News?

Considering I have checked the story 14 times today--it played out on a former coworker friend's short street, and I was trying to make sure she was okay, or, frankly, that her husband had not lost it--I'm a little fuzzy on the facts. But some typically bizarre suburban tragedy unfolded today that involved a car fire, and a shooting, then a standoff, then the gunman's house burning to the ground and maybe an explosion. I think that covers it. The still unnamed bad and/or crazy guy seems unaccounted for, but two cops are wounded and a 22 year-old firefighter is dead-- killed by a bullet as he got out of the fire truck to do something about the car fire--and in response the local paper has posted a direct link to the kid's Facebook page in a virtual front page headline. His profile was public, not restricted to his "friends", so apparently he didn't mind, you know, yesterday, when he was alive and maybe hoping to meet some girls. Today posting that link--which I didn't click--feels a little sick, or at the very, very best a lot lazy. What do they want people to do, write their own human interest stories?

So close and yet so far

Once upon a time, for a very long time, there was a bean field. And the bean field was good, and more often than not it yielded beans of a soy-type nature, or so I assume. But, being located between a highway and clusters of subdivided houses, the field was as ripe for development as it was for harvest, and thus the farmer cashed in. And therefore over the past year or two, nothing has grown in this former bean field except a strip mall, and another strip mall (still empty), and an Arby's, and a Walgreens (unfinished in May, perhaps now open), and, of course, a Starbucks. In a former bean field, out by the side of a highway.

"Apparently they ran out of places to put them." That's all I could think up, between the bean field Starbucks and the one in the steel mill town down the road, the most un-Starbucks-y place around. But whatever, they're everwhere, doesn't matter much to me, not being a coffee drinker, except upon rare occasions such as three or four o'clock in the morning in the middle of a Relay. But yesterday, a few months belatedly, I discovered that Starbucks is now selling Top Pot doughnuts--a doughnut worth the flight to Seattle, if you ask me. Now, of course, way out here, it wouldn't really be the same, but it might be nearly good enough, and it's loads more convenient--the bean field is at the end of my school year commute. Except now the Starbucks people, once known for their real estate savvy, have realized to their chargrin that they opened stores in steel mill towns and bean fields, and mere months later, are going to close them. Heavy, heavy sigh. They can keep their coffee, but a Top Pot doughnut was nearly motivating me to go to work. Perhaps instead I'll take a trip.

July

It's the middle of July, sunny, 90 degrees. So clearly summer's over. The first school supplies have been purchased--the weekly ritual of whatever's on sale--but mostly it's the ringing of the phone that signals the changing of the seasons.

"What are you doing about freshman orientation?"

"What dialect do your Chinese students speak?"

"Who was monitored last year?"

"I need help filling out this form for the state."

"The bus company wants addresses. Where do the ninth graders live? Did anybody move?" That's my favorite. I suppose there's almost a compliment in there somewhere, that I should automatically know whatever there is to know about my students, but hello, surely there's a database with such information regarding these children whom I've yet to meet. I have no idea where they live. Honest. And I hear I'm on vacation, technically, at least.

color commentary from nowhere

I live in an imaginary place. This according to my friend who has been displaced out of New York twice as long as she ever lived there. At my urging, she scribbled out a U.S. map that doesn't even include anywhere to fly over between Jersey and Denver, save, as I recall, for Chicago. Whatever. Given that even the air here is solid--humidity, don't you know--I'm confident that I'm somewhere that exists. And, you know, we're supposed to be all hale and hearty. How real.

This morning I'm amused by these Greenwich, CT teenagers who built themselves a wiffleball field in the shape of Fenway. Of course, they built it on a $1.25 million city lot and, being the sons of privilege that I presume they are--Greenwich, CT--they went straight to the media and the government all the way up to the lieutenant governor when the neighbors started screaming. But, teenagers who still play wiffleball and made the effort to build a field-- I have to kinda love them a little.

The Times drags out the Field of Dreams references and implies that they'd have been better off building their ballpark in Iowa. I don't disagree--since the Midwest does not exist apparently neither do property values or irritable neighbors--but I think they forget the story. Even his fellow Iowans thought Ray Kinsella was nuts until they saw the games . Those boys shouldn't be fighting the neighbors, to follow the plot of that book, they should be inviting them to play.

