Jesus Would Have Taken The Football

This is a re-post from 2009



"Wine is a mocker and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."
That was the bible verse that put me over the top.  The funny part was that it took more than thirty years of pounding down sauce with two hands for me to consider that there was some merit in that advice.  I no longer remember the book, chapter, or number of the verse but it was the one that made me the sixth grade Sunday school champion at the First Congregational Church of Leslie, Michigan back in 1960.

I hated Sunday school and really couldn't stand the dweeby guy named Paul who was our teacher, but memorizing came easy and each week I would come prepared to regurgitate the bible verses that would make me THE WINNER of the promised Sunday school prize.  Every Sunday old Paul would drone on about how we were all going to hell.  "Hopeless sinners" is what we all were according to his practiced eye.  It always made me mad because, if he was correct, why were we even bothering with this B.S.?  I could be home watching cartoons and tormenting my little brother instead of listening to how hopeless my odds of getting to heaven were.  But, then again, there was THE PRIZE.

Paul was offering a very cool football to the winner of the bible verse memorization drill.  Whoever mastered all of the weekly verses would walk away with the coveted pigskin at the end of the Sunday school year.  (Paul was such an idiot that he never seemed capable of grasping the the lack of interest on the part of the girls in the class.  His wife didn't seem to like him much either.)  Maybe Paul was deliberately trying to motivate only the guys because women are more naturally drawn to religion.  When you stop to think about it, of course they are.  The Christian religion gives women everything they want.

Work with me here...
Christianity provides women with a good looking, okay PERFECT, man who loves them unconditionally no matter what.  Face it my brothers, Jesus is the guy women would like us to be.  If you don't believe me try getting your head around a religion where an Amanda Peet or a Jennifer Lawrence was the deity.  I think it's safe to say that most guys wouldn't have been absent from church more than a couple of times in the last fifty years of Sundays.  Just sayin'.

Where was I?
Oh yeah, so anyway, I totally killed in the bible verse contest and at the end of the class I was ready to claim my football.  (This was really important at the time because, as a tubby kid, I thought I might have a future in professional football.  I hadn't yet considered that talent might be involved.)

Then it happened...
Paul announces that I am the winner of the contest and since I have demonstrated such a marvelous love of bible verses he is giving me a BRAND NEW BIBLE instead of the football which instead went to Gary who came in second.  Son of a bitch!!  And you wonder why I hardly ever go to church.
If Paul is still alive I want him to know that in radio and TV we called crap like that "bait and switch!"  It's illegal!
If Paul has gone to his reward, I have some ice water for him.  Oh wait, NO I DON'T.
How about some marshmallows?

Gone Too Soon

You'd think we would be getting used to it, but we don't.
Those of us who have attained our "three score and ten" on the right side of the dirt are beginning to lose friends at what seems to be an accelerating and unacceptable pace.  Just a year or two ago weren't we saying that he or she "had a good run" when spying an obituary for a septuagenarian?  Today we're saying "too soon" too often and not just to comfort the family.  We really mean it!  At this stage of the game every fallen friend is a reminder of how precious little time is left on our game clock and we don't like our chances of beating the odds.  How can this be?  I demand a recount!  Just when you're getting things pretty well figured out it's game over.  "Hey, I still have stuff on my bucket list!"  Heart attacks, cancer, dementia and all the rest of them be damned! Those maladies are for OLD folks.

As you may have guessed, this week began for me with the death of a friend of more than twenty-five years. I was visiting family and pals in San Diego and had planned to see my buddy during my stay.  He'll remain nameless as he and his wife were very private people.  He wanted no service and no announcement in any publication in spite of being a well known and highly successful business man who also donated much time and money to several worthy charities.  He was a solid gold friend to those lucky enough to get to know him.  When my wife was gravely ill he pulled strings enabling us to see doctors who were booked months into the future.  It was easy to see why he had been one of the most successful people in the communications business.  Though retired, he was still a take no prisoners dynamo who got things done.

