm2uo/s1600/bobsled.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="text-indent: 0px;">My brother, Phil, survived his ride in 1967.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> My brother Phil was the lone bobsledder, deciding
to take a chance and put his life in the hands of a brakeman and a steer man,
who agreed to take two passengers for ten dollars. Phil said that was better
than any <span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">roller coaster</span> ride he
had ever taken before and I imagine that has held up to this day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Part of the
fun of staying with the McKellens was meeting the Olympians-in-training. We
could extract all sorts of trade secrets from ski jumpers and bobsledders. We
also met several nationally-ranked skaters. By Sapporo, we knew or met most of
the national team. The TV room of the lodge had an entire wall of glass
casement displaying all of Gordie’s trophies. Of course, the best one was the
huge cup he received as National Senior Champion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When Lake
Placid placed the successful bid for the 1980 games, we were ecstatic. Lake
Placid was (and is) the perfect place to stage the games. Our favorite Olympic sport to
be played in our favorite place. Hockey and Lake Placid, to that point, was our
family’s guilty little secret. Our friends had no idea of the special meaning for us of having the games in Lake Placid. When you consider the Miracle on Ice
occurred during that Olympics, our enjoyment was taken to a whole new
level.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NPsblxUVlTY/UwkA0zzOPMI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/J8Jiqcls89k/s1600/ramsay-kharlamov-Tony-Duffy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NPsblxUVlTY/UwkA0zzOPMI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/J8Jiqcls89k/s1600/ramsay-kharlamov-Tony-Duffy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">This is how we all felt about the Russians in 1980</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Every four years, all these memories get dredged up. When
memories are so deep-rooted, how could they not surface? I don’t care now about
the hockey games as deeply as I did when Russia dominated North American
hockey with their skewed rules and unfair competitive advantages. True. I do
prefer gold medals to silver or bronze, or in this year, no medal at all.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p>
</span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6sPe-Q0A_J4/Uwj83xhtzoI/AAAAAAAAAVI/UYrmEAbBxNM/s1600/signman_fixed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6sPe-Q0A_J4/Uwj83xhtzoI/AAAAAAAAAVI/UYrmEAbBxNM/s1600/signman_fixed.jpg" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Back then, during the 70s, it was sweet to triumph
despite all odds. It was great when the Philadelphia Fliers crushed the Soviet
Union after they were having their way with the rest of the NHL. Only the
Canadians and the Buffalo Sabers put up any kind of fight—the rest of the NHL got outright
embarrassed. Being from the Philly area, you can imagine our chests being
puffed out when the Fliers won. When the Fliers seemed assured of victory,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> a fan held up a sign I’ll never
forget. It read “Bring on the Martians.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> But
Lake Placid, our winter home away from home, and our favorite sport—that was
the absolute best. Of course we believed in miracles; where else could the
greatest upset in sports history occur?</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Author’s note: Lake Placid has an interest in the 2026
Olympics. Cross your fingers.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-66839715111355050522014-02-17T10:21:00.001-08:002014-02-18T17:20:38.282-08:00The Loyola Legend—A Man Among Greyhounds<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Before
there was Cousy, before Pistol, Magic and Michael Jordan, there was Jim Lacy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I
have little doubt that most people have never heard his name and most
underclassmen at Loyola University Maryland have no idea who he was or of his
importance to their basketball program. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">My
first brush with the name came my freshman year at Loyola. My best friend, John
Davis, pointed out Lacy’s son, then a sophomore. John, or “the Dude” as we all called him, told
me that when Lacy’s son played on the freshman team the prior year, the gym
would pack out to see him just because his name was “Lacy.” That made an
impression on me. Without knowing any details, by osmosis I understood the importance
and impact of his father. I could try to understand how hard it was for that
sophomore to live up to a famous father, but I had no true idea then that the senior
Lacy was a once-in-a-lifetime talent. I know his history now.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Scoring
1,000 points is an arbitrary benchmark schools give their best basketball players.
But if </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">you've</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> scored 950 points and don’t make a list of 1,000-point scorers, </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">you've</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> still had a great basketball career. While I was in college, in the 1972-73
season, the NCAA changed the rules to allow freshmen to compete on the varsity.
Until then, a player had to reach that 1,000-point threshold in three years, so
that achievement has been watered down since that rule was enacted. Further
eroding the benchmark has been the addition in 1986-87 of the of the 3-point
shot from 19’9” and extended by a foot in 2008-09.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">If
scoring is a major part of the makeup of a great player, largely because it can
be measured, then the other facets, durability, playing time, scoring in the
clutch, drawing the foul, have to be also considered in determining greatness.
Jim Lacy would be a legend for scoring alone. Consider that he scored 2,199
points in his career, that his career was only three years, and that he played
before the 3-point shot rule. Lacy was not a scoring hog; he </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">didn't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> call for
the ball. His teammates knew, when the game was on the line, whose hands they
wanted the ball to be in and Lacy </span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">didn't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> disappoint. In 1949, Lacy was the
highest scorer in the country and is said, in one game, to have scored the
highest amount of points ever scored by one player in a game. His 44 points is
still a school record. He was the first player in NCAA history to score 2,000
points.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LFnp9mwDjYo/UwJUK1TFEdI/AAAAAAAAAUM/STf_-IURF10/s1600/Loyola+Legend.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LFnp9mwDjYo/UwJUK1TFEdI/AAAAAAAAAUM/STf_-IURF10/s1600/Loyola+Legend.jpg" height="400" width="343" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">The Loyola Legend</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> For
people who like nice round numbers, and 2,199 is bothersome because he </span><span style="line-height: 27.600000381469727px;">didn't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> reach
2,200 points, there is this notion: In several games, Lacy had points taken off
the scoreboard. One of the memorable ones was a buzzer shot that the refs claim
was taken too late. Back then, there were no replays to get the call right, so normally
you gave the refs the benefit of the doubt. I would, too, </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">except that it occurred at the Mt. St. Mary’s
in “The Hangar,” a facility with known electric lighting and scoreboard issues.