Talk about your mixed messages

Brett Lohan, nee Favre, finally spoke today through Faux News' Gretta Van Susteren, an Appleton native and Packer shareholder. The situation seems only to continue to deteriorate beyond repair. I found one quote most telling.

"You're telling me playing there is not an option, but playing elsewhere, we just can't - we're trying to protect your legacy," Favre said. "Well, thank you. I appreciate that. But apparently now, they're trying to protect my legacy by bringing me back and having me be a backup. Boy, that is really good."

Instead of whining about being put in a bad position, Ted Thompson better get his head out of ass and fix this pronto. I've been a Packer fan for twice as long as Favre has been in the NFL. I don't know what I'll do if I have to choose between the two.

And if you think I'm pissed off, check out Favre's friendly reporter at the Sun Herald.

Sold Out

As was inevitable, A-B agreed to become A-BInBev tonight. So, to mark the occasion, here's something from Chuck, whoever Chuck may be. Back in June, he wrote this pitch-perfect parody, if that's the word, of one of the Real Men of Genius Bud Light ads in the comments section of one of the million and twelve articles about the take over that have been posted on Stltoday.com. So, watch an original and get the tune in your head, and then read his:





Bud Light presents: Real American Heroes
(Real American Heroes)

Today we salute you, Mister Big Company Corporate Board Member
(Mister Big Company Corporate Board Member)

You started a glorious career with only one thing in mind. To reach the top. And clawed your way up the corporate ladder, stepping on, I don't know how many people to get there.
(Get out of my way)

It takes a lot of really hard work to turn a five foot cubicle into a fifty foot long table. And while your coworkers were being thrown out onto the street, you didn't falter one bit. Not you.
(I made it)

It must be comforting to know that when the employees merely sell the goods, you can buy and sell the company.
(The whole enchilada)

Anyone can learn how to read spreadsheets and count profits. But it takes real talent to light up a big cigar and make those really tough decisions.
(Whatever, Dude)

So polish up that parachute and crack open a cold one 'o surrogate of the shareholder.
(Wax on…)
Because when it comes to No. 2; well, that's really for everyone else.
(Number two)
Bud Light Beer, Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis Missouri
— Chuck 4:24 pm June 12th, 2008

In her own words

She's a woman heartbroken, a woman betrayed, or at least that's how she sees it. To her table of regulars, she drops all pretense: "Oh, these shenanigans just piss me off!" She sighs, and she shakes her head, and she'd throw her hands up if she wouldn't drop her tray and order pad, the one with the Green Bay Packers sticker displayed on the back. We tell her we like it.

"I'm from Fond du Lac," she tells us, in Manitou Springs, Colorado, in an accent as strong as her allegiance to the gold and the green. "They've got two religions," she says, though the pronoun might as well be"I": "Catholic and Brett Favre."

"And he sat there in March," she picks up in the middle of the rant that she's been perfecting,"all that boo-hoo-hooing. . .said he didn't know. . .liar!" in a tone so harsh it surprises. And then back over her shoulder, "I cried too!" I nod and try to remember the stages of grief.

"Do you know how many magazines with him on the cover I saved?" she offers with refills and a description of her spare bedroom shrine to her man. "I was gonna have an affair with him," she jokes, kinda, about the man as young as her son, and then follows, "We wanted him to run for president!" She lowers her voice: "Better than that Obama."

"I'll never forgive him. Do you believe that?" I'm not sure that I do, considering she's worried he's going to get booed, if he ever comes to Lambeau--God forbid--in some sick and wrong colors. We've already established the obvious, that he cannot. be. a. Bear.

When she casts about for reasons, and says, "It can't be the money!" we blurt out, "He just wants to play," before she rolls on. She concedes, but sees her Packers in a corner and no way for that to happen in the only acceptable way. Some religion with little faith.

And again I hear about the shenanigans, though she's talking across the room. And then the ridiculous opinion that number 4 should have retired two years ago, from some man (who may or may not be a jackass, but) 30 years removed from the Badger state. In a pancake place. In Colorado. In July. Meanwhile, my daughter contemplates eating watermelon rind in an effort to clean her plate "like we do in Wisconsin" since anyone who could be mad at Brett Favre is just a little scary.

