i am earthy i am raw i am a man who comes from working stock i reek practical get it done knock off the nonsense deal with reality deal with it get it done.
do not bother me with your whines about being called names i have been called names as bad dealt with it.
do not bother me with having to work hard in difficult circumstances i have worked harder in worse circumstances dealt with it.
do not bother me blaming history, people of the past for today’s ills you weren’t there they were in a different world where they dealt with it never perfectly just like us i do not condone their imperfections i do not judge i wasn’t there dealt with it.
do not bother me with being offended by what people say what people read what people worship i have heard what people say what people read what people worship laugh about it make jokes you would find offensive dealt with it
i am sitting here contemplating yesterday’s events in basketball, college basketball.
My thoughts:
There is not a team in this world that will ever beat a good defensive team that shoots 70%. Ever. And the Aggies took a lot of shots that were not open but went in. They were the better team today. i think Sara Yahola, one of the more positive Vandy fans i know, best captured my thoughts when she wrote, “Vandy scared them coming back from 27 down to 12. They didn’t have time to get even, but they gave it a go.” They did, and i give them a lot of credit for that.
Now, i wait to see if they will be invited to the big dance. If they don’t get selected…Holy moly, the sports promoters have a show for the selection announcement. What a goofball idea. And folks are going to watch. Not me. i will see the filled in brackets for the ridiculous number of teams when i read about it later, and yes, i will fill out a bracket…and i won’t watch the Oscars today, especially since the only movies i saw last year were some old ones on television and “Elvis.”My wife, a movie aficionado along with our two daughters, will attend an Oscar watching party at a friend’s home. i plan to pull out a set of 10 DVDs and watch as many as i can until Maureen gets home. The set? 44 movies claiming to be the “Best Westerns.” Nearly all of my early heroes will be on what was once a silver screen. i mean, how can you miss “King of the Cowboys,” “The Fighting Westerner,” “Springtime in the Rockies,” “The Outlaw,” and even “One-Eyed Jacks” and “The Over the Hill Gang.”
i will not be upset if Vanderbilt is not one of those 68 teams selected to the NCAA tourney. The process is subjective no matter how they crunch the numbers. It’s an opinion. Period. If not, i will watch more of the NIT, begun in 1938, one year before the NCCA tourney and the premier post season play for years. i am okay with that.
Regardless of which of the two tournaments, the Commodores are playing, i will watch. i am proud, proud of them for taking me former Commodore fans a half-century ago back, apparently along with and a whole bunch of current students, into “Memorial Magic.”
Thank you, Jerry Stackhouse, for making my ‘Dores competitive at the highest level once again. And along with Vice-Chancellor Candice Lee, it means so much more that you are doing it the right way, the Vandy way (as David Williams was so fond of saying).
Later yesterday afternoon, i watched the Aztecs squeeze out a win over Utah State to claim the Mountain West Championship. Unlike Vandy, SDSU is automatically in the big show. Utah State, with one of the highest percentages for field goals in the regular season shot 10% lower in the finals. Both these Aggies and the Commodores had tough games, the last ones played the previous evenings. After playing a demanding four consecutive days. i wonder if the teams that played earlier the previous day (A&M and the Aztecs) have a significant advantage with time to rebound from the previous day, a problem by having too many games. My usual curmudgeon whining applies.
It has been a fun run and hopefully will remain so for another week or so.
Despite rain up the gump stump added to more rain up the gump stump to be followed by more rain up the gump stump next week in the Southwest corner (mild compared to the deluges north of us), i was feeling pretty good when i went to bed last night.
Here are some thoughts as to why:
One…and far away the top number one reason for my feeling good, Vanderbilt beat Kentucky. Better yet, Vanderbilt quieted Kentucky fanatics with fanatics of their own. i’m sure the Wildcat fans feel the opposite, but the Commodores handled the Cats’ massive center, Oscar Tshiebwe, in spite of some very favorable calls in his favor when, it appeared to me, he was the culprit not the victim. As my really good friend who i don’t see enough, Bob Davis, noted, the television talking heads were fawning over the fabled Kentucky, but had flipped mightily by the end of the game.
Certainly i hope the Commodores take down the Aggies, my second allegiance to SEC teams, and if so, i am terribly pessimistic about their chances against Alabama. But i’ve been pretty much pessimistic until the final buzzer of almost every game so far this season.
