THE HUMAN CONDITION-CHEATING

I know what you are all thinking.  "Oh no, another argument about the cheating in the 2020 election."  Honestly the election is not what brought this idea to my mind.  I might touch on the election later on because I do have a lot of questions about voting irregularities in certain parts of the country but I am prepared to believe that this country has a strong enough Constitution to continue on.

This is what started my mind thinking about cheating and how widespread it is in our everyday lives.  It was a short documentary I saw on YouTube about the 1973 Soap Box Derby in Akron, Ohio.  The Soap Box Derby began in 1935.  The Derby gives children across the country a chance to compete in a home made racing car the runs on the power of gravity.  It is a chance for child to be exposed to engineering with the use of mathematics and physics to build the fastest car to get down a hill.  Every year the National Derby is held in Akron with winners from cities across the country competing for the title of champion.

The Derby is one of those sports that as the years went by was considered to be true competition based in fairness and good sportsmanship.  As the years have progressed the rules have grown to make sure that all the cars and drivers are playing on a level playing field.  The car was to built by the driver and adult worse prohibited from building the car.  Adults could be advisors to the creation of the car, but the work was to be done by the kids.  It was always considered one of the most innocent of competitions that existed.  The Soap Box Derby stood for honesty, fairness, and basically scandal free.  At least it did until that summer day in 1973.

Jimmy Gronen won the Boulder, Colorado Derby that year.  He was 14 years old and had a very efficient car.  His cousin, Bobby Lange, had won the national championship in 1972 and now it was Jimmy's turn.  As the national Derby started and continued, no of the other cars came close to beating the car from Colorado.  Jimmy won the Derby and received the trophy, US Savings bonds and the fame of being the Champion.

It seemed unusual that one car would be so far advanced past the average Soap Box Derby car.  An investigation was begun and the results of that investigation would almost make the Derby shut down.  The investigation of the car found that Jimmy's car had an electromagnet in the nose of the car.  Under the foam of the headrest in the car was a small push button switch.  The switch was connected to a battery hidden in the back of the car.  When Jimmy got in the car, his head would depress the switch, closing the circuit from the battery to the magnet in the nose creating a magnetic field strong enough to attract the car to the metal flap on the starting ramp so that when the flap fell forward to let the car start to roll down the hill, the flap would actually pull Jimmy's car down the ramp giving him quite an advantage from the start.

As it turned out, Jimmy's uncle did quite a bit of the creation of the car.  Jimmy's uncle, Robert Lange was charged with aiding to the delinquency of a minor among other minor things.  Jimmy was stripped of his title and the Derby barely survived.  Now the cars are built from purchased kits that cannot be altered in anyway.  The rules are almost so tight that any imagination that a kid may have for a car is squashed.  The race is hardly reported on anymore.  I had to google to find out if it was still an event in Kansas City.  Turns out it is although it became a victim of CoVID-19 this past summer.

After watching this documentary I started thinking about cheating.  Is our competitive so strong that even a 14 year old would agree with the suggestion of his uncle to cheat other kids out of a trophy?  The answer apparently is, yes.  We cheat at almost anything we can think of or feel we can get away with.

The first thing that entered my mind was Major League Baseball.  The all American sport.  The sport that fills ball fields across the country with people of almost any age.  I love baseball.  I was raised on baseball.  I spent whole summers playing baseball and going to games at Municipal Stadium everytime the A's or The Royals were in town.  My childhood heroes were baseball players. just as they were for my dad.  I do not remember any ball players being caught cheating in baseball, but I could be wrong.  But look at baseball closely.  How many times have we seen a bat break when making contact with the pitch and suddenly there is cork out on the grass in front of home plate and the remains of the bat reveal a drilled out core where the cork had once resided.  The cork is said to lighten the bat and give the wood of the bat a little more flexible to spring the baseball away at a faster rate than solid wood.

I have seen umpires called out to the mound to check a pitcher's hat, his fingers, his pockets and his glove to look for foreign substances that help put a different spin on the ball and makes the pitch go in all different directions and speeds.  I have seen pitchers kicked out of games for this.

Then we entered the enhancement drug scandals.  Suddenly some players bodies were bulking up to be almost cartoon looking.  Homerun records fell at an incredible rate.  Suddenly the record set by Roger Maris in 1961 of 61 homers was being surpassed easily by these bulked up athletes.  It had taken Roger Maris almost 30 years and hitting behind Mickey Mantle in the lineup to break Babe Ruth's record and now 40 years after Maris set that record, it seemed like the record was virtually up for grabs.  It came down to one season when two players, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa easily passed the record and began race to the end of the season on which one would end up with the most dingers.  It seems like the MLB has finally gotten some control over the performance enhancing drugs with the last noticeable player whose reputation was in question was Barry Bonds.  We no longer see these monster bodies that show up over the off season out of nowhere.   The thing is though, how do we measure the greatest players of all time now?  We can not be sure of any record set with a bat is legitimate. 

The latest cheating scandal to rock MLB is the Houston Astros sign stealing that propelled them to a World Series championship.

It isn't just baseball of course.  Boxing has always been under the microscope of cheating.  Whether it be adding a substance inside the gloves ot downright throwing the fight and losing intentionally.

Probably the worst scenario of cheating to most people would be horse racing.  The things that some trainers or owners have done to these horses for a win is despicable.  Horses can be permanently injured or damaged from some of these practices.  

Cheating of course spreads far from the sports world onto almost every part of society and life.  It penetrates the stock market  making some a little richer while doing who knows how much damage to companies or the economy.  Cheating on school tests, from middle school to college is surely taking place on an ongoing basis.  

I have seen videos documenting where Chess Masters playing in tournaments on the world stage have been caught or accused of cheating.  Technology today allows them to have access to computer engines advising them of the best move to make.  It kind of makes Spasky and Fischer a little more impressive when watching their matches from the 70's.

Of course world wide, countries cheat on their agreements that are carefully negotiated to maintain an advantage from an economic or military stance. 

Religious leaders are constantly being caught cheating, either with finances or just pure lying to get ahead.  This has been going on since the idea of religion was conceived thousands of years ago.

Have I cheated?  Oh yes, I can remember a few times when I did and in a not very good way.  But I can also recall times when I chose not to cheat when I could have.  I think that is where all of stand for the most part.  We cheat.  But not on a consistent basis.  Cheating for the vast majority of us is not part of our life style.  Most of the time we cheat thinking it isn't REALLY cheating, it is just finding a little advantage to get ahead in our endeavors.  Sometimes cheating feels like it is a necessity, a means to an end. An end that we think is not only desirable, but critical to achieve.

What bothered me about the 1973 Soap Box Derby was the idea of adults telling kids it is okay to cheat in an event that has a reputation of fairness and gamesmanship. The result is that the Derby was forced to take away the creativity of kids as they participate.

Survival of the fittest.  I feel like that is what it comes down to.

Being human is not always pretty.  The only thing we can do as individuals is to take a look at ourselves and find those things that are not so pretty and take steps to fix it.  We must continue to try to make improvements in ourselves and maybe, just maybe we can set an example for future generations that lessen some of these faults that we all have.

JUST A LITTLE CHIT-CHAT

I just noticed that I have not written or posted since July 6th earlier this year.  That is too long of a period between posts.  So let's see what we can come up with.

Today is Tuesday.  Election Day in the United States.  Yeah .... not going to write about that.  I am not going to write about politics at all. You all probably pretty much know what my thoughts are ... at least most of you.  There are those that think they know where my stance is when it becomes apparent that they do not have a clue.  

This whole year has been marred by the CV-19 virus.  No sense in talking about that either.  Lifestyles for all of us have been completely turned upside down.  The thing about this virus thing is that it has been tied to politics and the election and so everyone is up in arms against each other across the board.  Nah, not going to write about that either.

Major League Baseball was different this year.  To me it was a little disappointing.  Because of the virus restrictions, the Majors only played a 60 game season.  They went ahead with the playoffs and had a World Series.  I decided that for me, this was not a legitimate World Series and should not go into the record books.  My basis was that a mere 60 games is not nearly enough games for the cream to rise to the top.  You need at least 162 games for the best teams to prove their worth over time.  However, I was glad they did play this so called World Series because of the last 30 seconds of game 4.  That little amount of time made the whole thing worthwhile.  I encourage you to check out the 9nth inning of game 4.  Definitely worth your time.  But baseball was redefined by the virus and I don't want to write about the virus ... so I am not going to write about baseball.

Actually when you stop to think about it, just about every part of life was touched by either the virus or politics.  Perhaps that is why I haven't written in so long.