I remember one game while I was at Loyola when the Mount hit a buzzer shot to
beat us and the clock at one end of the court read 00:00 and the other 00:01.
The refs pointed to the 00:01 and said “that’s the official clock.” Really? Why
was </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">I not surprised?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">Before he passed away
in 2007, Father “Wish” Galvin, who played with and against Lacy, would always speak
with such reverence when he discussed Lacy, his life and his legacy. And when
he referred to Lacy’s scoring record, he would pronounce it “2…1…9…9,” emphasizing
each numeral. Father Galvin also attested to Lacy’s character, saying that the pre-game
warm-up for the Loyola Legend started in the chapel. Lacy was a Christian
gentleman.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">I
was privileged to meet Mr. Lacy at the pre-game Basketball Alumni luncheon in
2012 before he was presented at the halftime with induction into the MAAC Honor
Roll. The night before I traveled to Baltimore, I called the Dude and told him
that Lacy was being honored at the half and that I'd finally get to see him.
John reminded me that his father, Bill, had played with Lacy at Loyola High
School and then with him on Loyola’s 1943-44 wartime team. I had forgotten
that John had mentioned that on several occasions.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AJ7IY4laTgo/UwJUsmZJkpI/AAAAAAAAAUg/FQl1jU0eu8Y/s1600/301_4308.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="line-height: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AJ7IY4laTgo/UwJUsmZJkpI/AAAAAAAAAUg/FQl1jU0eu8Y/s1600/301_4308.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: normal; text-align: center;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;">The crowd on it's feet honoring Lacy in 2012</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;"> At
the luncheon, I was surprised that I was actually going to be introduced. The
school’s media staff was walking Lacy from table to table introducing him. When
my turn came, I told him how honored I was to be able to finally meet “The
Loyola Legend.” He grinned when I called him that. And then I told him about
the Dude’s father playing with him and a warm smile spread across his face. ‘I
remember Bill well,” he said and the look was of the fondness only a teammate
has for one another.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> </span></span><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xmT4wnHeAbA/UwJUSI-gxbI/AAAAAAAAAUY/H5JOmz9jaiE/s1600/4.1+Loyola+1943-44+Wartime+team+full.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.5in;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xmT4wnHeAbA/UwJUSI-gxbI/AAAAAAAAAUY/H5JOmz9jaiE/s1600/4.1+Loyola+1943-44+Wartime+team+full.jpg" height="333" width="400" /></a></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Middle row (l to r) Jim Lacy third, and Bill Davis, fifth</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">The passing of Jim
Lacy this week at age 87, does not end an era in Loyola basketball because Jim
Lacy was a once-in-a-school’s-history type of player and transcends eras.
Someday, Loyola could have a player who’ll score many points and win some
championships, but Loyola will never again see someone as gifted and
well-rounded as Jim Lacy, a man among boys, a Greyhound among pups.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">NOTE: During my senior year at Loyola I enjoyed being the sports editor of the Greyhound (February through May, 1973). Freshman and sophomore years, I was a manager for the JV basketball team and worked the scoreboard for varsity basketball games. Links to my book website: www.amishandbaseball.com and my writing website: http://gregbmiller.webs.com has links to my other sports and science-related articles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-56366374970111464272014-02-11T16:57:00.000-08:002016-11-05T15:01:53.095-07:00Falling With Style<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Like many people riveted to the
broadcasts of the Olympic downhill runs,
I am amazed at how these skiers perform, all the time perched on the edge of
disaster. Bode Miller, for one, is almost too exciting to watch, especially if
I want to relax and randomly view what event NBC was dishing up that particular
night. When I watch him carve into those icy turns, the sense of disaster is
heightened by the sound of steel grinding an edge-hold into an icy slope.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
I enjoy watching the Olympics because
these exciting images bring back memories of the thrilling moments of the past.
In 1976, I was working at my first job in Manhattan and the Olympic coverage
was expanded for the Innsbruck games in Austria. Comparing notes with fellow
workers around the proverbial water cooler, I was shocked to learn that for
many, this was the first time, they had ever seen a downhill race. They were
city dwellers who lived their entire life in the self-proclaimed paradise of Brooklyn, as flat as stretches of
Kansas and Oklahoma. Scheming every week just where and how I’d get to which
New England ski slope was something I did as a matter of routine. They couldn't
imagine that at all. They had no idea how a ski attached to your feet or how you
might dress. To them, the competitors were “sliding down the hill,” or as Woody
put it to Buzz Lightyear, “falling with style.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
Life at the top of a ski lift,
especially at Stowe, Killington and Whiteface is a completely different world.
I liken it to when Dorothy opens that farmhouse door and steps into Oz and provides
commentary to Toto along the lines of not being in Kansas anymore.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
After skiing all the major
eastern slopes in the East, I arrived at the conclusion that there is no slope
that comes close to Whiteface, the scene of the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics.