It was good, very good. And when it was over, my dominant thought was i wish my parents and Mike Dixon were here to have seen it. Perhaps they were,
Two, the San Diego State Aztecs easily handled the San Jose State Spartans to reach the finals of the Mountain West conference today. For me, the comparison between the two games was intriguing. San Diego State is the deepest talented college basketball team i’ve ever watched. But they are terribly sporadic.The Mountain West is very competitive. It’s a very different game, again to me, than the SEC game. i think the competitiveness, the intensity in the SEC is greater, and i would give the edge to Vandy in a head-to-head matchup. It will be fun to watch the different conferences with their different ways of playing the game, especially the big boys, go at it in the tournament.
i am rolling. i am in a good place. Sports and sports writing are good for me. And folks, i cut my teeth in sports reporting under Fred Russell at The Nashville Banner when Vanderbilt had many of my friends Clyde Lee, Snake Grace, John Ed Miller, Keith Thomas, Kenny Gibbs, and Jerry Southwood, and goodness let’s not forget Roger Schurig, on the team. The vibes, even though it is a much, much different game today, were similar to the vibes of the current Commodores.
Interesting thoughts in the middle of the night: Like many things i end up writing, i don’t have a clue as from where the first one came. i’m not going to expound on what and how they occurred, but i will say the first, the angry one came first, and the second was created by Maureen, giving me a feel good to meet the day.
Hush Your Mouth
hush your mouth, man (woman) i don’t want to hear how bad you’ve got it how awful it is how the world is going to hell how other folks are using abusing you how you are going to fix it all with no regard to the fall out of your fix
i can tell you things you’ve never known things that would make your hair fall out i can tell you of times when it was worse exponentially i can tell you how so many folks have tried their fix resulting in what we have now but i know you would not listen would not learn would not accept any thought that would conflict with your version of wrong and how you are going to fix it with no regard for history so i will say nothing it would do no good but please hush your mouth.
Recharged
we awoke almost at the same time earlier than we desired we both shuffled about to get more comfortable attempting to return to slumber we lay quiet i moved again my hand touched hers we clasped hands as we have over a million times in lo these many years i felt as if i were recharged like that small, damnable electronic wonder over on the nightstand with its electric plug recharging i felt, knew i was ready to go meet the day i arose once again she had recharged me.
Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell wrote it in 1951. Roy recorded it that year with moderate success on the Rhythm and Blues Charts — long before R&B became some throat and lung exercises in excess. Then B.B. King took it to the top and then off the charts with his 1969 cover.
When i hear it, and that is frequently because i find it and play it, i often think it was likely what a number of dear women in my life thought of me.
This morning when i played it again, i wasn’t thinking about lost loves. i was thinking about how the short sentence applies to aging — Remember, “sentence” has two basic meanings.
You see, up until i finally gave in and accepted i wasn’t young anymore, i was a thrill seeker, even though i didn’t think of myself in that way. i was looking to be thrilled, awed, blown away. i wanted to dance the fastest dance. I wanted to drive the fastest car (and there could have been others, but the car Daddy bought when i was rolling into 16, the 1958 Pontiac Star Chief with the biggest engine GM built underneath three two-barrel carburetors was damn close to the fastest on the road). i wanted to date the prettiest girls. As a linebacker, i wanted to take on the biggest, meanest runner. I wanted watch the raciest movies. I wanted to go to the biggest concert, watch the loudest and biggest fireworks show, and live in the biggest cites, and be those cities’ biggest star.
i was looking for the thrill of it all.
i continued looking for thrills, traveling the furthest i could go, seeing all the wonders that i saw, living wild most of the time until i grew up (or at least until i thought i grew up: there are moments when i am still not sure if i have actually grown up, you know).
This morning, i awoke. I did not rise from the bed as is my habit. i was awake, wide awake. i just felt comfortable, in neutral, no pressure, just lying there, quiet, peace, calm. Nowadays, we only turn on the heat in our house for a couple of hours to knock the chill off after we wake up. At night, the heat is off. This time of year, it will often get down to the low 60’s in the house. We like it that way, enjoy fresh air, like covers while we sleep. It was around 61 when i awoke. But it wasn’t the chill that kept me there in bed. i get up in that kind of chill until late March when Southwest corner real weather marches in and claims the next four months. My continuing to lie there was…well, it wasn’t looking for thrills.
Now i look for comfort, quieter music, walking not running, golf not football, old friends not seeking new ones, memories warm, peace not clamor. i revel in how Maureen’s and my relationship has matured, gotten deeper, richer. Politics, news have been excluded. i do not wish to be amazed at what children do now-a-days. Hell, i don’t even want to know what so called adults are doing.
i am in a comfortable place.
A couple of years ago, i told someone special and important to me that Peggy Lee had nailed it. Actually, Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller nailed it. They wrote the song, “Is That All There Is,?” that Peggy sang nailing it — amazingly, these two are the guys who wrote most of the Coaster’s hits like “Searching,” “Young Blood,” and perhaps my favorite, “Idol With the Golden Head.”
But i was wrong about that song and Peggy and Jerry and Mike nailing it. For me, the nail that was hit was created by Hawkins and Darnell.
The song is pure, pure blues, almost agony triumphed, sad. For an old man, the thrill being gone is not a bad thing.