We don’t talk a lot. When he called this afternoon, i damn near fell out of my chair when i realized it was him.

He is tall, dark, handsome, quiet. i am…well, i ain’t any of that. From all of our experiences, life events, whatever, we appear to be almost polar opposites. He has lived in Lebanon, Tennessee all of his life. i have lived…well, certainly not in one place.

Oh, i could go on, but i’m guessing most folks would consider us different.

Nope.

We don’t talk a lot because, i think, we pretty well like to leave other folks alone, don’t want to disturb them. We both know the other one is there if we need him.

Today in the course of two phone conversations, we talked for about a half-hour, maybe more.

It was like talking to myself in another dimension. Only to laugh at some of our misadventures growing up did we talk about the past. But on every subject that came up, i kept realizing he was thinking, THINKING, almost exactly what i was thinking.

Seamless.

Quite honestly, it made me feel…well, validated.

You see, he and i grew up together. i lived at his house almost as much as i did at my house. We did everything together until life took us in different directions. In my conversations with him, i get the impression he sort of wishes, some times anyway, he could have done the crazy stuff i have done. At the same time, i find myself wishing i had lived my life more like him.

i hope everyone has someone like him in their life. Not kin, just connected. Perhaps it was all of that growing up together. i don’t know.

But i do know when i talk to Henry Harding, it’s like peeling off the skin of unimportant things, connecting, recognizing living life with some sense of common sense, goodness, like the world and the people in it should be is what it all should be about.

i really can’t describe it adequately. He’s my friend. No, he’s a hell of a lot more than that. A soul brother? See, i can’t express it properly.

i just want him to know how good it makes me feel to connect, even when we aren’t connecting, just being us.

Thank you, Henry.

Half of today’s San Diego Union-Tribune’s front sports page — actually relegated to the back page of the business section in these troubled times when there’s not enough sports to warrant more — is taken up by a photo of Tom Dempsey. The photo shows Dempsey, who was born with half of his right foot missing, in the split second before kicking a 63-yard field goal in November 1970, allowing the New Orleans Saints to beat the Detroit Lions, 19-17. That field goal not only won the game, it remained on the record books as the longest for 43 years.

The story was there because Dempsey sadly passed away at 73 due to contracting covid-19 in the retirement home in New Orleans. He was suffering from dementia. He is one of 15 residents to die from the scourge. Sad.

i did not watch that game. i heard about the kick about a week later while i was on the USNS Upshur (T-AP 198) carting ROK troops to and from Vietnam. Yet, Dempsey had long been one of my heroes, especially overcoming such a disability to become a football hero.

On the second page of the sports abbreviated section, i perused the daily item called “Digest,” which gives summaries of sports related events not covered elsewhere. The first item today was about another loss.

Bobby Mitchell passed away at 84.

Oh, did that make me sad and took me back into the finest moments of my football watching. Mitchell was best known as a receiver for the Washington Redskins. He was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in 1983. i thought he was incredible for his performance as a Redskin. But i recalled him from earlier days.

You see, in the 1950’s i was a Cleveland Brown fan. i rooted for Otto Graham and Dante Lavelli, but my real hero was Lou Groza, the formidable tackle and extraordinary place kicker. Graham retired in ’55; Lavelli followed in ’56.

Then, came my time to be amazed. Yeah, Tommy O’Connell and Milt Plum were good, but not compared to Graham. However, for three years, i watched what i think could have been the greatest running back duo of all time: Jim Brown and Bobby Mitchell. It was exhilarating to watch that tandem run the ball.

And, as i was envisioning watching on that black and white television Brown crashing up the middle, unstoppable, and Mitchell skirting the end, uncatchable, i remembered another running back who just might have called those Sunday afternoon broadcasts.

Red Grange, a guy labeled as being responsible for the success of the fledgling National Football League, was an announcer, the color guy besides the play-by-play man, Lindsey Nelson (ah yes, the first Vol announcer). i read Grange’s biography cover to cover about a half-dozen times. He and Jim Thorpe were my first football heroes beyond Lebanon High School’s Clifton Tribble, David Robinson, and Don Franklin. To hear his gravelly voice analyze a play was thrilling for me. It was long before self-promotion in the sports broadcast booths (ignoring Nelson’s penchant for flashy, garish sports coats).