I was planning on traveling to Alabama in March to visit my mother and family members but thanks to the virus, It was delayed.  Mom was in lock down at her living facility so there was not much point in going.  I did finally make it to Alabama in mid-October though.  My little brother and his wife, myself and my mother and sister and her husband celebrated mom's 90th birthday a month and a half early.  Mom was able to escape from her facility to spend a week at my sisters.  It was a good visit.  It wasn't a perfect visit though.  I fell off my sister's front porch one night while staring up at the wonderment of the stars and tore up my knee and my ribs.  Those of you who have been following this blog know that I do not have a very high pain threshold and this hurt.  Then there was the hurricane that blew through putting my return to Kansas City off by a day so I wouldn't be driving through it.  Other than those two things, it was a very good week.  I am happy to report that my mother is in very good health and we were able to avoid any political talk.

I don't want this to be a wrap up of the year and it feels like it is turning into that.  I want to save that for December.

Social media ... well, I have been limiting my time on Facebook and stuff because, quite frankly, there is too much hatred flying around the election.  One of my dear friends accused me of being a troll and told me to go somewhere else to do my trolling.  I do not troll.  I asked a question concerning a post by said friend that I did not have the answer to.  Apparently it offended my friend so I was labeled a troll.  I don't play games like that.  If I ask a question, it is a sincere one.  Then there is all of the ignorance people seem to be showing .... nope, not going to go there.  I just have been staying off my computer and the internet a lot.  I don't need all of the arguments and stuff in my life right now and I certainly do not need to be called names or labeled as something I am not.  When I do get on the internet, it is to get news of those that I care about.  How they are doing.  Seeing pictures of my nieces and nephews so I can enjoy them since I can't see them.  I have reconnected with old friends, a couple who are very special in my life as I was growing up.  It has been a good experience.

I can say this about the year so far.  I still miss a lot of people who influenced my life and have passed on.  That will never change.  I still take my grandpa with me everywhere I go in the form of one of his bandanas in my rear pocket of my jeans.  I have been carrying one ever since he died.  On my way to bed each night, one of the last things I do is kiss my fingers and then touch them to a picture of Barbara that I moved out into the living area of the house.  I don't say anything or stop and look at her picture, just give her a tiny kiss each night ... well most nights... at least once a week or so  Last week marked 2 years since my dad passed away in that horrible year of 2018.  I brought out some more of my Uncle Dan's works of art to display and think of him often when I see the results of his marvelous talent.

Now I often stop and ponder my own aging. I turned 64 last month.  One more year until my planned retirement.  I remember when grandpa retired and when my father retired.  Seems so long ago.  Now I am facing my own step into that part of life.  My twilight years are definitely upon me.

This brings about thoughts of my own death.  The thought of dying does not bother me.  I am not scared of dying.  One of my friends reminds me often "To every season ..." and she is right.  There is a time for everything and that includes dying.  Don't get me wrong now, I am not ready to die quite yet.  I feel like I have a few more years on this earth left in me.  However, if my doctor told me I had a week left?  No big deal.  I am ready to deal with that possibility.

I do feel like I am starting to burn out at my job, which is kind of sad.  I have loved my job my whole adult life.  I have loved the company I work for and have been faithful to it.  But I am getting tired I think.  I began to feel the burnout after Barbara died and it has slowly increased.  I think that whole second half of 2018 pretty much burned me out on life in general.  Sometimes, I simply do not care anymore.  Like this election that we are having today.  Yes I think it is important.  Yes I plan on voting.  Bottom line though, is whatever happens, I am not going to have to live with the outcome for very long.  My son will though and that is probably the biggest reason I will vote.  Really though, it is just another election.  This country has survived many of them with different outcomes.  This country will survive this one as well.  But I am not going to talk politics ... remember?

Many of you are bragging "I survived the year 2020!" ... I got that beat easily.  I survived 2018.

SPRING/SUMMER 2020 AND BASEBALL

Oh my how the year 2020 just does not seem right.  Now we are all looking for some normalcy to return and the biggest thing that can return us back to a normal summer is baseball.

The meme showed up on my Facebook feed a few days ago.  It was simple enough but carried a message that usually ends during the first weekend of April every year.  Here is what it looked like:

This was placed on Facebook by my cousin Dawn.  Dawn lives in St. Louis (which you think would be bad enough) and she carries on the tradition of the rivalry between the Cardinals of St. Louis and the Cubs of Chicago.  It is all in good fun and we each have a laugh at each others expense every baseball season.  At the same time we do play nice when at the end of the season one of the two clubs are in the play-offs.  This means I play nice a lot more often than Dawn does because chances are the Cardinals are in the play-offs three years for every one year that the Cubs make the post season ... and that is being conservative.

However, Dawn did show a lot of class in 2016 when the Cubs finally won the World Series for the first time in over a hundred years.  I received a pair of socks that proclaimed the Cubs as World Series Champions.  I always pull for the Cardinals during post season as the represent the state of Missouri in a very fine and classy manner.

This year has been different though.  Thanks to a virus that has the American economy shut down, there is not any baseball.  If Tom Hanks theory of "There's no crying in baseball" holds true, then there is a lot of crying around the thirty ballparks that serve as home to the thirty clubs because there is no baseball.

Dawn's meme was correct, if not slanted, as we begin to see the first of May approaching without a single ballgame being played.  Even spring training was cut short.  All major league sports are suspended for an undetermined amount of time.  I am just thankful that the Chiefs were able to get that Super Bowl victory and the Blues won the Stanley cup before things went completely bonkers in the sports world.

How many of us have ever had the thought cross our mind of there being no sports.  Chances are that if we did think that thought it would be for a positive outcome. Well, folks here we stand, absolutely no competitive sports being played around the world.  There is not any soccer.  There are no auto races anywhere from local Saturday night dirt races on up to NASCAR, Indy and Formula 1 racing.  There is not a golf tourney every weekend.  We did not have "March Madness" for college basketball and the college softball and baseball teams did not even make it though half a season and so there was not a College World Series.

The televised sports networks do not know what to show.  They spent a week showing the old "Home Run Derby" show from the late 50's to early 60's.  After 3 or 4 hours of that it is snooze time.  I have taken to watching Full baseball games from previous years from both the regular seasons as well as some of the old World Series classic games.  I watched a game the other day from a couple of decades ago where the Phillies beat the Cubs 23-22.  Chances are we would not have seen a game like that this season.  I have watched Bob Gibson pitch the first game of the 1968 World Series, a pitching masterpiece,  again.  It has been awhile since I have even saw highlights of that game.

Now the question is starting to bug me about when the Major League baseball season finally gets underway?  What will it look like when it does.  It could be close to the All-Star break before they even start the season.  Will there be a Kentucky Derby this year?  An Indianapolis 500?

Let's face it though.  The biggest thing missing this summer is baseball.  From the 7 year olds playing t-ball all the way to the major leagues.  It is not around and we miss it.  You might not want to admit that you do, but I have a feeling that somewhere deep down you feel its absence.

We drive through the neighborhood past ball field complexes that are usually filled with kids of all ages in filthy uniforms drinking a post game coke yet now the parking lots at the fields are empty.  The glow over the houses from the lights at the ball fields every  night is now dark.  The wiffleball games in the middle of the street joining all the neighborhood kids into a fun time of socialization are not to be found.

I Googled baseball 2020 and there is now a passionate discussion on whether to go back to 1960 when the season was only 154 or try to squeeze in the full 162 game season

I mean, is this discussion even needed?  Are we missing baseball so much that the only baseball arguments that are being made is whether to eight fewer games than normal?  This is sad indeed.

I read an article proposing that Major League Baseball commence in empty stadiums.  Not the usual regular season stadiums though, like Fenway, Wrigley or Yankee, but rather in the teams spring training stadiums.  Empty spring training stadiums.  This way the teams would not have to fly all over the country but a short drive around Arizona or Florida to play the game.  The problem with this idea, of course, is that between Florida and Arizona. the leagues intertwine terribly.  We would have a one season realignment of baseball with the champions from Florida playing the champions from Arizona is a World Series played in, oh I don't know, Midland, Texas maybe?

I could probably handle all of that but there is one thing that could change the face of baseball for a very long time.  If this "Florida/Arizona" model is accepted this year, what happens to the designated hitter rule?  You might smirk at this but it is a huge question.  For REAL baseball fans, the designated hitter was what George Steinbrenner sold his soul to the devil for.  He couldn't make the deal for both leagues but he got it in place in the American League.  A Faustian type conspiracy that would bring the Yankees a few more World Series titles, plenty of more post season appearances and the added bonus of not having to watch your pitcher look like a third grader at the plate every three innings swing lazily at pitches the he had no chance of making contact with.