I traveled there with my family for years before the 1980 Olympics, when the
original 1932 Olympic facilities were still being used. The tiny little town
and surrounding venues was probably the best kept secret of winter sports.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
Every year, the first question
we asked when we arrived in Lake Placid was “Is Chair 2 open?” There was a
lift, used only when snow conditions were perfect, that took skiers to the
peak, to a run that was left natural, where they hadn't ventured with machine
grooming equipment, and tree stumps, rocks and other hidden goodies were disguised
by 30-40 inches of snow. After a stretch of being shut out for several years,
our patient wait was finally rewarded and my older brother and I could not
believe our good fortune one year: Chair 2 was open for business.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
Eagerly we took the two lift rides to be able to get to Chair 2. We noticed that no other people were going
up in Chair 2 and there was no lift line. We were to find out why in a few
moments. At the top, at the end of the lift, there was a sign that read
something to the effect of “if you are not an expert skier, please go back
down.” Naturally, my brother and I laughed that off. We didn't need no
steenkin’ sign to tell us we were probably in “over our heads," figuratively and
literally.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
There was no trail, just a
wooden sign with an arrow pointing the logical way along a deceivingly flat cut
through evergreen trees, so laden with heavy snow they must look deformed in
the summer. We followed the break in the forest until we came to a huge,
wide-open area the size of a football field, but one stood on its edge at an
angle that made us wonder how snow stayed on the slope.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
Offering the adage “age goes
before beauty” I told my older brother “you first.” What he did next was both
surprising and hilarious. He moved about
10 feet ahead on the slope, tripped over the first rock or stump, and
disappeared down a rabbit hole, out of sight. Even though I knew that was a
preview to what I’d be doing in a few moments, it cracked me up when he popped
out, like a gopher, about 10 yards down the slope. Then I followed him and
duplicated his accident completely. Traversing that slope, the elusive one that
we lusted after for years, took us at least two hours. And it was work. It was
a brilliantly sunny day but I am pretty sure that after we finally made it
down, we must have either selected a very relaxing intermediate slope or called
it a day, exhilarated but exhausted.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
During the 1980 Olympics, I was
too busy working at the newspaper to get to Lake Placid. My sister, Tina, and
my mother went and experienced the mad electricity of the moment known as the
“Miracle on Ice.” Towards the end of the games, I had one of the best ideas I ever had, and <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I can count mine on one hand.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> I called my best friend, Harold, and
suggested that when the Olympic Village was emptied out after the Friday
closing ceremonies that we would go to Lake Placid to ski. Like swimming upstream.</span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
Our reward was empty slopes, no
lift lines, Olympic–standard groomed surfaces and, something I completely
forgot about: Chair 2.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
The downside of winning the 1980
Olympic bid was a forever-changed Lake Placid. The cute, sleepy,
character-drenched village was transformed into a glitzy ski resort. Real
hotels instead of the kitschy bed and breakfasts, tiny stores on Main Street
gone forever, and Olympic venues upgraded from the 1932 state they were still
in during the 60s and 70s.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
Chair 2 was no different. It had
become the 1980 Women’s downhill course, which was regarded as much faster,
steeper and more dangerous than the men’s course.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
Harold and I arrived at the top
of a Chair 2 that I didn't recognize. It was like returning to my Model T and
finding a Lamborghini. But it was magical. Not a bump in sight. Groomed like a
golf fairway at an exclusive course. We didn't see another human being until we
got to the bottom. The course was lined with that orange plastic stretch
fencing. The hay bales were placed here and there in case of a crash. The
markers were there—in fact everything was still there; the whole scene lacked
only the cheering crowds.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
It was the ski run of my life.
Usually on expert slopes (The Mt. Snow trail called “The Jaws of Death” comes
to mind), I have to pick out three or four moguls ahead and plan my turns, my
escape routes, my emergency stops, in case I miss a turn or get hurled ahead by
an unexpected bump and get out of control at a high speed. But there on
Whiteface, there were no bumps and as soon as you put your skis into the fall
line, the direct straight line down a slope, the acceleration was shocking. The
thrill of staying with that speed was exhilarating and the only limiting factor
was the heat of the burn in your thighs and quads. At a certain point, when you
thought your leg was going to burst into flames, you would turn sideways and
slide a hundred feet to a stop and then lean on your poles until you recover,
both your breath, your stamina, and your nerve.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
After that, skiing was never the
same. All my runs would forever be compared to that one Saturday. When I see
the downhill on TV now, I am immediately taken back to that day, those runs. I
remember; I appreciate.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListBulletCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: none; tab-stops: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
Just like there can never truly
be another “Miracle on Ice” because the circumstances were so unique,
personally, I’ll never see another run quite like Franz Klammer in the 1976
Olympics. He was the favorite to win the men’s downhill those Olympics. As an Austrian, skiing
on home snow, the pressure was enormous. For Austrians, the downhill is like
batting with the bases loaded in a tied seventh game of the World Series, the
final putt on the 18<sup>th</sup> hole in the Masters, the field goal attempt
in overtime at the Super Bowl, and the half court buzzer-beater attempt in the
final game of March Madness. Klammer was the last skier to compete and had to beat a
terrific time. He skied on the edge of disaster and for the two minutes
he blistered down the slope, I think everyone watching held their breath. I
remember one turn and leap when he went airborne and just barely recovered in
the air and the announcer was screaming. He won by .33 seconds. I watched Jean
Claude Killy, Bill Johnson, Jean Saubert, and now Bode Miller and Julia Mancuso
and admired them all but, for me, Franz Klammer’s 1976 Innsbruck downhill will
always be my favorite. As much fun as an un-groomed Chair 2 run with my brother
was, streaking down the 1980 women’s downhill was my favorite ski experience.<o:p></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> Like all great events, I can only experience it once