"Clearly I have no life," she says, with a wry smile that pretends to try for chagrined. "E-mail me the latest," she kids, "since I'm all the way out here." We leave a note with the tip and happen to see her read it as we get in the Pathfinder to drive away. She's on the patio having a smoke and talking to her fellow waitress, her twin sister (how I wish we could go back for lunch) when her boss brings it out. She pockets the scrap with a roll of her eyes and is off on a tear again. "Go Pack Go," indeed.

Off my chest

I've long subscribed to the philosophy that whatever doesn't kill me, makes me stronger. I don't think it applies to the current Packer drama, unless it does in fact kill me, making everything moot.

I mean, come on already.

Yes, Brett Favre is behaving like a diva, again.

But, also yes, he's the greatest Packer of all time.

As far as I'm concerned, he can dictate game times. The suggestion that he returns as Aaron Rodgers' backup is laughable. Mr. Rodgers would look good in purple. It's not like he'd be the first Favre backup to move on -- see Matt Hasselbeck, Mark Brunell, Aaron Brooks, etc.

What's the big deal?

Maybe, just maybe, the quarterback of the future isn't Rodgers but Brian Brohm. The quarterback of the present is Brett Favre damnit!

Leavin' on a jet plane

Only appropriate to wedge a John Denver song right into your head as I get ready--well, pretty soon I'll get ready--to fly out of Colorado. Last big trip we took was Florida, during a which a recovery week at Siesta Key was preceded by a planned-to-the-minute week at Disney (but did we stand in any lines during the jammed-packed height of the season? NO!), so this time it feels as if we've done nothing much, which is what vacation should be. On the other hand, we've seen a Rockies game, the state capitol and history museum, albeit accidentally, some friends, Casa Bonita, the Museum of Nature and Science (also with friends, which made it better), a movie or dim sum, Elitch Gardens amusement park, Mile High stadium (or whatever the corporate sponsor calls it), most of the shops in Manitou Springs and some in Old Colorado City, the motel pool, the penny arcade, the penny arcade, the penny arcade, Pikes Peak on the cog railway, the Olympic Training Center, the Garden of the Gods, the Flying W Ranch (nostalgia trip, part II. see Casa Bonita), Royal Gorge from the bridge and the train to the bottom and the aerial tram, an awesomely scenic drive on the way back from the gorge through the gambling wasteland of Cripple Creek because gas is free here, though we never found anywhere to pan for gold that was not basically in a strip mall, and something else but I forget. Ah yes, the lithium water. Oh, to take some home.

When asked to name her favorite part, my daughter ran through that whole list, starting with meeting a new friend, and declared it all equally awesome. I'm glad. I'm also glad to have vacation stories to torture her with for the rest of her life, that being part of my job. There's a ton we didn't do, but considering our pace this morning, I'm assured we'll leave the Bataan Death March of Vacation to the tour groups that we kept running into in between our naps and our trips to the penny arcade.

Baseball

I've lost count, but it's nearly 80. No where near 163, but plenty for an amateur or anyone named Nomar.

And, suddenly, it's over.

The season-ending "metro" tournament was canceled prematurely today after a few too many raindrops fell on the "metro's" worst field. No explanation was given as to why games could not be played Friday or even Saturday.

The boy is at a movie with teammates. His dad is trying to come to grips.

Thank goodness for RAGBRAI.

Hometown Zero

Kurt Warner came home to Cedar Rapids today and took a tour of my city of ruins. He brought a pen, but forgot his checkbook. He signed autographs, posed for photos, handed out Cardinals t-shirts (no, not those Cardinals), and shook hands.

Whatta guy!

My favorite local sports writer -- and one of the smartest people I know -- let him off the hook, I thought, describing the visit as "an attempt to keep the effects of the flood in the public's consciousness."

Baloney! We're not even a month out.

“I think there’s always the initial push by people to help out, whether it be corporations or individuals,” Warner said. “But it becomes out of sight, out of mind.

You forget about how long it’s going to take these families or this community to rebuild. Once it’s not a headline or a breaking story it gets pushed in the background.”

Does Warner come from the future or something? Perhaps he returned sooner than planned. I'm baffled.