This "Florida/Arizona" model for the 2020 season would be the final movement in the conspiracy to get rid of any semblance of puritanical baseball.  This is the biggest danger that the 2020 season faces, it is the largest risk that could possibly be taken.  The conspirators goal is to make their final move on placing the designated hitter rule into place for all of baseball.  My heart aches at the thought of that happening.  The next step would be replacing managers with robots as all strategy would more or less be taken from the game.  No longer would we see a full roster of a team being utilized in one game.  No more double substitutions to keep the pitcher at the bottom of the line up.  Pinch hitters and runners would become even more scarce than they are now.

I wonder, if it is possible, that some high roller money men in the Bronx, New York financed this virus and paid off news outlets to spread alarm.  Will President Trump step in to save the day by pushing for an amendment to the Constitution outlawing forever the designated hitter rule from the National League or is he also part of the conspiracy to bring the designated hitter into full force through out baseball.

Could this truly be the reason for this virus being unleashed on the world in 2020?  If so, I fear for the future of our country for when the designated hitter rule becomes the new norm for baseball, baseball as we know it will no longer exist.

Okay, so I got a little silly with this post.  I should be able to do that from time to time, don't you think?  When My cousin Dawn posted that meme about the Cards being undefeated while the Cubs have yet to win a single game I wrote to her that it was typical liberal spin on facts to which she replied  "We have to joke this year. We have nothing to watch. I’m rewatching the Stanley Cup now.".  
My cousin Dawn is correct.  Right now at this point in time, we do need to keep a good disposition and make the best of what we are dealt.  Grab fun and laughter wherever you can.  It could be the only things that keeps us all sane.

Good luck dear readers as we work our way through this summer of 2020.

God bless all of you.

BELDEN HOWARD CLARK (DAD)

I have been putting this off for awhile.  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I have written of many people who have passed away who played an important part of my life.  Some have been relatives, some have been friends and some have been figures that just inspired me.

Dad passed away October 27, 2018, a mere 3 months and 4 days after Barbara passed away.  Those were two of the most important people in my life that I lost in a very short time and it was a double gut punch.  The year 2018 was a rough one for me and the entire family.  However we all can mourn the loss of these two people with sadness but also with the knowledge that they are where they knew they would be when they died.  They are in a place beyond description, both leaving the pain and suffering that they endured behind and are praising their God constantly.  Both of them set an example for all of us and we should take heed to the example they set.  I have already written about Barbara and what she meant to me both in life as well as in death.  Now I attempt to write about my father and the man that he was.

I have written several pieces on dad over the span of this blog.  I have written about him almost if not a little more than I have my grandfather.  I haven't bothered to go back and count how many I wrote of each one but the volume of writing I have done reflects how important these two men were to me.  But this one is about dad.  It is a tribute and a memorial to the man that helped raise me under very serious health conditions for sixty-two years.  And right at the top, I want it made clear that even though dad did face problems that sometimes effected his mood, he did the absolute best that he could and he did it well.  His life and my grandfather's life are almost parallel to each other except for the health issue that dad carried with him through two thirds of his life.

My dad had a brain aneurysm when I was about four or five years old.  He was in his early thirties.  I talked to my Uncle Jack about the day it happened and it went something like this.  Dad and Jack were at a baseball game.  Now dad had some rules about attending a baseball game of which I have written before.  The main rule we are dealing with is the rule that states that you do not leave a ball game until the last out of the last inning.  Major rule.  Jack told me that around the fourth or fifth inning dad began to complain of a headache.  It quickly worsened and dad began to slump a little in the old wooden seats of Municipal Stadium.  Then around the sixth inning, dad told Jack that he had to leave, the headache was getting worse.  At this point my uncle knew that something was terribly wrong.  Dad leaving before the end of a game was simply unheard of.  So the two of them left the game early (I honestly think it was the one and only time dad ever left a game early) and headed home.

Facts get a little fuzzy for me here because I do have a vague memory of that day and am not sure what really went on.  Sometime after dad got home from the game and the next morning, a blood vessel in his brain burst and rendered him unconscious, basically in a coma.  I remember mom calling my uncle on the phone and it seemed like Jacks little white Beetle was in front of the house before she hung up..  They rushed dad to the hospital in an ambulance to the emergency room where I assume a team made up of many doctors and nurses worked to save his life.  They were able to stabilize him and admitted him to the intensive care unit.  However he was still in a coma.  My mother was told by the doctor that dad had maybe a 5% chance of making it through this tragedy.  It was a daunting thought for her as she began to prepare for what could be a life without dad.  She had four young children and did not have a job.  And so the praying began.

A quick word about praying for healing.  I believe that God does hear every one of our prayers and that He answers them.  All of them.  Barbara had so many people praying for her as she lay in a coma for a week after her surgery.  I do believe that God answered those prayers even though it wasn't the answer we wanted.  God answered our prayers by taking Barbara home.  I think God had His reasons for that and looking back I can see some of those reasons and I am not angry with God, but I am thankful that if it was time for her to leave this earth, she found a place safe in God's arms. The answer to the prayers for Dad was a different one though.  God willed that it was not time yet for dad to join Him and slowly dad came out of the coma and began to heal.  It would be a long and rough healing process though taking many years before he would be free from the terrible pain inflicted on him.

The aneurysm had left dad with the process of dealing with the most horrific headaches on almost a daily basis.  The pain would be so bad at times that he would need to go to the local clinic to get a shot that would knock him out so he could get some sleep through the pain and get up the next morning and go to work.  I am not sure if the pain ever really left him during those many years or he adjusted to it so that when the pain wasn't as bad as it could be, he would manage to function as if there was not any pain.  That is the theory I hold to.  I believe he was in constant pain for decades but when the pain lessened somewhat, he took advantage and took care of the family as best he could.  This is the definition of a strong, loving, great man in my eyes.  After oh so many years, the blood vessel that had been clamped off and was the cause of the headaches eventually rerouted itself around the clip and once the connection was completed, the pain started to dissipate.  He still had headaches now and then but not to the point of not being able to sleep or function on a daily basis.  I believe God healed that in a way only God could and dad became a little more able to tolerate noises and people than he had for most of his life.  It was a blessing.  A blessing that took a long time to realize but it did come.

Now comes the tough part to write.  It is rough because I can look back on the time I was growing up through my preteen and teenage years and on into time after I had married and left the house and I am not proud of myself and my actions in relating with dad.  I am not going to speak for my siblings, I am sure they had different experiences with dad than I did.  I was a stubborn and independent child and teenager.  I eventually outgrew that after I had a son of my own but for almost half of the time I had with dad I messed it up.  Because of dad constantly dealing with pain, he was not as patient as a normal person would be.  He would get frustrated easily.  I feel like I did everything I could to test those few weak spots that my dad did have.  I look back and can see all of the many things dad tried to do for the whole family.  He tried his best to have a normal family life.  He would take us on day trips like to Fort Osage.  He would take us to baseball games of course, but I also remember he took us to a soccer game when Kansas City had the Spurs as a home team.  He took us to hockey games.  He put up a basketball goal over the garage and put up with all three windows in the garage and one of the living room windows being busted out by a basketball that came from my fingertips and he replaced the windows without complaint.  He went to most of our little league baseball games and my band concerts.  I even remember one time that he took off from work early so he could come to Smith-Hale Junior High School and watch me play a basketball game.  He did absolutely everything he could to give us as normal of a family life as possible and he did it well.  But as I was growing up, I could not see all of this.

Now I am not saying dad was perfect, he was just a man after all and I certainly wasn't perfect, I was far far from perfect.  We butted heads quite a bit.  It got ugly at times.  It got a little violent at times.  I can look back at those times now though and clearly see that it was my stubbornness and rebellion and independence that trigger the vast majority of the conflicts.  I am not proud of that fact.  The thing is dad and I had so many things in common.  We both loved music.  I got a lot of my taste in music from listening to dad's old albums.  Hank, Jim Reeves, Eddie Arnold and Jimmy Dean were great singers who sang wonderful songs and I still to this day listen to a lot of those artists that dad loved.  He taught me about the great players that I watched growing up.  The Orioles, the Twins, the Redsox were all held up as legendary teams ... and oh yeah, those stinking Yankees as well.  For some reason though, neither of us connected to each other on all those things we had in common.  We spent more time butting heads then enjoying what we had in common.