but when I watch the downhill every four years, I get to relive my own
“Olympic” moment. In my case, Woody was right—I was “falling with style.”</span>Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-13891520717094202602014-01-31T17:42:00.000-08:002014-01-31T17:42:06.010-08:00My Long Day's Journey Into Night<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I have whined about this before but my long day’s journey into night is about to end: the book I've been producing is finally going to print. O’Neill’s long journey is a drama in four acts. My long day’s journey had plenty of drama and about 100 acts. But it’s near the end and I am consoling myself with the soothing idea that I've learned some valuable lessons. Here, I will recap.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Some are the fairly obvious ones. Coming to mind are the generic ones like things always take more time than you originally plan. I wonder if that is the one I’m most beating myself up about. I should have known better. Yes and No. My problem was not knowing the person who was going to have the last word on the changes. Had I known his approach beforehand, I would never have taken up this project.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">It wasn't his newbie status—we all start someplace. My problem is that he started his learning process of trial and error—with me. And learning on the go </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">wouldn't</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> have been so bad if he wasn't a slow learner. I don’t think that he was always a slow learner. I think he just couldn't focus on what was important. To him everything was important. I usually give my difficult decisions and tasks priorities. I may procrastinate but at least I know what is important.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">To paraphrase some good philosophy from the movie, “The Incredibles” when everything is important, nothing is important. Since everything was a huge deal to him, there was no real order to tackling his tasks. It was like building a house of cards from every direction, not just from the bottom up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">From all this whining you would suppose I would emphatically decide something like “I’ll never work with him again.” That’s not true. I would work on another project with him the day after the book gets released. What I would change is that I wouldn't accept his manuscript until it was in a form ready to be published. Now, my writing friends would chime in that’s nearly impossible since </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">they've</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> had their manuscripts rejected over and over by agents and publishing houses.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I am reminded that if had been a sitting agent and the first manuscript from my friend came in the door as it came to me 18 months ago, I would have returned it to him (after I stopped hideously laughing and was strong enough to pick myself off the floor.). And I </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">wouldn't</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> scrawled on the cover letter “alas, not for me.” (don’t you love that rejection?) For argument sake, let’s say I first received it after the five re-writes that I personally did. I open the package start reading and I realize that this still really needs more re-writing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">What I mean to say is that you can re-write something 20 times and I guarantee that if you pick it up a month later, you’ll want to re-write parts of it again. But, in this case, the readers of this book will not care. The story and the facts are so germane to them that short of hand-crayoned paragraphs they will get wildly into this book. Would I recommend someone outside of this interested community to buy this book. Um…that would be no. Change that. It would be NO or NO WAY, or FORGETTABOUTIT.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2LvkaTB7LgE/UuxM4Z8hsUI/AAAAAAAAATA/LUbwntvMnAE/s1600/2+++-1.2+Calvert+Street+basement+gym+1899.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2LvkaTB7LgE/UuxM4Z8hsUI/AAAAAAAAATA/LUbwntvMnAE/s1600/2+++-1.2+Calvert+Street+basement+gym+1899.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">This book is written for alumni of my </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">Alma</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> matter who are interested in the basketball program. People who are die hard basketball enthusiasts would find parts readable and amusing. It is chock full of old timey photos and strange rules and goofy gyms. People from the other colleges the college played in the old days would find it interesting. Maybe not interesting enough to plunk down hard cash immediately when they could wait for the paperback or the inexpensive eBook. Another interested party would be the guy who has every basketball book ever written. Buying this would save him years searching for that rumored small-market college tome.</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8r77jtlA-C8/UuxNbZlOsZI/AAAAAAAAATM/gpYmsySHu-o/s1600/3++++-1.4+Loyola+College+1908-09+team-cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8r77jtlA-C8/UuxNbZlOsZI/AAAAAAAAATM/gpYmsySHu-o/s1600/3++++-1.4+Loyola+College+1908-09+team-cropped.jpg" height="298" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">But getting back to working on the book. I did learn a number of valuable lessons. I found out that where I am employed in publishing I am in a branch that has very easily fixed problems. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">We've</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> been doing it so long and the format that goes to my printers is so uniform that thousands of pages are published each week with the minimum of production hassle. Every week I send out sometimes 3 or 4 publications of about 1,000 pages with nary a ripple, a change, a mistake, or even excitement.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7006246974986088396" name="_GoBack"></a> Seriously, I’m handling about 80 publications a month without a hassle. And here, one book is killing me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I must say as I got towards the back of the manuscript I came across a few instances in the manuscript where an editor’s note to the reader said that a particular point would be discussed more in depth in Volume II. For a lot of the aforementioned reasons, that piece of information wound up on the cutting room floor. Over my dead body was I going through this again and that might have been accurate because, again, this book is killing me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Probably another frustrating point is that I work in the New York City environment where there is only one speed—lightning fast-get out of the way—I’m coming through and you’re in the way, fast. Anything else is plodding, glacial, foot-sucking quicksand walking pace. New York is the tip of the America iceberg and we’re American and that means we get things done, done now, against all odds, and on schedule if not early.