Some Numbers

Number of hours that I have been in Denver: 23
Number of minutes our flight was early: 35 (on a 1:45 flight, that's almost disturbing)
Number of lost pairs of shoes, 11 year-old girl division: 1
Number of professional sports stadiums visited: 2
Number of yellow-fever-ridden ditches adjacent to sports stadiums here: 0
Number of promised fireworks displays that materialized: 0
Number of home runs witnessed at Coors Field: 6
Number of days by which we missed witnessing a 43-hit ballgame: 1
Number of Blue Moons consumed at the ballgame: 2. Was I having an issue with Belgian-ish beer and ballparks or something? Disregard.
Number of feet above sea level: 5280! Now, where's my oxygen?

Fireworks

Extravagant to wasteful. Breathtaking. Huge. Dangerous when improperly supervised. Made in China. What more appropriate way to celebrate this country could there possibly be?

naturally

No, I wasn't at that Cardinal game. I can't remember if the minor league ballgame we fondly refer to as the Tornado Game was that night or just a similarly dreadful July evening, but I don't have to look at the calendar to know that it's time to try it again. The weeks of freakishly beautiful weather--so perfect for baseball--have vanished, the thunder and lightning just crashed hard enough to rattle a lightbulb out of its socket and the weather boxes say there's no let-up in sight until Independence has been duly--but please, not dully--celebrated. Meanwhile, tonight we have tickets with the same friends who expected to Duck and Cover for real and intentions for Fireworks at the Ballpark--the best of both worlds--and then tomorrow Fireworks On The Golf Course in town--reclining on the fairway is the only decent use of any such grass. Except it's gonna rain out the holiday, as it usually does when it's not hellishly hot. I don't mean to complain, given the meteorological destruction of the Spring, but it does almost make me wonder what God might say about the current state of America.

babies having babies

Now and then it's kinda fun to play at being old. To say things, as I did to a teenager this spring, like "And you were at my wedding, but you don't remember because you were one year old. But I have the photos and I could show ya." Just to watch the eyes get wide. But now that former infant's sister has gone and had a baby, and while she's a bit of a child bride, she's not any such thing as a teen mother, no member of any demographic that would cause the old ladies to gossip, and certainly not the second grader that my memory insists that she is.

Oh, my goodness gracious. (I am practicing being ancient.)

Hearing of all the bonnets and blankets and gowns, and yes even booties that this baby's great grandmother had already made before she passed away this Spring, I had a nonsensical thought: "Oh, great. Now mom will want a grandbaby." But I wasn't thinking another. For a split-second I'd forgotten I'd already given her one. In my defense--I've always got one--I think it's that I just can't reconcile the wild-haired child who insists blue and purple tie-dye and green camouflage are a pleasing combo with anything that simple and delicate. But maybe I'm just getting old.

Everyone wins Ethanol 400

If you read my last post, you know all about the crazy baseball weekend just past. Rest assured me and my boy survived the pace of 10 games in four days.

Along the way, it's been an emotional roller coaster. From fiscal fatigue prompted by driving to and fro and to again Friday, to adrenaline fatigue prompted by supercharged testosterone, to emotional fatigue prompted by sentimentality.

Zach's little league career ended about 6 p.m. Sunday in a 10-9 consolation bracket championship loss to the St. Albert Falcons. While there's a lot of baseball ahead for him -- not to mention, me (and us) -- this is more than the end of a season for me. Those are difficult enough.

Walking around the state tournament venue, I grinned watching the little guys play. That's where it starts. And then they grow up. And they go to high school, which actually has organized baseball (the middle school doesn't!). And it all changes.

Parents who questioned the competitiveness of little league no longer have a player on the field. Players who lifted weights five days a week at 6:30 a.m. improved dramatically. The dad of one such player should temper his enthusiasm.

I'm not much help to him anymore anyway. Perhaps I'll lend a hand with the organization that made my son a future high school varsity baseball player.

once upon a time

I feel so protective, when somebody says, "Their lives must have been so terrible there," or some variation on that theme. In my mind I take half a step forward, stretch my arms out in some futile gesture. Proud, counterproductive mother bird.

Who sighs and stammers and thinks of the once-little kids from both dusty villages and teeming cities who would never say they had terrible lives. Because in their minds they didn't. And who am I to say.

"People want to provide for their families," I say, answering a different question. "People do the best they can."