What started to turn my thinking around was when I went to work at Rycom Instruments, where dad worked.  When I first started working there, it was after school picking up trash and sweeping floors but it was also a chance to observe my father at his absolute best.  He was so intelligent.  He was a sheet metal worker and along with grandpa one of the two greatest sheet metal workers I have ever seen.  He did not us a calculator but did all the math on the blue prints so he could see how he got the final figures.  The things is, most of the days I saw him working he was in the grasp of those terrible headaches.  I would see him wince in pain, rub his forehead and continue to work a full eight hours.  I may be wrong, it may just be my perception but I honestly do not ever remember a day that dad took off sick.  He practiced, and I learned, that you give eight hours work for eight hours pay.  And that was a full eight hours without any halfway working but a full hard eight hours of focused hard work.  That was when my respect for him started to turn and to grow as I realized how long he had been doing this day after day.  It had been decades. And he never complained.  Oh he would complain about some of his co-workers but never complained about his job or what he had to go through.  It was this work ethic of my dad's that formed my own work ethic that I carry with me today.  It was probably the greatest gift a father could give a son.

Well, dad worked until retirement.  He made the adjustment fairly well as he began to learn how to help mom clean house and do dishes.  He was determined to make life as easy as he could for mom and I think he was pretty good at it. Then he began to age and it began to catch up with him.

He suffered from a hernia.  He had a couple of heart attacks.  But it was after retirement that the biggest challenge he would face since his aneurysm happened.  Dementia was starting to settle into that sharp mind of his.  It didn't start off drastically, just little things for the first several years.  Forgetting things, redoing things that he had already done, just little things like that.  The first time I really noticed that something was happening was when he was in the hospital for something that I can't remember what it was.

In Kansas City they like to torture the Royals fans.  They do this by showing a ball game live and after you watch them lose that game, they have a half hour post game show followed by??  yup, a half hour PRE-GAME show that would be followed by rebroadcasting the devastation once again.  You not only got to see the Royals blow a game once, but just to make sure you get the full effect of another loss, they show it a second time.  Well, I was spending the night with dad at the hospital one night and since the Royals were playing, we watched it.  Dad tried to never miss a Royals game.  During the game dad would comment on each play and each player, he enjoyed it so much.  Of course the Royals lost the game and after it was over we watched a little of the post game then started to talk ignoring the television.  Suddenly, dad looked up at the television and the Royals were playing a SECOND game!!  And so we watched it.  It was at this time that I first noticed that something was slipping.  Dad began making the same remarks that he had during the same game four hours earlier.  He watch the full game as though it was the first time he had seen it.  The dementia would not really worsen for awhile or at least get worse very slowly but the process had begun.

Over the next few years dad's dementia continued to worsen and my moms eyesight weakened quite a bit.  It was time to pay back to them what they had sacrificed for us.  And so with help from my sister Karen and my niece Tara, both who went above and beyond the call of duty, we took care of mom and dad.  It was also during this time that Barbara's health began to falter tremendously.  Without Tara and Karen I would have been beside myself.  I had to spend more time taking care of Barb and less taking care of mom and dad, although I tried to stop and check in on them everyday after work.  So, just a shout out to Karen and Tara.  THANK YOU BOTH SO VERY MUCH!

After awhile dad's knees began to give out on him and before long he had to use a walker to get around, even in the house.  Adding taking care of Barbara to the care taking of mom and dad was piling up and becoming a little too much.  Elaine discussed with mom and dad the idea of moving to Alabama where she could take care of mom and dad and I could concentrate on Barbara.  It had a lot of benefits.  It would give mom and dad a social life once again was a big one.  Meals would be provided and a hospital was right across the street.  And so in October of 2016, mom and dad moved to a small apartment in Camden, Alabama and I began to focus on Barbara.

Dad's dementia continued to worsen.    It wasn't too long before it became apparent that with mom's eye sight as bad as it was and dad's dementia problems getting worse, it was getting to the point where both of them needed more help than living in the small apartment provided.

They kept dad in the assisted living facility for a short amount of time to evaluate him before moving him to the dementia facility.  It was the first time in their marriage, other than dad's military time, that mom and dad were separated.  We began studying dementia and the effects it has on people who suffer with it.  We studied and listened to how the disease progresses and the how people with the disease make their way through the steps.  Dementia is not pretty in the latter stages.  It seemed like dad was heading towards another frustrating part of his life that the an aneurysm would bring him to.  Our prayers for dad began to change.  We did not him to leave us, but we didn't want to watch dad go through the suffering that progressive dementia would take him.

I was going to go to Alabama to visit dad once more before winter set in, knowing that by springtime his dementia probably would be to the point of him not knowing who I was.  I was going to leave on Wednesday, October 31.  However on the afternoon of October 27, my sister Karen showed up at the house to give me the news.  Dad had passed away.  I left for Alabama the next morning.

Once again God had answered prayers.  It wasn't what we wanted necessarily, but it was God's plan, God's schedule to take dad home.  I miss him.  I loved him.  But just as God had plans for Barbara, he had plans for dad.  Dad would not have to endure the frustration and the misery that dementia would bring upon him.  He had died quickly and easily as his heart suddenly just stopped.  No real pain.  No lingering around waiting to die.  God took dad home in a most merciful way.   As with Barbara, it was not only merciful to dad, but it was a show of mercy for all of us that we did not have to watch dad suffer.

Dad was buried in Blue Springs, Missouri.  We had two memorial services for him.  One in Camden Alabama where he had made friends with a lot of people and a lot of his family was there.  The other was held in Blue Springs, Missouri for all the friends and family in the midwest.  Both services were closed out with the attendees singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" in unison as a special tribute to dad and his love of baseball.

Dad is at peace with God along with so many people that he knew and influenced over the years, including Barbara.  I am thankful in knowing that dad will not suffer from the horrors of dementia.  That he will no longer have those headaches.  That his knees will bow before God without pain and stiffness.

Our God is loving and merciful and gives us the gift of grace.  If I learned anything during the year 2018, it was that.  I already knew it, I believed it, but now I have a concrete belief in his love, grace and mercy.  He has shown that to dad, to Barbara, and to me.  I thank Him for that.

The last photo of just my dad and myself together

BARBARA ANN CLARK - PART ONE

I honestly do not know how to do this.  I think what you are going to get will be just random thoughts as they enter my head thinking about the last forty five years of knowing and sharing life with Barb.

All I know about Barb's childhood is what she told me which was not a lot.  What I did gather from her is that it was not an ideal childhood which is probably why she kept it mostly inside of her.  Barb's mother developed schizophrenia when Barb was young.  Because of this, her mother had several inpatient stays at mental facilities while Barb was growing up.  Her father, Harry, doing the best he could for his youngest daughter often had her stay at friends or relatives houses so he could work and Barb would be taken care of.  You are probably thinking, as I did, that this does not make for a stable childhood.  Apparently she was very good at making adjustments as needed and she turned out to be a pretty good woman.  I am not sure how old she was when the following event happened, I don't think she ever told me.  She did recall to me that one time she had come home from school to find her mother attempting suicide.  She immediately ran down the street to her Godmother's house and with her help, Barb was able to save her mother's life that day.  Many years later, after Barb and I had been married close to three years, her father came home from work to find his wife overdosed on pills and deceased.  Barb handled her mother's death as well as could be expected I suppose.  What the death of her mother did do was to bring her and her father closer together.  Harry and Barb were very close anyway, but this event solidified that bond and made it even stronger.  She adored her father and with good reason.  To me when I think of Harry Kissinger I think of a very strong and very caring man.  A great man that did the best he could for his girls.  When her father died, it was truly the first time I saw Barbara really crushed emotionally.  I did my best to support her during the time she was working through it but I am afraid I fell far short of what she needed.  She kept her dad alive in our house by framing his military patches and pictures in frames that were hung down the hallway between the living room and the bedrooms.  She came out of her childhood pretty good for the most part considering all she went through.  She came into adulthood a little cynical, very determined and very caring for those around her that needed help.  She fell in love with kids and that love grew more as she grew older.  I don't think I ever saw anyone just flat out love kids the way that Barbara did.