So i sat back this morning and looked out my window and imagined a sunny autumn Sunday afternoon with me inside glued about four feet away from our console television, watching Brown and Mitchell destroy the defense. In my imagination, it is the Bear’s defense because Grange initially worked the booth for George Halas’ Chicago bunch — i just got this urge to evoke Jack Case, the sports editor i succeeded at the Watertown (NY) Daily Times because Jack would have written “Chicago 11 that ruled the gridiron with their mentor George Halas — but by the mid-50’s the two announcers were fixtures at CBS.

For a few minutes, i was lost in my reverie, trying to remember the exact details of a run i watched a few years earlier. Charlie Trippi, an all-purpose player out of Georgia, broke loose on a run for the Chicago Cardinals (yes, you read that right: the Chicago Cardinals) and was headed for a touchdown running down the right sideline. An opponent — oh i hope it was the San Francisco Forty-Niners because more of my heroes were Joe the Jet Perry and John Henry Johnson — took a desperate dive and Trippi fell forward. But as he fell, he tucked his head, performed a somersault and kept on running for the touchdown.

That run, Brown and Mitchell, Red Grange and Lindsey Nelson are emblazoned in my brain.

And today…well maybe next autumn, we will have passes up the gump stump, expendable running backs, two tons of commercials and an hour of replays in a four-hour broadcast, and, oh help me, Joe Buck.

i think i will just remember pro football’s finest hours.

Thank you, Bobby Mitchell.

Well, we’ve got a lot of it on our hands right now, don’t we? i mean the ones who are doing the right thing and staying sheltered rather than risking becoming a carrier, exposing our friends, loved ones, family, and even the innocent or not so innocent bystander to this thing that could kill some people who need it, but no, it’s killing a whole bunch of us indiscriminately, and unfortunately, not being selective and going after the ones who need killing, except in their opinion of course, but taking down good folks just as well.

Three weeks i announced last night we’ve been holed up here. Honestly, i got a little antsy this morning. Told Maureen it is strange because my longing is not so much to play golf although i would give my left…oops, guy thing almost there, anything to play around at North Island or Bonita, and i miss dining out which is a fabric of Maureen’s and my life, like that’s how it all got started. But no, i wanted to go to walk the beach (they’ve closed them here) but even more i wanted to hit Balboa Park and the museums, especially the San Diego Museum of Art, and i would like to go to the symphony. i find this strange for me. But it was there this morning.

i sort of collected myself and with the help of Sarah straightened out some technical difficulties i had with a number of things, wrote a lot, straightened out some more piles, tossed some stuff, and taken what i call my “power walk” ’cause bones told me i shouldn’t run at my age, and…

Here i am.

On my walk, i turned on my music. Not some cloud generated stuff, mind you. But my music. i have about 4700 songs on my antiquated iPod (how strange we antiquate things so quickly nowadays) and one of my favorite things to do while walking, driving, sitting around, is to turn that old obsolete thing on “shuffle” and enjoy a spectrum of genres. And right after the Ink Spots, Crystal Gayle, and Irma Franklin (Aretha’s sister and i still prefer her version of “Piece of My Heart” to Janice Joplin’s), along came one of my favorites taking me back to the late 1960’s.

The Pozo Seco Singers.

i sang along with them as my heart ached for another lost love. They were “folk” when “folk” was fading from our scene.

And walking up that long hill this afternoon when “Time” came through my earphones, plugs or whatever they are calling them now, i thought, “Man, that sure fits these times.”

And it does:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSybml7XsH4

i found this from 1997 in my pile of things to organize while rumbling around this house trying to keep myself occupied. It is a bit different and i’ve discovered i get a lot less responses to my poems than other posts, but what the hell. It’s me. The actual version has different spacing. The way i wanted it. But i’m still not up to speed on how to fix that with this program. i’ve got some time so maybe i’ll try and fix it.

futile

i do not know why
i try
to talk to them and
make sense
because
they do not listen
because
theyhavemanythingstodoandmovethroughthemjustlikethatmistercummingssothey
have something else to face:
fear.
they love it and
do not listen:
i have given up on form and substance;
even logic does not penetrate
the gelatin mass of hyper life we claim as real
but
i know
sure as the spume of the pacific will flay the sand
and
the dog who frolicked there will die.
it is much simpler than all of that.
yes, mister bluster,
the answer is really quite simple.