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So here I am, bludgeoned and bloodied a few tweaks away from that happy moment when I click send on the files to the printer’s FTP site. I have to have the cover manufacturer inspect the file I just finished that to make sure the silk screening will work with the fine details. The last little double checks are being done – are all the footnotes accounted for, does every photo have a correct credit in the appendix. You can only find so many tiny punctuation glitches, like my personal favorite, the apostrophe that curls in the wrong direction. This is digital, those can be fixed in the second short run, no biggie. I consider it like one of those stamps with the biplane flying upside down—you have a collector’s item.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I can now return to making the agent-requested changes on my novel. My editor must surely must have been smiling to himself when I told him I was working on this project. I remember him saying the industry had a name for it. He called it a “Hell baby.” I think that he was just being kind. I think it was more like a black hole, sucking all forms of energy into a dense area from which nothing escapes.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LRTb0kZS0Eg/UuxMcCVhNOI/AAAAAAAAAS0/CJ6xmHRMtiU/s1600/website+cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LRTb0kZS0Eg/UuxMcCVhNOI/AAAAAAAAAS0/CJ6xmHRMtiU/s1600/website+cover.png" height="320" width="259" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">But the book is done. It is magnificent for what it is. The small narrow market of people will actually think this is the best thing since sliced bread. </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;">I've</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> met some wonderful people and made some fine contacts doing this. I tell myself that the good outweighed the bad. But most importantly, it is over. Now where, exactly, did I see that “SEND” button.</span></span></div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-12236688063393382013-12-04T18:13:00.000-08:002013-12-04T18:26:28.094-08:00That Tree in Rockefeller Center<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Tonight I
watched the annual lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and realized
that there are several times a year when we reach a benchmark, a crack in time
that reminds us to step back and compare where we were a year or two ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px;">I've</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"> seen this
before. In fact, many years. I always seems to find this Wednesday with nothing
really pressing to do that I can’t kick back and enjoy the two hours that lead
to the magic moment when the tree comes dazzlingly alive with a flip of the switch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Every year there
is a succession of new and old
performers who alternate between getting saddled with an old saw carol that they
have to get through or a beautiful tune that performers would fight to perform
only to blow them up with personalized quirky renditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Tonight I was
actually laughing out loud when one
young performer absolutely torched a favorite. That’s when I realized that this
happens every year just to a different song. In this instance, the offense was
especially egregious. In her own mind she was marking her territory by putting
a personal stamp on a song and she probably thought it was a pretty cool
effect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Here is a
factoid - her personal entourage would probably be committing personal
career suicide if they ever let her know honestly that they agreed with me - over the years, the song they torched, was sung by a number of skilled and talented
(there’s a difference between those two) performers and her 2013 rendition, when
placed beside those efforts would compare as ridiculous. Descriptions that come to mind - f</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">orced, sophomoric,
and maybe silly, pretentious, just to name a few. I wonder, all things being equal, had they been appraised or warned, would
they go out and screech that song, that way, again?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">I am being
tapped on the shoulder and reminded that these might just be the thoughts of a developing
curmudgeon. That guy. The one with the cane, threatening the kids who just
broke his window with a baseball.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt;">Another part of
me realizes that this is just the passage of time. Next year, someone will
mangle a different Christmas classic and it’ll be a rising pop star who decides
to dive off the deep musical end. It’ll be that time of year and I’ll get a new
serving of Christmas tradition lite.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 0.5in;">The saving grace of
all this is the actual moment when the button is pushed and the tree jumps with
light. Any musical transgressions are forgotten. Everyone stares up at the tree
in wonder at such a transformation. It’s official: the New York Christmas
season is well underway. Sure Santa Claus closes the Macy’s Day parade but
nothing happens until that tree gets set ablaze.</span></div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-35345731428169432782013-11-27T19:57:00.000-08:002013-11-27T20:25:31.301-08:00Pennsylvania Christmas Memories<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Several years ago, I wrote a short
blurb for my company’s internal organ detailing some favorite holiday memories.
After years of seeing my stories everyday in the newspaper and then changing
occupations, it was again gratifying to see my by line in print again. The
collateral benefit was capturing in print some family holiday lore that
probably would have been long forgotten.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
My sister-in-law apparently enjoyed
the short story enough to request that I write down more holiday memories. I
wondered if I hadn’t already used my favorites, so I gave it some thought and
decided that now was a good time to write about holidays growing up before I
forget them, just as how I had almost forgotten writing that original holiday
blurb.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Nearly everyone lays claim to
unique holiday stories and situations and so do I. In the years when I was old
enough to still believe Santa Clause existed [spoiler alert] my brothers and
sister had an annual reminder that caused us to doubt for maybe a few years
after we normally shouldn’t have that the jolly old elf was real.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Christmas Eve was always spent at
my Aunt Dorothy’s home in downtown Reading, Pennsylvania. The extended family
(mother’s side) all convened for a buffet dinner followed by a wonderful party
until relatives either had to take the younger cousins home to bed or, as
everyone got older, pack off the local Polish church for Midnight Mass. My
grandmother’s side was predominantly Polish and the parts of the Mass, then in
Latin, were supplemented with Polish. As a kid without language skills other
than English, I was left out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The Mass was jammed with standing worshipers.
There was little room left for the Knights of Columbus, in full regalia, with
plumes and swords, to line the main aisle of the entrance and egress of the
priest. I remember my older brother (by three years) leaning over and
whispering to me, “This is why they call it ‘Mass’.” It was warm and stuffy.