The ironic thing about Barb and her love for kids is that the two of us were not able to become pregnant and have a child.  After a few years of marriage, we agreed that we would try to have a child.  After a year or so, we started seeing fertility specialists.  We went through test after test, we tried this and that and eventually the experts told us that we could not bear children.  Once again I saw Barb just devastated.  She would see and hear young mothers complain about their children and think "why not me?"  She would hear pregnant women complain about the horrors and the pain it was to be pregnant and she would think "I will gladly trade places with you."  The biggest effect the situation had on her though was strengthening her opposition to abortion.  She was always against it, but this made her more vocal about it and resolved her opposition to it.  Her belief, and mine, was that there was no such thing as an unwanted child.  People were on waiting lists to have a chance to have a child.  However, she quickly pick herself up, dusted herself off and began to work with the Missouri Baptist Children's Home to see if we would be eligible to adopt a child.  Oh the paperwork that she went through during this quest.  It was all her.  I was okay at the time with adopting a child but I thought it would take forever to do so.  Barb was determined though.  She faithfully filled out the papers.  We went to parenting classes and to couples therapy to be sure we would be good parents.  Our finances were looked at.  Our neighbors were interviewed about us.  We had visits to look through our house to see how we lived.  Virtually every part of our life together was put under a microscope for two years.  We had to prove that we were capable of being good parents, which by the way brought out Barb's ire at girls having babies that could not care for them or even want them.  But we, we had to prove we were good enough to have a child.  Finally, one day we got a call from the Children's Home.  With the help of an inside source, they had decided that they had a little boy that was ready to be adopted and they had decided that we were the couple that should raise him as our own.  On December 22, 1982 Derrick Brett Clark came to live with us and became our son.  Barb's dogged determination had paid off.  It was the happiest I had ever seen her.  She loved Brett so very much and we raised him as our own and he was our own.  Job well done Barbara and thank you, thank my Uncle Melvin and mostly thank God for the gift of Brett.

The mention of Brett brings up another topic concerning Barbara.  Something that flooded the DNA of my family and was not even a blip in her DNA.  It was something called baseball. Barb was a football person.  Well, she was a Kansas City Chiefs person.  She didn't know about college football or college anything nor did she care.  It was Len Dawson, Buck Buchanan, Willie Lanier, Johnny Robinson, Otis Taylor, Fred Arbanas .... you know, the Chiefs.  As far as sports were concerned to Barbara, nothing mattered but the Chiefs.  She was aware of baseball and basketball and a few other sports, but that was about as far as her knowledge went.  Chiefs or nothing.  When we first started dating, she had never attended a baseball game.  She had never even seen one on television.  She did not have a clue as to what baseball was about.  Before we got Brett, I had taken her to more than a few Royal's games and she suffered through it.  One of the things my dad had us do every time we went to a ballgame was to buy a score card and keep score.  He figured it made us really pay attention to the game and to understand it better.  Barb would look at me in wonder as we entered the stadium and the first thing I would do would be to buy a scorecard.  She would just shake her head during the game as I kept score while she was trying to talk to me about something.  She did not have a clue as to what was going on in the field, what the rules were, or why I got excited during a game where the pitching dominated both teams and the bats were almost silent.  Then we got Brett and the day arrived early one spring when Brett was a little over two years old that I cam home with a Wiffle Ball set.  Now this wasn't the set with the big fat red bat and the softball size wiffle ball.  No, this was the skinny yellow bat and the baseball size wiffle.  I walked in and announced that I had made a purchase that I thought would carry us through many years (which it did).  She expressed her doubts about Brett being old enough for this silly game but I assured her he was just at the right age.  Over the next two summers and falls.... and let's face it spring and winters as well, I would take Brett out in the back yard and we would learn to hit.  Every once in a while I would look up at the kitchen window and see Barb staring outside watching, but as soon as I looked at her, she disappeared to continue fixing dinner.

Cable arrived in our house about the same time Brett did and I discovered the magic of Harry Carey.  He was the play by play for the Chicago Cubs and soon Barb was put through a summer of Royals games and Cubs games both.  Summers back then were very long for her I think.  But she knew that the teams were not going to leave our house and so Brett's wardrobe started to change little by little.  George Brett jerseys began to show up during the summer.  Little shirts that said "Cubbies" appeared and then a Cubs jersey.  Finally one Christmas she went all out and got Brett a Cubs batting helmet, Cubs bat and a Cubs baseball.  Then the ultimate test arrived for her as far as baseball was concerned.

I took Brett up to the local YMCA and signed him up for T-ball.  From that day forward, for the next fifteen years or so, baseball would become an integral part of Barb's life.  She enjoyed the T-ball years because after all it was just kids running around in circles.  As Brett grew older and he established himself as a very good second baseman who could hit, she began to take notice of what was happening on the field.  She began to learn the basics of baseball.  When Brett got into high school he played baseball for Bishop Hogan.  The fall out from playing for Bishop Hogan was that to keep the boys sharp and in playing condition, they would play in a second league along with the metro league.  Soon Barb was watching baseball four or five times a week.  Then came the two years when the boys played in a spring league, two summer leagues and a fall league.  In those last two years of Brett playing ball, Barb became hard core baseball.  She was washing uniforms every night of the week. (No son of HERS was going to show up in a dirty uniform).  She would be watching baseball in hundred degree heat, watching baseball until eleven at night sometimes, and during the fall be wrapped up in a coat, blankets and stocking cap to watch ball games.  She had become a baseball fanatic.  Her appreciation (love is too strong a word for baseball as far as she was concerned) for baseball grew and after Brett's playing days were over, she would watch the Royals and the Cubs with me and later watch Mizzou play baseball and softball when they arrived on cable.  Through all those years, she never ever missed a single game of Brett's.  She missed very few World Series games no matter who was playing in it, although she got extremely happy in 2015 and 2016 when the Royals won the Series and then the Cubs took it.  When the Royals had their big celebration at Union Station in the late winter, early spring of 2016 she was in the hospital preparing for her third heart surgery.  Her room looked out over the street where hundreds of Royals fans were making their way to the Station.  She was not able to get up and go to the window so I describe the parade of fans to her.  Then she watched the celebration on her television, then I had to go back to the window to describe the parade of fans returning to their cars.  Baseball had worked its way into her DNA.  It had taken over thirty years, but she had found what baseball was about.  However, through all those years, football still stayed number one in her sports heart.  It had expanded from just the Chiefs though to the Chiefs and Mizzou.  That would never change.

Somewhere along the line Barbara developed a fascination for sign language.  I honestly do not know where it came from but she must have had an experience or something with either a signer or a deaf person.  She took several classes at the community college, at Rockhurst and I think she even took one at the Kansas School for the Deaf.  At one time during this process she shared with me that one thing she would really like to do would be to work at the school for the deaf.  That never came to fruition but she did learn to sign very well.  She would watch television shows that had a signer in a little circle of the screen and watch, sign along with, and under her breath say the words she was signing.  Every time we went to the Kansas City Men's Chorus Christmas show her eyes would never leave the signer for the entire time.  One night, after the show, we were standing out in the middle of 14th Street with all of the other attendees and she saw the man with the long blonde hair who did the signing for the chorus.  He was about six foot three or so and Barb, of course, was four foot ten.  She walked up to him and looked up in the sky and started talking to him about signing, about her love for it and how she appreciated his ability to be so fluent and smooth in his signing.  They ended up talking for about fifteen minutes as he shared some of his experiences and she shared hers.  I got the feeling that this man really appreciated her coming up and engaging him about his craft.  Barb had that ability though.  Her smile broke through all barriers.  Her voice was soft and smooth and she was always capable of expressing her sincerity in what she was saying.  On the way back to my Uncle's house, she told Dan all about her talk with the gentleman.  Dan was fascinated with her talk about her talk with the signer.

Okay, let's go back to her love for kids for a second.   When Barb and I started dating, someone at the church brought up the possibility of a children's choir for the church.  Barb thought about it and decided that she would really enjoy that.  Since I played the piano, she talked to me about it.  Why don't the two of us start a children's choir in the church?  Well, if you know me at all, you know I don't like to play piano in front of people.  Never have.  But Barb was pretty convincing as she always was and so one summer Wednesday night we held our first choir practice.  There were about four or five kids but for Barb, that was plenty.  She found some old books that the youth choir use to use and we picked songs out to teach the kids.  After about a month, Barb asked if the kids could sing one Sunday night for the church.  They agreed and so on that night I sat at the piano in the sanctuary and five kids stood before the church and sang.  Barb was so very proud of the kids.  She immediately began thinking ahead towards the Christmas season when the kids would perform again.  By the time Christmas rolled around, Barb had a choir of almost fifteen kids and she taught them well.  She had them express themselves in song.  For example if a song had the word "shout" as part of the lyrics, Barb would have the kids actually shout out the word "shout".  I was so proud of her and what she had accomplished.  She carried on the children's choir until we got married and joined a different church.

In the new church, it was the same situation.  No children's choir.  It didn't take Barb long to get the ball rolling to create one.  She again worked her magic with the kids and soon had a fairly large choir.  It was during this time at the new church that Barb began one of her personal traditions.  She would teach the kids to sign a song as they sang.  Most of the time she did this during the Christmas season.  I have seen her teach kids to sign "Away in a Manger"  "Silent Night"  "Jesus Loves Me" among many others.  The parents loved it that their kids were learning something like sign language and the choir continued to grow.