But sometimes I tell this story.

I tell them of the time we had a big Cinco de Mayo deal over at the middle school for all six hundred kids, a chance for my students to read and write and speak English disguised as a party. It was my best birthday ever, but that's a different tale. Before that posole and tres leches cake and dancing, we got ready. For weeks, we got ready, I'm pretty sure. We made decorations and videos and practiced dances and spent more of my money than I ever added up at the Mexican store. They were so excited, the bottom line became whatever it took. And the kids made these display boards like they use at the science fair, except they covered the cardboard with photos and facts about the Battle of Puebla (May 5, 1862) and life in Mexico. About home. They would be expert, for once.

We had glossy 8 x 10s of cathedrals in Morelia printed out at Walgreens and drawings of Tenochtitlan elaborately framed in colored paper and painstakingly written essays that I forced people to read. Those kids were so proud. But I don't recall any of them being any more excited than the eighth grader who called me over, face all lit up, when she found an online photo of her former Juarez neighborhood:

"Ms. P.! That's where we used to play when I was little! Every day! Can I print it out?"

I remember trying to reconcile the joy in her voice with the smokestacks in the photo. I remember trying to read the caption as she chattered about the games she would play with her friends. Turns out her playground was a lead smelter, and she used to play in its dirt.

For the love of the game

This won’t win me any parenting awards, not that I’d have any use for them, but I’ll spend six hours on the road Friday – 400 miles total – driving my son and his two-team teammate to Ankeny for the opening game of the Iowa USSSA baseball tournament and back to Cedar Rapids for an evening double header with the sophomore squad from the cross-town rival school and back to Ankeny, where action resumes at 8 a.m. Saturday.

Six hours of driving for six hours of baseball doesn’t leave much time for anything but sleep. I guess I’ll leave the bike at home.

Scheduling just happened to work out to make this insane adventure possible. It needs a name, perhaps the Ethanol 400?

With gas prices approaching $4 a gallon, I’d probably come out ahead by renting a Prius. Except it wouldn’t hold the traveling circus of bat bags, lawn chairs, coolers, canopies and various other equipment that goes with baseball players and their parents. Add 200 miles on the (second) return trip home Sunday, and my Jeep Grand Cherokee will burn through 40 gallons this weekend.

Add the cost of the hotel, meals and concession stand Gatorade and I don’t even want to do the math. After buying the golden boy a $300 bat for his birthday (not to mention a $200 phone and subsequent $60 repair bill), it’s clear that money is no object when it comes to baseball – or my son.

Maybe someday he’ll appreciate it. But even if not, I will have these memories of this special time. To me, that’s priceless.

see ya

"You know, if you walk down that street for a block or two, you'll be at the library."

We're on a shady bench at the frozen custard place, middle of the afternoon. She's made it through lunch and now a sundae and probably all the eavesdropping on my conversation she can stand.

"You could go, if you want."

She is newly eleven, and she is intrigued. Anywhere worth getting is too far from our unwalkable lake drive, so she has missed out on much roaming around the town.

So she goes to the edge of the parking lot, peers down the alley, and leaves.

I turn to my friend and cheer.

I am not such a fan of all the changes time and hormones have wrought. Frankly, I liked it better when she believed everything I said, but apparently one of the entrance requirements for middle school is to place all credibility in print and Google and remove all from one's mother. I find myself, suddenly, entirely too often, saying things like, "But I have more life experience than you," or, "I just told you that,"after she confirms something with her own eyes. Which I should want her to trust, I know. But for eleven years I was the fount of all knowledge. It's going to take me some time to adjust.

So thank goodness for space, though that's not why I was happy to be left behind with my dripping chocolate cone. Later, after her tiny, cellphone-tethered adventure, she told me it had been exciting to go out on her own. She was glad to be ready to go, and I was glad to be ready to let her.

Talk about your hometown heroes!

I was going to post about the agony of enduring a baseball/softball-free evening, but this is a much better read from a much better writer about a much better man. And I don't mean Kurt Warner.

More than ever, Birdies That Care must soar

He's Zach Johnson, and he's still from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The question isn't whether the native son will help his hometown in efforts to recover from flood devastation, but how. He said things are afoot, using PGA Tour channels and his own means.

"My mind's on it every day," Johnson said Monday.