The Knights tried in vain to make an aisle and I vaguely remember wondering why
people wouldn’t honor a simple request made by men with swords, when a small
boy remarked loudly to his mother, “I don’t feel good.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
An aisle you could drive a truck
through opened up and the Knights took their positions and for a few tense
moments everyone wondered if we were going to experience an unpleasant
eruption.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
But getting back to that marvelous
evening at Aunt Dorothy’s, I remember things that seemed to happen every year
as if someone had set some holiday clock. Aunt Dorothy had legendary deviled
eggs and I was always on the lookout for my mother as I snatched too many of these
delights from their scooped-out ceramic plates. There was also the Pennsylvania
Dutch potatoes salad that the entire city bought from the same stand at the
Farmer’s market or all over town: Sailer’s. One year, about two decades ago,
Sailer’s finally revealed their secret recipe and some of the steps were so
convoluted that only the slightly insane or masochistic would bother
duplicating it—one of life’s great mysteries, finally solved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Aunt Dorothy’s home was a
three-story Pullman style row home with a small gift shop and my Uncle Leon’s
picture framing studio on the ground floor. Uncle Leon was an accomplished painter whose
renown in art circles would grow after he had passed away. His unique
style of painting figures without distinct facial features set him apart from
other local artists.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
I remember the long narrow halls,
the high ceilings, the beautiful never-ending stair banisters going up to the
mysterious third floor from the party, which occupied the second floor. In the
front room that opened onto the cityscape on Penn Avenue, there was an upright
piano, the Christmas tree and a classic fireplace. The middle room was a large
dining room, home of the deviled eggs, and there in the back, was the kitchen.
The men all gathered in the kitchen where Uncle Leon held court.<br />
<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x8t5N398pR4/UpbCDwLwYcI/AAAAAAAAAPs/Y6CoBHiGL2Y/s1600/relainkitchen-1.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-x8t5N398pR4/UpbCDwLwYcI/AAAAAAAAAPs/Y6CoBHiGL2Y/s320/relainkitchen-1.bmp" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
For a young, growing lad, Aunt
Dorothy’s kitchen was the final frontier of adolescence. The rite of passage
dictated that you were only grown up if you were allowed in the kitchen with
the men drinking beer from small tumblers and listening to their stories and
this year’s new jokes.<br />
<br />
<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZMGs2X5UaIM/UpbDhUJnTxI/AAAAAAAAAP4/h9j7qpd2Spw/s1600/Uncle+Carl+playing+the+piano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZMGs2X5UaIM/UpbDhUJnTxI/AAAAAAAAAP4/h9j7qpd2Spw/s320/Uncle+Carl+playing+the+piano.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
At some point, the cousins were all
herded into the front room because Uncle Carl, cigar in mouth, started playing
Christmas Carols. He was quite accomplished and, I believe I was told, he had performed
with the Reading Philharmonic, so everything he played was amazing. As a child
you loved hearing the carols and then remembered that his last number would be
Jingle Bells and that meant the arrival of Santa. The fireplace was right there
but probably way too inconvenient to come down with all those people there so
he opted for walking down the hall from the kitchen, rattling sleigh bells to
announce his arrival.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Uncle Carl would stop playing and Santa
would set down his large sack next to the piano bench and one by one we would
be called up for his annual inquisition before as a requisite for receiving our
present.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
“And were you a good boy this
year?” he intoned with the formal diction of a circuit judge. Mentally, your
entire year passed in front of your eyes and you gulped deeply, now remembering
all those transgressions, many which had been witnessed by one or more of the
cousins in the room awaiting their turn. “Yes,” you found yourself lying out
loud while you were thinking that he can’t possibly have known about the time
you played in the out-of-bounds chicken coops, the ones with the hornets’
nests. Or the times you cut five minutes off your hour wait before jumping into
the swimming pool after a big lunch.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
My memory of what Santa looked like
is foggy. I heard years later that whichever imposing fiancé of my older
generation cousins was a newbie that year, was entrusted with the annual
conceit. I am sure as<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a Santa Claus he
was quite ordinary to an adult but I always remember a combination of Norman
Rockwell, Currier and Ives wearing Coca-Cola red and a Hallmark, rosy-cheeks
face. All adults were 6-8 and 280 lbs. in those years.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The present he gave you was one
selected from the balance of the gifts you would receive the next day at Pop-Pop’s
farm in the country.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
Christmas that officially opened at
Aunt Dorothy’s officially closed the following day at my grandfather’s farm in
Maiden Creek. Every year, Christmas Day was celebrated at the mansion house (it
was a gentleman’s farm) where the extended family, complete with thirteen
cousins, could spread out to play with all their new toys. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IAT7A2utIpM/Upa-1RcsJvI/AAAAAAAAAPk/RvnGW3TsArE/s1600/farm1-1.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IAT7A2utIpM/Upa-1RcsJvI/AAAAAAAAAPk/RvnGW3TsArE/s320/farm1-1.bmp" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
The “farm” as we called it had an
unending amount of places to fire a young child’s imagination. There the rest
of the Aunts’ and Uncles’ presents were distributed. As the oldest child my
older brother was left in charge of doling out the soda from the corner bar in
the dining room, a massive room anchored at one end by a large fireplace and a
large breakfront at the other. The lighting was recessed behind a crown molding
that hid five or six different color lights. The wall switch at the center hall
entrance had a switch with a row of round buttons and any combination of colored
lighting could be punched in the toggles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Flanking the fireplace mantle on each side were French doors leading to
a unheated sunroom, closed up for the winter months. The other three walls wall
had a sideboard or table server and one corner held a bar whose folding doors
hid away an entire array of bar tools, mixers and sodas. We all watched in
anticipation as he poured each soda out for us and waited for the foam to
recede or have our noses tickled.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My memory doesn’t remember any holiday meals in particular although we
always sat together as a family and enjoyed the traditional meals but my
grandmother had her own unique cookies, lemon and chocolate, rolled out incredibly
thin. The recipe was handed down and these days, my sister is the keeper and
master of the Bowers’ cookies. Each year, she dutifully sends a CARE package of
these delights to the remaining relatives. My daughters try to find time every
year to travel to her home and make the cookies.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
At days end, when the parent would
finally be at their patience end, reluctantly, we piled into the station wagons
and slept the short twenty<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>minute drive
home. I am sure we experienced great anticipation of receiving toys during in
the annual run-up to Christmas, but looking back, I don’t think it was just
receiving gifts that made it a special time. Toys, soda, cookies and candy—all
in the same day— were wonderful but being able to share it with your cousins at
my grandfather’s made the holiday special. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-78253767069080168852013-08-31T07:08:00.001-07:002015-01-03T19:01:17.466-08:00There's A Mouse in the Garage<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I
wonder if Americans realize the important of their garage? To many people the
garage is a place to store junk, a place out of sight and out of mind.