When we started attending another church, we discovered that the pastor at the church was a member of her original children's choir so many years before.  He still remembered some the songs she had taught those kids and asked her to start a choir at his church.  Barbara jumped at the chance and so once again she started from scratch and built a choir that would sign at least one song a year.  Eventually she bought a set of kids hand bells and taught the kids to do songs with them.  When it came to kids, Barb was always looking for something to enhance their experience in her choir.  I do believe it was one of the biggest joys she had in her life.  Eventually her health deteriorated to the point where she was not up to the task and she reluctantly retired from the children's choir job.  She did love it though.  When she was directing those kids in front of the church, she would have a smile on and her eyes would twinkle and she would sing along with them.

Family.  Barbara always considered the family to be very important.  I don't just mean Brett and myself but the FAMILY.  The uncles, the aunts, the cousins, sisters and brothers and nephews and nieces.. People who weren't technically a part of the family were considered family to Barb.  A good example of this is my eldest sister's best friend since childhood.  Barb always saw Karen as another sister and her daughter, Ginny, as one of her nieces.  She would spend literally hours talking to my aunts and uncles as well as hers.  Her cousins on both her side and my side were more like brothers and sisters than cousins.  She would be so proud of her nephews and nieces and make sure they knew that she was.  And when those nephews and nieces had kids of their own, she loved them as much as she had their parents and were proud of them as well.  Probably the most important link between Barb and my family though were my grandparents.  She loved them so very much and always was concerned with how they were doing.  She held back tears when each of them passed.

As time went by, members of the family began to age and pass away.  It was during this time that Barb  showed how she felt about her Clark and Hill families.  My uncle Dan had been surviving with AIDS for decades but one day we got news that brought everyone together tightly.  Uncle Dan had been diagnosed with lung cancer and it did not look good.

Through the years Barb and Dan had grown to be very close.  When Dan was diagnosed,  Barb and myself ran point to organize the care of Dan as members of the family came into town to help, friends from Seattle came into town to help take care of Dan but Barb was always on watch with me to look over Dan.  Dan fought for a while very hard and Barb was there to encourage him on.  Barb gave me tremendous support during this time.  Many times my uncle and I would be up late into the night, early morning talking about things and Barb was there most of the time.  She was asleep, but she was there.  She always fell asleep in what became one of her favorite chairs and we would chuckle when we found her asleep so many times.  When we put Dan in hospice, I was there 24/7 as I promised my uncle i would be.  Barb spent almost that much time there to help however she could.  The night that Dan passed, i had fallen asleep on the couch in Dan's room.  Barb came over and shook me awake and told me it was time.  I looked at her confused and she repeated that it was time and shortly thereafter, my uncle passed away.  A few weeks before he passed, Dan had told Barb that she could have her chair that she spent so many hours sleeping in.  That chair became Barb's chair in our house and the place where she spent most of her time as her health got worse.

When my sister Carol came up one summer to help me take care of mom and dad, Barb was herself  well on the way toward poor health.  Carol was diagnosed with cancer that summer and along with Karen, we got her well enough to get back to Georgia.  Barb wanted to help out so much but just wasn't able to.

Before I wrap up this part of writing about Barb, I have thought of a couple of events that made her laugh and brought smiles to both of us.

She was taking a deposit to the bank for her office one day and found herself in line behind one of her heroes, a man named Len Dawson.  Dawson finished his transaction and she watched him walk away.  When she got to the counter, she asked the young teller if that was Len Dawson.  The young man looked at Dawson's receipt and said "Yes it was.  Do you know Mr. Dawson?"  Barb was floored.  LEN DAWSON.  This kid did not have a clue.  When she got home that night she told me the story with a lot of emotion and voice inflections and wonderment.  Then in describing the young teller she did what she did so often in describing young adults... "B-A-B-Y" ... and she would smile.

We had spent over a year with nightmarish neighbors on our south side.  It is too much to go into detail here, but it was horrible.  It was so bad the whole neighborhood were hassling the landlord on a daily basis to get them evicted.  When those people finally moved out and a new for rent sign was put up in the yard, Jim from across the street marched over, picked up the sign and threw it into the back yard.  After a few weeks a couple came over to look at that house.  When Charlene and Robert moved in, both Barb and myself would greet them every time we saw them.  We were both OVER nice to them.  Barb would go over and talk to Charlene constantly.  Then one Saturday when Barb got home from one of her talks with the new neighbors, she sat down and smiled as she said "you know, those people probably think we are totally NUTS!"  and she laughed thinking out loud that they would probably move out to get away from US.

I could write forever about life with Barb.  I have forty-five years to look back upon.  That is a lot of memories.  The purpose of part one was to try my best to let you know who Barb was.  How she was.  What was important to her and how she handled things.  We had rough times during our time together for sure.  We went through some rough times.  But when you take the over all story of Barb and her life, she was a very good person, certainly too good for me.

The next part will deal with her health issues and how they effected her both physically and emotionally.  I will try to get that written soon.

Thank you for reading this and allowing me to show how I saw Barb over the course of our time together.

ONE WAS MISSING

Last week marked a big day in my immediate family's existence.  My dad celebrated his ninetieth birthday.  It was a miracle that he reached this point in life.  It was indeed a day for celebration.

The celebration was to be held in the small town of Camden, Alabama where my folks now live as my sister cares for them in the most unselfish and loving way.  Many people came to share in the celebration, mostly family and loved ones.  My little brother traveled from South Dakota.  My uncle came down from St. Louis.  My Aunt (Dad's sister) and my cousins came in from Colorado and Kansas. Dad had grandchildren and great grand children as well as great great grandchildren arrive from north Alabama and as far away as the other side of Atlanta, Georgia.  My Aunt and Uncle came down from Muscle Shoals, my niece and my nephew as well as myself traveled from Kansas City, Missouri.

The celebration started Thursday night when my little brother and myself arrived, continued into Friday night with the main party being held on Saturday.  It was a time of joy and happiness as we gathered for this special day.  Cards and well wishes were sent from family and loved ones from Kansas, Missouri, South Caroline, and Georgia.

As family connections were reunited and the talk among the throng ranged from topics as diverse as to the miracle that we have been allowed to have our dad with us all these years, to baseball, to spirited discussions between Tigers and Jayhawks.  It was crowded.  It was noisy.  It was happy and joyous.  It was  a day that I, and those that were there, will never forget.

As I took some time on Saturday and listened to all the different conversations going on, as I watched my dad look in wonderment at all the people that showed up, my mind began to wander a bit.

I noticed that my dad had morphed through the years.  He is quite a man, someone to be admired and respected, that is for sure.  He has changed though.  His knees are not what they once were.  He needs a walker to navigate his way around.  His mind is not quite as sharp as it once was in his younger days.  He forgets things easily and tires easily after short periods of time.  He still watches baseball constantly, but often he can't remember who he is watching play or what the score is.  He is getting old and his age is showing.

I noticed all of the people who had come.  Pictures were being taken with phones.  Dad was in the role that he had never really been comfortable with, that being the center of attention.  He seemed to be enjoying it though and he smiled a lot when people would come up to talk to him.  I know it was a long weekend for him, but he soldiered through it and actually, I think he really enjoyed it.

Later, when I was on my way home and stopping over in Dyersburg, Tennessee, I sat and looked at the pictures that were popping up on the internet of my dad's celebration.  I saw pictures of everyone.  I saw pictures of families who don't gather all together very often.   I saw a picture of Dad and mom with my sister, little brother and myself.  I stopped on that picture and paused to study it.

Mom and dad looked aged but alert and smiling.  My sister and brother and myself looked very good although you could see the signs of aging in our faces.  Five people that formed a family that was started in 1950 when mom and dad got married.  It didn't look right though.

You see, our little family grew up as six, not five.  My eldest sister, Carol, passed away just a little over two years before this grand celebration.  Carol was not there and I felt her absence deeply.  We all felt her absence.  Everyone of us wished that she were there.  There seemed to be a hole where Carol should have been.

Yes, it was a great celebration.  It was a celebration that was warranted.  It was indeed a joyous, happy and wonderful celebration and everyone of us were very aware of how lucky our lives have been to have been blessed with the presence of my father through all these years and none of us would trade it for the world.

Still, through all of the joy, all of the happiness and laughter, one was missing.  I can say, and I think I speak for all the family, that she was greatly missed by every one of us on that day.  I couldn't help but hear this small voice in my head saying "You should have been there Carol ... you would have enjoyed it so very much and would have completed the picture."

I love you Carol.  I miss you.

Front row: Dad's sister Aunt Velma, Dad and Mom  Second row: my brother Bob, myself and my sister Elaine

My sister Carol with her grand-daughter Haylee

AS TIME GOES BY

I've been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it's the wink of an eye
When the morning light comes streaming in
You'll get up and do it again
Amen.