"We're brainstorming. We've got a lot of ideas right now that we're looking into as far as relief and setting up this and setting up that with a number of different people and organizations, the Tour, myself. The PGA Tour and its players and its executives are really brainstorming and putting some good things on paper, and hopefully we can get some relief funds going here shortly.

"And then also even specifically back in Cedar Rapids with some friends of mine, we're really trying to work on some things and put some good things together. It's still so premature as to all the specifics. There's a number of levels to it, and we're really just waiting to see where this money that we can potentially raise can go."

Johnson became Cedar Rapids' best-known former resident when he won the Masters in 2007. He sure didn't hide his roots at his press conference the day he became the Masters champion, telling the world, "I'm Zach Johnson and I'm from Cedar Rapids, Iowa."

We need more famous people from Cedar Rapids and Iowa to step up. There may be times charity isn't really charity when it's accompanied by a press release and photo opportunity. But there also are times when famous folks need to be examples worth following.


Hey, former Cedar Rapids high school student Ashton Kutcher, how about throwing the home state a little support? If you already have, tell the world. Granted, our story isn't as enduring or compelling or as massively miserable to the outside world as Katrina or Darfur. But are you one of us or not?

Yes, that's unfair to single out one person. Kutcher and his wife, Demi Moore, have done a lot to help Chrysalis, a Los Angeles-based organization that helps homeless men and women find jobs and homes. But he has a bully pulpit, and he and all famous native Iowans should use theirs to get assistance sent back home.

Johnson left Iowa several years ago for Florida. PGA Tour guys have to live where you can play golf in December. But you can't argue he hasn't remained one of us, and not just because he asks to be introduced as from Cedar Rapids at all his PGA Tour stops.

This is the fourth year of his Birdies That Care effort. The first three beneficiaries were Community Free Health Clinic, the Madge Phillips Center at Waypoint, and Tanager Place. All were wonderfully worthy. Total contributions from the effort founded by Johnson and his wife, Kim, in conjunction with AEGON, were around $350,000.

This year's recipient, chosen months before the flood, is Boys & Girls Club of Cedar Rapids. Man, does that fine organization need such help now after its building on Ellis Boulevard NW got clobbered by the Cedar River. Even the second-floor gym of the building took in water.

"It literally gutted the whole thing," said John Tursi, the club's executive director. "Tables, chairs, games, anything for the kids. It's unbelievable."

Over the weekend, huge piles of muddy junk were piled on the club's curb. All that stuff kids had fun with weeks ago was covered in grime and sludge. Pinball machines aren't supposed to be gray.

In the summer, the club serves 155 kids from ages 6 to 18. Seventy percent of those kids live at or below the poverty level.

"It's a safe, positive, fun, educational place for them to be," Tursi said. "It's not for intervention or treatment. It's the first line of primary prevention. If these kids didn't have a safe place to be, most would end up in gang activities or in trouble, and wouldn't do as well in school."

Many of those kids, especially those displaced from their homes because of the flood, need the Boys & Girls Club more than ever now. It has taken a summer residence at Roosevelt Middle School. After that, fingers are crossed that a return to its old home is possible.

"Our building is bricks, concrete and steel," Tursi said. "We have very little drywall. We're going to decontaminate this building.

"To lose this building would be tough. We would like to stay here. That is the goal. But no matter what, we will be in this neighborhood. We're not leaving the west side."

The club needs basketballs and board games, all kinds of recreational materials. What it really needs most, of course, is cash.

"Exactly," Johnson said, "and they needed that before this happened. It's a terrible thing. I guess we chose the right facility for this year as far as helping out people. But I know they've been devastated, just completely demolished, if you will."

The defining story of this tragedy will be whether the "haves" adequately help the "have-nots." One "have" who lives more than a thousand miles away says he's on board. If he succeeds in getting some of his "have" friends in golf to help out, that would be big.

"My heart goes out, my family's heart goes out, and our prayers are certainly with Cedar Rapids and certainly all the other communities that have been affected and will be affected by this water," Johnson said.

"I know what Iowans are like, and they're going to grab hands and work hard and make it for the better because that's what we're about and what the community is about. ... I've always said I'm from Cedar Rapids. You can't take that away from me."

OK, which one of you connected celebrities from Iowa is next?