Something no longer worthy to be in their living space is relegated to a space
where the objects don’t have to be viewed on a day-to-day basis.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> My garage has too much stuff but from October
to June, it has enough open space for my car. On cold fall and winter mornings,
it’s relatively warm, dry and I can commute to my train station for the short
ride to Manhattan. The rest of the year I am lazy so my car sits outside and
the garage becomes a collector of stuff. Right now I am moving enough stuff
around so that one of my sailboat can be moved in and car garage becomes “dry
dock.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But
returning to the idea of the American importance of the garage, I present you
with this thought. The most amazing things have come out of American garages.
Music, for instance, rock and roll specifically. Frank Sinatra did not start
out crooning in his garage although he did do his share of summer pool parties,
a practice he continued nearly just before becoming a national and then
international sensation. Some rock and roll bands start in garages and then
move on to pool parties, private parties, roller rinks, bowling allies, and
some make it to the rounds of summer fetes, and small town park gazebos. Where
would popular music be without the garage band? Think no Buddy Holly, no Bruce
Springsteen, Beach Boys, Credence Clearwater Revival and many others too
numerous to name here. Rock and roll is American’s gift to the world, a truly
unique idea along with America’s invention of jazz.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">American
garages supplied the world with an aspect of entertainment. I guess it is also
fitting that garages are an offshoot of America’s romance and adulation of the
automobile. Apparently we were affluent to the point of building structures for
our cars. With the wide open spaces of a developing land, we made sure there
was enough space for a house <b><i>and</i></b> garage. Worldwide, some people
are lucky enough to have a roof over their heads and here people don’t
appreciate how well-off they are, having a separate structure to house their
car, let alone extraneous stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The
garage is a place where you can work on your car while it’s raining or snowing.
Few people, percentage wise, use a garage to work on their cars. Pop the hood
and you’ll notice the engine has been augmented by a confusing tangle of wires
and hoses far beyond the simple VW bug, popular in the 60s—fuel injection
systems, anti-pollution devises, and power drake fluid tanks. Henry Ford, or
rather Charles Duryea, would be astounded by today’s machines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">As
if music and the automobile were not the most important and amazing things to
come out of a garage, also remember that two teenagers started out conquering
the world from the garage: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. There are those
detractors who explain, with tinges of extreme envy in their voice, that they
borrowed ideas from other people. Agreed. But they synthesized ideas that
worked far beyond the individual parts but offering us a more complete whole.
You can disparage Apple and Microsoft, but as garage start-ups, they need to be
admired, embraced and imitated or used for inspiration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Personally,
my grandfather, Clarence Bowers started building car batteries in his garage.
He became universally recognized for his innovations in the early,
developmental years of batteries. Eventually, East Penn Manufacturing
Company—known as “Deka”—became the largest independent battery manufacturer in
the world, and it, too, started in a small abandoned place, in this case a
creamery. The idea of starting in a garage inspired Delight Breidegam to use
what was at hand, a creamery. He was helped by my grandfather in those
formative days. Without Bowers Battery, there might not have been a Deka.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2o_DmiiI4S0/UiH4oc8MlbI/AAAAAAAAALU/Bu24svXH-ZQ/s1600/Deka+Creamery-cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2o_DmiiI4S0/UiH4oc8MlbI/AAAAAAAAALU/Bu24svXH-ZQ/s1600/Deka+Creamery-cropped.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Delight's Deka Creamery</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Labor
Day in America marks an end to the “mythical” summer. People return from their
summer vacations, children go back to school if they aren't already there by
now, and the fall cycle of activities start. Once your children are grown up a
wonderful thing happens—summer extends to the end of September. Some of the
nicest weather is in September in this latitude of North America. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This Labor Day weekend I did probably one of the most iconic of American labors</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">—I painted an antique (built in the 1850s) barn the color red. Think about it</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">—I painted</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> an American barn, barn red. Does it get any more American than that? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Maybe it is in my blood. The Pennsylvania Dutch built barns to last but more than sturdy structures they were the anchor of their prosperity. As the initial surge of English farmers moved west after depleting a farm's soil, the Germans followed behind, picking up homesteads at rock bottom prices. The first thing they did was build a barn to house their livestock because the livestock was precious to them and vital to their success. The barn was sacred to them. The garage is the modern day barn.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">For
people who work in garages on their personal project, the heat or cold is
immaterial. Great ideas come from there and always will. Think about this—somewhere in America some
kid in a garage is tinkering with the next generation of a detached cursor
button—a “mouse.” That may not have been unusual—to have a mouse in a
garage—but it may have been the most important mouse.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-88653331818362959042013-08-24T07:08:00.003-07:002013-08-25T07:53:37.664-07:00Treating A Photo<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="font-size: large;"> I
am reminded about the famous caution to physicians “First, do no harm.” This is
precisely what I am trying to accomplish in this basketball history book, <i>Running
With The Greyhounds.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Examining
the photos and finding them well-below the quality I was looking (and hoping)
for, I have selected certain pictures I am calling “the money shots.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> For