"The Pretender"  -Jackson Browne- 

A few weeks ago in a gastronomical clinic I lay on a gurney awaiting my turn to be taken into the procedure room for my colonoscopy.  I noticed the pattern on the curtains that protected my privacy, I listened to the chatter between the nurses on the other side of that curtain and I looked about the little room.  I looked down at my left wrist and noticed the plastic bracelet that had been placed there with all my information needed so they would know for sure who they were doing the procedure on, which is a pretty good idea I think.

I looked at and read all of the information that was contained on that band.  As I read who I was my eyes landed on the last line of text that was written there.  "Age: 61 years".  Maybe it was being by myself with nothing to distract me, I am not sure, but seeing that number "61" suddenly brought to my mind the question of where the time had gone.

I have always heard that as you age the time seems to go by faster and faster and seeing my age printed out brought it all home to me.  They are right, the time does start to fly by as you age.  When I was a boy it seemed like a decade between Christmas' and over the last few years it feels like there is only a month or two between each Christmas.  Time is flying by and nothing I can do will slow it down.

One summer day, I was working in the garden with my Grandpa Hill when he suddenly stopped and looked up into the sky with a far away look in his eye.  He was quiet for a few seconds before telling me that if he could choose anytime in which to live, he would choose the time in which he had lived.  During those seconds of gazing into the hot summer sky, I suppose he was looking back on his life, where he had been, what he had done and where life had taken him.  He went on to explain that his time here on earth had allowed him to see horse and buggy days turn into seeing a man walk on the moon.  He had gone from working on steam engines to diesel locomotives.  His main source of news had gone from newspapers and radio to television and on to not just television, but color television.  I have thought about that afternoon often over the years.  This July will mark the 110th anniversary of his birth.

As I lay there seeing my age in print, I thought of that day once again.  I wonder how old Grandpa was on that summer day.  I imagine he probably wasn't much older then than I am now.  Grandpa passed away at the age of 82 in July of 1990, twenty eight years ago.  He was only twenty one years older than I am now.  I think back to the day we laid him to rest on that hot July day.  I remember the thoughts that went through my mind as I contemplated a future without the old man to go visit at least once a week throughout the year.  I remember that day so very clear and as I think back on it, it does not seem like it has been even close to twenty eight years ago.  The first year without him seemed like forever but now, July first and July tenth come around so very quickly anymore and this July seems to be approaching much fast than last July did.

This weekend members of the family will gather in Alabama to celebrate my father's ninetieth birthday.  Ninety years.  For my dad to reach the age of ninety is almost a miracle.  No, it is a miracle.  To understand why I say this I encourage you to read my entry My Dad: A Special Life .  It is a long complicated story of which I have written a few times and so I won't go into the details here.  Suffice it to say that dad has lived around sixty years past what they thought he would.  Our sixty one years as father and son have, well let's say, had some rocky times, some very rocky times.  But as each of us has grown over the years and we notice the years going by, I think both of us have come to realize what a special relationship we do have together.  The times are not rocky any more, not at all these days.  I feel there is a mutual respect and love for one another that we had a little trouble expressing when I was younger.  That isn't to say we didn't have great times as well.  Over the last sixty one years, me and my dad have had more good times than bad.  Looking back over the years I can easily and honestly say there were many more good , if not great, times than rocky ones.

I remember a photograph that use to be in mom and dad's house.  I must have been about fourteen, maybe a little younger.  It was a picture of a baseball game taken at Jay Allard's ball fields.  A game was being played that I remember very well.  It was kind of a father/son game.  The picture shows me at bat in mid swing.  I was a fairly good hitter and the form that is depicted in this picture shows why.  Not to brag or anything, but I always thought my form shown in that picture looked like a young right handed George Brett or Carl Yastrzemski (I know... dreamer.  I can almost see my dad, Uncle Jim and Jay Allard rolling their eyes at this description of my swing).  Back foot planted solid, front foot stepping into the pitch and straight with the arms extended, the bat level and my head down looking at the ball.  Beautiful form.  Of course, I don't know if I actually hit the ball or totally missed it when that picture was taken.  The special part of that picture though is not the perfect swing of the bat by me, but rather squatting behind me, trusting me not to bash in his head with the bat, is my father.  He is also in perfect form, just as he had taught my little brother to do when he was catching.  Glove is stretched out towards the plate, the ungloved hand is fisted, and his head is tilted down a bit with his eye spot on the ball.  It was just a moment in time but as I look back all those years ago, what a special moment it was. A dad and his son, playing the great American game on a dusty dirty ball field in the middle of a pasture.

That picture was taken so many years ago.  If I was fourteen or so, dad would have been early forties.  Could it really have been forty five or fifty years ago that picture was taken?  It is times like that when you realize how fast time does go by.

So what have I learned as time continues to speed up?  Time is so very precious.  Time is wasted all too easily.  People I have loved for a lifetime are gone and all I have are memories of the time spent with them.  Grandparents, Uncles. Aunts, Siblings, Cousins, Nieces and Nephews are special people.  They are family and one of the most important commodities we have in our lives are our families. Friends, close friends are the same way.  Some friends are so close and you have spent so many years being friends that they are just as important as family.  They pass away eventually and once they are gone, you are out of time to let them know how important they are to you.  We shouldn't think that we have an eternity to let them know because although time is infinite, time in the form of life is very short and finite.

Time will go by fast.  That is a given.  The trick is to take advantage of that time.

ROSEANNE VS FERGIE

There once was a time, a long long time ago, when performers sang the national anthem as it was written and it was good.  Then we were forced to endure a couple of decades of these singers creating their own arrangements of The Star Spangled Banner that left the listener wondering if it was indeed the national anthem they were listening to.  It was horrible.

One of these performances stood out as worse than any other public performance of the song and it was sung with the original arrangement.  In July of 1990, Roseanne Barr performed the song before a Padres/Reds baseball game in San Diego.  Now, Roseanne is a comedian, not a singer.  She went out and more or less yelled the song with a bit of a tune to make it recognizable and upon finishing the song, she grabbed her crotch and then spit before walking off the field.

There have been a lot of bad performances of the song but Roseanne's became known as the absolutely worst ever and a case could be made for that opinion.  Here is what Roseanne's version sounded like on that day:

So for 28 years Roseanne bore the title of the worst national anthem singer of all time... that is, until yesterday.

Roseanne received some competition for the title at the NBA All-Star game.  Fergie, of Black Eyed Peas fame, brought back the old self arrangements of the song and brought the bar to a new high for the title.  As Fergie sang The Star Spangled Banner, you could see not only fans at the game, but the players themselves trying very hard not to break out in laughter.  See if you can keep from at least a little chuckle while listening to her performance:

To compare an example of a great performance of the national anthem, one has only to look a year after Roseanne butchered it.  It was the Super Bowl when the late Whitney Houston set the bar for one of the greatest public performances of the song of all time.  To many, it is the standard by which all other performances should be compared:

So I decided to try to decide which version was worse,  Roseanne or Fergie.  This was not an esay excersize to work through.   For one thing, I put my brain through listening to each version several times.

Let's take quick comparison of these two performances.  We can look at Roseanne and say "She is a comedian, not a singer" and we can look at Fergie and say the opposite "She is a singer, not a comedian."  That is all well and good but a strange thing happened.  When Roseanne, the comedian, sang the song the crowd let out a chorus of boos even before the crotch grap and spit.  When Fergie, the singer, was performing the work it took for everyone to not burst out in laughter was quite evident.  Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Roseanne was herself during her performance.  She did not arrange the song differently, but sang it more or less the way it was written (I use the word "sang" loosely here).  Fergie took all of her musical talent and ability to arrange the song to her liking and performed it intentionally to a horrible outcome.  She put a lot of theatrics into her performance in order to make it more dramatic? I suppose.

After the the performance was finished Roseanne grabbed her crotch and spit on the ground.  Fergie on the other hand shouted out "Let's play some basketball!!!"  Now we could take Roseanne's gestures as disrespectful to the anthem and to the country.  I choose not to.  Looking at the two performances, grabbing of the crotch and spitting are an integral part of baseball.  Next time you watch a baseball game, try to count how many times players spit and "adjust" their pants.  I promise you it is a lot.  So I choose to see Roseanne's gestures as her way of saying "Play Ball" which is far more American than the announcer at a basketball game saying "Let's play some basketball".  I don't think I have ever heard that at a basketball game but 99.999% of the time at a baseball game, the umpire or the announcer will say "PLAY BALL".