When we spoke a little over two weeks ago he mentioned that he had experienced a dizzy spell and was going into the hospital for some tests.  The results were not good.  A week ago he got the news that he had an inoperable glioblastoma and there was little his doctors could do.  He returned home the next day to hospice care and died two days later.  Vibrant and looking forward to our getting together just two weeks ago and now four days dead.  He would have been 78 on May 30.  Though he often mentioned how grateful he was to have surpassed his father's fifty year lifespan and to have had a stellar career in an industry he loved, like most of us, he wanted more.

I'm reminded of the two old women at a Catskills resort complaining, "the food here is terrible...and such small portions."  Small portions indeed.  Let's enjoy every minute remaining on the clock because, no matter what the allotment,  I have a hunch we'll savor every second allowed and will eventually rest not in peace but in inevitable resignation.  Too soon!

God speed B.B.

Moms and Sons

I don't know why I've never written much about my mother.  My brother and I certainly owe her a lot.  Not only did she give birth to us, more importantly she kept dad from killing us.  No doubt her life would have been far more sanguine had she been mother to a couple of girls instead of two clowns destined to require constant monitoring.  "Wait until your father gets home," ran in pretty much continuous loop in our household.

A mother with sons is generally in referee mode from the time a boy can walk until--at least in my case--about age forty.  Dads and sons, sporting that pesky Y chromosome, are often pig-headed and spoiling for a fight.  The father wants his boy to get both smart and tough before life lands a gut punch and runs his pants up the flagpole.  It's a gift of love that can only be seen by sons in their rear view mirror.  The hard part for a father is receiving only a sullen expression and silence as a thank you.  As far as I know it has always been this way and it makes moms sad.

Doubtless my mother must have felt like Henry Kissinger shuttling back and forth between Nixon and the Vietcong as they haggled over the size of the conference table at the beginning of peace talks  ending the Vietnam War.  "Your dad is a good man." "He only wants what's best for you; so you should talk to him."  Of course she had been bamboozled into all of that nonsense by a clever and evil man.  My brother and I knew him to be a sadistic SOB who's sole purpose in life was to napalm every ounce of fun out of our lives before bulldozing our hopes and dreams.  Yes, we were geniuses!

As is the case for most baby boomers, dad and mom are now long gone.   I'd like to think both of us let them know that we were sorry to have been such horse's asses to raise and that we owed them each for keeping us out of jail and becoming reasonably well behaved adults.  Somewhere, I'm sure, dad laments what he would deem a major failure of his parenting responsibility.  I chose a career in radio and Steve, my brother, got into the newspaper business, two industries overloaded with "a bunch of bums" according to dad.  The good news is that we fit right in and mom thought that it was pretty cool.  She always did.

Happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere and, to those with sons, my deepest sympathy.

May Flowers? Not On My Watch

It was easy in Southern California.  You could stick any kind of plant imaginable in the ground nearly any time of the year and it would thrive and produce.  Flowers, herbs, decorative ground cover, all seemed to do their thing without much attention from me.  Of course Mario the gardener may have had something to contribute.  My job was to make sure the timer on the sprinklers was working.  The situation in the north of Idaho roughly a hundred miles south of the Canadian border is just a wee bit more challenging for gardening knuckleheads like me.  Mario where are you??

I've listened to the sage advice of longtime panhandle residents who tell me to never plant anything until the snow is off the mountains or Mother's Day has come and gone.  Well, the snow is mostly history and we are now a week away from Mom's Day. The stores are loaded with battalions of blooming plant life just waiting for me to kill.  

Just today I went in search of plant life any moron can tend like petunias or daises but couldn't muster the courage to pull out my wallet.  Maybe a couple more weeks?  This is my fifth Spring in these parts and thus far I'm 0 for 4.  Every single plant I've potted and positioned on my south facing patio beginning in 2015 has committed suicide.  Could it be I'm unconsciously picking severely depressed Springtime shoots ?   It's a mystery.  The neighbors don't seem to have a problem.  Their pots overflow with geraniums, snapdragons, morning-glory and petunia blossoms while mine wither and die.  I suspect there is some plant life bullying going on.  

I've decided to wait another week or two before exposing myself to more flowering disappointment.   Could this be the year the cycle is broken?  I've often found that it's a good idea to never put off until tomorrow what you can put off for a good week or two.  Besides, the dandelions in the front yard are looking really healthy.  I should probably quit while I'm ahead. 

Before

After