example, for photos of Hurricane Sandy, the money shot would be the wild mouse
roller coaster standing in the surf. I took that shot February 2, 90 days after the storm, ona beautiful, crisp day when police wouldn't let you on the beach and I had only limited access from side streets just off the boardwalk, actually where the boardwalk used to be.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7xxi_WfucpI/UhjAydeeUJI/AAAAAAAAAKU/22nqxR5c3Uk/s1600/301_6929.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7xxi_WfucpI/UhjAydeeUJI/AAAAAAAAAKU/22nqxR5c3Uk/s320/301_6929.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The Shore post-Sandy money shot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> In
this book, the money shot is the all-time scoring leader, Jim Lacy. In 1949, he
lead the nation in scoring, 2,199 points. He was the first person to break
2,000 points and remember he did it in a time when there were no 3-point shots
and freshmen were not allowed to play varsity basketball.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ajq4QMBIdBY/Uhi9Y7krLpI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/hcPr3j74ARA/s1600/4.5+Jim+Lacy+-+correctly+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ajq4QMBIdBY/Uhi9Y7krLpI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/hcPr3j74ARA/s320/4.5+Jim+Lacy+-+correctly+cropped.jpg" width="244" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Original photo - cropped - annoying swirls</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I
have an excellent shot of him scoring against Seton Hall. That particular game
was memorable because Loyola and Lacy snapped Seton Hall’s 28-game winning
streak. Imagine—a national power gets wrecked by a school of about 600
students. Loyola had a habit in those days beating the big boys—Georgetown, Navy,
Villanova, Maryland, La Salle, St. Joe’s, American
U, and Yale, among others.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The
money shot, in this case, was photographed through a cellophane covering and
there are these light swirls running through it. The author went to the home of
88-year-old Lacy Friday and secured the original. Otherwise I’d be forced to
run it. But I was about to pull a sleight-of-hand but running it smaller and
using a posterized backdrop of the same photo only running it off-centered. It will be a full size picture, running opposite the chapter opening page. The book is 8-1/2 x 11.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uqy63j1wIjM/Uhi9kaeGT4I/AAAAAAAAAKA/8bt_TF8kBh4/s1600/-money+shot+-+posterized+evergreen-cfropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uqy63j1wIjM/Uhi9kaeGT4I/AAAAAAAAAKA/8bt_TF8kBh4/s320/-money+shot+-+posterized+evergreen-cfropped.jpg" width="251" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Posterized - black changed to dark green</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dwztrG3pJIE/Uhi9uGJ5KuI/AAAAAAAAAKI/3qzknGkx40o/s1600/Lacy+-+chapter+facing+page+photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dwztrG3pJIE/Uhi9uGJ5KuI/AAAAAAAAAKI/3qzknGkx40o/s320/Lacy+-+chapter+facing+page+photo.jpg" width="271" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-size: large;">Combined photos.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I
am posting the photos separately and then combined. The author promised to get
me one without the swirls and I will swap it out.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> I think you will agree that I have done no
harm.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7006246974986088396.post-81238389372287195422013-08-13T12:22:00.002-07:002013-08-13T12:24:13.880-07:00A Picture Worth A Thousand Words<br />
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I got my first look at the “antique” photos that will run in
the basketball book. I admit, they came out much better than I expected but a
little bit worse than I was hoping. They came out…muddy…and flat. The strange
thing is that they are still cool pictures. Okay, most of them are cool.</div>
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This is a book about the basketball era from about 1908 to 1981. It covers how basketball was invented in 1891 and how my alma mater was involved locally in Baltimore from the very beginning but the narrative of the book really picks up when the first teams were getting off the ground and that was during the ought years.</div>
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Probably the best photo, of the old timey ones, is a spooky, deserted-looking gym from the original college site on Calvert Street. The strangest aspect of the photo is that basketball was played in that gym and there are nine posts in the middle of the floor. When you are using a pommel horse, rings, and free weights or parallel bars, posts in the middle of the floor don’t bother anyone. But devise a game where people are running willy-nilly and passing a ball around and suddenly a post in your immediate path takes on new significance. I am running it as the inside front cover.</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x6KQ7ku9Tx4/UgqG4tNFG1I/AAAAAAAAAJY/7TJvKGm0W7c/s1600/Master+photo+inside+front+cover_sepia+version.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x6KQ7ku9Tx4/UgqG4tNFG1I/AAAAAAAAAJY/7TJvKGm0W7c/s400/Master+photo+inside+front+cover_sepia+version.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Using this picture to kick off the book has several nice
effects. First, it’s arresting. Second, if someone isn’t shocked, they are in
disbelief. Third, it might pull them into the book. About the picture quality:
It’s not good. It’s fuzzy in a sort of Titanic-under-the-water-with
green-corrosion look. I guess the photo is poor enough to be intriguing,
especially since I am running it in a sepia tone. I am super-imposing some
other old timey pictures against the gym picture, used as a backdrop.</div>
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But in trying to wind up the book, now that the editing is
mostly out of the way, it’s going to be decision time and the decision is going
to be whether the subject matter and its placement is enough to overcome
marginal quality. The writing more or less parallels the pictures. The saving
grace is that the material is so different and basketball-interesting that the
photos will not be National Geographic crystal clear won’t be an impediment to
enjoying the book.</div>
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In most cases the picture will be worth at least a thousand
words and in some cases considerably more.</div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
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Greg Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06929297558155797756noreply@blogger.com0