The booing of the crowd in San Diego makes me think that perhaps the fans were not taking Roseanne as a comedian doing a bit, but rather as someone who was trying to sing the anthem the way it was written and failed miserably.  However the laughter at Fergie's serious attempt at performing the song made the crowd see her as a musician making a fool of herself.

MY conclusion ... congratulations Roseanne,  you are no longer the worst performer ever to sing the Star Spangled Banner in a public forum.  You aren't Whitney Houston of course, but you sure aren't Fergie either.

THE YEAR OF THE CUBS - 2016

I should have written something about this historic event two months ago.  Work and family health issues have slowed my writing down however.  Now is as good of a time as any to write this tale.

I follow a few teams from my days as a child.  Teams that we would go see play the Athletics down at old Municipal Stadium.  I liked and followed the Boston Red Sox, the Chicago White Sox, the Baltimore Orioles and the Minnesota Twins.  It was a time before interleague play so I did not know much about the National League teams except for the St. Louis Cardinals who my uncle Jack would talk about everytime he came to town.  Along with his talk about the Cardinals, he would often mention another team with derision.  The Chicago Cubs were mortal enemies of the Cardinals and in that way I became acquainted with the Senior Circuit Chicago team.

As I grew up the Athletics moved to Oakland and I said goodbye to them.  It was difficult not to follow them since I knew so many of the players on that team but as time wore on I found it easier to dismiss the team in California and learned to put the Kansas City Royals at the top of my list.

I grew up and eventually got married.  When cable television came to town, we signed up.  In the early days of cable there were only about twenty five channels available one of which was WGN in Chicago.  WGN was owned buy the Chicago Tribune Corporation who also had a sizable stake in the Chicago Cubs.  I started noticing that WGN broadcast every game of the season that the Cubs played.  This is somewhat normal these days but back in the late seventies/early eighties it was not heard of.  I did not much of the cubs games.  Their stadium, Wrigley Field, did not have lights so all of their home games were played during the day.

I will never forget the day I became a Cubs fan.  I had arrived home from work to find an empty house because the wife was still at work.  I turned on the television and found my self looking at a ballgame from Wrigley.  The camera was from ground level at third base and a player with the number 23 was on third.  I would learn later that number 23 was a future hall of famer named Ryne Sandberg.  Then I heard that voice.  A voice that almost sound like the announcer was spitting out the words.  This voice would become one that was dear to me as it belonged to the immortal Harry Carey.  I heard Carey say that it was the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, nobody out and the Cubs were down by only one run.  It became painfully clear that the Cubs winning a game during this season had become a rarity and Harry was totally immersed in the excitement that the game was there for the Cubs taking.  I decided to sit and take in the half inning to see if this group could pull out a win.  It unfolded quickly.  The batter at the plate hit an infield pop up, keeping all the runners pinned at the bases.  One out.  The first pitch to the next batter was a ground ball to second base that resulted in a double play.  Game over.  The Cubs had lost again.

It was Harry Carey's reaction to the Cubs having the bases loaded with no outs and not getting a run across the plate that caught my imagination.  I guess I fell more for the voice then I did for the team.  "Holy cow, this team can't buy a win this year.  The game was there, bases loaded, no outs and they blow it again..." and Harry went on for another five minutes ripping the Cubs to pieces.  He held nothing back.  I had never heard an announcer who was employed by a team tear a team down the way Carey was doing.  It was refreshing in a way.  As that summer went on I watched the Cubs more and more and began to learn some of the players names and their talents.  There were some very good players on that team but like Harry had said, it just seemed like they were meant to lose.

I picked up with the Cubs the next season, watching the last three or so innings of the Cubs in the afternoon and the Royals at night.  I came to learn that the Cubs had not been to the World Series since 1945 and had not won a series since 1908.  What a streak!  This was a team that you just HAD to love.  Day after day. season after season, always ending up out of the running for a spot that might get them back to the Series.  When Brett joined our family 1982, I raised him to watch the Cubs and I had set him up with a full set of Cubs t-shirts along with ball caps and a batting helmet.

In 1984, Brett's second season as a Cubs fan, the Cubs made it to the playoffs for the first time since they had lost the series in 1945 to the Tigers.  They made it to the League Championship Series only to lose to the San Diego Padres to keep them out of the series.  That same year the Royals had made it to the American League Championship Series only to have their hopes dashed at a series return.  The streak remained alive.  No series appearance since 1945 and no World Series Championship since 1908.  That season gave me hope however.  Both of my teams were just THAT far away from a series appearance.  And so as the season dawned upon 1985, I expected to see both the Royals and the Cubs in the Series.

That season was not kind to the Cubs though.  They did not make the playoffs but not all was lost as my Royals did go to the Series and beat the Cardinals, which was somewhat satisfying from my point of view as both a Cubs and a Royals fan.

Through the following seasons the Cubs made it to the playoffs six times as they headed into the 2015 season.  Once again as the seasoned opened I fully expected to see the Cubs and the Royals in the Series.  Once again it was not to be.  The Cubs had a season for the ages.  During the course of the season they had managed to win a total of 97 games.  This is what every team drives for each season.  It was a strange season in the National League Central though.  Pittsburgh won 98 games and St. Louis, those nasty Cardinals had won 100 games.  The Cubs had ended up in third place while winning 97  games.  They did played a one game wild card against Pittsburgh and won.  Then they played the divisional playoff against the Cardinals and won?  Once again they were in the League Championship series with a chance to go to the Series but had to get by the Mets to do so.  They failed.  The good part of that year was that the Royals went from the one game wild card all the way to the Series and won the World Series over the Mets.  However once again, both my teams were THAT close to playing each other in the Series.

Then came the magic.  The 2016 season opened and by July things were not looking good for my Royals.  Indeed they would end up out of the playoffs.  While the Royals were dealing with an off season though, the Cubs took the National league by storm.  They ruled it and most important, they ruled that nasty Central Division.  They ended up with 103 wins during the regular season.  When they clinched the division, the second place Cardinals were 17 games behind them.  At he end of the season, the Cardinals found themselves still 17 games back of the Cubs.  It was SO sweet.  As the playoffs began, it looked like no one would touch the Cubs and they didn't.  The Cubs beat the Giants in the Divisional Championship series 3 games to 1.  It was during the series with the giants that I received a package in the mail.  It was a flag pole and a big Cubs flag to fly on my our house sent to me from my sister Elaine.  I hung it in the front window during the Giants series, and after the Cubs beat the Giants the pole went up on the house and the Cubs flag was displayed in all its glory for the League Championship Series with the Dodgers.  The dream of the Cubs breaking that streak from 1945 came to an end as the Cubs beat the Dodgers 4 games to 2.  The Cubs were in THE SERIES!  It wouldn't be easy though.

Representing the American League in The Series were the Cleveland Indians.  The Indians had been to the series a couple of time in the 90's and 2000's but had not won a World Series since 1948.  These two teams were the record holders for the longest dry spell of a world championship in Baseball.  It had been 108 years since the Cubs had won a Series title and a mere 68 years since the Indians had.  The year of 2016 would break one of these two dry spells.

It was a tough Series.  It opened in Cleveland for the first two games in which the teams split winning one game each.  The next three games were in Chicago at Wrigley and it was then that things began to look pretty ominous for the Cubs.  Cleveland won the first two game in Chicago taking a three game to one lead over the Cubs.  The Cubs would have to win the last game at Wrigley plus two more game in Cleveland.  It did not look good.

The Cubs won that game at Wrigley and then the teams returned to Cleveland.  All the Indians needed was one win at home to break their dry spell.  The Cubs needed to win both games.  The Cubs came out and took game six from the Indians setting up the ultimate game seven.

Game seven was a classic for the ages.  The teams swapped the lead a couple of times and at the end of nine innings found themselves tied as rain started coming down.  The officials called a rain delay and so the last game of the season was temporarily put on hold.  During the delay the Cubs players had a meeting in their locker room.  They were NOT going to let this get away.  They  built each other up and came out after the delay intent on winning.  It was the top of the tenth inning when the Cubs scored taking the lead and putting all of the pressure on the Indians in the bottom of the tenth.  When all was said and done, when the Indians had received the third out in the tenth inning, the world was silent for just a second.  The Chicago Cubs, the lovable losers, the most cursed team in all of baseball were no longer cursed.  The Chicago Cubs were World Champions.  What a night in Chicago and around the league.  Even Cardinal fans were glad to see the Cubs break the spell.  The Chicago Cubs.... THE CUBS ... had won their first World Series since 1908.

It had taken the Cubs 103 wins through the regular season, a romp through the National League Playoffs and then seven games, a rain delay and ten innings to break a spell that had lasted 108 years.

With all of that in mind, I kept my Cubs flag flying proud for over a week after the magic of 2016.